Fatima
written by: David Thoenen
Fatima sat in the corner holding the little girl in her lap. It was a small room. The worn carpet on the dirt floor and a small wooden table supporting a few cups and bowls completed its furnishings. A pile of quilted bedding occupied the opposite corner. It lay between a window set into the wall close to the ceiling and the only door. The single bulb suspended overhead by a frail wire was dark; the early afternoon sun was sufficient to provide what little light the occupants needed. Later there would be no light. The Taliban had cut the electricity to the village.
The second child, six or seven years old, lay in the center of the room. He was barefoot; his dirty kameez shalvar draped over his small body, waiting for the day that he would grow to fill it out. His hair was light brown; it needed cutting.
“Abai,” he whispered. There was no need for loud voices in the tiny space. “Will we eat this evening?”
There was no response from Fatima. “Abai?” he repeated.
His mother looked at her son curled on the floor. She hesitated, then said, “Inshallah, Hossein Jan. Inshallah.” The boy rested his head in his arms and closed his eyes.
Yesterday Allah had provided. Fatima’s father had visited in the afternoon and delivered enough bread to satisfy the children’s hunger and provide a few scraps for Fatima. Baba had promised to return with more bread today, but by mid-afternoon he had not appeared. It was difficult for Baba to find enough bread for his own household. His village lay over a kilometer from Fatima’s compound. He was old and the walk between the two villages was challenging for him. In the past, Fatima made the walk herself, but now the Taliban did not permit women to leave their homes without a male family escort. Fatima did not know where her father found bread or how he paid for it. She knew only that Allah provides.
The child in her lap lifted her head. “Abai, is Baba here?”
“No, Zahra Jan. He is not here.”
The child stared at her mother and reached for her hand. Fatima returned her gaze and gave the little hand a gentle squeeze, bringing it to her shoulder, holding it there; an Afghan madonna with her child. The light from the window illuminated their faces; their bodies were barely visible in a half light of shadow.
Fatima had been dependent upon her father since her husband left their village for Iran and the hope of employment there. That was in the spring shortly after their new year holiday, the Now Ruz, after the snows had melted and travel through the mountains resumed. It had been a bleak Now Ruz for the family with little to celebrate and the last remaining winter food stocks stretched to serve a dismal holiday meal; some rice and dried spinach for sabzi challaw, the traditional Now Ruz stew – no lamb this year – and a small bag of wheat to prepare sweet samanak for the children. It was now late summer and there had been no word from him. No confirmation that he had reached Iran; no money sent home. Every day Fatima prayed for his safety, for his success in finding work, for any sign that she could hold tight as hope for the family’s future.
Since Now Ruz Fatima had benefited from the charity of her mosque and her neighbors, good people, good Moslems who helped care for her and for her children. But the village was poor and grew poorer each week as more men left in the hope of work elsewhere. Families struggled to provide bread for their own children. Once prosperous, since the arrival of the Taliban their small Hazara community had suffered from a wave of predatory land seizures by hostile neighbors, leaving the Hazara landless and impoverished.
Fatima laid her daughter on the carpet. She left the room and crossed the courtyard to the cistern where she bathed in preparation for her Asr prayers. A tall mud brick wall enclosed the courtyard, a barren patch of dirt, dry and dusty now in the late summer heat. Other than the cistern, it contained only a small stack of firewood and an abandoned oven. The heavy timber door providing an exit to the world outside the humble compound remained closed. It opened only when a family member entered for a brief visit. Fatima could expect no visitors other than her father; she did not wear her hejab when she moved about the courtyard.
If asked her age, Fatima would be unable to answer. Her Tazkira – the Afghan identity card which she could not read; she was illiterate – documented a birthdate that was only an estimate, required when she registered for the card at the time of her marriage. By appearance her age would be judged as late twenties or early thirties. A calculation based upon marriage at puberty and the approximate ages of her children would suggest her age as young as twenty. Her hair, though darker than her son’s, was also brown; her eyes a startling bright blue. She wore what remained of her wardrobe: a plain skirt reaching to her bare feet, a long-sleeved blouse loose to her knees, and a knitted shawl over her shoulders. Fatima had bartered the remainder of her wardrobe for food. Winter was approaching; she and the children would need warmer clothing. She prayed that Baba could help. Allah would provide.
Returning to the room, she removed her prayer rug from the bedding pile and unrolled it on the floor next to her son. She covered herself with her hejab and fulfilled her afternoon obligation to her faith. As she prayed she struggled to focus on the words of the prayer, but her thoughts, as always when she prayed, turned to the past and lost dreams that she had once entertained of bright futures for her children. It had seemed possible before the Taliban. She had envisioned enrolling her son – and, inshallah, her daughter – in the small school in her father’s village, one operated by a foreign aid organization. She had dreamt of the day that her children would return from a day at school and share with her what they learned; her children would teach her to read. The school had closed, the foreigners forced to leave the country, even those who had, after the Taliban victory, helped to provide food for the village.
“Abai, I’m hungry.”
Before answering she concluded her prayer, removed her hejab, rolled her prayer rug and returned it to the bedding stack. “Yes, Hossein. Inshallah, Baba will arrive soon with bread. While we wait, would you please fetch your sister a cup of water?”
“Yes, Abai.”
The boy slowly rose to his feet, retrieved a cup from the table and walked through the door into the courtyard. The girl was sleeping. She had not asked for water. Fatima had assigned the chore to the boy to distract his mind from thoughts of hunger and to remind him that he carried responsibilities as the male in the household.
The boy brought the cup to his mother who placed it on the floor.
“Abai, I should look for Baba. He will need my help on the track up the hill. May I go down the track and look for him? As far as the mosque?”
His mother considered Hossein’s proposal. Inshallah, Baba was on the track. Baba would enjoy the company of Hossein on the climb up to the compound. Inshallah, one of the neighbors would offer Hossein a bit of bread as he passed. Yet she worried. Did Hossein have the stamina left in his small body to walk even as far as the mosque? Would the effort come at too great a cost? And the disappointment if Baba does not come this afternoon will be even greater to bear. But for him to continue to lie on the floor!
“Hossein Jan, you may go as far as the mosque. It is still early. Baba may not be on the track. But if he is, I am sure that he will enjoy the company of his wonderful grandson. You may go.”
As the boy departed through the courtyard, his mother added, “If you see Mullah Ali at the mosque, ask if they have bread for us.”
Left alone with her daughter, Fatima’s thoughts drifted to the time before the Taliban arrived. They ate well. They had two goats and a flock of chickens. Their small plot of land produced enough to supply their family with food throughout the year. Some years there was a surplus which Fatima sold at the village bazaar. Now women were not permitted to sell in the bazaar. But there was nothing to sell.
Their family was Hazara. When the Taliban came to power, Sunni neighbors and Taliban officers from outside the village had pressed false claims for Hazara lands and the Hazara Shia minority, persecuted for centuries, too weak to resist, had transitioned from a life of simple prosperity to landless poverty.
Fatima drank her daughter’s water. It helped ease her hunger pangs.
Afternoon was drawing to a close when the boy returned without his grandfather and without bread. He dragged himself into the room and sat on the floor. He avoided looking into his mother’s eyes.
“Hossein, was there no sign of Baba? Was Mullah Ali at the mosque?”
“No, Abai. I waited. At the mosque, Agha ’e Yazdani gave me water and told me that there was no bread in the village and Taliban came and took Mullah Ali away.”
“Why was he taken?” Over the months, Mullah Ali had been an important source of support for the family.
“Agha ’e Yazdani said because he is Hazara. Because he is a Shia mullah. Because the Taliban hate the Shia, hate the Hazara. Abai, will they take us away? We are Hazara.”
“No, child. They will not take us away. They are not afraid of you and your sister. They already have taken all we have, but our faith in Allah.”
“Abai, I am so hungry.”
“Yes, Hossein Jan. Your sister is also hungry. Baba may soon arrive with bread.”
The sun was setting. Fatima returned to the cistern to prepare for Maghrib, the evening prayer. As her faith required, she would pray; it would serve as her dinner. And, inshallah, Baba will arrive with enough bread for the children.
