scooping the rice and potatoes into their mouths with hands dirty with grease. Nasrin was pleased that the potatoes were soft enough to feed to Safee. It was as if the food were a restorative for the moribund engine too, as it roared to life only fifteen minutes after the drivers returned to their tinkering, causing everyone to choke on the cloud of black, oily diesel exhaust filling the air. They cheered through their coughing. Five minutes later, the two trucks resumed their respective journeys, one uphill and east towards Pakistan, the other downhill and west towards Logar.
It was twilight now, and Nasrin looked up at a sliver of a new moon in the sky between mountain peaks. She thought of the people she loved who were left behind in Kabul and wondered if they were looking up at the same beautiful, pale light.
“We’re still alive, Gul,” she whispered. “We’re still alive.”
Trying to make up for lost time, the driver drove well into the night, but at a crawl over the rocky, twisting road. Nasrin’s nose and ears felt like ice. Safee, at least, was warm and asleep, cradled tightly against her chest in a nest she had created with the diaper-stuffed burlap sack. Eventually, the truck bumped to a stop. The driver opened his door and jumped to the ground, calling out: “We have arrived at the chaikhana. Everyone can get out.”
Relieved chatter: “What time do you think it is? How close are we to the border?”
The chaikhana was a utilitarian square building with a flat roof and a stainless steel chimney from which tendrils of smoke wafted. Desperate for warmth, the families walked stiffly to the door and slipped off their shoes before entering. Small oil lamps in shallow recesses along the walls flickered as cold air blew into the room. The travelers entered the main area, which was covered wall to wall with a thin, worn Afghan carpet. A middle-aged man in a turban, his face deeply furrowed, came out of an arched doorway, murmured “Salaam,” and laid out an enormous pink, flowered plastic cover on the rug. The children and adults returned the greeting and plopped down on the hard toshaks, or floor cushions. He looks old, thought Nasrin, as well as sad. Mozhdah snuggled against Nasrin with tears in her eyes and held up her hands. Nasrin clasped her daughter’s icy hands in hers and blew warm air onto them until the tears disappeared.
While their host prepared a meal for them in the kitchen, Nasrin looked around, noticing a faded framed photograph of the charismatic commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir,” a revered hero of the mujahideen resistance against the Soviets.
“Look! Tea!” Nasrin exclaimed to Mozhdah and Masee, who had been tugging at her sleeve. Their host carried a tray with two pots of tea and cups, placing it carefully on the pink plastic covering. Nasrin poured Masee and Mozhdah each a mug loaded with sugar. “Cup the mug like this,” she told them. “It will warm your hands. But let it cool a bit before drinking.”
About twenty minutes later, their host brought in a tray laden with numerous serving bowls and a large stewpot of shorwa. Instead of the traditional Afghan dish typically brimming with summer vegetables, chunks of meat on the bone, and tomatoes and spices, this was a watery brown facsimile, with a few potatoes and thin slivers of lamb meat. Each person grabbed a chipped porcelain bowl from the stack, and Nasrin ladled out helpings to Mozhdah and Masee, giving them fresh naan for dipping. It was delicious, and Nasrin gave tiny pieces of shorwa-soaked naan to Safee, who clapped his hands for more, eyes wide with pleasure.
When the dishes were removed and the last remnant of sweet tea drunk, the children curled up on the toshaks, falling asleep immediately. Nasrin went into the kitchen with her thermos and bottles to ask the man if she could boil water for Safee’s formula.
“Tashakur. Thank you for the meal. It was delicious.” She paused, not knowing how comfortable the man would be talking to her. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Ali,” he responded.
“How long have you had this chaikhana?”
“Four years now.” Ali sighed deeply and began talking. The Soviets had killed his two children and wife in their village in Mazar-i-Sharif. There had been a nearby garrison of Soviet soldiers, and one night four of them got drunk and stupidly wandered into the village to buy apples and grapes. The mujahideen captured and killed them. In retaliation, the Soviet soldiers attacked the village in the middle of the night—bulldozed their homes, shot at them, butchered as many people as they could. The bullets somehow missed Ali, who fled, returning later to find the bodies of his wife and children. He buried them, then escaped to Pakistan with a few other survivors. When they were coming through these mountains it snowed, leaving them stranded and near death. Afterwards, Ali said, he thought that by opening a chaikhana at this point of the journey, he could help other Afghans.
“I’m so sorry for your terrible loss,” Nasrin said in a stricken voice.
“You are blessed to have children. Keep them safe,” Ali said.
“I will,” Nasrin responded, her voice cracking.
After a night of restless sleep, the families were up by 5:00 AM and downed a simple breakfast of naan and tea. Today, they hoped, would be the last stage of the journey to Pakistan. They paid for the food and accommodations and climbed reluctantly into the back of the truck. Mahboob, as usual, stood up, scanning the landscape, machine gun cradled in his arms, alert and relaxed despite keeping guard all night long. Bashir held Safee, and Mozhdah and Masee snuggled against their mom, listening as Nasrin softly hummed Afghan songs from childhood.
The sun warming her face, Nasrin realized that she had dozed off. She licked the dust off her dry lips. It seemed warmer, and she was beginning to sweat underneath her heavy vest. The truck slowed to a stop. Another chaikhana? Authoritative voices—hard and commanding—the voices of army or police officers, sent a chill down her spine.
“Stay here,” Bashir said. “Don’t anyone make a sound,” he whispered to the women and children. He unlatched the door at the back of the truck and jumped out.
“Where are we? Why did we stop?” Mozhdah asked nervously.
“Shhh,” Nasrin responded.
In the stillness, Nasrin detected changes: the scent of vegetation, the trilling of birds—so different from the barren, cold mountain roads.
Bashir came back and beckoned to Nasrin. “Come out,” he said, a wide grin on his face. “We have made it to Terai Mangal. Wear your burka,” he added.
Nasrin pulled the blue cloth over her head and stumbled stiffly to the ground. She looked about. It was another world. Sparse grasses covered boulder-strewn hills while copses of stunted trees grew out of the rocky earth. Three nearby mountains rose into the air, their steep slopes covered in green.
A small group of armed men approached the group. Mahboob walked towards them, and they greeted each other warmly. Returning to the families, who stood uneasily about ten feet away, Mahboob explained he would continue on with the group into Pakistan, though he had to leave his firearm in Afghanistan, picking it up on his return. “This is the Terai Mangal pass—we have arrived in Pakistan!” he said, smiling as everyone cheered.
Mahboob handed one of the men in the group his machine gun and walked back to the truck. “Let’s go!” he said.
As they drove through the gate, the road sloped downhill and the engine’s growl eased slightly. Nadia, Nasrin’s fourteen-year-old niece, couldn’t contain her excitement and stood, holding tight to the top metal slats. Her chador blew off and her long black hair whipped around her face. “We made it!” Nadia screamed into the wind. “Yaaaay, we made it!”
Everyone laughed. It was, thought Nasrin, like being on a ship, sailing away from land onto a great big endless ocean, roiled by waves of hope.
CHAPTER 4
A Waiting Game
THE PLAN WAS to travel to Islamabad, a day’s drive. But first, the families would stop in the city of Mīrāmshāh in the Pashtun tribal area of North Waziristan. Mīrāmshāh was