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

moons on her
rooftops.
    Kabul’s morning’s laugh is as gay as
flowers,
    while her dark nights shine like beautiful
hair.
    Kabul’s tuneful nightingales sing with flame
in their notes.
    Fiery songs like burning leaves fall from
their throats.
    Even Paradise is jealous of Kabul.
    Everyone found Kabul splendid in those days,
never imaging the horrific ruinous wars lurking in my country’s
dark future that would take nearly every building in the city down
to dust.
    Although we lived in a wealthy neighbourhood,
our family home was not elaborate – it was a modest, one-story
building. There was a small living room, a second family room and a
tiny but adequate kitchen. The largest room in the house was my
parents’ bedroom, so spacious that four beds were positioned there.
Nadia and I slept in two American standard-sized beds located in
one corner while our parents’ larger beds were in the back of the
room. My father’s bed was the nicest of the four, distinctive with
solid expensive wood, a gift from a British general who once lived
in Afghanistan. There was also an ancient wooden side table beside
my father’s bed, ornately carved, a present from a maharaja of
India. Wood has always been prized in my country because trees are
quite scarce in most of Afghanistan.
    I remember how I enjoyed the pleasure of
slipping into my mother’s bed to sleep for a few hours and then,
after becoming restless, leaving her bed to climb into my father’s
bed for a few extra hours of sleep. Those were such innocent, sweet
times. There was a second tiny bedroom and that is where
Grandmother Mayana slept, but she was a sad loner and we saw less
of her than we should have.
    Just as Muma and I were about to enter the
front garden, I caught a glimpse of my grandmother walking around,
her head bowed, an old woman deep in thought. I slowed down and
seized Muma’s hand and pulled back. Grandmother Mayana was as sweet
as sugar, yet she was the last person I wanted to see on that day
because she had the most depressing aura of anyone I had ever
known. Father once said that all the grief she had suffered over
her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal
sadness.
    I kept a tortoise’s pace, hoping she would
disappear into her small room, her little haven, a place she rarely
left. At that moment she glanced up and saw me, but her eyes
remained without expression and her lips failed to spread in a
smile. But then I didn’t smile at her either. After my awful day I
was in no mood to be reminded that her past might be my future.
    Family legend claimed that Grandmother Mayana
had been one of the most beautiful girls in the country. But as
with any Afghan woman, even celebrated beauty could not save her
from the evil lurking in Afghanistan.
     

Chapter
I
    There was a time when Grandmother’s girlish
dreams held great promise. Although her family was deprived when it
came to worldly goods, even the poor of Afghanistan dream of neat
huts, a shoulder of lamb to serve at occasional feasts and a
satisfactory marriage followed by many sons.
    Mayana’s father was a poor farmer from Sayid
Karam, a district in the Paktia province, an area sixty miles south
of Kabul inhabited by members of the Khail tribe. Largely
mountainous and lacking trees and most other greenery, it suffers
from a particularly dry climate and it is difficult for any farmer
to grow enough produce to support his family.
    Despite the harsh climate, which multiplied
demand on a farmer’s labors, Mayana’s father was not dissatisfied,
for he had a wife who worked hard and children he held dear. The
family was known to breed handsome sons and attractive daughters,
but none was more alluring than the farmer’s daughter Mayana. She
was so beautiful that even other women noticed her appeal,
whispering that Mayana Khail was exquisite, with a dimpled mouth,
lips sensually full and large dark eyes that danced.
    Although birth records were not kept on
female children, the family believes that Grandmother Mayana was
born around 1897, at a time when Afghanistan’s affairs were
relatively quiet. The Afghanistan of Grandmother’s youth was one of
nearly total isolation, created both by rulers who distrusted their
neighbours and the inaccessibility of the country due to the lofty
mountains encircling the entire land. Afghanistan was then a
country of approximately six million citizens composed mainly of
fanatic tribes, warring with each other or with any foreigner
foolish enough