Greater Province of Kabul

City of Kabul - Murrad Khani District

Same Day

The electricity was out across the neighbourhood and Nara was forced to finish her night-time prayers by the flame of a sooty gas lamp. In her thoughts were the lives of the deserter, Officer Fyodor Mazurov, and his lover, Ara, a woman Nara had previously admired as a progressive figure in their neighbourhood. Educated, employed, and intelligent, Ara had been a role model. Though she had behaved according to her duties, she wondered if she’d been right to inform Captain Vashchenko that Ara was their prime suspect. Had she not, Leo might have been able to save both of them. Yet their predicament could hardly be seen as Nara’s fault. She’d merely reported on their actions. They must carry responsibility. Not convinced by her own rationale, her prayers were interrupted by doubts. Ara would suffer shame and possibly physical violence. No matter how liberal her father might appear as a Communist minister, sexual politics were separate from mainstream politics and his attitudeowards this romance would be conservative. Fyodor would be tried by a military court. Ara would be judged and sentenced by her father.

Breathing deeply, without a sense of composure and balance she normally hoped to achieve through her prayers, she rolled up her mat. It was not expected for a woman to pray in congregation, the emphasis was upon private worship. Though there were no theological reasons why she should be prevented from praying in mosques, the conditions placed upon her attendance were so strict it made public worship onerous. At her last visit she had been accused of wearing perfume, eventually conceding that she’d used soap to wash her hands and that the soap may have been fragranced. After the humiliation of being sniffed by a jury of men, she now prayed in private.

Glancing around her room, at the prayer mat, the clothes, wardrobe, chair, lamp, she thought upon Comrade’s Demidov’s lesson. If an agent were to search her room the only possessions that revealed something distinct and controversial about her were those given to her by the Soviets – an exercise book and a cheap pen. Normally when she wanted to study she was forced to smuggle her textbooks into her bedroom. The books were stashed outside, sealed in plastic against weather and dirt, in a crevice in the broken mud-brickwork of the narrow side street. It was laborious to remove them without being seen by the neighbours or the boys who played in the alley and she often wondered if she was being excessively cautious, whether her training had altered her judgement. Caution made sense as a tactic: if her parents had reacted coolly to her enrolling in university it was troubling to conceive of their anger at her new occupation, working for the Afghan secret police.

Nara’s father, Memar, was one of the country’s leading architects. Appointed leader of his guild, he’d been elected as a liaison to the State functionaries, making him one of the most influential voices when it came to any major construction project in Kabul. A veteran of his craft, known as a master, ustad, he ran a programme for apprentices, including Nara’s older brother. Her brother had squandered the advantages handed to him. He was lazy, spending most of his time racing through the streets of Kabul on a customized, imported motorbike, impressing his friends. Handsome and popular, he was more interested in socializing than study. Nara had never been asked if she wanted to enrol in the programme, nor had she visited one of her father’s construction sites. The possibility of following his career had not only been denied to her, it had never even been imagined. He did not and would not discuss his affairs directly with her. In order to know anything about him she’d been forced to do her own investigations, listening to private conversations, reading his letters – a precursor to the profession she’d chosen.

She’d been able to discover that he had moved to Kabul from the countryside as a young man, funded by his own father, who’d made money smuggling animal skins and karakul fleeces across the Afghanistan–China border. He’d arrived intending to support his family back home, a village suffering from poor harvests in one of the worst droughts the country had ever seen. Keen to fit in with the established middle classes, he was worried that religious conservatism would make him appear provincial. Wealthy and devout, the driving forces of his life were religion and commerce, two energies that did not always harmonize. His business acumen allowed him to compromise. Nara attended school because so did the daughters of his clients. He tolerated her decision not to wear the chador only because his clients did not make their daughters wear it. For a daughter not to wear a veil was a powerfr harvestocial signal, one dating back to 1959 when women from bourgeoisie families appeared without their veils during the Anniversary of Independence Day in Kabul. But Nara was under no illusion that her father’s tolerance was anything more than a commercial strategy. At heart he was strict and pious, and her education vexed him greatly. In business he’d achieved everything he’d set out to accomplish. With regards to his family, he had not. His children consisted of a simpleton son and an unmarried daughter.

Nara spent many hours worrying about the fracture in their family. Not only was she unmarried, no one was courting her, not even the sons of the elite who claimed to be open-minded about her education. In practice even the most liberal men preferred a traditional wife, which was surely why the educated Ara had risked a relationship with a Soviet soldier. No one else would fall in love with her. The same was surely true for Nara. The difference was that she’d resigned herself to this fate.

Nara could have made the decision to split with her family and move out. However, no matter what their difficulties, she loved her parents and understood that moving out might mean losing them altogether. They would not visit her. She couldn’t accept there wasn’t a compromise. Her father had compromised before: his career was founded upon it. Compromise was the country’s future. The new Afghan president understood that. He’d compromised on the issue of faith. Many enemies of the State had claimed it was impossible to work for the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan while remaining a Muslim. They argued Communism meant bombing mosques and burning the Qur’an. The new president had taken a conciliatory approach towards Islam. Even with regards to the inflammatory issue of female education, the argument made in its defence had been drawn from scripture, quoting the passage in the Qur’an that described the creation of man and woman:

There was a religious foundation to ideas of equality. Nara needed to somehow communicate this with her parents. Her faith might take a different form to the worship they recognized but it was just as strong. She considered her family a test model, a microcosm for the country. If she gave up on her family how could she work towards uniting the country?

Nara got into bed, too tired to read or think any more. She wanted to sleep, exhausted by the day’s events. She was about to blow out the lamp when she heard a noise. Her parents and brothers weren’t at home. They’d gone to visit family in the countryside outside Kabul, a family that Nara had no relationship with. The extended family embodied the worst side of tradition and they would not accept her even as their guest. She crouched on her bed and opened the window. The property had been built on a steep rise of hillside. They lived in the top-floor apartment. She peered into the alley, the hiding place for her textbooks. There was nothing to see. She heard the noise again, a creaking sound. It was coming from inside the apartment.

She got out of bed, leaving her room, bare feet moving silently towards the front door. Their apartment was reached by a narrow brick stairway. Whenever anyone climbed the stairs the timber doorframe creaked. Usually Nara felt no fear even when she alone. There was a security gate at the bottom of the stairwayer frid of thick steel bars. The gate was padlocked. There was no way an intruder could reach the front door. Nara stepped forward, ear pressed against the timber. She waited.

Whether by the force of the door smashing, or out of shock, Nara fell to the floor, looking up to see two men enter the apartment, kicking aside the remains of the timber frame. Nara’s body reacted faster than her thoughts: she was up on her feet, scrambling towards the bedroom. One of the men knocked her to the ground. Clawing her way out from under his body, she reached the bedroom. As she got to her knees, the second man kicked her. The pain was unlike any she’d experienced before, a detonation inside her stomach. She collapsed and curled up into a ball, struggling for breath.

The man stared down at her with hate-filled eyes, a stranger who spoke with so much anger in his voice it was as if he’d known her personally.

—You betrayed your country.

While he spoke the other man dropped onto Nara, pinning her to the floor. He sat on her chest, his weight forcing the breath out of her lungs. Handed her notebooks, he proceeded to rip them apart, the pages of neat text, the quotes by Stalin, the lessons taught by Leo Demidov, shredded and falling about her face. With a fistful of paper, he tried to force the fragments into her mouth. She pressed her lips shut. The man responded by lifting himself up from her stomach, relieving the pressure, before dropping back down. As she gasped he shoved the paper inside her mouth, his knuckles on her teeth, filling her mouth. The man standing over them commented:

—You wanted an education…

Nara could not breathe. She scratched at the man’s face. He slapped her hands away, pushing more paper into her mouth. There was so much it was pressing down her throat, causing her to gag. She flailed, helpless, hooking onto her bed-sheets, pulling them down.

Unable to focus, her vision blurring, her hand clasped something – the pen used to write her notes. Gripping it tight, she clicked the nib and swung it at her attacker. It entered his neck. She was weak from the attack but it went deep enough to make him cry out. His hands came loose. Free from his grip, she spat out some of the notes, sucking in a partial breath. Able to see again, her thoughts coming together, her strength returning, she forced the pen in deeper, pushing as hard as she could, feeling his blood run down her hand. He toppled, falling on his side.

Nara stood up in disbelief at her sudden freedom, spitting out the rest of notes. She jumped onto the bed, moving as far away as possible within the confines of the small room. The second man was by his partner’s side. He removed the pen, causing blood to gush. In the ensuing confusion, the man hopelessly trying to stem the bleeding, Nara assessed the distance to the door. She would pass too close to her attackers. Even if she did sneak past she would be caught in the living room, or the stairway. Feeling the cool night breeze on her bare feet she turned around, facing the window. It was her only chance of escape. She stepped onto the ledge, climbing onto the roof.

With no electricity, there was no residual light from the streets. The city was dark, the blackout stretching across the neighbourhood like an oil slick, spreading across the valley and up distant hills, broken only by the flicker of gas lamps and candles. The more expensive properties and the government buildings had diesel generators and they dazzled: ghettoes of brightness.

She heard the remaining attacker’s hand slap down on the roof beside her and set off across the roof, bare feet against the concrete, directing herself towards her neighbours’ house, unable to distinguish between the darkness of the roofs and the darkness of the space in between. As her toes crossed the edge of her roof she pushed off, jumping as high as she could manage. Her feet spun in the air before landing on the adjacent roof. She tumbled forward, picking herself up and running again. There were heavy vibrations as her attacker landed behind her. She didn’t look back, running as fast as she could, the soles of her feet across the rough concrete, her eyes adjusting. She jumped, landing nimbly onto the next roof. She’d only taken a couple of steps when once again she felt vibrations – he was gaining. Unable to resist the urge to look back she saw his dark form only metres behind her, arms reaching out. Desperate, she turned forward, assessing the gap. It was too far. She’d never jump the distance. But she had nothing to lose.

Her feet left the roof, her body rising into the air. For a moment she was sure she’d land safely, then she began to fall, short of the next roof, hitting the side of the house. She was knocked back, tumbling down. With one hand she grabbed a window ledge. Unable to hold her weight, her fingers slipped and she fell again, landing awkwardly.

She lay still, unsure if she could move. Testing her body, lifting herself up, she felt pain but not enough to stop her. She waited, holding her breath. He hadn’t made the jump: she would’ve heard him. She peered up into the starry night sky, saw his dark form on the edge of the roof. He disappeared. He was searching for another way down.

She picked herself up, hobbling down the alley, stumbling, running, turning blindly. Her only advantage was the blackout, making her harder to follow. Reaching a main street, with no idea where she was or how far she’d run, she saw a woman entering a house. She ran towards her, pleading:

—Help me.

Nara was indecent, half naked, covered in dirt and mud. The woman shut the door.

With a stutter the electricity came back on. Streetlights flickered, purring overhead – illuminating her position.