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

Germany,
having flown there as quickly as I could arrange the trip.
Thankfully, the German police were most helpful. They swung into
action, preparing documents and accompanying me to Zena’s home.
    Zena was terrified by the sight of
stern-faced police officers pouring into her house. ‘What did I
do?’ she screamed, clutching her bosom. ‘Why are you here?’
    The officers searched her home but found
nothing. They separated Zena and her children, questioning them all
individually. A fearful Zena finally broke her silence, confessing
to the officers that yes, Kaiss and Duran had stayed here for
several weeks, and yes, both had actually been there on the day I
had called to plead for information. She also tearfully confessed
that Kaiss was cruel to my son, and that he admitted to her that he
had taken him only to hurt me. Then the German police discovered
that one week before we arrived, Kaiss and Duran had flown from
Frankfurt to Moscow and on to Kabul.
    My toddler was now trapped in a dangerous
country torn by violence. It was September 1986, and Afghanistan
was in a full-blown war. Earlier that year new laws were passed in
Afghanistan obliging any male over eighteen to serve in the army.
Would Kaiss be drafted and forced to the front? If so, what
stranger would be left looking after my baby? I read about major
offensives in the Panjshir valley near Kabul, with the Mujahedin
warriors fighting the Russians. Soviet and Afghan troops had large
numbers of casualties, but my concern centered on the fact that
there had been a huge loss of civilian life as well. Most worrying
was that during the same period of time Kaiss was flying into
Kabul, there had been a bomb explosion at the Kabul International
Airport. Over two hundred civilians had been injured and killed.
Another troubling report cited a recent Soviet program where babies
and young children were forcibly taken from Afghan parents to be
sent to the Soviet Union for ten years of indoctrination.
    Afghanistan was no place for my son. Just
thinking about the turbulence and danger surrounding my innocent
baby would make me lose my mind, dropping to my knees and
screeching like the insane.
    One day a few weeks after I returned from
Germany, I received a large manila envelope in the mail. There was
no return address. My body shook with fear at what I might discover
in that envelope.
    I opened it. Inside was a recent photograph
of my adorable son blowing a kiss. At the bottom of the picture
Kaiss had written in large bold letters, ‘BYE BYE MANO!’
    I blacked out, falling to the floor.
     

Chapter XVII
    My grief was unendurable.
    I nearly lost my mind.
    I plastered the walls of our apartment with
baby Duran’s photograph. I kissed those images repeatedly,
muttering aloud, ‘Allah, how is my son? Is he hungry? God, is my
son cold?’
    One day on a routine trip to buy groceries, I
saw a little boy pleading with his mother for a candy bar. She said
no, and he began to weep. I fell apart, hastening to open a candy
bar and offer it to the child. His mother drew back suspiciously,
as I began to plead: ‘Give him the candy. Please give him the
candy. My baby loved candy too, but now he is missing and I have no
way of giving him anything.’ Looking at her sweet baby’s face, I
burst into tears and ran from the market. That kind woman grabbed
her child and followed me to my car to find me sobbing. She put her
free arm round my shoulder and wept along with me.
    Unable to control my emotions, I soon began
avoiding any place that catered to children. At home I talked to
myself and slept with my son’s favorite blanket and his most
beloved stuffed animal. My depressed state led to my skin erupting
in raised welts that itched and burned. No medicine could heal
me.
    Kaiss’s threats haunted me, keeping me awake
every night. He had always said, ‘Maryam, if you get away, I will
find out and kill you, but first, I will kill your son. Your last
vision will be your dying son.’ Had he taken Duran to Afghanistan
to kill him?
    Even if his father didn’t murder him, I
feared that my baby would be killed in the war. 1986 never improved
for Kabul citizens. Exhausted, emaciated, traumatized refugees
poured into the city, resulting in one of the greatest mass
migrations in history, doubling Kabul’s population to over two
million people. Five million Afghan people in all had been
uprooted, with four million becoming refugees abroad. The numbers
were staggering.
    Although I had