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

stop the internal
bleeding and put my leg and ankle back together with the use of
steel pins. I was devastated to be told I would be in a cast for
two months, as long as the time we had planned to be in India for
our holiday. I spent a week in the hospital and then recovered in a
hotel room.
    I should have realized then that I am an
unlucky person.
    My Good Samaritan disappeared after ensuring
I was safe. I never saw him again and my family never had the
chance to thank him for his kindness.
    My holiday was not what I had planned, but
nevertheless I fell in love with India, a complex yet beautiful and
exotic land my family would have many reasons to visit, and where
one day we would find refuge. In fact, in 1975 my sister Nadia
graduated from high school in Afghanistan, and, as other family
members before her, travelled to India to attend university. From
that time on, my parents and I made several trips a year to visit
her. Thankfully, I suffered no further life-threatening
mishaps.
    *
    When I was sixteen years old my father’s evil
older brother, Shair, died. From the time he had become the leader
of our tribe, Shair had been a powerful presence, hovering like a
malevolent spirit over my father and grandmother, and later over my
own life. No matter that my parents had fled the galah and Shair’s
daily influence when Nadia was only a baby, his baleful existence
continued to haunt our family life. Despite Shair’s past misdeeds,
my father had always tried to maintain a cordial relationship. My
mother said little to her husband about Shair, yet she successfully
invoked his name as a bogeyman figure to frighten Nadia and me.
Grandmother Mayana refused to speak his name, and went to her grave
believing he had intentionally murdered her three sweet
daughters.
    Shair was such an intense force that his
family believed him immune to death. But then one day when he had
lived over seventy years he was felled by a massive stroke and died
quickly.
    I can’t deny a sense of relief at his
passing. No longer did I have to worry about being kidnapped, or
being put under his control should my father die from bladder
cancer, for Shair’s sons and grandsons were not like their cruel
father.
    After Shair Khan’s heart beat its last, my
father inherited his brother’s position as the Khan of the Khail
tribe. But with the passing years and the formation of President
Daoud’s government, the leaders of the tribes held much less power.
In fact, some years prior to his death, Shair Khan had been ordered
to leave his ancestral tribal land and build a galah in another
area of Afghanistan. President Daoud cleverly worked to separate
the khans from their tribes so their power would be diluted.
    My father, being a man of modest leaning in
all matters, made no effort to claim the fortune then held by
Shair’s sons. What was left of Grandfather Ahmed’s Khan inheritance
remained with Shair’s sons. Although Papa became the Khan of the
Khail, he accepted it only as an honorary title; therefore, our
lives changed very little.
    President Daoud proclaimed that Shair Khan of
the Khail tribe would be honored by a military funeral. A great
procession was held and Shair’s body was delivered back to his
tribal lands where he was buried in the land of the Khail.
    Relieved to be free at last from the threat
of Shair Khan’s cruel rule, I was soon to meet a new evil. Even
then this evil was creeping up on us like a morning fog. Only this
time, women would not be alone in their suffering. Men too would
feel a hand at their throat and many lives would be lost trying to
free that grip.
     

Chapter
VIII
    The Russians were coming. Soon they were
everywhere in Kabul. They were sent to us under the pretence of
offering technical, medical or educational assistance. During this
time my family moved from our house to an apartment in Mekrorayan,
a modern suburb built by the Russians on the outskirts of Kabul.
Papa thought our lives would improve because the new apartment
blocks had running water and modern toilets. There was even central
heating, a wonderful luxury in bitterly cold Afghanistan. There
were swimming pools, basketball and tennis courts.
    Our apartment was much roomier than our
former home, with three large bedrooms, a modern kitchen and two
toilets.
    I thought I had gone to heaven with my own
room, which I quickly decorated with posters of Elvis Presley and
Tom Jones. There was also room to display my collection of old
coins and