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!"

Most of the students were young women who lived nearby in Khair Khana and had known the Sidiqis for years. Some had attended a small cla.s.s years earlier to study the Holy Q'uran, which Kamila taught while she was still in high school. That was how a number of families in the neighborhood first got to know the young teacher.

Other students, like Nasia, had come to live in Kabul after the fighting in the Shomali Plains just north of the city destroyed their families' homes and forced them to live as refugees in the capital. As soon as she heard about the school just four houses down from her uncle's home, where she and her seven siblings now lived, Nasia had pleaded with her mother to let her go. She, like many of Kamila's students, now had two jobs: during the day she sewed with the girls down the street and at night she helped her widowed mother to make chadri for shopkeepers at Lycee Myriam. Each evening the women hoped for a few hours of electricity when they would use the electric iron to press and starch the veil's blue circle of handmade, mini-accordion pleats.

And there was Mahnaz, a girl for whom Kamila's house provided a lifeline as much as a living.

She was seventeen, but her plain face and solemn manner cast a much older first impression. Her thick hands were broad and strong, which made their grace all the more surprising. Mahnaz possessed a unique gift for the delicate art of beading, but, like most of the girls who worked in the Sidiqi house, being a seamstress was not her life's aim. She had dreamed of being a professor since the age of seven.

Following the Taliban's arrival, she had stayed at home for nearly half a year, reading old school lessons and Iranian police novels, occasionally setting aside her books to join her older brothers in watching contraband Jean-Claude Van Damme movies on the family's small television. She had wanted to enroll herself in an English course that was being taught near her house, but her family worried it was too risky and forbade it.

When Mahnaz heard through a cousin's friend about Kamila and the girls her age who were sewing together just a block away, she had jumped at the opportunity to join them. Two of her sisters, one of whom was determined to become a doctor when school was allowed again, quickly decided to come along once they heard how much Mahnaz was enjoying herself. "It's not even like being in Kabul City," she told her siblings after her first day at Kamila's house. "It feels like a place where there's no Taliban at all, and no fighting. There are just all these women working together and talking and sharing stories. It's wonderful."

With so many girls learning to sew, mistakes were inevitable. Sara was now on her feet nearly all day, bustling around the room from station to station and reviewing each dress before it went out the door. "This is off, start again," she would say sternly to the girls when a dress did not measure up to her standards.

"You remind me of my father, Sara!" Kamila often joked. "I think you would have been excellent in the army!" But it was not just at work that Sara saw her role growing in importance: her small income was now contributing to her brother-in-law's kitchen and paying for the books and pencils her sons needed for school. One afternoon over lunch Sara told Kamila about her husband's oldest brother, Munir, the airplane engineer who supported their family of fifteen at home. "He was always good to us," she said as she broke off a chunk of naan from the round loaf sitting on the vinyl floor cloth in front of them, "but I knew my children and I were a problem that he had to shoulder once my husband died; it was difficult for him. Now things are much better. Two nights ago when my sister-in-law and I got up to clear the dishes after dinner he told me, 'Sara Jan, I really respect your work. Your help means a lot right now.' Kamila, this was so shocking-I mean, Munir has never been a man to talk a great deal, let alone to say such things. I couldn't even answer him properly; I just nodded and muttered, 'Thank you.' " She certainly wasn't mumbling now, Kamila thought, smiling at her friend, whose doelike brown eyes lit up as she told her story. Kamila had trouble picturing the timid and frightened woman who had shown up at her doorstep looking for work so many months earlier. I wouldn't even recognize her, she thought to herself. And I bet Sara Jan wouldn't, either.

The tailoring business was expanding rapidly, and Kamila now depended on Rahim to go to Lycee Myriam nearly every day. For marketing they always went together, but if Kamila needed only a few sewing supplies from the bazaar, Rahim would pick them up on his own after school.

For that reason Kamila didn't think anything of it when Saaman asked her one evening if she knew where their brother was.

"It's awfully late," she said, pacing slowly around the works.p.a.ce. All the students had left hours earlier, and now the girls were alone at home, working as usual.

"What time is it?" Kamila asked. "He's probably just leaving the bazaar, or maybe he ran into some friends. I'm sure he's fine."

An hour pa.s.sed, and at seven she felt far less certain. He was now hours later than usual. Her stomach was churning, and she couldn't sit still.

"Did he take his bike today?" she asked the girls.

Saaman nodded yes.

Kamila dropped her work onto the floor and moved toward the door, walking up and down the small length of the foyer. Knowing that she couldn't go out and look for her brother without causing more problems made her feel even more powerless.

By now all the girls had gathered in the living room. No one spoke, no one worked. Kamila felt her eyes tearing up as she imagined how awful it would be for Rahim if her worst fears proved true. She prayed that G.o.d in his infinite mercy would keep her brother safe. He is all I have right now, Kamila thought, he and the girls. Please, please, don't take them from me. She believed it would be her fault if anything happened to Rahim since it was she who sent him to Lycee Myriam.

Finally, the gate clanged shut.

Kamila ran to her brother. He was pale and disheveled but looked unharmed.

"Oh, my goodness, what happened?" cried Laila. "Are you all right?"

"Please, please, I am fine," Rahim insisted. He hung his coat as usual, but Kamila could see something was very wrong. She sat him down at the table.

"Just tell us what happened," Kamila said, a bit more insistently than she intended. She reminded herself of Malika, the maternal enforcer who never asked but instead demanded the truth. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "We were all just so worried."

Laila hurried in with a gla.s.s of green tea, and Rahim's hands shook ever so slightly as he gratefully reached for the gla.s.s's clear handle.

"I forgot I had an extra lesson this afternoon; you know, the test preparation cla.s.s?" Rahim began reluctantly. "Well, anyway, I was on my way there when I heard a noise behind me. I looked and saw there were three Talibs. I kept pedaling my bike, hoping that they would move on to someone else. I hadn't done anything wrong. But I heard their footsteps right behind me and they began yelling at me to stop. I was afraid they would catch up if I didn't, and then things would be a lot worse. So I hit my brakes.

" 'We told you to stop,' they said. 'What is your problem?' I told them I was trying to get to cla.s.s, that I am a student at Khair Khana and just wanted to be at my course on time. Then they asked me how old I was, and where I was from. They wanted to see my ID card. One of them took out his shaloq shaloq and I kept trying to find my card, but I just couldn't remember where I had put it." and I kept trying to find my card, but I just couldn't remember where I had put it."

Tears were now falling down Kamila's cheeks, but she said nothing.

"Finally I found the card, but I think that just made things worse. They asked me where my father was, and if he was fighting against the Taliban. I kept telling them that Father is retired, and my family has nothing to do with politics. That we don't want any trouble. But they didn't believe me. They asked again about Father and if I had any brothers, and where were they? And then they threatened to take me to jail. I have no idea if they really were serious about it but they brought out the shaloqs shaloqs to try to scare me. Finally another Talib came along and said there was a family that was playing a video in their house. So they got distracted and finally let me go." to try to scare me. Finally another Talib came along and said there was a family that was playing a video in their house. So they got distracted and finally let me go."

The girls sat motionless, in total silence.

"Don't worry, please," he pleaded, seeing the distress on their faces. "You see I am okay. Nothing happened. It's fine."

But it was not fine; none of it was fine, Kamila thought. Next time it could be much worse.

Despite all the gains they had made-the orders from the market, the school, the flouris.h.i.+ng little business they had built-their lives were as precarious as everyone else's in Kabul. They were just kids trying to survive another year of war together with no parents to watch over them. All that protected them right now was their faith-and a green metal gate that kept the world outside at bay.

No, it wasn't fine at all. But the only thing Kamila could do now was to keep going. And to keep working. For all of their sakes.

7.

An Unexpected Wedding Party The babies had been crying all night. Sleepless, overworked, and worried about the health of her twin girls, Malika was tempted to collapse onto her thick red pillow near the wooden crib and join them in their tears. But she had no time for such indulgences. The infants were feverish and colicky; as soon as it opened at 2 P.M. she would take them upstairs to Dr. Maryam's clinic.

"Bachegak, bachegak"-little baby, little baby-"please, I promise it will be okay," Malika whispered as she scooped both babies into a tight embrace and walked them around the room, trying to lull them to sleep. The tiny newborn twins had arrived nearly two months ahead of their due date and had struggled to gain weight and strength ever since. They remained weak and sickly, their small bodies battling diarrhea and what seemed like an endless series of infections. Malika had been lucky to find a female doctor in time to a.s.sist her premature delivery; these days most women gave birth in their bedrooms without the benefit of professional help. Of course it wasn't guaranteed that making it to a hospital would improve an expectant mother's chances; the civil war had destroyed most medical facilities, and combatants on all sides had stripped hospitals bare of equipment and supplies. Patients had to fill their own prescriptions and even had to bring their own food.

With the Taliban in power, doctors in Kabul could once again go to work without fear of rocket attacks, but female doctors-those who hadn't fled the country when the Taliban took Kabul-faced an entirely new set of problems. The Taliban had ordered hospitals, like every other inst.i.tution, to be segregated by gender, with women physicians restricted to treating female patients and working in female-only wards. They were not allowed to work with-let alone consult-their male colleagues. Foreign aid organizations were still wrestling with the question of how much support to offer the Taliban, particularly given their policies toward women, so help had been slow to reach the nation's hospitals. As a result, doctors and surgeons regularly worked without even the basics such as clean water, bandages, and antiseptics. Anesthesia was a luxury. Along with most other women in Kabul, Malika now had no choice but to seek treatment from one of the very few women doctors who had chosen to remain in the capital. Dr. Maryam, like many of her colleagues, ran a private clinic in addition to her hospital work in order to help support her family.

Malika arrived at the doctor's office early and for good reason; within thirty minutes, a crowd of women had filled the austere waiting room, with many standing against the walls holding infants in their arms. Demand for Dr. Maryam's services had grown so great in the last few months she had hired an a.s.sistant who handed out a numbered piece of paper to each woman as she entered the office. Malika waited patiently for her number to be called. She fixed her gaze on the peeling paint that curled along the old walls; she prayed for the twins' health and wondered how she would pay for whatever medicine they might need for their latest affliction.

Stepping into the treatment room at last, Malika kissed the doctor h.e.l.lo and stepped aside so she could begin the examination. Dr. Maryam's specialty was pediatrics, and in her presence the worried mother felt her shoulders slacken and her jaw unclench for the first time in hours. The doctor examined first one baby, then the other, with a natural confidence that came from decades of experience. As a child, Dr. Maryam had dreamt of becoming a doctor, and her parents, neither of whom had any formal education, worked relentlessly to help their daughter realize her goal. She left her rural village for college at the start of the Russian occupation, and the local Mujahideen came to Maryam's father to complain that his daughter was attending Kabul University's medical school. They suggested, rifles in hand, that a Soviet-backed school was no place for a respectable girl, and that her family must be full of sympathizers who supported the Russian invaders. In response her father made a deal: he would supply them with as much wheat as they wanted, at no charge, if they would leave his daughter alone to continue her studies. He ended up having to sell much of his family's farmland to finance Maryam's university education, but he never complained; the Mujahideen got their wheat and his daughter got her medical degree.

After completing her studies, Dr. Maryam worked for more than a decade at Kabul Women's Hospital and eventually rose to a senior position supervising its new doctors. At the same time she raised two children with her husband, a scientist by training who now owned a pharmacy not far from her clinic in Khair Khana.

Once the Taliban arrived, of course, everything changed. The new government installed its own men inside the hospital and charged them with overseeing everything that went on. They regularly burst into the women's ward to make certain that no men were present and that female doctors remained veiled while treating the sick who had come to see them. Tall in stature with a self-a.s.sured, almost regal bearing, Maryam could not easily abide being told what she could or couldn't do when it came to caring for her patients, and she found it impossible to keep her feelings to herself. She chafed at the new restrictions and voiced her frustration to her colleagues, one of whom informed upon her. Senior Taliban officials didn't take kindly to being questioned by anyone, let alone a woman, and Dr. Maryam was now regularly watched by the government's soldiers; they monitored her every move.

Despite these difficulties, Maryam maintained a schedule that impressed even Malika and Kamila. Each day she worked from 8 A.M. until 1 P.M. at the hospital before returning to Khair Khana to treat patients at her clinic, sometimes staying well into the night to see the very last woman who needed her care. Like Kamila and her sisters, she refused to turn any woman away. Most of her patients suffered from malnutrition because they couldn't afford to buy food. But depression was also running rampant, debilitating former teachers, lawyers, and civil servants who now felt powerless and full of despair, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Many of them turned to Dr. Maryam for advice and comfort, as well as the opportunity to escape their homes.

Now, standing in her examining room with one hand around each tiny baby, the doctor turned her attention to their mother.

"I don't know who I'm more worried about, Malika: you or your girls," she said. "Are you sleeping at all? It certainly doesn't appear so. I know you're taking care of the entire family, but you must get some rest." Her tone was calm but stern as she looked at her third patient. "You will do no one any good if you collapse."

Malika stared down at the carpet, trying to beat back the tears. She thought about her husband, her boys, her sick twins, her customers, her sisters, all the people who counted on her. In that instant she felt perfectly alone, unable to share her burden, and with no choice but to simply carry on.

"Think of all that you've done already," Maryam continued. She handed both babies to Malika and drew her chair near. "You've managed to keep your older boy in school, care for these sick little girls, help your sisters' business, and support your family. None of these are small things and you must certainly not give up now. But you have to take better care of yourself. Otherwise you will be the one I am treating next time, not the babies. Okay?"

Malika nodded wearily. She embraced the doctor in a big hug before picking up her chadri from its hook on the door and hoisting the twins into her arms once more.

"I am going to your husband's pharmacy now to fill the prescriptions," Malika said. "And you must be sure to come see me again when you and your nieces are ready for more dresses!"

Later that evening Malika confided to Kamila that she felt better just from having had a moment of quiet to confide in someone she trusted about her problems. With dozens of young girls coming to the house every day, she and her sisters had grown much more accustomed to listening to other people's problems than to sharing their own, even with each other. Kamila had been worried about her sister for days and was relieved to hear that the doctor had insisted that she take better care of herself.