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

crying
out for help and shivered. How many of those women were perfectly
well, placed there by their dissatisfied husbands, as Amina had
been? I was not surprised my poor cousin was desperate to leave
that hideous place.
    We carefully settled Amina in the seat beside
me in the back of our car. I tried not to stare at the sad
spectacle my once beautiful, vivacious cousin had become, but it
was difficult not to peek at her pathetic appearance. She had been
in the mental hospital for six months and not once during those
long months had the staff allowed her to take a bath or to wash her
hair. She was so rancid that her body odor overwhelmed our car, and
so filthy that her olive skin was much darker than usual. Her hair
was matted into knots. Her clothes were dirty and tattered.
    When we arrived home my mother gently led
Amina to a private room where she prepared a large bath. Mother
allowed me to remain in the room while she helped my cousin undress
and bathe.
    For one month Amina lived in our home, but
she grew more miserable by the day because she pined for her little
son and infant daughter, and she worried that her husband’s second
wife would be cruel to her children. Amina’s children would be
condemned by the fate of their mother, now considered a woman fit
for nothing more than the asylum. No one would protect her
children, not even her wealthy father, who abided by the tradition
that once a daughter was married, her husband could do as he
pleased with her. Besides, knowing Shair Khan’s attitude to women,
from the day Amina had left his home I’m sure he had never given
her another thought.
    After a month my parents reluctantly agreed
to drive Amina back to the home of her husband and his new wife.
His attitude to her had not improved. At the sight of Amina he
snarled and raised his hand. He would have beaten her then and
there had my parents not given him a warning.
    How I hated leaving Amina in her brutish
husband’s home. But the dear girl was trapped by her love of her
little children. We heard later that her life was a miserable
succession of abuse and beatings, but nothing would make her leave
her helpless children.
    While this drama was unfolding, my mother’s
family received an invitation to attend a big barbecue at the home
of Amina’s father-in-law. He was a wealthy land-owner and everyone
knew he had the most beautiful farm near Kabul.
    That farm was lovely, with streams
running everywhere and huge trees shading the grounds. He was proud
of his flourishing orchard and insisted that we stroll under his
fruit trees to fill our baskets with peaches and apricots.
    He declared the barbecue was in honor of the
Hassens, my mother’s family. I quickly noticed that we were greeted
only by the men of the house, and when I asked where the women and
girls were, everyone stared at me. Someone whispered that ‘his
women’ were kept locked away in the huge house surrounded by high
walls. When I asked why the women were not participating at the
party, someone near me muttered, ‘Welcome to the real Afghanistan,
little girl.’ I knew what they meant, that tribal women living
outside the cities were rarely, if ever, seen by outsiders, even
distant family members.
    My mother and her sisters decided they wanted
to chat with the women of the family, so after the feast we slipped
away from the men to pay them a visit in the big house. We were in
for a big shock. When we entered the compound we were met by the
man’s older daughter, who was surprisingly strong-minded. She told
us, ‘After witnessing how my mother and my father’s other wives are
mistreated, I decided that I would stand up for my rights, and that
I will never marry.’
    My mother and my aunts seemed shocked by such
bold talk, but I felt I understood completely for I knew that I,
too, would have such a reaction under her circumstances. But then
her mother and her two sister wives joined us in the sitting
room.
    Those poor women looked older than my
grandmother Mayana had looked on the day of her death, yet they
were the same age as my mother. The most horrifying thing of all
was that all three women walked bent double, their faces so near
the floor that they groped and stumbled while finding their way
into the room.
    At first I thought they must be triplets who
had been born with the same birth defect. But the eldest daughter
asked, ‘Do you know what happened to these dear women?’
    No one spoke a word.
    She said, ‘My father did this.