Malika, however, was not the only one to receive a lecture from Dr. Maryam. Kamila too slipped out to see her after several days of feeling sluggish and lightheaded. Maryam warned Kamila that her blood pressure was too low and she needed more rest. But following the doctor's advice was proving difficult for her, too. With orders backing up and a steady stream of new students, she was lucky to sleep more than five hours each night. Even when she finally made it to the bedroom she shared with her sisters, she stayed awake for hours worrying that they wouldn't have enough work the following week and that the girls wouldn't be able to deliver all the orders they already had.

Kamila had also taken Malika's advice and was pus.h.i.+ng the most exceptional girls to develop their own designs and embrace their individual styles. She was finding, however, that while sewing a sample of a new dress was easy enough, churning out a dozen of them all at once required multiple trips to the fabric store and days of work from several seamstresses. Mahnaz had just dreamt up a new pattern in which an elaborate geometry of translucent beads with gold flecks at their center covered a deep purple fabric in yellow and white flowers from the neck to the waistline. Kamila was thrilled with Mahnaz's boldness and creativity, and she loved the design, but she wondered how in the world she had ever agreed to produce so many of these ornate dresses for Hamid in only seven days.

Kamila decided that if she really wanted to grow her business she would have to invest in it so that they could sew more dresses, faster. "We need machines," she said to Rahim, "and we need them now." With her faithful mahram mahram at her side she went to Lycee Myriam and selected several, including an expensive embroidery apparatus imported from Pakistan and a small new generator that would go in their courtyard. The brother of one their students, Neelufar, had promised he would teach Kamila how to use the embroidery machine if she would teach his sister how to sew. Embroidered dresses sold for a premium, and those extra afghani would certainly help. "With all of this gear," she said to Rahim while he struggled to carry the whole lot back home, "there's no reason we can't triple our orders, don't you think?" at her side she went to Lycee Myriam and selected several, including an expensive embroidery apparatus imported from Pakistan and a small new generator that would go in their courtyard. The brother of one their students, Neelufar, had promised he would teach Kamila how to use the embroidery machine if she would teach his sister how to sew. Embroidered dresses sold for a premium, and those extra afghani would certainly help. "With all of this gear," she said to Rahim while he struggled to carry the whole lot back home, "there's no reason we can't triple our orders, don't you think?"

He only nodded at his sister; he was too focused on steadying the stack of machines to speak.

One morning shortly after the arrival of the new equipment, Kamila was lost in her work finis.h.i.+ng the beading on the last of Mahnaz's purple dresses. Malika sat nearby, wrestling with the folds of a pantsuit, trying to get them to lie just right. At last she noticed their young helper Neelab standing silently at her side. The small girl's eyes focused on a pile of fabric sc.r.a.ps on the floor while she waited for Malika to acknowledge her.

"Yes, Neelab, sorry, what is it?" she asked the girl.

"Auntie Malika, there is a family at the door-three ladies and one of them is getting married. They want to see if you can make wedding outfits for the bride."

The child looked up. "They need the dresses tomorrow."

Malika thought she had misheard. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes," the girl answered, "that's what she said."

These days the few weddings that took place were rarely rush affairs. It took too long to save or borrow the money for a celebration and gather all the guests from the far-flung places they had fled to. Anyway, most potential grooms were either outside Afghanistan or fighting on the front lines.

"Okay, ask the women to come in," Malika said. "We can see what they need."

Moments later two young women and their clearly anxious mother hurried into the room.

"Oh, thank goodness," said the older woman, looking around the crowded workshop at all the girls working and breaking into a tense smile. "This is just the kind of place we have been looking for. My name is Nabila and these are my daughters, Shafiqa and Mashal. Shafiqa is getting married the day after tomorrow and we need to get her dresses made right away. We have been driving around the city all day trying to find a female tailoring shop to take the work, but yours is the first we have found that can make what we need."

With that, Nabila pulled two bolts of fabric, one green and the other white, from a plastic tote bag.

"Here is the material," she said, handing the pile to Malika before the seamstress even had a chance to say no. "We really appreciate you getting these dresses done for us so quickly."

Malika was still a bit dumbfounded, but she smiled anyway and took the fabric.

Nabila then gestured at the younger girl, Mashal, who quickly disappeared from the room.

"Okay, yes, of course," Malika said. "We'll do it, though this kind of order would usually require at least a few days. But we've done many wedding dresses before and I think we can manage this. I'll make sure that your daughter's dresses are ready tomorrow evening."

Malika walked Shafiqa, the bride, down the hall to a makes.h.i.+ft tent made of pale-colored cotton sheets that served as a fitting room. She was a pretty girl of maybe nineteen or twenty, thin and a bit wan, with light eyes and high cheekbones that bisected a narrow, doll-like face. After completing Shafiqa's measurements Malika returned to the living room and found Nabila waiting for her with the other daughter, Mashal. She had apparently reappeared while the bride was getting measured and was standing, somewhat breathlessly, cradling in her arms an even larger bag than her mother's.

"I am very sorry to trouble you," the mother began, addressing Malika again. "But I see how many girls are sewing here with you and I am wondering if you would be so kind as to make four more dresses for us?" Without waiting for Malika's reply, she reached into the bag and brought out a handful of fabric. "Shafiqa's sisters and I also need gowns for the wedding party. As I said, we haven't been able to find a female tailor anywhere who could handle so many gowns at once. We are really quite desperate since the wedding is only two days away. Do you think you could make all six dresses for us?"

She pa.s.sed the bag over to Malika, who was struggling to contain her amazement.

"You need two wedding dresses and four wedding party gowns made in one day?"

The woman nodded energetically. She did indeed look desperate.

Malika stood silent for a moment. This kind of order would normally take at least a week of work. If it was even possible to get this done, which she was not at all sure of, she would need the help of all her sisters and every student in the school. It would have to be all hands on deck, starting as soon as possible. Like now.

Well, she thought to herself, we wanted more work. ...

Malika escorted Nabila to the foyer, where she asked her to wait with the two girls, then hurried back to the living room workshop where Kamila was still absorbed in her beading.

"Kamila Jan, there is a woman here wanting me to make her six dresses in one day for her daughter's wedding party. Of course I can't do it by myself; I honestly don't even know whether we can get it done all together. It's a huge amount of work. What do you think?"

Kamila didn't need to think; she dropped the purple fabric and answered immediately and decisively.

"Yes, of course we can do it. The girls and I will help you. We're nearly finished with this order for Hamid anyway," she said. "We'll get it done-you know we always find a way. Besides, how many times have you rescued us? More times than we can count!"

"Well, it will be quite an adventure," Malika said, kissing her sister on the cheek in grat.i.tude before returning to her new customers.

"All of you must come back today, just before six P.M., so your measurements can be taken," she instructed. "Usually we wouldn't ask you to come back at night because of the soldiers and the curfew, but if we're going to work quickly, we'll need your help," she said. "But please make sure not to come late; we don't want you to be on the streets or at our gate at the time of prayer."

"Yes, yes, of course, that will be fine," said the mother of the bride, now smiling. "We will see you this evening. And thank you. Thank you so much."

As soon as the women had gone, the living room began to buzz with activity as Malika called her troops to order and gave directions to each and every one.

"Okay, girls, we are going to get started on this order and we need all of your help," she began, standing before the students at the front of the living room. "We have seven hours until the women come back. By then we will need to have the sh.e.l.ls of each dress ready for them to try on. I will lead the wedding dresses team, and Kamila will be in charge of the gowns for the mother and sisters. Saaman will cut all the fabric and do the stenciling for the embroidery. Laila and Neelab will make sure we have all the supplies we need. Sara Jan will be coming around to make sure everyone understands what they are supposed to be doing. Please don't hesitate for one second to ask any of us a question; we don't have time to make mistakes, and we are all glad to stop what we're doing and help with whatever you need. And if any of you can stay a bit later today, we would very much appreciate it."

With that, the teams broke off to begin their work. They would work in two stages, starting with the green dress, which Shafiqa would wear during the ceremony in which the bride and groom consented to marriage. Then she and the girls would turn to the white gown, which Shafiqa would wear to greet her guests during the wedding reception afterward. The bride had requested that both frocks be very long and very plain, with only a bare minimum of beading around the neckline and sleeves. It struck Malika as a bit odd, particularly since the bride had seen from the dresses hanging around the works.p.a.ce what pretty embroidery work the girls could do. "But so much the better," she told the girls. "The handwork would have set us back at least half a day."

Kamila's group of seamstresses began by unrolling the fabric Nabila had brought and matching each material with the woman who would wear it. She wrote their names on a piece of sc.r.a.p paper that she then taped to the floor next to each pile of fabric. Once Saaman had cut the material and drawn the patterns for them, the girls went to work in pairs, dividing each bodice and skirt into panels that they could work on separately. When it came time to work on the sleeves, the girls wrote down each customer's arm length and placed it on the table in front of them before starting to run st.i.tches across the top of the fabric in the way that Kamila had taught them. This would make it easier to attach the arms to the rest of the dress later on. The girls made certain to leave extra fabric for the first fitting. As their teachers had told them so many times, it's better for a sleeve to be too long than too short. "Long," the mantra went, "you can always shorten."

The room hummed with activity but there was little noise aside from the whirrs and clicks of the sewing machines alongside the purr of the generator and the directions that Malika and Kamila called out every few minutes. Everyone was focused on the job before her. After an hour or so, one of the younger students asked Kamila if she might play a ca.s.sette she had brought, promising to keep the volume low. Kamila agreed it would be nice to have some music, and she reached into a cabinet to retrieve her father's old Chinese tape recorder. Soon the room filled with the melodic voice of Farhad Darya, a legendary folk-pop artist and former Kabul University music teacher who had been named Radio Afghanistan's "Singer of the Year" in 1990, the same year he fled Kabul for Europe after running afoul of the Soviet-backed Afghan government. The girls knew all the words to every ballad, and they sang along quietly to the tunes as they sewed.

When the bodice of the white wedding dress had begun to take shape and the skirt was almost finished, Malika asked one of the students whose height nearly matched the bride's to come and stand in the middle of the room. Here Malika's experience showed as she pinned the front and back sections of each dress around the girl and took quick stock of how much work lay ahead.

"Okay, this is a good start," Malika said. "On the skirts, make sure we have a cus.h.i.+on of fabric at the bottom. Remember they are straight skirts, which can be tricky with the s.h.i.+ny white fabric, so go slowly and leave yourself a lot of room to work. Our bride will be back before long."

Once she had finished gathering all the fabric and laying out the zippers and clasps they would need later on, Laila went to the kitchen to prepare a tray of chai and halwaua-e-aurd-e-sujee halwaua-e-aurd-e-sujee, a sweet confection of flour, sugar, oil, and nuts, for the girls to snack on. The dinner hour was approaching, and it was clear she would need to make enough food for at least twenty, not the usual twelve she normally cooked for. She sent Neelab to the store across the street to buy more naan and onions. Rice they purchased in large sacks and it looked like they had enough for now; no need to buy anything before they must.

At 6 P.M. sharp the bridal party rattled the gate and knocked at the girls' front door once more. They warmly greeted Malika and Kamila and followed them to the fitting room. Stepping gingerly into her bridal dress to avoid being pinched by the straight pins that now held the panels together, Shafiqa stood motionless while Malika and Kamila walked around her, exchanging ideas with one another and taking notes about which places needed to be taken in and which needed to be let out. Afterward Nabila and her other daughters each had her turn. Kamila made certain that the young students were managing the fittings they had been a.s.signed to, and she found herself filled with pride. Soon they won't even need me, she thought to herself, marveling at how much the girls had learned and how confidently they worked with their customers.

Before the women left, Nabila stopped at the door to arrange her chadri. "I know this is a big job for you and all your students," she said to Malika. "My family and I are very grateful. We haven't had so many happy occasions these last few years, and this is one we're glad to celebrate."

"This is our work and we're glad to do it," Malika said, smiling. "We'll look forward to seeing you and your daughters again tomorrow morning for your last fitting. Please come early so we have as much time as possible."

Malika, Kamila, and their teams toiled on into the night. Rahim, too, joined in the dressmaking marathon once he had returned from school; his sisters were eager to have his embroidery and beading expertise. All of them would indeed have to work around the clock, as Malika had predicted. Sometime after midnight, the young women finally called an end to the day. The sisters would rise for prayer at dawn and pick up where they left off. All of them were exhausted, though Kamila still had enough energy to tease her younger sister.

"I don't think we'll do this again," she said, extinguis.h.i.+ng the last of the hurricane lamps. "When you get married, Saaman, I insist on at least two months' notice."

"Kamila Jan," her sister retorted, "by the time I get married we won't have this business anymore; you'll be teaching literature to a cla.s.sroom full of students and who knows what I'll be doing but one thing I'm certain of: we won't have time to make dresses; we'll go to the finest store and buy them!"

Early the next morning the girls were back at their machines.

When Nabila and her daughters returned, they found the dressmakers so occupied with their gowns that they barely noticed the bridal party entering the house. This time Shafiqa could try on her dress without fear since Malika had removed the last of the pins. She had finished sewing the gown together just an hour earlier.

"It is so beautiful," Shafiqa said, taking a step forward, then completing a quick pirouette. "The neckline is perfect, and the beading is lovely."

"You look very pretty," said Kamila. "We hope you will have a wonderful wedding."

The green dress was almost finished as well. Mahnaz just needed to complete the last of the beading, which she rushed off to do now that they knew Shafiqa was happy with the dress's design and pleased with its fit.

"I think we are in fine shape," Malika told Kamila later that afternoon. "We should be ready by the time they return this evening to pick everything up. We just need to focus on finis.h.i.+ng the dresses for Nabila and her daughters, and those gowns are so much simpler."

But they did not have the luxury of time. Hours before they were expected, Nabila and her daughters were once again at the girls' doorstep.

This time they were really in a hurry.

"Do you have the dresses ready, Malika Jan?" Nabila pleaded as she rushed into the works.p.a.ce. Her daughters, including the bride-to-be, stood in a close huddle behind her, watching nervously. "I am so sorry. We have had a change of plans and we need the gowns right away."

If Malika was stunned she didn't show it. After years of sewing for friends and neighbors she had grown accustomed to the most impossible requests and had taught herself to answer calmly and patiently.

"We have most of them," she responded, stealing a look at her sister, "but we're still finis.h.i.+ng your gown." Kamila marveled at her sister's composure. "We'll have it done in just a few more minutes. Please sit down and have some tea while you wait."

"Please, I don't care about my dress, don't let that hold us up," Nabila insisted. The pitch of her voice was moving upward fast. "We really are in a hurry."

Malika took a breath.

"Okay, wait here," she said, motioning to the pillows in their works.p.a.ce. "We're just finis.h.i.+ng the hem on your dress and we need only five minutes to get it done. Then you can take everything."

Her words unleashed a torrent of activity as the girls pulled the white and green frocks down from the doorway where they hung. Since the power was out and they had used the last of their generator fuel, Nasia and Neelufar went to the kitchen and lit the gas stove that they would use to heat the steam iron. Malika refused to let Shafiqa's gowns leave her house without a proper pressing. No bride wants a wrinkled wedding dress.

As for Nabila's gown, Sara was directing the students to focus on finis.h.i.+ng it, not perfecting it. One of the girls stood still in the gray patterned garment while three others crouched around her on the floor sewing the hem.

And then, finally, "We're done!" one of the girls yelled to Sara, still clenching a needle between her teeth. The trio had finished its work. By now the other five dresses were pressed and packed, waiting by the door for Neelab and Malika's son Hossein to help their anxious owners carry them outside.

Malika hurried over to give the last garment a final check. "It looks good, girls. With more time we could have made it even better, but this will do."

By now Nabila had risen from her seat to pace across the workshop. As soon as she saw her dress being placed in the bag, she offered hasty hugs to Malika and Kamila, profusely thanking them for all of their help while at the same time commanding her daughters to get moving: they had to go now.

Neelab picked up the package with great care and accompanied the women through the courtyard to the street outside. There she found the day's biggest surprise.

Neelab saw three cars waiting in the street for the women. She had to catch herself from exclaiming out loud when she realized that two of them were dark Toyota Hilux trucks with Q'uranic verses painted on the side. Taliban vehicles.

Several Talibs were sitting in the first truck and to Neelab's surprise they were exceedingly polite. They gratefully took the package of dresses from her and, even more, handed her a bit more than the five hundred thousand afghani she had requested, per Malika's agreement with the mother of the bride, Nabila. In the second truck sat a young Talib whom Neelab guessed to be the groom. Behind him was the Toyota Corolla that would transport Shafiqa, her mother, and sisters to the wedding. No flowers or streamers adorned the car's hood and front b.u.mper as they would have in the old days, before the Taliban put an end to noisy celebrations. But Neelab had no doubt whatsoever that this was indeed the start of a wedding procession.

Kamila and Malika looked at one another in amazement after Neelab had finished her story. And then they broke out in huge smiles. The dresses they had just dedicated the last thirty hours to making were about to be worn in a Taliban wedding. "Oh Malika," Kamila said, "that's why the gowns had to be so simple!"

"Maybe the groom had to leave for the front and that was why they were in such a hurry?" Laila added.

Hours later Malika was still rewinding the events of the last two days in her head. "I just don't believe it," she said. She was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, having stopped moving for the first time all day to enjoy a cup of tea and a plate of spaghetti.

Kamila grinned.

"This is good news," she said. "At least we know some of the Taliban like our work!"

The event confirmed what Kamila and Malika had long suspected: Taliban outside Khair Khana now knew about their operation, both Kamila's school and Malika's made-to-measure business. And so far, not only were the soldiers not shutting down their ventures, they were quietly supporting them.

Kamila had known for some time that this was the case when it came to local Talibs who served at the lowest levels of government, far from the decision makers in Kandahar. A few months earlier, two sisters had come to her asking to join her courses. Kamila knew their family well; they were Pashtuns from the south who had lived for many years in Khair Khana, just behind the Sidiqis and next to the neighborhood mosque. The girls' uncle was a good friend of Najeeb's. Kamila had heard a while back that Mustafa, the girls' father, was now working with the Taliban. He patrolled Khair Khana with minimal force, using his relations.h.i.+ps with his neighbors to try to keep their corner of Kabul from attracting his bosses' notice. Kamila had told the sisters that she would be happy to have them join the school. She was eager to help her brother's friends, and besides, she thought, she was glad to have their father on her side. Not long afterward, the oldest of the two girls, Masuda, had asked her teacher if she could speak with her in private, away from the other students.

"My father has asked me to pa.s.s along a message," she said, tightly gripping her sewing kit. "He asked me to please tell Kamila Jan that I know that she has a business, and that I also know she is an honorable woman whose work is helping families in Khair Khana. She should please be careful to make certain that no men come to the house, ever. If she follows the rules and if she makes sure that only women are working with her, she should not have any problems. Tell her that I will try to let her know if any of my bosses are asking about her business or planning to come to her house."

From the way that Masuda had recited her father's words, gazing upward as if trying to pry open the pages of an invisible notebook, Kamila could see that she had worked hard to memorize his message without missing a word. The importance of what he shared had not been lost on her, despite her youth.

"Please tell him my sisters and I very much appreciate his help," Kamila replied, taking Masuda's hands in her own. "We will do everything we can to follow his advice."

As the weeks went by and their operation grew, Kamila was sure that the Taliban must be asking about her business at the mosque, just as they had with Malika's school. She gave thanks every day that so far she had heard nothing from the government's men.

She would do all she could to keep it that way.

8.

A New Opportunity Knocks Evening arrived and with it came electricity along Khair Khana's main road. The girls rushed to plug in the sewing machines and make the most of the power for as long as it lasted. Sewing well into the evening, they interrupted the whirrs and clacks of their machines only to flip on the BBC's nightly news program. More fighting in the north was the headline, but that was hardly new. The Taliban may have brought security to the streets of Kabul, but peace remained elusive.

Suddenly the girls heard the front gate creak open. They sprang to their feet and looked at one another in alarm, the machines now bobbing up and down on their own without hands to guide them. Kamila's heart beat in her ears. Who would have a key? she wondered. And who in the world would come this late at night? It was just before nine.

"I'll go see ... ," said Kamila.

She dropped the dress she was hemming, grabbed a dark scarf that hung on the rack near the door, and stepped into the courtyard. She could hear Saaman right behind her and Laila yelling for Rahim back inside.

A dark figure, thin and tall, moved toward her. Standing still in the chill autumn air she cried out the words that set her sisters at ease: "Father, it's you!"

In relief and joy she rushed to embrace him, nearly leaping into his long arms as she had so often when she was a girl. "Oh, we are so happy to see you," she said, helping him through the front door. "You must be hungry-it must have taken you hours to get here."

"Yes," he replied, "there are checkpoints everywhere and almost all the paths into the city are blocked." He stopped and gave her a look she knew well: forgiving if also a bit stern. "It's not easy getting in or out of Parwan." Then, the glower softening into smile: "As you know."

She nodded. Just a month earlier she had visited Parwan, braving the Taliban and Northern Alliance checkpoints and hours of travel by bus and on foot with her nephew Adel. At ten years of age he was old enough to serve as a mahram mahram but too young to attract attention from the soldiers. The two had started out before five o'clock that morning on a ramshackle bus that took them out of Kabul through Taliban territory. After clearing the first checkpoint they continued on to Dornama, a small district at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains. Kamila and her companion then trudged for more than six hours through the high mountain pa.s.s, at the other end of which they at last caught another bus, which took them along the b.u.mpy road to Gulbahar. but too young to attract attention from the soldiers. The two had started out before five o'clock that morning on a ramshackle bus that took them out of Kabul through Taliban territory. After clearing the first checkpoint they continued on to Dornama, a small district at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains. Kamila and her companion then trudged for more than six hours through the high mountain pa.s.s, at the other end of which they at last caught another bus, which took them along the b.u.mpy road to Gulbahar.

"What are you doing here?" Mr. Sidiqi had demanded when he opened the door and found the bedraggled travelers. His voice bore the sharp tone of a senior military officer who would brook not even the slightest opposition. "Don't you know how dangerous it is to travel now?"

His anger took Kamila aback, and she barely managed to mumble a reply.

"We ... we just came to see you and Mother. The girls and I have been so worried about you both, so we thought that Adel and I would come to make sure that everything is okay." Kamila had dared to make the journey so she could bring her parents some of the money the girls had earned from their sewing business in Khair Khana-"just in case you need anything."

"Kamila Jan, that is foolish," Mr. Sidiqi said. "A young girl like you traveling by yourself and taking such risks? Anything could happen. You know that. I appreciate your support of the family, but you must listen to me and promise not to come again. Don't worry about your mother and me. We will be fine so long as we know all of you are safe there in Kabul."

He made her promise to leave the very next day, but meanwhile, the family would have a joyous evening together. Cousins and friends from around the neighborhood came for dinner to catch up on all the news and hear about what was happening in Kabul. As luck would have it one of the cousins knew of a group that was leaving for the city at dawn. Mr. Sidiqi announced that Kamila and her small companion would be happy to join them.

And so once again they were up with the sun, for the long trek home. After a two-hour bus ride through Parwan, they followed the long trail of women and a few older men, retracing their steps across the mountain pa.s.s and occasionally struggling to share the trail with the donkeys and horses that were carrying more fortunate travelers. The nylon chadri trapped the sticky daytime heat with unrelenting efficiency, and Kamila watched enviously as the older ladies in the group pulled back their veils to see better as they navigated the uneven terrain. As a young woman, Kamila knew she was a target for fighters on both sides of the conflict, as well as bandits who were out only for themselves. So she kept her face covered, holding the slippery chadri in place with her hands while rivers of sweat streamed down her face.

But all of that seemed like ages ago. Tonight it was her father who had dared to make the treacherous daylong journey from the north. Kamila gave thanks to Allah for having protected him along the way, but she worried that if her father was here, something must be the matter. She knew he would never leave Parwan otherwise.