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

You are
right.’
    I was startled and embarrassed.
    When the interview began and the cameras
started to film, the apple-eating Polish guy presented himself as
the host of the television show. He turned to me. ‘ You ,’ he
said, ‘how do you feel about your new government?’
    The blood rushed to my face as defiance
overcame common sense. I glowered at him, ‘You should know. You are
from Poland. You are a puppet living in a puppet state. How do you feel?’
    I heard a rumble of displeasure from the
people standing around us but my anger had been building for
months. I was on a roll. ‘Don’t forget that we are Afghan. We never
bow to another flag. We will never be a puppet state,’ I snarled.
‘Unlike you, we will drive our oppressors out.’
    I heard gasps, but no one uttered a word
until our stunned principal found her voice. She screeched, ‘Return
to your classroom! Now! ’
    The lady principal was new to Malalai High,
having been sent as a replacement for the kindly head teacher we
had known and loved for all our high school years. This new puppet
principal knew nothing about us, not even our names. We hated
her.
    Once we were seated in our class, she stalked
into the room, her face as red as the apple the television host had
been eating. She marched up to me, her voice threatening, ‘What is
your name?’
    Still brash, proud to have shown some spunk,
I told her, ‘I am Maryam Khail, daughter of Ajab Khail. We are
proud Afghans.’
    She grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Who
was standing beside you?’
    For the first time I felt a small wave of
regret. Although I had been bold from childhood, often committing
daring deeds and then taking painful punishment with silent pride,
my friends were different. I lied. ‘I do not remember who was
standing beside me.’
    The teacher began interrogating my
classmates. One frightened girl was easily broken into supplying
the names of my best friends.
    The principal squealed in her irritating
voice, ‘Stay here. Do not exchange a word. I will be back.’She went
out slamming the heavy door with a loud bang.
    A few quiet minutes passed before my
girlfriends started to rebuke me for behaving in such a stupid
manner. ‘Maryam, we are in trouble now because of you. The KHAD
[Afghan version of the KGB] will be informed. They will arrest
everyone in our families!’ Some of the girls began to weep.
    Although I felt terrible that my friends had
been drawn into the affair, I did not regret expressing my true
opinion. In fact, I felt the better for it. I felt myself a real
patriot, a staunch fighter against the invaders.
    While I was sitting smugly in the classroom,
the principal was reporting me to the authorities. Lucky for me,
she happened to reach a government ministry headed by a man who had
been a friend of my father for many years. The minister was stunned
to hear that Ajab Khail’s daughter had created a firestorm of
controversy at the most prestigious girls’ school in Kabul. He
encouraged our principal to leave the matter in his hands, and told
her he would see to it personally that I would be punished. He
asked that she not notify the KHAD security officials.
    My parents knew the whole story even before I
arrived home. Once again I walked into a furious confrontation. My
mother was yelling while my father asked me to tell my side of the
story. Finally Mother slumped into a chair, weeping softly.
    ‘Maryam,’ Papa said with clenched teeth,
‘Maryam, you will get us all thrown into Pulecharkhi.’
    ‘Pulecharkhi?’ I repeated robotically. Under
the Communists, Pulecharkhi had become one of the most dreaded
Afghan prisons, notorious for torture and murder. Many of Afghan’s
best and brightest were disappearing into Pulecharkhi, never to be
seen again.
    ‘Yes. My friend at the ministry told me that
without his intervention, our entire family would have been
arrested. While we have avoided imprisonment, we will now be placed
on a watch list. Everything we do and say will be scrutinized.’ He
clicked his tongue in resignation. ‘You have put us into very
serious danger, Maryam.’
    Just as Papa said, our family was targeted.
Soon the Russians closed my uncle Hakim’s cement factory. Farid’s
family fell into dire financial trouble. My father’s business had
suffered a major setback too since it was nearly impossible to
export goods, plus his French partner had great difficulty going in
and out of the country, although that brave man continued to