For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

Farid, a heavy
smoker, had been diagnosed with throat cancer. For him, the dream
of helping Afghanistan rise from the rubble was over. Instead he
spent his days in a Paris hospital enduring chemotherapy. His
prognosis was bleak. On the phone, he spoke to me about Big Duran,
advising me to forget my son, that it was an impossible dream to
transform the monster that Kaiss had created out of my once-sweet
and beautiful baby boy back into a loving son.
    Farid knew that he was dying and, when I
cried, he told me to dry my tears, that he would soon be with his
two mothers and that all would be well.
    Farid made a farewell tour to see his family
and we met for the last time in Virginia in October 2004. Farid was
staying at Nadia’s house and I could not believe my eyes when I
walked in the door and saw my handsome big ‘brother’, who was puffy
from medication and bald from chemotherapy. He looked like a
stranger. But his big eyes were the same and I would have
recognized Farid anywhere. He told me, ‘I am trying to be brave,
little brother. I am trying to be brave.’
    He returned to Paris where his cancer spread
but he remained upbeat. His sister Zeby told me that during one of
his last conversations, he asked about his ‘little brother Maryam’.
After that he was silenced, but his expressive eyes still followed
every movement in his hospital room. Farid soon died, breaking all
our hearts.
    Although I knew I should greet his demise
with an exhalation of relief, I could not, for I miss him every
single day. Farid remains the most inspiring figure in my life.
There was something so noble about his goodness and care for
everyone around him. I knew when Farid, my ‘big brother’, died,
that I would not see his like again. I pray that Farid is indeed
reunited with his mother, and my mother.
    I still continued to dream that my elder son
Duran would return whole and cleansed to his mother, that he would
learn what it is to love, and to be loved. But sadly, soon after he
left, he began to wage unremitting war against me.
    The last time he called, he said, ‘Hi. This
is your enemy number one.’
    I responded lightly, treating his words as a
joke. ‘Hello to you, enemy number one.’ Regardless of his attitude,
I still loved my son and was happy to hear his voice.
    ‘I wanted to tell you that I only regret one
thing.’
    My heart lifted in joy as I waited for his
next words, hoping that he would apologize and say he wanted to
return, to start anew.
    ‘What do you regret, my love?’
    ‘Oh, I regret that I didn’t rape you. I
masturbate with you in my mind every night.’
    I threw down the phone in horror. I dashed
into my bedroom, tore off my clothes and leapt into the shower,
scrubbing my face, my body, trying to get the filth off that I felt
crusted over me. Had there ever been such an unnatural son! What
had Kaiss done to create such a monster? He had taken the most
angelic little boy and turned him into a psychopath who not only
wanted to rape and murder his mother but also to murder his
innocent, sweet, younger brother.
    I fell to the floor of the shower and wept
bitter tears, wishing myself back to the moment Duran was born,
suddenly realizing what I wished had happened. I cried out, ‘Allah,
why couldn’t my child have been a girl? A girl, God!’ Kaiss had
threatened to kill our baby if it was a girl, but I would have
escaped and Kaiss would have never bothered to kidnap a girl. All
would have been well had I only had a daughter. ‘A daughter, Allah!
Why didn’t you give me a daughter?’
    As I looked back on my life I thought of all
the daughters and mothers in my family. Why weren’t we all
stronger? Why couldn’t we stand up for ourselves against our men?
Grandmother. Amina. Mother. Sarah. Me. All of us. We all struggled
but we were weak and fell back into resignation. The forces we were
struggling against were not like swimming against the tide . . .
but more like swimming against a tsunami. We were swimming against
an ancient culture which demands that women always submit, that
women always stay weak. So I end where I began . . . dreaming a
dream that can never come true. For wherever I am in the world, in
my mind I am still in Afghanistan, and in Afghanistan only the
dreams of boys can come true.
     

Where are they
now?
    An update on
Maryam’s close family members and friends.
    Maryam, Khalid and Little Duran still live in Saudi Arabia, although there are
frequent visits to the USA to visit