Veiled Freedom Read online

  “The trick is heavier material. These synthetics just slide right off.” A few deft tugs and tucks secured Amy’s scarf. “I’m guessing you’re new in town. Let me introduce myself. Debby Martini, New York.”

  “Oh, thank you, I’ve been fighting with that ever since I got here three days ago.” Amy could have hugged the American woman—or burst into tears on her shoulder. “I’m Amy Mallory, Miami. I’m country manager for New Hope Foundation, an NGO looking to set up projects for women and children at risk here in Kabul. That is, if I can ever get myself legally registered.” She held up passport and MOI card. “Are you here for this too?”

  “Oh no, I’ve been down the hall trying to cut some red tape for a project of my own. Unsuccessfully, I might add. But you shouldn’t be fighting with that. Where’s your fixer?”

  “I didn’t even know there was such a profession. Is that why people keep jumping to the head of the line? That doesn’t seem a very fair system.”

  “Fair or not, it’s the only way you’ll get anything done. Everything here runs on having the right contacts—or at least being able to pay for them. If I can’t cut my own red tape, I can certainly help with yours. My fixer can have you in and out in no time. Najibullah?”

  Only then did Amy realize a tall Afghan in Western dress lingering nearby was with Debby. The New Yorker plucked passport and MOI card from Amy’s hand with as little hesitation as she’d adjusted Amy’s head covering.

  Within minutes, Najibullah was waving them in front of an immigration official.

  Before Amy could follow Debby’s fixer through the door, Jamil intercepted her, narrow features frantic. “Miss Ameera, I turned to look for you, and you had disappeared. I was afraid I had lost you again—”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Amy broke in. “I should have told you where I was going.”

  Then they stepped into a much less crowded room where two officials stamped and signed cards at a rapid pace. Najibullah positioned Amy against a wall while a clerk snapped a digital camera. In five minutes, she had her card complete with photo and stamp.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Amy told Debby fervently. “I just wish there was something I could do to return your kindness. I’m so sorry your own paperwork wasn’t successful. Do you work with an NGO here in Kabul?”

  “I’m heading back stateside in a few days. I’ve been in town the last couple of months dealing with a project over at the women’s prison. Which is what I’m doing here. MOI oversees the police and the local prisons.”

  “The women’s prison? Then you’re in law enforcement?”

  Debby chuckled. “Back home I run a beauty salon. But I’ve got a friend who did a stint here after liberation as consultant for the new Ministry of Women. When I came over to visit, she took me to the women’s jail.” She shuddered. “It was like going back to the Middle Ages. A bunch of women in rags huddled in what was basically a dungeon. No heat. No sanitation. No medical care. Whatever food the prison guards didn’t siphon off for their own families.”

  The two women started walking down the hall, the male escorts at their heels.

  “When I got home, I raised enough money to come back and paint, clean some rooms, and add real bathrooms. We bought space heaters and blankets, set up a fund with a local NGO to get food and milk for the kids into the jail. We even brought in some pedal sewing machines and cloth so the prisoners could make clothes for themselves and learn a trade. Then I headed home, thinking I’d solved at least one of Afghanistan’s problems.”

  “I remember something about that,” Amy said. “Wasn’t there some CNN special on the place?”

  “Oh yes, there was a lot of interest, but it didn’t last. There’s always a fresh news story. Anyway, a few months ago, I was able to come back. I thought maybe we could do a similar project in another city.

  “Instead, I found the jail we’d fixed up here totally trashed. There were three times as many prisoners crowded into a couple of unfinished rooms. So I’ve spent the last two months fixing the place back up. This time no improvements that can be physically carried off. And at least now some other NGOs are getting involved in things like classes for the children.”

  The story was sounding depressingly familiar to Amy. “I’m surprised Kabul even has a women’s prison. As restricted as women are here, I wouldn’t think they’d have the chance to get into any real criminal activity. Is that why the prison’s grown so much—because women have more freedom of movement than under the Taliban?”

  Debby stopped dead in her tracks to stare at Amy. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  Amy and her new companion had reached the MOI compound’s front entrance.

  Debby eyed Amy. “Didn’t you say you were setting up projects for women and children at risk? I’m heading over to the jail right now. Why don’t you come with me and take a look to see what you think of the possibilities?”

  Female criminals were not on any project list Amy had remotely considered for New Hope. On the other hand, Debby had been enormously helpful, and thanks to her kindness, Amy was freed from those endless lines. “Well, I suppose I could. But I’ve got my driver with me and a car parked down the street.”

  “Bring him along. That way you can leave any time you’re bored.” Debby turned to address Jamil. “Do you know the Welayat, the prison?”

  He hunched his thin shoulders. “Everyone knows the Welayat.”

  “Then how about I meet you there in a half hour? The women’s section is around back. Look for a green door. Here’s my card with cell phone number if you can’t find me.”

  Feeling as though she’d been caught up by a benevolent whirlwind, Amy took the card. Out on the street, Debby bustled away, Najibullah lengthening his strides after her.

  Amy followed Jamil in the opposite direction to the Corolla. Was she imagining that her assistant seemed even more somber and silent than usual?

  Their underage guard was still on duty, the vehicle intact. Amy dug out another coin as reward.

  Jamil was pulling out into traffic when he spoke up. “I must beg your forgiveness, Miss Ameera. I have failed you. Rasheed will be angry.”

  “For what?” Amy demanded, puzzled.

  “Your papers. The foreign woman is right. I have been gone too long from this city. I do not have the proper contacts or knowledge to be an adequate assistant to you.”

  “That isn’t true. I didn’t hire you for this fixer job,” Amy responded vehemently. “You’ve done a wonderful job translating for me and now driving and everything else. I’ll make sure Rasheed knows that too. And if we really do need someone to deal with red tape, we’ll just have to see about hiring someone.”

  Jamil nodded, but his expression lightened fractionally. His knowledge of city layout was at least adequate because he showed no hesitation in following Debby’s directions. The Welayat proved to be another tall wall topped with concertina wire, though the compound behind this one was much larger, covering several city blocks. Amy spotted the green door as Jamil turned into an unpaved parking lot.

  Debby and Najibullah emerged from a white Land Cruiser lettered USAID across the door panels. Only as the Corolla pulled into the adjoining dirt patch did Amy realize they weren’t alone. Two other women were climbing down from the SUV. One was a petite Asian in pantsuit and high heels, her headscarf the scantiest Amy had seen in Afghanistan.

  “I’m so glad you could make it,” Debby greeted Amy cheerfully. “This is Alisha Chan with USAID.” Which explained the Land Cruiser. “She’s been spearheading a children’s project at the women’s prison. Alisha, this is Amy.”

  Debby gestured toward the second newcomer. “And this is Soraya from right here in Kabul. She’ll be translating for us.”

  The guidebook Amy had perused on the plane covered Afghanistan’s ethnic tapestry. The northern Uzbeks and Tajiks were as fair as many Europeans. Hazaras, an often persecuted minority group, were descendants of Genghis Khan’s invading Mongolian hordes. Pashtuns, Afghanist
an’s largest ethnic group, were related to the Pakistanis. Somewhere in her later thirties or forties, Soraya looked Pashtun. Dark, curly hair escaping under her scarf. Smooth, olive features with a high-bridged nose. Elongated dark eyes with impossibly long lashes. Her chapan, an ankle-length buttoned-up robe, looked like real silk, and she carried herself with authority Amy had not yet seen in an Afghan woman.

  “I am pleased to meet you,” Soraya murmured, her gaze cool as she leaned forward to kiss Amy—left, right, left—as though rebuking these foreigners for the paucity of their welcome.

  “Soraya just finished her master’s in defense law at Kabul University,” Debby announced. “She was one of only three women. Finally some new women’s lawyers here.”

  “But I will not work as a lawyer,” Soraya stated.

  Debby stared at her in dismay. “Why not?”

  Soraya’s shoulders rose and fell. “The Women’s Ministry offers perhaps fifty euros a month. Far less than a translator. My family is accustomed to my earning a higher wage. And there is no other call in Kabul for women lawyers.”

  “Isn’t that the way it always is,” Debby muttered. “We invest money on training, and the graduates still all end up working for NGOs because they’re the only ones who can afford a decent wage.”

  Catching a flash in Soraya’s dark eyes, Amy spoke up quickly. “You speak very good English, Soraya.”

  Soraya turned an unreadable gaze on Amy. “Yes, I studied in the university before the Taliban came. And I have been working for foreign companies since they left. I speak Dari and Urdu and French as well as Pashto and English.”

  Which explained the proud lift of the head and air of authority. Afghanistan’s small professional class lived on a different planet from its illiterate peasant majority.

  “In time things will change,” Alisha Chan said. “Afghan women will be able to hire their own lawyers. Meanwhile, I’m thankful you’ve been available to me these last months.”

  Soraya said nothing as Debby steered their party across a plank footbridge laid over a trench to the green door.

  Amy looked back along the tall wall, any number of buildings visible above the concertina wire. “All this is a woman’s prison?”

  “Thank goodness, no,” Debby said quickly. “The Welayat includes a good part of the judicial system—courts, legal offices, administration, and the men’s prison. We’re just this wing.”

  Debby knocked on the green door. It swung open, a small, round woman, head wrapped in a bright red shawl, peering out. Suspicious eyes and hard expression dissolved to a smile at the sight of her visitors.

  “Geeti, so nice to see you again,” Debby effused. To Amy, she added, “Geeti is the women’s warden.”

  The warden led her visitors down a dark corridor and through another metal door. As they emerged back into daylight, Debby demanded, “What happened to the electricity? It was working the other day.”

  “The lighting tubes are burned out,” Soraya translated Geeti’s indifferent shrug. “They have been switching them from other rooms, but now there are no more. Besides, the electricity only comes a few hours a day.”

  The women’s prison was laid out like the New Hope compound, if on a much bigger scale, three wings around a central courtyard. Green paint was peeling and dirty, but walls and roof tiles had been recently patched.

  “That wing belongs to the guards,” Debby pointed out as they followed Geeti across the courtyard. “That one’s offices. The prisoners are over here.”

  Amy hadn’t needed that final identification. All windows had shutters and bars, but where Debby gestured, the bars were newly painted and set solidly in fresh concrete. The courtyard was empty, but behind those bars, silent, draped shapes stood watching the newcomers. Amy spotted a small, pale face pressed up to one window. At Geeti’s irate shout, the face abruptly disappeared.

  “Why don’t we see the children first? That’s Alisha’s USAID project,” Debby explained to Amy. Then her glance moved past Amy, and she frowned. “Great. What’s he doing here?”

  Najibullah had stayed outside with the vehicles, but Jamil had followed on Amy’s heels as automatically and noiselessly as always. Her shadow, Amy was beginning to think of him.

  “I should have warned you to leave him outside. Male visitors are hardly appropriate in here.”

  “Oh, nonsense.” Alisha waved a dismissive hand. “I bring male reporters and State Department personnel through here all the time. The prison officials have never said anything.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll bet they never asked the women. With everything else, the last thing they should have to endure is a bunch of men traipsing through staring at them. Anyway, no big deal.” Debby turned to Jamil. “You can stay with the kids while we visit the women.”

  They’d reached the other side of the courtyard. Geeti lifted a heavy key ring from her waist to unlock a metal door. Another unlit corridor led to a large room that was bright and cheerful, daylight streaming through open shutters to reflect from daffodil yellow walls, green matting alleviating the chill of concrete underfoot. A curious decorative pattern to shoulder height proved on closer examination to be the dirty prints of myriad small hands.

  On the matting, several dozen children sat cross-legged, chanting as an elderly Afghan woman tapped a series of swirls and dots on a blackboard. The Dari alphabet. One small body clad in a pale pink tunic stood against the far wall, hands clasped behind her back. Amy recognized the face at the window.

  “These are the school-age children,” Alisha explained. “We offer a kinder-level class in the mornings with a locally hired teacher. They’re all pretty well on that level, regardless of age.”

  Amy had already noted the students’ wide age span from preschool up through eleven or twelve. “So how many kids are in the jail altogether?”

  “About seventy or eighty. Almost as many as the women prisoners. Though only half are old enough for classes.”

  The single teacher had maintained admirable control of such a large class—until the children spotted their visitors. They surrounded the newcomers, hugging, patting, tugging. The small girl from the window chose this moment to overcome bashfulness, rushing forward to throw her arms around Amy. There was time for a hug before the teacher scolded and shooed the children away. The girl in the pink tunic burst into tears, holding out her arms to Amy as she was led away.

  “Sorry about that,” Alisha said. “They do that with any visitors. Inexperienced aid workers are always amazed the kids seem so loving. In reality, it’s not a good sign. An emotionally healthy child doesn’t offer affection to random strangers. That’s what parents are for. Most of these kids get so little emotional support; they crave human touch from anyone.”

  The small girl’s wails wrung Amy’s heart. The destroying of a childhood was perhaps the worst evil for which a place like this had to answer. Still, the kids looked better fed than the waifs Amy had seen begging on street corners and probably lived better than a good percentage of Kabul’s poor. Amy had been bracing herself for much worse and was beginning to wonder why Debby had dragged her here. However much sympathy she felt, New Hope wasn’t in the market for a project another NGO was clearly doing well.

  Alisha stepped away to talk with the children’s teacher, Soraya at her side to translate.

  Debby’s own Dari was enough to manage a simple exchange with Geeti. Then she beckoned to Amy. “While they’re busy, let me introduce you to some of the prisoners. Oh, and tell that driver of yours to stay here. We’ll be back soon.”

  Jamil rested his shoulders against a wall as Amy followed Debby. The room into which Geeti led next was as gloomy as the schoolroom had been cheerful. It took Amy a moment to puzzle out that this wasn’t due to the furnishings. The walls were painted the same hand-printed yellow. Green matting was lined neatly with tushaks, the flat cushions Afghans used for both sofa and bed. Open shutters let in a dusty breeze, the window bars laying a striped pattern of light and dark across the floor.


  Gloom came from mounds of cloth huddled silently against the wall on each tushak. Only when a mound stirred, a head turning to reveal eyes glittering above a tightly drawn scarf, did Amy recognize that each mound was a woman. A hook above each cushion held a bag. The prisoners’ personal belongings.

  Gloom came too from the smell. A depressing stench of unwashed bodies and urine and illness. Even more, of hopelessness and despair. Amy was beginning to understand Debby’s fervor. Even the worst criminal deserved better than this.

  “So what are they all in for?”

  A few women raised their heads and turned their eyes to the visitors. Others hadn’t moved. The closest to Amy clutched a tight-wrapped bundle, its surface rising and falling in gentle rhythm. A sleeping child.

  “Zina, mostly. That means unlawful sexual contact.”

  “Prostitution, you mean?”

  “Actually, it could mean anything from adultery to simply sitting down next to a man unrelated by blood. Or on the flip side, defying male authority, especially in connection to marriage. Take Meetra here, for instance.”

  Lowering to a crouch beside the woman with the sleeping bundle, Debby dug into a large handbag and produced a handful of Baggies filled with dried fruits. She offered one first to Geeti, who snatched it, before turning to the prisoner. “Salaam aleykum.

  “At fourteen Meetra was married off to her cousin in Pakistan. She had a son and was pregnant with her daughter when a neighbor kidnapped her and sold her over the border to an Afghan. She’s never seen her son since. Her new husband abused her. When the baby was two, he got so enraged, he beat the little girl to death. Meetra was brave—or heartbroken—enough to go to the authorities. The man ended up going to prison for murder. But Meetra was handed a six-year sentence for adultery, even though she was a kidnap victim. By then she was pregnant again. Her son was born here in the prison. The man who killed her daughter has already paid his fine and will be out before she is.”