A Long Way from Home Read Free Page A

Afghanistan sooner or later. Now is the time.”
    â€œMy child, what will we do in America?” Mama asked wearily. “I am not a widow. Your father will come back someday looking for us.”
    It was true. Mama was not officially a widow. Like a lot of women whose husbands had been arrested, she had no idea if Father was dead or alive. But as much as Rabia hoped and prayed for his return, she knew they could not wait for him. She couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass. “Mama,” she said patiently, “We have to do this. We cannot stay in Afghanistan any longer. It is too dangerous.”
    â€œWhat about Amir?”
    Rabia peered into her mother’s anxious face. “We will let everyone know where we’re going,” she said. “When Amir and Father return, the neighbors will tell them where we are.”
    Mama looked doubtful.
    Rabia gestured toward the tiny window, the only one in the house that did not have boards nailed across its frame. Women in burqas moved through the narrow, dusty street like ghosts. Dirty, barefoot children in tattered clothing trailed after them, their arms as thin as sticks. They were widows and orphans begging for food and money. The women were not allowed to work, yet they would be severely punished if the Taliban caught them begging. “Look. That could be us months from now,” Rabia told Mama.
    Rabia had seen how the Taliban punished women. Shortly after they had seized Kabul, she was out walking with Father when they chanced upon two Talibs beating a woman. Rabia couldn’t imagine what crime the poor woman had committed to be beaten so savagely. Father had whisked his daughter away. She remembered sobbing against his chest while he carried her through the streets. Even now, she trembled at the memory.
    But Mama came up with one excuse after another not to leave. For weeks, Rabia pleaded, argued, tried to reason. “Father would want it,” she told her mother time and time again. Finally, Mama relented.

    Mama sold the last of her jewelry to pay the bus and train fare. Omar agreed to exchange the money for roupees, and offered to escort them to the bus station.
    Rabia lifted the floorboard, and dug out their boxes of possessions. They could take very little with them, and books, magazines, and CDs would have to be left behind. Carefully, she took out the bracelet her father had given her. It would be easy to hide. But what about all the beautiful pictures Mama had taken over the years? Rabia could not bear to leave them behind. All she had left to remember Yousef, Amir, and Father were photographs. She found a cotton drawstring pouch and placed the envelope of photographs in it. She would carry the bag inside her burqa, she decided. The Taliban never looked under a woman’s burqa.
    Rabia looked sadly at Father’s cherished books. Her father loved books, and at one time had shelves filled with them. He read them stories from Rudyard Kipling and poems by Afghan poets.
    Father used to teach poetry at the University of Kabul. After the university closed down, he held a poetry workshop in their home. Every Tuesday afternoon women came with books and notepads hidden inside their burqas. At first Mama was against it. “If the Taliban find out, they will put us in prison,” she protested.
    â€œI have to give the women hope,” Father said. “Without hope they will fall into despair. Besides,” he added, “we cannot let those thugs take away all our freedom.”
    In time, Mama came to enjoy the workshops as much as the students did. Rabia too, listened with interest as they discussed various poets and their work. She especially liked the poetry of Rabia Balkhi, the first female Persian poet, and Rabia’s namesake. A princess who lived in the ninth century, Rabia Balkhi fell in love with a slave named Baktash and wrote beautiful poetry for him. When her brother found out about her love for the slave,