One more mountain, p.1
One More Mountain, page 1
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Copyright © 2022 by Deborah Ellis
Cultural authenticity reading by Halima Kazem
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Published in 2022 by Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press
groundwoodbooks.com
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We gratefully acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: One more mountain / Deborah Ellis.
Names: Ellis, Deborah, author.
Series: Ellis, Deborah, Breadwinner series.
Description: Series statement: Breadwinner series
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220132461 | Canadiana (ebook) 2022013247X | ISBN 9781773068855 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781773068862 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PS8559.L5494 O54 2022 | DDC jC813/.54—dc23
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Jacket illustration by Aurélia Fronty
Design by Michael Solomon
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Groundwood Books is a Global Certified Accessible™ (GCA by Benetech) publisher. An ebook version of this book that meets stringent accessibility standards is available to students and readers with print disabilities.
To those who keep climbing,
long past when they should have to.
1
“No one can help me,” Damsa said. “You can’t help me.”
She teetered at the very edge of the roof of the ruined building.
“I really can.” The policewoman stood on the roof behind her. She took a step toward the girl.
“It’s no good,” Damsa said. A shuffle of her feet sent stones tumbling down three stories to the broken concrete chunks below. “My father wants to kill me.”
“Yes, I imagine he does.” The policewoman took two more steps forward. “There are men who want to kill me, too.”
She held out her hand toward Damsa, and actually smiled.
“But they’ll have to find us, first.”
2
Damsa peered through the screen covering her eyes. She had never worn a burqa before, but the officer had taken two out of the police car, pulled one over her own head and insisted Damsa wear the other one.
“It will be safer for both of us.”
It was also safer for them to abandon the police car in the weeds by the ruined house where Damsa had almost jumped off the roof.
“The Taliban are hunting down women in uniform,” the police officer told her.
They walked for three hours, ducking and hiding each time a pickup truck full of Taliban soldiers drove along the highway.
Now, finally, they had arrived.
“We’re here.”
High gray walls framed a large, bright pink gate decorated with painted flowers in orange, blue and yellow.
Damsa read the name on the gate.
Green Valley.
The policewoman pressed the buzzer and then flipped back her burqa so that the eyes on the other side of the small opening could see her face. Damsa heard a bolt slide back. The door in the gate was swung open by a girl Damsa’s age.
“Shauzia!” A boy around eleven let go of the big suitcase that he’d been pulling toward a car in the courtyard. He ran to the policewoman and gave her a giant hug.
“I thought you wouldn’t get here on time,” he said.
“Do you really think I’d let you go to the other side of the world without a proper goodbye from me?” Shauzia asked. “Rafi, I should arrest you for even thinking that.”
Rafi laughed.
“Maryam’s giving Mama a hard time,” he said.
“Another day at the office, then.” Shauzia hugged Rafi close again. Then he ran off across the yard.
“Mama! Shauzia’s here!”
“I’m glad you made it,” said the girl who had let them in the gate.
“Not half as glad as I am,” said the officer. “This is Damsa.”
“Hello, Damsa,” the girl said. “I’m Larmina. I’ll get you something to eat.”
She left them in the yard.
Officer Shauzia led Damsa to a bench in the yard under a tree.
“You can take off the burqa,” she said.
Damsa was relieved to sit. She’d been on the run for days, with no food and very little water. She’d been too afraid to sleep much.
Now that she was seated, she was too tired to even lift the burqa from her face. The policewoman did it for her.
Larmina brought a tray with water, dates and walnuts and left it on a little table beside the bench. Shauzia poured Damsa a drink and handed her the glass, then poured herself some water and sat down beside her.
“Welcome to Green Valley,” Officer Shauzia said, and drained her glass.
Damsa tried to raise her glass to her lips but her hand was shaking. She used both hands and took a long drink.
She looked around at where she was.
There was color everywhere. So much color that the rest of the world Damsa had known seemed dull and dusty by comparison. The bright whitewashed walls around the compound were covered in designs and murals. Carpets and quilts aired in the sunshine.
Even the bench she was sitting on was painted light blue with purple irises.
Many gardens bloomed. Tidy pathways wove between the gardens, leading to a one-story main house and several smaller outbuildings toward the back. The main house had a large awning for protection from the sun and the rain.
The whole place was neat and yet a bit messy and full of life.
The courtyard at Damsa’s father’s house had been all gray stone, meticulously swept by servants who scurried away like frightened mice whenever a member of the household or a guest appeared. Her father liked the help to stay out of the way.
A woman with a straight back and a determined jaw came out of the main building, took two steps toward Shauzia, then turned back and called through the open door.
“Maryam, if you are not out here in five minutes, they are leaving without you!”
“I don’t know why you shout at her, Parvana,” said Shauzia, leaving the bench and crossing the yard to her. “You know it does no good.”
“They have to be at the safe house before dark,” Parvana said. She and Shauzia loaded the big suitcase the boy had been pulling into the open trunk of the car. “I won’t have them on the road after dark.”
“I’m sure Asif knows that,” said Shauzia.
“You’re sure I know what?”
A man on crutches, an empty trouser leg neatly pinned up, came into the yard with two backpacks over his shoulders.
“I’m sure you know not to cause your wife extra worry.”
“That I do know,” he said, tossing the two packs into the car’s back seat. “How bad is it out there?”
“There are Taliban on the highway,” said Officer Shauzia, “but if you stick to the back roads, you should make it to Kabul without a problem.”
“Inshallah,” he said. “Princess Maryam is on her way out.”
“Soon she’ll be Nooria’s problem,” said Parvana. She put her arms around Rafi. Asif joined them in the embrace.
A voice called from the house.
“I am here. I am ready. I couldn’t find my gold. I turned all my music earnings into gold chains to take with me, but I couldn’t find them. Then I remembered they are already around my neck.”
A woman, younger than Parvana and Shauzia, and much more beautifully dressed in an elaborately embroidered tunic, came into the yard pulling a small suitcase.
“I don’t know why we have to leave so early,” the woman said. “Our flight doesn’t leave until midday tomorrow.”
Damsa nearly dropped her glass of water. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing! All exhaustion fell away as she got to her feet and practically flew across the yard.
“You’re Maryam Gulalai,” she said. “You’re Maryam Gulalai! I know all your songs!”
Maryam’s face went from annoyed and flustered to smiling and gracious.
“Aren’t you kind?” she said, adjusting her chador so that it draped more elegantly. “What is your name?”
“Damsa. I . . . I did a YouTube video of me singing one of your songs, ‘Almond Trees in Bloom.’ Did you see it?”
“I’ll look it up when I’m in the airport,” Maryam said. “Goodness knows I’ll have lots of time.” She glared at Parvana.
“G et in the car, Maryam,” said Parvana, but when Maryam started to do that, Parvana grabbed her and hugged her. “I love you and I am so proud of you,” Damsa heard her say.
Damsa felt herself shoved out of the way as other girls rushed out of the house and into the yard, all saying goodbye and crying. She went back to her bench. Shauzia got the girls through their farewells and back inside the house.
Then it was just Parvana, Rafi, Asif and Maryam left by the car.
Rafi started to cry.
“Mama! Don’t make me go! I don’t want to go!”
Parvana knelt down so she could look him in the eye. “Yes, you do. You want to go and become a famous Afghan ballet dancer. You will show all those students at that school what it means to work hard and dream big. You will create dances of such beauty that people will look at them and say, ‘That is Afghanistan!’ And if you decide that dancing is not for you, that is fine with me because whatever you do, you will be a good, kind man. And your father and I will get our visas and will be visiting you in New York before you know it.”
Shauzia came back outside carrying a battered shoulder bag, which she handed to Parvana. Parvana held it up to Rafi.
“You know what this is,” she said to him. “It belonged to my father, your grandfather. I carried it when I went with him to the market to read letters for people who couldn’t read for themselves. Then, after he died, I had it with me when I met your father in a cave, back when we were children not much older than you.” She put it over his shoulder “We will always be with you,” she said.
She stood up, nodded at Shauzia, and Shauzia got the boy into the front seat of the car.
“You get them safely through the airport and then you drive right back here. You hear me, Asif?”
“Parvana, the general,” he joked. “Always giving orders.” He got in the car and closed the door. “I won’t let anything bad happen to our son.”
“What about to me?” Damsa heard Maryam ask from the back seat.
“You, I’m feeding to the wild dogs, first chance I get. And put that burqa on. Your fans might want to see your face but the Taliban certainly does not.”
The car started up. Shauzia opened the gate. And then they were gone.
Officer Shauzia closed the gate and stood beside Parvana. Damsa watched them cry.
Damsa’s eyes got heavier and heavier, and then they just closed.
3
“You should give the tickets to me.”
Maryam stuck her hand between the front seats and waggled her fingers.
“Mama said no.”
“And I say yes. I’m the adult here. You’re a child. It’s humiliating to have my passport carried by an eight-year-old.”
Rafi looked at his father who was driving the car. Asif looked back at him with a quick smile.
“I’m eleven,” said Rafi.
“Give them to me and I’ll buy a motorcycle when we get to New York and give you a ride on it every day.”
“Mama said I was to keep all the documents,” said Rafi. “She also said I can’t ride on a motorcycle until I’m fifty.”
“Well, Parvana might be the boss of you but she is not the boss of me,” said Maryam.
“Parvana is, was and forever shall be the boss of all of us,” said Asif.
“Ridiculous.” Maryam bumped back in her seat with frustration. “I’m a music superstar and my older sister still thinks she can run my life. Well, she won’t be able to do that when I’m in New York.”
“No,” said Rafi’s father. “Nooria will.”
Rafi burst out laughing. He’d never met his Aunt Nooria, but he’d heard the stories. He came from a family of bossy women.
The drive to Kabul usually took three hours. They’d been driving for four already and they still had a long way to go. It was stop, then start, then stop again.
Rafi stuck his legs out in front of him, stretching his muscles.
“We’ll stop soon to take a break,” his father said.
Not long after that, they drove up to a gas station. As the attendant filled the tank and checked the oil, Rafi helped his father to the restroom. Asif could usually manage fine on his crutches, but his muscles were stiff and sore from the drive.
Maryam complained about the dirtiness of the place.
“You can sit here and continue to complain or you can use the facilities, but not both,” Asif said. “Because we’re driving away in five minutes, whether or not you are back in the car.”
Rafi started to stretch and bend. He held the side of the car as if it was a ballet barre, but his father stopped him.
“Do nothing to draw attention,” Asif said, and Rafi knew his father was right. He jogged in place instead.
When Aunt Maryam reappeared, he helped her get back in the car. She was not used to the burqa. Rafi’s mother had tried to get her to wear it around the compound to get used to it, but Maryam had only done that once, and just for a moment.
“I can’t see, I can’t breathe, and no one can see my face,” Maryam had whined. “This is 2021, Parvana. You think we’re still living in the dark ages.”
Parvana had not replied to that. And now Maryam was not used to the burqa that covered her entire body like a tent. She was uncomfortable, she was unhappy, and she made sure everyone knew it.
Finally, Asif told her, “You leave it on or I’m taking you home and giving your visa and ticket to Parvana.”
Maryam’s complaints weren’t quite so loud after that.
“What if she won’t do what she needs to do at the airport?” Rafi asked his father quietly, hoping his voice would be blocked by his aunt’s burqa and the sound of the car going over the rough road.
“Do your best to get her though the security check and to the waiting area for your flight,” his father said. “Ask an airport worker for help if you need it. If she continues to be impossible, let her have her ticket and her papers and let her manage herself. Your job is to get yourself on the plane. Your aunt is a grown-up. At some point, she has to be responsible for herself.”
It was an old argument between his parents — Parvana insisting that Maryam needed her help, always had and always would, and Asif saying Parvana needed to help Maryam more than Maryam needed help from Parvana. And that as soon as Parvana realized that, Maryam would start to stand on her own two feet.
Rafi thought they were both right. Maryam could look after herself, but he doubted that she ever would.
It wasn’t just that Maryam was selfish. It was that she truly believed that what she wanted to do at any particular moment was more important than what anyone else wanted her to do.
“Other people will eat away your life,” she had told Rafi on more than one occasion. “I want to sing, so that has to be first. If I paid attention to your mother, she’d have me sweeping floors and bathing rescued babies all day. Claim your time! Your art is important!”
Yes, his art — his dancing — was important, Rafi believed. It was also important that he learn from his father how to fix a car so he could get it going again if it broke down on the way to a performance, and to know how to cook for himself and grow food and chop wood and keep his clothes clean. He told Maryam that once.
“No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong,” she said. “If you do those things one time, they’ll make you do them all the time. Better to plead incompetence and make other people do things for you. Then you can concentrate on your art.”
Parvana never let Maryam get away with that kind of behavior, but it was always a struggle.
Exasperating as she was, Rafi could never be completely fed up with his Aunt Maryam. After all, she was the reason he was dancing, and she was the reason he was going to New York.
Years ago, when Rafi was little, he was sitting with Maryam as she searched the internet for dance moves she could do while she sang. She passed right by the video of the boy spinning and leaping across a stage.
“Go back! Go back!” Rafi had ordered. He watched, jaw open, as a boy just a little bit bigger than him used movement alone to become a bird, then a lion, then something else altogether, twisting and flying, not bound by gravity.
