R. Harper Mason

THE WARLORD’S
DAUGHTER
LOVE AND WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

By

R. HARPER MASON
ONE
Tension
Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the compound of his Excellency Gen. Shair al-Masoud
Nafisa al-Masoud, the general’s eldest daughter, sat on her elaborately embroidered bedspread and nervously wadded up a thin cotton blanket until it was a wrinkled rag. Ringlets of damp, light brown hair framed her flushed face, and her lips trembled as she sat and thought about what the morning would bring. She’d slept fitfully. Now, her restless mind had awakened her as the first rays of sun broke through the hazy clouds hanging over the distant, snow-covered Safed Mountain Range of the Hindu Kush. Tightly pursed lips reflected the troubled day that lay ahead of her, and her clenched fists screamed defiance.
An aura of pervasive gloom seemed to penetrate the depths of her soul as Nafisa looked around her dimly lit, lavishly furnished room, and try as she might she couldn’t shake the feeling. She stood and walked over to the shuttered windows with their heavy bars, and felt a cool breeze was fluttering the hand-stitched lace curtains. The fresh air was a welcome relief from the stuffy room, and Nafisa opened the front of her robe and let the light breeze blow over her sweat-drenched body. She leaned forward, inhaling a slight cedar fragrance from the mountains, and gripped the windowsill as she tried to control her quick, shallow breaths. The young girl made herself inhale deeply, and as her lungs expanded she resolved to calm her inner feelings. But, instead, she felt a tremble and exhaled with a rush. Then, vigorously shaking her head, she spit out a pent-up burst of frustration.
“It’s not right! They can’t do this to me! I will not be treated as if I were a goat to be sold!”
There was quivering intensity in her voice, which echoed off the white plaster walls, and as Nafisa paced back and forth across the tile floor, her lips were tight muttering curses and her hands clenched, She wadded up the cotton blanket and threw it across the room, knocking over a lamp stand and scattering a stack of papers across the floor.
A long, blue, full-face Afghan burqa had been tossed into a corner of the room, and Nafisa seethed as she looked at it. Then, with a final look of disgust, she turned again to stare at the distant mountains. She gazed out her window, looking across a barren, rocky landscape littered with junked, burned-out military vehicles, white flags flying from mounds of rocks marking the graves of mujahedeen martyrs, and rows of bright, scarlet-painted rocks outlining the edge of Gen. al-Masoud’s minefields.
As Nafisa stood at the window, another cool breeze bathed her face and, for the first time that morning, she felt a semblance of peace. Her eyes ignored the litter and piles of garbage that extended out from the dirty brown, pocked-marked walls of the Compound, and instead, focused on clouds drifting through the mountain passes. My special mountains; ahh if only I were there! But I’m not, and I must be calm and do the right thing…It’s not the time for rash actions…but…deny myself? Deep-seated anger boiled up again and she gritted her teeth in disgust.
“Ahh, the Sunni pigs!” she screamed. Nafisa’s left hand grabbed one of the inside window shutters, which were used to seal off the fine grit from frequent sandstorms, and slammed it as she turned away from the window. Her lips trembled and suddenly her knees buckled as she sat down on the bed to reflect on her situation. The young girls mind drifted back to her troubled childhood as she remembered being taunted because of her blue eyes, light skin, and sandy brown hair. Will it ever stop? Will they ever leave me alone?
* *
Nafisa had matured early, and by age 14 she was almost a head taller than her friends, who were mostly short, olive-skinned brunettes. But physical differences were only a minor part of this unusual Afghani woman, and as she reached adulthood, her carriage exhibited an air of equality as she shopped in Jalalabad. Over the years, she’d developed this defiant, independent attitude, which was a sharp contrast from the average Sunni Afghans she lived among. Maybe some part of Nafisa’s strong, resolute personality came from the childhood taunting, or possibly it was the emergence of the repressive Sunni Taliban, whom she hated, but there was no doubt that the dominate part of her inner nature came from her Shi’a Muslim mother, a member of the more liberal Hazara tribe, from central Afghanistan, who instilled in Nafisa a sense of independence. Nafisa was an anomaly; a strong-willed, assertive Shi’a woman living among the Sunni Pastung tribe. This tribe, the largest ethnic group in eastern Afghanistan, were mostly former Taliban, and their black-turbaned Mullahs continued to enforce radical religious law.
* *
Nafisa rose from her bed and stood by the window, staring at the mountains again, considering what to do: She rubbed her shoulder and the sharp pain from a black, fading bruise brought back bitter memories.
“They’re criminals! The phony religious pigs!” she yelled. She slammed the shutters again and grimaced from the effort. The pain came from a poorly healed collarbone, broken by a Sunni Taliban Mullah as he enforced the law that required women to wear hooded, Afghan style burqas, which covered everything but her eyes, as mandated by a radical interpretation of Hijab Muslim law. Nafisa hated the long, ankle-length burqas, which were suffocating and uncomfortable. She only worn one when she left the Compound.
When members of the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, the Sunni Taliban Mullahs subjected the women to every imaginable indignity, and there was no tolerance when someone violoated the Hijab mandated dress-code. After the Taliban troops were gone, many of these zealous Mullahs remained in place, and, especially in the villages away from Kabul, they continued to strictly enforce a strict intrepertation of Hijab.
That day at the market, only a curl was peeking out from Nafisa’s burqa. She and her mother were buying vegetables when she heard a black-turbaned Mullah scream, “Your head is uncovered! It is an affront to Mohammad!”
Nafisa glanced back to see a Mullah, wearing both a black turban and prayer robe, hurrying toward them, shaking his thick walking stick at her. She gasped as her eyes fixed on the tell-tale black garments. Only the most conservative, defiant Mullahs still wore the former Taliban colors. He rushed toward the young girl, raising a thick walking stick over his head.
“Mother!…Taliban!” Nafisa whispered.
“Hurry!…Cover you head…quickly. Maybe he’ll leave you alone!”
Nafisa nodded and turned to walk away, tucking the stray wisp of hair back inside her burqa, but she was too late.
“You must be punished!” the man screamed.
Nafisa froze. Afraid to move, hoping it would be just a scolding, but, with a yell, he savagely brought down the walking stick across her shoulder, narrowly missing her head. Startled, Nafisa cried out, and the pain from the broken collarbone caused her to gasp and bend over. After a few seconds she gritted her teeth, pulled her head back—ignoring the pain—and turned to face the man who had struck her. There was no cowering or begging for mercy, much to her mother’s dismay. Nafisa shook her clenched fist at the Mullah, who was smirking in satisfaction. Then she screamed, “You scum! Hitting me for no reason! You worthless Sunni pig!”
The black-turbaned Mullah was shocked. He had never heard a woman protest when he punished her for violating Hijab. But the shock passed quickly, and then, with his face twisted with hate, he yelled, “You instrument of the devil! I will punish you for your insolence!” He raised his walking stick as was about to strike the defiant girl again, when her mother screamed.
“No! No! Stop!” Nafisa’s mother rushed in front of her daughter just as the Mullah hesitated, and before he could hit Nafisa again, she pulled her into a nearby shop. The Mullah shook his walking stick at them and shouted, “A single hair! If I ever even see a single hair showing, I will beat you into the ground!” With that he turned away and continued through the market as women scattered before him.
“Nafisa, don’t ever talk that way to a Mullah, especially a Taliban! You know they’ve killed women for less!”
“Mother, my shoulder—he hurt me—for no reason! It’s not right!”
“I know, Nafisa, but we can not do anything. It’s the way of the Sunni Mullahs, and they make the laws.”
“But why don’t they arrest him since he’s a Taliban?”
“Nafisa, there are many former Taliban in Jalalabad, and to arrest one Mullah for wearing a black turban would cause trouble for the government, even if he is a Taliban.”
Nafisa listened and then winced.
The break had healed poorly, and it was still painful.
* *
Nafisa was the eldest of three sisters. Of course, her father had wanted a son, but complications during the delivery of Nafisa’s youngest sister had prevented her mother from becoming pregnant again. As Nafisa matured, and developed her defiant nature, her father admired her courage. And since he didn’t have a son, his oldest daughter became her father’s confidant.
When the Northern Alliance and American Special Forces began to crush the Taliban on the battlefield, the Taliban came to her warlord father and demanded that he provide some help in the fighting. Nafisa had heard about the destruction that American planes and bombs were inflicting upon the Taliban, and she convinced her father not to join a losing battle, but, instead, to delay sending any of his troops. It was a wise decision, and Nafisa was elated at the defeat of the Taliban extremists.
After the Taliban were beaten, her father, Gen. Shair al-Masoud, a minor warlord, who was a tacit supporter of the Taliban, changed alliances and joined forces with the Northern Alliance and the Americans. Recently, for a substantial amount of C.I.A. cash, he’d even committed some of his troops to ridding the Jalalabad area of his former allies.
Gen. al-Masoud had carved out a small section of the Nangahar and Konar provinces in eastern Afghanistan to be his little kingdom, and even during the Russian occupation he’d managed to switch loyalties quickly enough to survive and hold onto his piece of land. The general was a typical Afghan, whose loyalty was primarily to himself, and he was nimble enough to switch allegiances quickly as times changed. However, his loyalty was no deeper than the monthly bribe he received from the C.I.A.
By the age of 16, Nafisa had matured into a strikingly beautiful girl, and her family assumed she’d marry one of her cousins and remain in the Compound, assisting her mother with the daily supervision of the servants. But the girl had been exposed to Western ways as the family traveled to Kabul, and had been mesmerized by the satellite television her father had installed in the Compound. This gave Nafisa a different outlook on life. Her Shi’a mother, Hafisena, had also instilled independence in Nafisa, so it was no surprise when her father brought a Sunni cousin to the Compound as a prospective husband and the girl immediately rejected him. She found the practice of arranged marriages abhorrent, especially if the marriage was to a Sunni, and she made it clear to her father that she would not submit to any marriage which in which she didn’t have a say. Her father, who was not religious, but observed old tribal traditions to curry favor with the Mullahs, grudgingly agreed because Nafisa was his favorite child, and he admired her independent spirit. But today was different, much different.
* *
Nafisa’s thoughts were interrupted by the haunting sound of the muezzin’s dawn call to prayer: A sound that announced her time of trial was fast approaching. She ignored the muezzin’s call for the ritual washing of her hands and feet and the admonition to pray as she paced restlessly around the room, her mind overflowing with indecision.
“It’s not just another cousin. No, oh, if it were so, I could handle it. Why did my father promise General Wazir I’d marry his son? Ah, and the insult that Wazir has heaped on us by not even offering to pay for my hand in marriage; the worthless Sunni!” Her voice began with an imperceptible mutter and ended with a shriek.
Nafisa yanked open the shutters on the windows and walked around the room, stammering in disgust.
“Isn’t the bribe money that Father pays Wazir enough? Now to satisfy that Sunni dog, I must marry his son, a drug-wasted cripple! Should I? Must I? What will happen if I do not?”
* *
Nafisa’s father’s small corner of eastern Afghanistan was a small outpost in the shadow of General Wazir, the dominant warlord in the area, a rabid ex-Taliban who barely tolerated the presence of al-Masoud. Now Wazir had demanded not only an increase in tribute, but the marriage of General Shair al-Masoud’s eldest daughter to his son.
For the past year there’d been skirmishes between the two generals’ troops, and now Wazir’s patience with al-Masoud had ended. Al-Masoud, whose army was much smaller, was fearful that Wazir would see a rejection of his son’s proposal of marriage as an insult, and use it as an excuse to attack. Even though he’s been extremely leinient with his daughter in the past, he believed he had no choice but to give Nafisa in marriage.