My Name Is Parvana Read online

  That was years ago, but she could still see it fluttering away through the market — a bright splash of color in an otherwise dismal place. Her last splash of childhood, sold to a stranger.

  She would have designed the bed in such a way that it could be folded against the wall, giving her room to walk or dance or do exercises. She was used to doing hard physical exercises at school and would like to keep on doing them if she could.

  And, of course, the window would be bigger. It would look out over an orchard and a river, and beside it would be a door that she could open and walk through whenever she wanted.

  But then it wouldn’t be a jail cell.

  The bed became a little too comfortable, and her chin started to drop to her chest. She brought it up with a jerk, then stood up. She stamped her feet a little to wake herself up.

  She needed to stay awake. She needed to be alert for whatever was coming.

  Everyone had heard the stories. Everyone knew somebody who knew somebody who had disappeared behind the walls of one of these places. Sometimes they came out again, angry and vowing revenge. Sometimes they came out trembling and scuttled off into the corners to mumble to themselves. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody. It was a secret that everybody knew.

  What went on behind prison walls was bad. Parvana had seen the scars, the marks of torture. The peddler who pushed his cart through the refugee camp each day would show his scars to anyone who tried to buy a pot or a brush from him.

  “This is not the Taliban,” he said. “This is from the ones who saved us from the Taliban. Who will save us from the saviors?”

  Parvana had heard his story three times, since she often took care of the housekeeping for the family. On and on he went, showing his battered wrists and ankles over and over.

  “I’m just a peddler,” he would say. “I just push a cart. I don’t know what is in the heart of the person I sell a shoelace to. When a man buys a bar of soap, I don’t ask him if he is the devil. Why did they arrest me? Why did they hurt me?”

  The first time she heard the story, Parvana was fascinated, shocked and sympathetic. She wanted to do something for the old man. All she could think of was to tell him to keep the change from her purchase, but she couldn’t do that because her family had so little money. So she listened to his story until he tired of telling it, picked up the handles of his cart and went on his way.

  The second time she heard his story she also felt sad and sympathetic, but she remembered the tongue-lashing her mother had given her the last time for standing around and talking instead of working. So she kept looking for a spot in the man’s story when she could politely back away.

  The spot never came. He talked and talked, showing his scars, describing his pain and demanding answers: “Why was this done to me? I am nobody. Why would they do this to such a nobody?” Parvana grew frustrated that she had no answers and could not help him. She finally backed away on her own, leaving him screaming at the sky.

  The third time, she pretended not to know the man. She chose the tea and thread that she needed, looked down at the dirt and paid without speaking. She could feel the loneliness coming off him in waves, and she shut herself against it.

  She did not want to end up like the peddler. She did not want to end up angry and howling for revenge. Who would she get revenge from, anyway? How far back in time would she need to go before she was satisfied? Did a word like revenge have any real meaning in a country like Afghanistan?

  Parvana doubted it.

  To howl for revenge would be a waste of time. And enough of her time had been wasted already.

  She didn’t want to lose her mind behind these walls. Afghanistan already had plenty of lost minds, floating like invisible balloons in the air above the land, leaving behind empty-minded people moaning and lonely in the dirt.

  “How do I come out of this?” she asked herself in a whisper.

  She had to believe they would one day let her out.

  She could not admit that it was quite likely they would not.

  After all she had been through she knew only one thing for sure.

  She knew she could not trust them.

  All she could trust was herself.

  THREE

  They came in the night.

  Parvana was ready for them.

  The metal bar of the bedframe stuck into the back of her thighs while she sat on the edge of the bed. The pain helped to keep her awake.

  But it pressed on the nerves in her legs and made her feet numb. When the two uniformed women, flanked by men with guns drawn, burst into her cell and each grabbed an arm to take her out, her legs buckled underneath her, forcing the guards to drag her along the corridor.

  “Stand up!” one of them ordered.

  Parvana gave no sign that she understood their English. It wouldn’t have mattered. Her feet were quite asleep.

  “This is ridiculous,” the other guard said. “I didn’t sweat through Basic Training to deal with stubborn teenagers.”

  A silent signal must have passed between the two guards because they both released their grip on Parvana at the same time. She dropped to the floor like a sack of rice.

  “On your feet!”

  Parvana stayed where she was.

  I’m not going to help you, she thought. She was fine on the floor. She’d had many a good night’s sleep on rougher surfaces.

  She was picked up again and the drag continued.

  Parvana’s chador came off. Now she had no way to hide her face. She didn’t like that they would be able to see her.

  She was hauled back into the little office and dumped onto the same hard chair. She was surrounded by boots and legs and torsos.

  Nineteen times seven is …

  She was too nervous to work it out, so she went for something easier. Two times two is four. Two times three is six. Two times four is eight.

  She multiplied and she breathed. She got herself under control.

  “There’s an awful lot of people in here for one little girl.”

  Parvana heard the voice of the man who had questioned her earlier.

  “Sir, she gave us some trouble,” one of the guards said.

  “Anything you can’t handle, soldier?”

  “No, sir. No problem, sir.”

  “Good. Return to your duties.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Parvana watched the pairs of boots march out of the room.

  She suddenly remembered a counting song she had used to teach the young ones. It was a good song because they learned counting and English at the same time.

  The ants came marching two by two,

  Hurrah, hurrah.

  Parvana had to work really hard not to smile. She had no chador to cover her.

  “So you’ve decided to let us see your face, have you?” The man said it in English, without the interpreter in the room, so he was talking more to himself than to Parvana. “We want to show respect for your culture while we are guests in your country, but I find it awfully hard to talk to someone when I can’t see their face.”

  The feeling was starting to come back into Parvana’s feet and legs. It was a mixture of tingling and pain. It was not pleasant, but Parvana welcomed it. It gave her something to concentrate on.

  The interpreter entered the little room. “I found this in the hall.”

  Parvana could see a corner of her chador, trailing on the floor.

  “Do you want me to give it to her?”

  “Do you want your head covering?” the man asked.

  The interpreter repeated the words in Dari, Pashtu and Uzbek. Parvana concentrated on the pain in her legs.

  “She seems fine without it,” he said. “If she wants it, she’ll ask for it. Perhaps, in exchange, she’ll tell us her name.”

  The woman translated what he said.
/>   “You know what?” said the man. “I think you speak Dari. That’s the language in those notebooks we found, so that’s the language we’re going to use. Corporal, repeat this one last time in all three languages. Tell her this is her last chance. If she doesn’t speak Dari, she has to let us know now. We’ve given her a nice long rest. Now she has to give us something. I’m tired of pussy-footing around.”

  The interpreter stumbled over the translation of “pussy-footing” and finally came up with “wearing the feet of a cat.” Parvana looked at the army boots and managed not to laugh.

  She concentrated on her multiplication tables.

  They all sat in silence for a long time.

  There was a sudden loud bang. She jumped in her chair.

  “So. You can hear.”

  The man picked up the thick book he had dropped on the floor.

  “You’re not deaf. You are refusing to talk to us.”

  While he talked, the woman translated. Parvana blocked out the woman’s voice and concentrated on the man’s. Her English was not as good as she wanted it to be. She had to pay attention to be able to understand him. The mental effort kept her calm.

  “Why are you refusing to talk? That’s the first question we have to answer. Are you refusing to talk because you’re an ignorant country girl, too ignorant even to protest at being locked up? Or are you a person to worry about? Is your name Parvana?”

  The question about her name again came at her fast. She wasn’t prepared and almost answered it. But she managed to hold her tongue.

  “You’re wasting my time, little girl, and you need to start talking. Although you are hardly a little girl. How old do you think she is, Corporal? Fifteen?”

  “Not more than that, sir.”

  “She’ll age fast in this country. I’ve seen women who are twenty look forty, and women who are forty look seventy. The average woman here lives only to be forty-six. Did you know that, Corporal? Forty-six.”

  The poor corporal wasn’t sure what she should translate and what was simply the major making conversation, so she translated everything. Words came out of her mouth in Dari moments after the man said them in English. To Parvana it sounded like two similar but different recordings being played, one just ahead of the other. When it happened in short spurts, it was okay. When it went on for a while, it made her brain a little dizzy.

  “What are the other names we got from those pages?” the man asked.

  “Sir, I made a list.”

  “Let me see it.”

  There was the sound of sliding paper.

  “Is your name Shauzia?”

  Parvana kept her eyes focused on the floor. She thought of her friend, swift-footed and determined, hair cropped short against her scalp, running around the marketplace with a tray of tea cups. She pictured her friend’s face, laughing, crying and angry, pinched in concentration as she counted up her money, calm and dreamy as she planned her trip to France.

  But she kept her breathing shallow and even, not giving anything away.

  “Is your name Nooria?”

  Older sister Nooria, bossy and sure of herself, with beautiful long hair. Nooria could boss the both of you right out of here, Parvana thought.

  “Is your name Maryam?”

  Little sister Maryam, bouncy, clever, exasperating.

  “Is your name Leila?”

  Parvana was glad she had no tears left. It meant she could hear the name of the little girl who had died in the minefield and not react.

  I’m turning to stone, she thought. I’m sitting here turning to stone.

  “Is your name Asif?”

  “Sir, Asif is a boy’s name.”

  “You sure? All right. Is your name Hassan?”

  “Also a boy’s name, sir.”

  “What about this one? Ali?”

  “Also a boy’s name.”

  “It’s also a girl’s name,” the man said. “Haven’t you ever heard of Ali McGraw? Love Story? Steve McQueen’s girlfriend? Don’t you ever watch old movies?”

  “Sir, in Afghanistan, Ali is only a boy’s name.”

  “Well, ask her anyway. Maybe she uses it as a nickname.”

  “Is your name Ali?”

  Parvana wished they would shut up. Couldn’t they just accept that she wasn’t going to answer their questions and let her go? After they gave back her shoulder bag, of course.

  “Any names left?”

  “Just one. But I don’t think it would apply.”

  “Ask it anyway. We need to get some sort of reaction out of her.”

  “Is your name Mrs. Weera?”

  Parvana almost laughed out loud at that one.

  I’m not Mrs. Weera, she thought. And you’re very lucky that I’m not.

  They all sat in silence again for a good long while.

  Then the man said, “Take her chair away.”

  Parvana was made to stand.

  And stand.

  And stand.

  FOUR

  Parvana stood in the hot sun with the other students, listening to the government man drone on and on.

  “The opening day of a new school is a grand new beginning for all of us,” he was saying. “The hard work we have done has paid off in this glorious accomplishment.”

  The hard work we have done? Parvana had never seen that man before in her life, and here he was, claiming credit for work that wasn’t his.

  Her family had done the work. All the crazy members of it — those who had been born into it and those who had joined.

  She had been the one to find the building. She found it when she was out on a walk to escape for a short while from the camp for internal refugees she had landed in. Her mother had been the one to decide they should take it over, and raised such a ruckus with local officials and the military that they gave her the ruined building just to shut her up. Nooria was the one who connected with organizations that could give them funding to turn the rubble into a school. Asif repaired the old water pump and found a broken generator that he also fixed. Even Maryam helped clean, and Hassan helped put things on shelves.

  They had built this place, with the help of many other hands.

  The government man hadn’t lifted a finger.

  Mother must be furious, Parvana thought, and she looked over at the tall woman with the straight back and the head held high. She was sitting on the platform with the guests from the military and the foreign agencies that had given them money.

  If her mother was feeling any anger at the government man, she certainly wasn’t showing it. She looked happy and maybe just a little nervous that her students wouldn’t behave properly.

  Nooria would certainly be annoyed. Parvana’s older sister was always crabby about something.

  Her sister was sitting with the other teachers, all wearing the dark blue chador that marked them as staff. They were all young women who had taken a crash course on how to be a teacher. Nooria, too, looked happy and not angry.

  Of course she’s happy, Parvana thought. She has a whole classroom of kids to boss around now, instead of just Maryam and me.

  Maryam was Parvana’s youngest sister. She was standing in the first row of students, directly in front of Parvana, wearing the white chador that all the students wore.

  Maryam was a squirmer. She couldn’t sit still for more than two minutes, always bopping around to some pop tune in her head. Mother said she was contrary, just like Parvana. Parvana thought it more likely that Maryam still had energy inside her that couldn’t come out when she was kept inside their small apartment during the time the Taliban was in charge.

  Parvana was supposed to keep an eye on her, but she had mostly given up on that. Maryam would settle when she was ready to settle, and not a moment before.

  Parvana kept moving her eyes until they landed on Asif, sitti
ng with the other school staff, looking like he was actually listening to the government man’s silly speech. He no longer looked like the angry boy Parvana had found in a cave a little over four years before. They had wandered Afghanistan together, filthy and hungry.

  Today he was wearing his good snow-white shalwar kameez. His dark hair was shining and curling around his ears. His face had filled out, no longer hollow-eyed from hunger.

  He was still more fun to argue with than anyone Parvana had ever known.

  On Asif’s lap sat Hassan, the little boy Parvana had found in the bombed-out village. Hassan had been a baby then. Now he was ready for kindergarten. He was sitting tall and still. Only Asif could get him to behave so well.

  There were two other school staff — Mr. Fahir, the chowkidar who kept control of the gate, and Mrs. Zaher, the cook.

  Parvana thought about all these people, and forgot about being angry.

  She was startled out of her thoughts by the sound of applause. The government man had finally stopped talking. Mother, as the headmistress of the new school, stepped forward. Together they unveiled the sign with the school’s name:

  LEILA'S ACADEMY OF HOPE

  Parvana blinked to get rid of the tears she felt in her eyes. It had been her idea to name the school after the tiny girl with the big imagination. Parvana and Asif were going to plant a flower garden in her memory, too.

  Maryam took two steps forward from the group and sang the Afghan national anthem, clear and true. She was always singing along to the radio, and when the radio wasn’t on, she sang Afghan and American pop songs from memory. She sang the national anthem as if she was more proud of her singing ability than she was of her country, but so what? Her little sister could count on her voice. Afghanistan still had to prove itself.

  Maryam finished strong, everyone applauded, and photographers took her picture. The formal part of the ceremony was over.

  While tea was prepared, Parvana took a group of parents on a tour of the school.