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

the house to wait on the
front porch.
    After a particularly powerful contraction,
Mother slumped down on the top porch step. As she sat down, I came
out. Thankfully, Muma was a capable baby-catcher. She pounced to
grab me as I popped out, for I had become airborne on that high
step. Perhaps the icy cold air made me more alert than most
newborns because Muma later told me that I was bright-eyed and
eager from the first moment.
    I’ve been told that from the beginning I was
a wilful, difficult daughter, never sweetly obediently as Muslim
daughters are expected to be. Perhaps my attitude came from the
fact that any time our family would gather for a celebratory
occasion, I would be greeted by aunties and uncles and cousins with
hurtful comments such as, ‘What a pity she wasn’t a boy!’ Although
my parents were more modern and wise than most, brushing off such
stinging remarks by retorting, ‘But Maryam is our boy,’ my
feelings about being a girl were forever tainted.
    I started feeling apologetic about my sex,
but later I became angry at myself for not being the boy I wanted
to be. I hated being a girl so much that I foolishly thought I
could will myself into becoming a boy. I rebuffed girls my own age
and instead played with male cousins or the boys in the
neighbourhood. My parents went along with me, allowing me not only
to dress in boys’ clothes, but also letting me keep my thick hair
cut short. They made no objection when I later insisted on shaving
my head. I collected toy cars, and over the years I became quite
skilled at flying kites, a favourite hobby for Afghan boys, and I
rollerskated and pedalled boys’ bikes. I felt I was as good as any
boy.
    I was so good at hiding my sex that soon
almost everyone in the neighbourhood and in my family appeared to
forget I was not what I pretended to be. I foolishly thought I
could carry on the charade but reality was quick and painful when
my sister unthinkingly exposed my secret. School had become the
biggest part of my small world, and never again would I be accepted
as a boy in that very important arena outside my home and
neighbourhood.
    A short while before, my parents had left
Afghanistan to seek medical treatment for my mother. I could not
stop worrying about my mother and now the day’s events made me miss
my parents more. My parents were wonderfully advanced, so different
from most other Afghan adults, and I longed for a miraculous
intervention from them. Both were highly educated and adept at
accepting new ideas, and they doted on me, rarely failing to
support their youngest child’s eccentric behavior. I believed my
parents could protect me from my fate, but of course I was too
young to realize the full implications of being a woman in
Afghanistan. What I was to learn was that even the queen could be
murdered on a whim by her king husband or even by her father,
brother or a cousin. Should such a thing happen, no one would stand
up to defend her. They would accept any flimsy explanation given
out by her family, because if a man feels he must murder a female
member of his family, everyone will assume the woman was to blame.
The only question they would ask is: ‘What sin did she commit to
cause her poor male relatives to have to kill her?’
    My pace picked up when I spotted the outlines
of our home. I wanted nothing more than to seek refuge in a small
corner.
    I didn’t know it at the time but we lived in
the most plush area of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. It is an
ancient city, over three thousand years old, situated in the
dramatic Hindu Kush mountains, straddling the Kabul river. In my
youth it was the economic and cultural heart of north-eastern
Afghanistan. Kabul was a beautiful city in those days, and every
schoolchild learned by heart poems praising its beauty, the most
popular being ‘Kabul’, by the Persian poet Saibi Tabrizi.
    Kabul
    The beautiful city of Kabul wears a rugged
mountain skirt,
    Even the rose is jealous of its lash-like
thorns.
    The dust of Kabul’s blowing soil smarts
lightly in my eyes.
    But I love Kabul, for knowledge and love come
from her dust.
    I sing bright praises to her sparkling
water,
    colorful flowers and the beauty of her
trees.
    Men choose Kabul over Paradise, for her
mountains
    bring them near to heaven’s delights.
    Every street in Kabul fascinates the eye.
    In the bazaars, Egypt’s caravans pass through
the winding streets.
    Hundreds of lovely suns hide behind her
walls.
    No one can count the