One more mountain, p.2
One More Mountain, page 2
He watched the video ten times, and then another ten, and at least ten times a day after that, day after day after day.
It was Aunt Maryam who found ballet lessons online and taught him the five positions. It was Aunt Maryam who got his father to build him a ballet barre, and Aunt Maryam who, after years of him learning and practicing, sent a video of him dancing to Aunt Nooria in New York. Aunt Nooria used that video to get him a scholarship to a ballet school in New York City.
For one year, he would be a provisional student under their International Opportunities program. He would live with Nooria and spend his days at the school getting proper dance training as well as regular school lessons. If they liked him, they would let him stay.
Rafi watched Afghanistan move past the car window.
In his head, he was dancing.
He danced on the flat rooftops of buildings being constructed and buildings that had been bombed. He leapt from rooftop to rooftop, from mansions to mud-brick huts, from walnut trees to billboards advertising everything from cell phones to biscuits.
He’d heard that in New York City, a person could travel whole city blocks by jumping from one roof to another.
He would do that when he got there. He would definitely do that.
In his mind, Rafi danced in the swirling red dust and up and down the rocky hills. He danced on the wrecks of cars and the skeletons of abandoned military tanks, and he danced with a balloon seller who always seemed to show up just when someone needed to smile.
He would miss his parents like fire, but he would not let that stop him from squeezing every drop of opportunity out of this experience.
In Afghanistan, many boys his age worked all day, crushing rocks or hauling water up hills or selling things in the street or begging. He had met these boys when he went out with his mother as they took food around to homes that had none.
Those boys were just like him, except that they knew hunger better than they knew how to read.
Maryam might think she was special.
Rafi knew that he was not special.
Just lucky.
All three of them let out big sighs of relief when they pulled up in front of the gate of the safe house, a place that took in people who were working for justice and kept them hidden from the authorities.
It was a two-story gray concrete building in a neighborhood full of gray concrete buildings. Rafi had been there just once before, when his parents brought him to Kabul to see the city a few years ago. He remembered how enormous and full of wonders Kabul had been — museums and cafés, massive parks, so many shops, and even an amusement park!
One day, he would come back and see it all again.
Rafi got out of the car and pressed the buzzer. He spoke to a man on the other side of the gate.
“We are friends of Mrs. Weera,” Rafi said.
The gate swung open and Asif drove the car into a small cement yard.
As soon as the gate was bolted shut, a swarm of people surrounded them, welcoming them and embracing them. Maryam flung back her burqa, happily signed autographs and promised to sing after supper.
Rafi spent the evening eating traditional Kabuli rice and ashak dumplings. He knew it was the last Afghan meal he would have in his home country for a long, long time. He would not be back until he was a man, a professional dancer, ready to set up his Afghan School of Ballet, the biggest of his big dreams.
The people in the safe house had worked with Parvana and Shauzia for a long time. They told stories of Rafi’s mother rescuing girls from forced marriages and women from abusive ones, of getting food to families and getting families to doctors, of standing up to corrupt officials and making daring escapes in the night. Mrs. Weera had been a Member of Parliament. His mother and father and Shauzia had lived with her when they were younger, studying as much as they could in between getting other people to safety.
His aunt began to sing — her own hits first, then folk songs. Someone brought out tabla drums and someone else played a rubab lute. Rafi clapped and sang with the others.
When Aunt Maryam started to sing lullabies, he dropped off to sleep.
4
Damsa opened her eyes and saw feet.
Six little feet, not very far from her face.
She closed her eyes again.
She had a vague memory of being led indoors and a vague memory of lowering herself to a toshak.
After that, she remembered nothing.
She heard a giggle.
“You’re drooling,” piped a young voice.
Damsa was awake now. She fully opened her eyes and stared back at the three little girls. They all had rosy cheeks and laughing eyes. They were sitting right next to her and grinning.
She pushed herself into a sitting position and wiped her mouth. She had been drooling.
“What are you staring at?”
“You,” said a child, and they all giggled again.
“It’s rude to stare,” Damsa said.
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. She felt that she had been deeply asleep for a long time but had no idea how long or even exactly where she was.
“You’re awake.”
Larmina stood in the doorway.
“For goodness’ sake, girls,” she said, “give her some room. You look like a pack of wolves.”
The little girls howled and backed away, a little.
“I’m Larmina,” she said to Damsa. “We met earlier, but maybe you forgot. This is Damsa, everyone. No, don’t tell her your names right now. She won’t remember and there is chopping to be done in the kitchen if any of you want to eat tonight. Shoo!”
The little girls shooed, howling and laughing.
“I’m fifteen,” said Larmina. “Are you fifteen, too?”
Damsa nodded. Larmina plopped down on the toshak next to her and kept on talking.
“Finally, a girl my own age! I’m sure you’re quite beautiful under all that grime. I look okay, but I have these scars on my neck, see?” Larmina moved her scarf to reveal old burn scars, the skin wrinkled and discolored. “My older brother threw hot oil on me when I refused to marry the man my father picked out for me. He tried to get my face but I turned away in time. Parvana says my scar is my badge of honor and I should wear it proudly. Sometimes I can do that. More than I used to, anyway.”
Larmina flipped the scarf back around her neck and continued talking.
“I share a room with Hadiah. She’s eleven, she thinks. The next oldest to me is Zahra. She’s thirteen, but she’s got her baby, and she likes to spend time with the three sisters — the wolf pack who was just here — more than with me. They’re a lot younger than her but she wants to feel young, I guess, well, who can blame her? Plus, they all want me to act the part of stern older sister so they can be the carefree younger sisters and avoid responsibility. Have you ever studied psychology? Parvana found me some textbooks. It’s very interesting, why people do what they do.”
“Baby?” asked Damsa. She was struggling to keep up.
“Zahra’s the only one of us with a baby,” Larmina said. “She was pregnant when she got here, poor thing. Shauzia delivered the baby! I didn’t know police officers could do that.”
Larmina stood up and offered Damsa her hand.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
There were three stalls in the shower room. An undersea mural was painted on one wall — fish and seaweed and seahorses. There were mirrors over each of the three sinks.
“I’ll fetch you some clean clothes and put them on this bench. You can wear some of mine until we get some made for you. The water never gets very hot, but the soap is nice. We make our own. The shampoo, too.”
Larmina left her alone.
Damsa looked at her face in the mirror.
It was not a face she knew.
The face she knew was pampered and lotioned, dusted with makeup and glowing with confidence.
The face that stared back at her now was filthy and tired. The heavy makeup her stepmother had plastered on her was smeared with tears and sweat.
It was a face to be shunned, not one to sing on YouTube.
With trembling hands, Damsa undid the buttons on her ruffled white dress.
Her fancy, borrowed engagement dress.
She had been imprisoned inside it for days.
Damsa hated the dress and all it stood for. She ripped herself out of it, tossed it to the floor and got into the shower.
The soap smelled like flowers. The shampoo was smooth. She soaped and rinsed, soaped and rinsed.
She stepped out of the shower stall to clean towels and a faded but pretty yellow and blue shalwar kameez.
She had just finished dressing when Larmina came in.
“I don’t want that anymore,” Damsa said, pointing to the dress. “Will one of the servants pick it up or do I take it to them?”
“No servants here,” said Larmina. “Only queens. And I have a better idea.”
She left but came right back, carrying a pair of scissors.
“Cut it up,” she said, handing the scissors to Damsa. “We can use the cloth for other things. Cut it up, we’ll wash it, and give it a new and happier life.”
Damsa took hold of the scissors. She picked up the engagement dress and sat down on the bench.
She thought about how stunned she had been when her stepmother had brought the dress to her in her bedroom.
“You’re going to be married,” her stepmother said. “Isn’t this a pretty dress? You wouldn’t know it was used before. I sewed on these ruffles myself.”
“Go away,” Damsa had said, scrolling through her phone. “I’m busy.”
In a split second, her stepmother jerked away the phone and plopped the dress in Damsa’s lap.
“You don’t speak to me like that, not ever again,” her stepmother said. “The day after tomorrow, you will get engaged. Two weeks after that, you will be married. Your father will clear his debt with this marriage, and I will get you out of this house.”
Damsa threw the dress to the floor. Her stepmother picked it up and pressed it into Damsa.
“I took trouble to make this look pretty for you,” she said. “Is it too much to expect a thank-you? And what other future did you have planned? Did you really think he would keep paying for you forever?”
“Give me my phone back.”
“My phone now,” her stepmother had said before leaving the room and locking the door.
Oh, how Damsa had pounded! Hours and hours of pounding and kicking and screaming.
When her father finally opened her door, he hit her across the head so hard she fell back onto the expensive carpet. He stood over her, hands on his hips, and she finally saw what others saw.
This was a man who got his way.
Damsa went quiet after that, too shocked and heartbroken for any more fight. She silently watched him strip her room of all the jewelry, fine clothes and the collection of delicate blue glass vases he’d bought for her over the years. He did not say one more word to her as he left the room and locked the door behind him.
For two days she stayed in her room, refusing to eat the food that was brought to her.
The day of the engagement party, her stepmother came into her room.
“It will be fine,” her stepmother said, as she pushed Damsa’s arms into the sleeves of the dress and smeared makeup on her face. “All the things your father’s done for you. You should be happy to do this little thing for him.”
Damsa was dressed, painted and perfumed, then left alone while her stepmother went out to greet the guests.
That’s when Damsa got over her shock.
And got mad.
She pried open the window lock. She took a long jump into a scratchy shrub. Then she ran away with no money, no papers, no food and no water. Nothing but this fussy, horrible, stifling dress.
Now, as Larmina watched, she cut off a sleeve. Her next cut took off the collar. Then another sleeve.
Then she started to cry.
“I thought my father loved me,” she sobbed.
He had been happy to buy her the nice things she wanted. He’d been proud of her good grades in school and her hopes to work in a laboratory one day. She had even shown him the picture she’d drawn of herself in a white lab coat, her hair arranged in a side ponytail, neat and professional and stylish.
“I’ll be a famous scientist during the day and a famous singer at night,” she told him.
He had smiled and nodded.
Had he been arranging her marriage even then?
“Just because someone loves us, doesn’t mean we have to do everything they want us to do,” said Larmina. She took the scissors and the remains of the dress. With quick cuts, she turned it into big pieces and useable scraps. “We’ll turn this into dolls, clothes for the baby, bookmarks to sell, many things. Out of something bad, we will make something good.”
Out of something bad, something good.
Maybe that can work for me, too, Damsa thought.
5
“Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”
Larmina took Damsa into the sewing room first. It held pedal sewing machines, two cutting tables and see-through plastic containers filled with fabric and supplies. Larmina left the scissors on one of the tables.
In the laundry porch, they dropped the fabric pieces in a bin with other things that needed washing. Clean clothes hung there from lines stretched post to post. Scrubbing boards leaned against the wall, ready for use.
“Over there are the vegetable gardens.” Larmina pointed across the yard to raised beds full of spinach, tomatoes and other growing things. “They’re on wheels so we can move them to get the most sun. We can grow a lot in small spaces. Parvana designed them.”
Also out back were several sheds and smaller houses.
“That’s where Parvana, Asif and Rafi live,” Larmina said. “Next to that is where Zahra lives with her baby and Old Mrs. Musharef. Maryam’s room is just behind theirs, on the other side of their wall. Oh, how Maryam complained about the baby waking her up in the morning! She wanted a house of her own. Parvana said no, that without a wake-up call, Maryam would sleep all day and there was no room in Green Valley for any laziness.”
Larmina paused for a breath, then went on.
“I wonder who will get that room now. Probably Shauzia, since she can’t go back to her barracks because of all the death threats against female police officers. She usually bunks with me and Hadiah when she stays here, but she’ll likely want her own space if she’s actually living here. She’s fun to have around. Plus, she keeps the three sisters out of my hair sometimes, which gives me a bit of peace. They talk and talk and talk.”
They passed back through the small gathering room where Damsa had napped, then into a kitchen with a long wooden table. Shauzia and some of the girls were making supper.
“Sometimes we do lessons here,” Larmina said, tapping the table. “We eat in here or in the big room.”
The big room was a much larger version of the small gathering room. Its bright walls were painted with flowers and geometric designs. There were toshaks along the walls, more cushions, a woodstove in the corner and a large cupboard at one end of the room.
“Parvana’s office is over there, and our room is there, and there’s a little supply cupboard in between. The younger girls sleep closer to the bathroom.”
Damsa followed Larmina into a bedroom with six narrow cots.
“I’m here and Hadiah is over there. Sleep where you want except for those two beds. There used to be more girls here, older than me. One is now a journalist in Logar Province. She was always such a mess to live with, spread her stuff all over the room. I don’t know how she can keep her facts straight now when she’s doing her reporter job.”
“I’ve never shared,” said Damsa, looking around at the plain but cozy room with the handmade quilts folded neatly at the end of each cot. She compared it to the opulent bedroom she’d had at her father’s house, with its heavy furniture, silk drapes and thick carpet.
“Who’s that?” Damsa saw a framed photograph of an old woman hanging on the wall. The woman looked both fierce and kind at the same time. Beside the photo, also in a frame, was a gold medal on a bright ribbon.
“That’s Mrs. Weera,” Larmina said. “This was her property. She gave it to Parvana to build a women’s center. There used to be women and children coming and going from here all day long. We had yoga classes, literacy, arithmetic lessons, classes on organizing a business, visiting nurses, visiting lawyers, a children’s committee to improve the neighborhood, discussion groups on violence, politics, health, religion — everything. There was always something going on. It was so much fun! We put on plays and little concerts, Eid celebrations for the community, for anyone who wanted to come, men, too. Work, work, work, work, work, but that’s fun, right?”
Damsa didn’t have an answer. She had never worked a moment in her life. Anything that had needed doing, the servants had done.
Larmina sighed. “Then people got too afraid to come, and now it’s pretty quiet here. We still do schoolwork, but it was more fun when there was a room full of people learning. Anyway, Mrs. Weera got the medal when she was younger for being the fastest woman runner in Afghanistan. She’s gone now, heart attack, but there’s a whole group of people called Friends of Mrs. Weera — women and men — who look out for girls like us. Anyone who needs help, really. I’m going to be one of them and do brave things. What are you going to do when you get older? It’s all right. You don’t have to answer. Right now, you want supper.”
At supper, Damsa sat at the big table with chatter all around, everyone but her fetching and dishing out and keeping an eye on what the others needed. It was loud and happy, everyone talking and everyone listening and sharing their opinions.
