For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

with a kind smile and
loving endearments. ‘Come, Maryam! You are my heart!’ He would hug
me tightly then enfold my small face in his large hands to place a
sweet kiss on my cheek. While cuddling me he would call out for my
sister, ‘Nadia, come.’ He would cuddle her too, telling her, ‘You
are my liver!’
    I can close my eyes and see him now, pulling
me close with one arm and Nadia with the other, proudly exclaiming
to those close enough to witness: ‘Here is my heart! Here is my
liver!’
    Although I felt my father favored me, he
loved both his daughters more than his own life. I’ve often
wondered if his inability to protect his sweet and lovely sisters
from miserable lives and an early grave added to his fierce love
for us.
    Father was unlike all other Afghan men. He
set a gentle mood for our household, never criticizing or raising
his voice to the women under his roof. He was indifferent that he
had not fathered a son. Most men in Afghanistan are contemptuous of
daughters, claiming that, ‘The birth of a girl is a curse straight
from God himself!’ Male children, however, are welcomed as little
gods. While other family members and friends fretted over the
absence of a son, my father dismissed anyone foolish enough to
mention it. He would respond with a wide smile that his girls were
his heart and his liver and he couldn’t survive a moment without
us.
    Such an attitude was unheard of in
Afghanistan.
    Even my mother agonized that she was unable
to give my father more children, and went so far as to try to push
our father into taking a second wife, acting totally out of
character. I recall some of those bizarre conversations when Mother
pleaded with him to marry again, trying to tempt him with the idea
that another woman would give him a son. As intelligent and
educated a woman as she was, my mother still failed to escape the
cultural expectations so rampant in Afghanistan. She was ashamed
she had only given birth to daughters. She also naively believed
that should my father have a son Shair Khan would become the loving
brother he had never been.
    Rather than celebrate the fact that he had
married a woman who would submit gracefully to another woman
sharing his affections, my father was horrified by Mother’s
suggestion. He exclaimed, ‘My dear wife. It is primitive for an
educated man to gather a harem.’
    With my heart in my throat I listened as he
told my mother that not only was she his first wife, but that she
was his last wife. He declared that he could never love another
woman as he loved her. For him, the subject was closed.
    I loved my father so much. I was so happy to
hear that he was a contented man with his little female family. If
I had been asked to share him with another family, how jealous I
would have felt.
    Mother was different from Father in every
way. While Father laughed, she frowned. Her face gained stern
solemnity over the years. My childhood friends were frightened of
her and they always took care to be on their best behavior whenever
Mother was near. Although she had been lenient with her wilful and
mischievous daughters when we were toddlers, her tolerance
developed limits after we grew out of babyhood. She did love her
two girls but she could be strict and easy to anger.
    While I was spoiled dreadfully as a baby,
once I became a young lady Mother’s expectations of how I should
conduct myself underwent a huge adjustment. Any time I disappointed
her, she would freeze me with a severe stare. She would ignore me
from that moment, refusing to acknowledge me until I gave a proper
apology, generally in the form of a long letter expressing my
regret for my shortcomings and for the sorrow I had caused her.
Only then would she seek me out, opening her arms in a welcome
embrace, exclaiming, ‘Darling Maryam. Come! Your mommy loves
you.’
    Mother was a tall woman for the time, six
inches over five feet. Her hair was brown with red tints, and so
thin that she always teased it high on the top to cover the crown
of her head. Her mood always improved when family and friends
complimented her appearance, most saying that she resembled the
sensuous Italian movie star Sophia Loren. Mother refused to stay up
late because she had once read that Sophia Loren attributed her
beauty to getting a lot of rest. So every evening at exactly 9 p.m.
Mother would say, ‘I must bid you all a good night. Sophia gets a
lot of sleep and so must I.’
    Mother would rise early every day so she
could