Part 5 (1/2)

Kamila was expecting this; it had been Malika's concern as well.

”Well, I've thought about this, too,” she replied. ”First of all, a lot of women are working at home now, like Dr. Maryam. The Taliban know she is just treating sick ladies and trying to help the community, so they don't ever come to her clinic. We'll operate the same way: we'll make sure everyone in our section of Khair Khana knows we are only women sewing-we won't tell them about your embroidery at night!-and that we don't ever, ever allow men or strangers to come to the house. We'll send all the girls who come from the neighborhood home well before dark, so no one coming from our house will ever be seen wandering the streets after hours. Or at the time of prayer. And we'll work as discreetly as possible: we'll be quiet, of course, and we'll keep the gate closed at all times. Plus all the girls will be required to wear the full chadri whenever they come to our house. If we're strict about following these rules, and only work with honorable girls from around here, I think we'll be okay.”

”That's true,” Rahim agreed. ”A lot of my friends from school have mothers and sisters who are working at home. Most of them are teaching the Holy Q'uran and math and Dari lessons. They're not really running businesses, as we are. The tailoring school might actually be easier to manage, since you're just teaching women traditional kinds of handiwork they can do in their own houses.

”So,” he continued, ”when will you begin?”

”Next week,” Kamila said.

”Of course!” Rahim said, unable to suppress a quiet chuckle. ”You're Kamila: why wait when you can start right away?”

Kamila grinned back at him from behind her chadri.

”You mean Roya Jan.”

”Yes, of course! Let me know how I can help you get things started. And be sure to keep leaving me piles of work I can do when I come back from school. I'm actually getting pretty good at it, you know. A bunch of the boys in my cla.s.s are learning embroidery and sewing, too, but I don't think any of them has as good a teacher as Saaman.”

Instinctively, as they approached Lycee Myriam, they both fell silent.

After they entered Ali's store, Kamila unloaded her bag and waited quietly as the teenager opened the square bundle and counted the garments inside. Kamila was relieved to see he looked pleased.

Ali placed a handful of the dresses and pantsuits on the wooden shelf behind him, and after glancing at the door he turned back to the siblings.

”I have some news about my older brother Hamid,” Ali said, and he began another family story, one Mahmood had hinted at during their delivery trip to his shop the week before. ”For years he sold women's perfumes and cosmetics and things in Jabul Saraj, but when the fighting got close, everyone stopped shopping. So he started driving a taxi to help his family. One day he picked up a man who worked with Ma.s.soud's forces, and he warned my brother that another Taliban offensive was about to begin. Hamid rushed home to get his wife and his children-he had already tried to send them here with other families to escape the fighting, but their driver had gotten lost during the trip and his wife was too scared to travel without him again. Anyway, at last they've all made it safely here to Kabul.”

Ali glanced out the window and continued. ”Mahmood and I helped Hamid to open a tailoring shop close by; we figured that would be easiest for everyone, since we have a lot of customers, including Talibs who come to buy dresses for their families. And we know reliable seamstresses like you and your sisters, so stocking his store won't be a problem.”

He handed Kamila an envelope with payment for the clothes. ”Hamid is just back from Pakistan; he went to buy dresses to sell at his store. But I'd like to introduce you to him; he probably will still want to order a few things from you.”

Kamila nodded in grat.i.tude, and in moments the three of them were making their way down the block to a cramped storefront with one rectangular window and an entryway three steps above the street. Inside a man was standing on a stack of boxes putting the final touches on a display of dresses that was hanging from the ceiling. He was taller than Ali and clearly several years older. Heart-shaped red plastic containers and portable grooming kits with small metal scissors filled the display case beneath the gla.s.s counter. A stack of black flat shoes with dainty bows sat on their pink boxes against the wall.

Exchanging greetings, the brothers briefly embraced in a loose shoulder hug. Then Ali turned to Kamila and Rahim and announced the reason for their unexpected visit. ”Hamid, this is Roya and Roya's brother, Rahim. Their parents are from Parwan and they started a tailoring business with their sisters here in Khair Khana to help support their family. Roya and her sisters are among our best seamstresses; they've made a lot of pantsuits and dresses, and some very nice wedding gowns for my store and Mahmood's. If you have work for her, I know you will find her an honorable and trustworthy person.”

Hamid was indeed ready to place an order; his trip to Pakistan had been productive, he told them, but difficult with all the checkpoints. ”I don't think I'll be going back there anytime soon.” He ordered eight dresses like the beautiful beaded ones he had seen hanging in his brother's shop.

”Once I get more settled, and I know my customers' tastes a little better, we can discuss some other designs,” Hamid told Kamila. ”Right now I've got my hands full just trying to unpack all the boxes I've brought from my old shop in Jabul Saraj.” He handed Rahim a plastic bag that held several bundles of light-colored fabric. ”To help your sisters get started on my order.”

Time was pa.s.sing and Kamila was eager to be on her way, but Hamid turned to his younger brother.

”Ali, I saw something terrible the other day,” he whispered. ”I was delivering the dresses I had brought from Pakistan, and I was in a store over there on the next street waiting for the shopkeeper to pay me. There was a woman shopping with her daughter. She was very old, very small, and she could barely see. So she opened her chadri for only a moment to look at the dresses on the display case. Just then the Amr bil-Maroof came running into the store yelling about how women should never show themselves in public, how it was forbidden. The Talib hit her in the face, knocked her onto the ground. I couldn't believe it. She cried out, asking him why he would hit an old woman who could easily be his grandmother. But the soldier just smacked her again. He said she was an indecent woman and called her all sorts of names. It was unbelievable.”

The five of them stood in silence until Ali finally said, ”Roya, you'd better be going. We've all been talking for too long. ... It's not safe.” His voice drifted off as he finished his sentence.

”Thank you, both,” she replied, while Rahim gathered up their bags. ”We'll be back next week with your dresses, Hamid.” She and her brother left the store, grateful for the cold spring air that greeted them.

”Please be careful,” she heard Ali call out as the door closed behind them. ”May G.o.d protect you.”

They walked without speaking for the next half hour.

Within a week, the school began to take shape. The neighborhood grapevine spread the word that young women were gathering for cla.s.ses at the Sidiqi home, and students started flocking to the house each morning, ready to learn and to work. Though some schools in the neighborhood were charging a small fee, Kamila had decided it was better not to; the girls would pay nothing while they were learning, and in exchange they wouldn't earn a salary until their training period ended. During their apprentices.h.i.+p they would help make garments that Kamila could take to the market, so their work would contribute to the business almost immediately. How soon a girl completed her training depended on both her skills and her commitment to her work. Only Kamila and Sara would have the final say on that question, with input from their teachers, Saaman and Laila.

Enthusiastically a.s.sisting Kamila and her sisters was their new helper Neelab, a young neighborhood girl whose father was a tailor. Neelab's mother had cornered Kamila in the grocery store across the street one afternoon while she and Rahim were buying oil and rice. She had begged Kamila to take the young girl in. ”My husband has no work and we can't afford to feed everyone in our house,” the woman had told Kamila, her voice thick with despair. ”I hear you and your sisters are running a good business. Can you find work for our daughter? I promise she will work hard for you and do whatever you and your sisters need.”

Kamila had agreed on the spot, unable to refuse a neighbor's entreaty. She knew the girl to be a lovely child, respectful and well behaved, and she felt for her mother, who was clearly carrying a heavy burden. But there was another benefit to having her around: she could serve as a mahram mahram who could go out in the street and see what was happening when Rahim was at cla.s.s or away from home. Young girls needed no chadri and often functioned as boys, moving freely in public without being bothered so long as they dressed modestly and looked well below the age at which they must be veiled, which now seemed to fall somewhere around twelve or thirteen, though no one knew for certain. who could go out in the street and see what was happening when Rahim was at cla.s.s or away from home. Young girls needed no chadri and often functioned as boys, moving freely in public without being bothered so long as they dressed modestly and looked well below the age at which they must be veiled, which now seemed to fall somewhere around twelve or thirteen, though no one knew for certain.

In only a short time Neelab had proven herself to be an able and hardworking apprentice; she arrived early each morning with a bright smile to help Laila prepare the family's breakfast. Then she turned to the household work and anything else that needed doing, including running out to the store nearby for stray items Rahim might have forgotten or accompanying Kamila on short trips to Lycee Myriam. Neelab was grateful to be there, with girls who enjoyed having her around and appreciated her help. Already she was calling Kamila and Malika her ”aunties,” a term of respect and endearment for an older woman who, though unrelated by blood, was nonetheless family.

For their part, Neelab's aunties understood only too well the risks involved with growing their venture. Malika and Kamila had discussed them many times, and Kamila had kept her promise to stay well within the boundaries of the Taliban's edicts. Before accepting any of the girls to their program, Kamila and her sisters made sure the students knew the school's rules, and each young woman received a lecture from Sara the day she arrived that laid them out.

”The rules are here to be followed,” Sara would tell the girls in a firm voice. ”No exceptions. If you have come here to work, you are welcome. If you have come here to goof off or eat a nice lunch or just to have fun, this is not the place for you.”

Then she would recite the house regulations.

”First, you must wear a chadri and you must keep it on until you are safely inside the house. A large veil is not enough. We know that chadri are expensive, so if you have a problem paying for it, we can help you. As for your clothing, please stick to simple attire-baggy pants, long-sleeved tops, and no white shoes; that is the color of the Taliban flag and they have forbidden it. And no nail polish. The Taliban can see your hands from underneath the chadri and they always watch out for that.

”Second, no talking loudly or laughing in the streets on your way to this house. Our neighbors support our business because we support the community, and we don't want any problems for them or for us. If the Taliban comes here to crack down on our work, that would be bad news for the girls here but also for all of the families around us.

”Third, never, ever talk to men other than your mahram mahram on the way here. If you see other girls who are working here doing so you must tell me immediately. Anyone caught speaking to a man of any age will be asked to leave. At once. on the way here. If you see other girls who are working here doing so you must tell me immediately. Anyone caught speaking to a man of any age will be asked to leave. At once.

”We have these rules to protect Kamila and her sisters as well as yourself and all the other girls in this house and we don't make any exceptions.”

Once she had finished, Sara would soften just a bit. ”So please, for everyone's sake, don't do anything that would jeopardize our work. But while you are here we want you to learn and to have fun.”

Three weeks on, the school was growing fast, and so was the number of orders that were coming in from Lycee Myriam. They had started in the spring of 1997 with four girls and were now at thirty-four and climbing; in the past few days three more young women had come to the house inquiring about the workshop. The operation was thriving, and now Kamila had to face the issue that both Malika and Rahim had raised at the beginning: how to manage the number of young women who were streaming to the house each day. On any given morning as many as a dozen girls from around Khair Khana would arrive for cla.s.ses, and in the afternoon another group came for the second session, just as Kamila had envisioned. In addition there were the women who came by to pick up thread and fabric for dresses they would sew in their own homes and bring back a few days later. The girls worried that their house, which was becoming a real hub for women all around the neighborhood, would attract unwanted attention. They wanted more than anything to work invisibly, but this was becoming increasingly difficult.

We need some kind of a system, Kamila thought. Otherwise, one day there will be too many girls here at once and who knows what will happen.

Her own sister's experience served as a somber reminder of what could go wrong. While still living in Karteh Parwan, Malika had run cla.s.ses from her living room each morning, teaching young girls the Holy Q'uran. The lessons matched the girls' education: courses for those who knew how to read and write would focus on studying and reciting the Holy Book; girls who had not yet been in school long enough to become literate would learn reading and writing as the foundation for their study.

One day not long before moving to Khair Khana, Malika had been called away from her students to attend to a visitor, a former colleague who had arrived unexpectedly. In their teacher's absence, the girls had forgotten her oft-repeated warning to leave one by one rather than as a group, and they had poured out into the street all at once only to collide with a Taliban patrol at the end of the lane. At the neighborhood mosque that night the mullah had railed against the threat posed by Malika's school. ”We know that girls are being taught in violation of our law, and this must stop at once,” he had warned. Malika's husband and his cousin had insisted to the Talibs who patrolled the mosque-local men whom they had known for years-that Malika was simply teaching the Holy Q'uran. Surely the soldiers could have no objection to that, they said, since education is the duty of all Muslims. The answer they received was telling: They had no problem with her work, the soldiers insisted, and knew Malika to be a good and religious woman. They would be happy for her to continue teaching, and would even send their own daughters to her school if they could. Their bosses, however, would never allow it. She must stop her cla.s.ses right away, they warned, or there would be problems for everyone. Their blunt message left no room for negotiating. Malika closed her school within a week.

Kamila thought about this story often, now that she was in the same position her sister had been in. And if it could happen to Malika-known in her neighborhood as among the most responsible and devout members of her community-it could surely happen to her.

She called Sara and the girls together to discuss the issue and come up with a solution over breakfast at seven o'clock one morning, well before their students arrived.

”Kamila, I think we need to set up a strict schedule that everyone has to stick to from now on,” Laila volunteered. ”We can distribute sewing supply kits to each woman on a set day every week, so that we know who is coming by when. And Saaman and I can organize the students so we don't have more than fifteen or twenty here at any one time. That's a lot, but I think we can manage it, and it's enough people to let us plow through a bunch of orders every day.”

Kamila had to disguise her surprise as she listened to her sister. She was barely sixteen and she had a.s.sumed such responsibility in the past six months! ”Yes, I agree; that's a good idea,” she replied. ”If you and Saaman will put a schedule together for the girls, we can post it near the front door at the beginning of every week so everyone knows when they should be here.”

”And we'll make it clear that no one can change her days without telling us, and that their dresses absolutely must be turned in on time,” Sara added. ”That will help avoid the problem we had last week when two girls brought their work later than we expected and Kamila Jan had to go back to the market with Neelab instead of Rahim. It's just too dangerous right now for us to risk that kind of thing if we can avoid it.”

”While we're sitting here, I think we need to talk about s.p.a.ce,” Saaman said. ”I mean the fact that we are running out of it.”

Already their work had expanded from the living room into the dining room, and it was threatening to spread farther still into the last remaining family room. Dresses now hung from all sorts of unusual s.p.a.ces, from doorframes and table corners to the backs of chairs. The front rooms of the family home had been transformed into a workshop that regularly ran fifteen hours a day at full capacity. Chairs forming a U filled the living room so that cla.s.ses could be taught in the center and the girls could see their cla.s.smates' work, though some young women still preferred to sew sitting cross-legged on the floor. Hurricane lamps lit the rectangular room from each corner, since sunlight faded out of the sitting area in the late morning. When dusk arrived, the girls moved the lamps nearer to them, their narrow flames forming mobile orbs of light around the small sewing stations. Two zigzag machines, Kamila's first big investment in the business, sat together in a corner toward the entrance to the kitchen. They could be used only a few hours each day, when power was available. If it came on at all.

Kamila looked around and nodded in agreement. ”I know,” she said. ”But I'm not sure how much we can do about that. I've been thinking about buying a generator from Lycee Myriam. It would be really expensive, but if we had power, we could get our work done a lot faster. All that sewing by hand takes so much time. Right now we're busy seven days a week and we're still struggling to get all our orders finished on time. Thank goodness for the students, and the fact that they are working as hard as we are!”