got up to greet Rawani. “Cousin!” he said, embracing the commander.
“I heard that you were stopped at three checkpoints, but the soldiers were easily bribed,” Rawani said, a grin widening across his face. “They are greedy for baksheesh and easily manipulated. We will drive them out of power yet.”
Nasrin looked at Bashir and raised her eyebrows. This was the famous Rawani, a commander of Mahaz-e Milli-ye Islami-ye Afghanistan, the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, considered one of the most moderate of the mujahideen groups that fought to drive out the Soviets before 1989 and was now trying to overthrow the Communist PDPA government. Mahaz-e Milli was one of the famous Peshawar Seven, a loose alliance of seven factions created in the early 1980s to oppose the Soviet-backed PDPA. Unlike other more fundamentalist mujahideen groups, members of Mahaz-e Milli were royalists who advocated for the return from exile of King Zahir, as well as democracy and a free press.
“We are honored to be guests in your home,” Bashir said, as Rawani settled himself on the floor, reached for a cup, and poured himself some tea.
The elderly man who had followed Rawani into the room took the empty pots of tea away and returned with them replenished. Commander Rawani, a Pashtun who was fluent in Farsi as well as his native Pashto, began telling the group about the struggle he was leading, how his mujahideen fighters had to move to new locations almost every night to avoid being bombed, and how terribly the people of Logar had suffered, under first the cruel Russian soldiers and now the Afghan National Army, which had inherited the Soviets’ savagery.
“I will tell you a story,” said Rawani, “about one especially terrible day in Logar.”
Rawani began telling them about a village called Padkhwab-e Shana. The village had a remarkable gift: an underground river the villagers used for drinking and irrigation. In the fields, where farmers pastured their sheep and cattle, a complex irrigation system called a karez had been created over many years, allowing animals and crops to be watered easily from wells dug down into the flowing water source. In addition to surface channels that allowed easy irrigation, deep underground tunnels were built as well that preserved water during times of drought. They also provided shelter for villagers escaping bombardment.
Padkhwab-e Shana was built near a point where the river rises quite close to the earth’s surface and irrigates a vast and flourishing vineyard. Near the middle of the village, the stream naturally descends. Long ago, stairs were cut into the earth and a tunnel created. People would walk down these steps into a cool, dim cave and fill buckets of water for drinking, washing, and cooking.
About half a mile away, the Soviets had set up an encampment with seven thousand soldiers. Several years ago, Commander Rawani continued, early one morning, as dawn broke, warning came to the villagers that Soviet soldiers from the nearby garrison were en route to Padkhwab-e Shana to press-gang the village men and boys into military service. There was no time to escape into the countryside, so more than a hundred boys and men fled down the stairs into the tunnel leading to the underground river. When the Soviets arrived, all the males had vanished, except for the elders, who stood outside the village store, drinking tea.
The soldiers searched the homes, finding them empty. The Soviet commander assumed that the men and boys had hidden underground and angrily demanded that two of the elders go into the tunnel to tell everyone to come out of hiding. The elders descended the stairs and then returned, reporting that there was no one down there. Unfortunately, one of the men in hiding, named Sayyid Hassan, panicked, and came running up the stairs into the sunlight. The Soviet commander roared at the two elders, accusing them of lying.
Sayyid shook his head. Only one other villager was down there, he told him unconvincingly.
The Soviet commander ordered Sayyid to retrieve the man and bring him to the surface. Sayyid scurried down the carved clay stairs into the darkness but didn’t return.
The commander didn’t wait long. He turned to two soldiers and barked orders. They leaped into a military jeep and roared off in the direction of the Soviet garrison.
The return of the soldiers was first marked by a bright flash of sun on metal and dust churned by big tires. It wasn’t soldiers in jeeps who were coming but two large tankers. The commander talked to the drivers, who drove off and parked next to two well shafts. They got out and unleashed hoses from the huge vehicles. One began pumping gasoline into a well shaft. The other driver pumped kerosene into another well. The choking smell of petroleum drifted over the village like poison.
Several other Soviet soldiers, wearing protective gear and gas masks, and carrying bags of a dry white chemical, trotted down the tunnel stairs and emptied the bags into the gasoline-and-kerosene-infused waters. While this was going on, other soldiers rounded up the remaining villagers and pushed them together into a group to watch. Two more soldiers moved to the entrance of the tunnel leading down to the underground river and began firing into the hole. Explosions rocked the ground, shaking it like an earthquake, and the agonized shrieks of the dying rose from the tunnel.
They were burned alive—105 people. Twelve children were among the dead. It took a week for the villagers to winch out all the bodies.
Nasrin sat on the floor, stunned, blinking away tears. She had heard stories about the cruelty of the Soviets but nothing close to this. Commander Rawani apologized for telling such a tragic tale. But such sadism and cruelty were what the mujahideen had been fighting all these years, he said.
“When you arrive in Pakistan,” he added, “inform others what Afghans are enduring. Do not forget us.” He then smiled and said, “Tonight we will celebrate the new life that awaits you all!”
Later, in the dark, the women were cordoned off from the men in an area of the living room farthest from the open windows. There was no plastic covering these windows, and the freezing wind blew into every corner. Mozhdah and Masee snuggled next to Nasrin, curled up like kittens to keep warm. Nasrin kept Safee close to her chest, with the burka spread over top of her and the three children. She could hear the faint sound of men’s voices coming from rooms in the far end of the house and the constant trudge of footsteps. She couldn’t sleep, kept awake by the story of the cruel massacre, by the coins digging into her flesh, and by the cold wind that never ceased to blow.
BREAKFAST WAS EARLY—before the sun came up—consisting of tea and fresh naan that was baked outside by two men, former Afghan National Army soldiers who had been captured by Commander Rawani’s soldiers and turned into house servants. Nasrin had spoken briefly to them while she was boiling water in the kitchen. This fate, they said, was better than life in the Afghan army.
A truck and driver had been hired the previous day with the help of Commander Rawani.
“How much?” Nasrin whispered to Bashir.
“Eighty thousand Afghanis, split four ways,” Bashir replied.
“Will we have any money left after this?” Nasrin asked worriedly.
“A little,” he responded.
The truck was a six-wheeler, badly dented, with paint faded by dust, wind, and time. The truck bed had thick wooden slats topped by metal slats, and a latch door at the back. It would provide shelter from the wind while hiding them from prying eyes. Nasrin went to the back and looked inside, catching a whiff of manure. Obviously, the truck had been used for transporting livestock, but at least it had been swept out and doused with water.
Nasrin had refilled the thermos with boiled water and washed Safee’s baby bottles. Commander Rawani and the driver, a man in his fifties with a loosely tied green turban, skin as brown as cardamom pods, and hands blackened with motor oil, stood talking quietly, enjoying a cigarette. Another man, young—too young to grow a beard—tall, slender, and light of skin, cradling a heavy submachine gun with a huge drum magazine for bullets, stood with them.
The driver turned to the tired group. “We must go right away,” he said, “there are reports of army movement in the area.”
Bashir helped Nasrin into the back of the truck, then handed her Safee and the burlap sack, some fresh naan inside. When it came time to put