Hurrying to help him onto a pillow in the living room, the younger girls brought him a cup of tea and immediately began a barrage of questions. How is Mother? What is going on in Parwan? How much fighting is there? How long will you stay? Did you see all the dresses hanging in the living room?

"Girls," he interrupted, smiling, "I'm very glad to see all of you. And yes, of course I see that you have quite a workshop here!"

He stopped a moment, looking at each of them, and turned serious.

"I know things are very difficult for you all. You miss your cla.s.ses and your friends and you've had to put all your plans for the future on hold. But you are doing such great work for the family and also for this community. It makes me very proud. One day, Inshallah, we will have peace. Schools will be open and we'll all be together again. But for now, you must continue to sew and listen to your sisters and learn as best you can. I know that you will."

"Yes, we will, Father," said Laila; she was the only one who spoke.

"And now," he said, his narrow face widening into a playful grin, "we are all going to have a nice dinner, and then I am going to speak with Kamila Jan for a while."

Following a meal of rice, naan, and potatoes, with a bit of meat to celebrate the special occasion of his visit, Kamila and her father sat by themselves in a corner of the living room. He barely recognized it, what with all the hanging fabric and the machines that took up every last bit of s.p.a.ce. It was late and the electricity was long gone, so Kamila lit a gas lamp.

"Kamila Jan," he began, "tomorrow I am going to Iran to stay with Najeeb. The fighting is getting too close and it's just too dangerous for me to stay. The Taliban are looking for anyone who they think has supported Ma.s.soud, and they've started asking all of our neighbors about me. It's better for all of us if I'm out of the country."

Knowing how much her father loved Afghanistan, Kamila couldn't imagine how difficult it was for him to finally decide to leave. He had never had to flee his own land before, no matter how bad things had gotten. "There's just no role for me here anymore; I can't work and the fighting is destroying everything in the north." Ever the soldier, he betrayed little of the emotion Kamila was certain he must be feeling. "I want you to know I'm proud of you. I never for one moment doubted that you would be able to take care of our family and that you could do anything you set your mind to. You must stay at it, and you must try as hard as you can to help others. This is our country and we must stay and see it through whatever comes. That is our obligation and our privilege. If you need anything at all while I am away, send me a message and I will be there. Okay?"

Kamila promised her father she would. She had no right to feel sorry for herself, she thought. At least her family had managed to stay safe so far, and their business was earning enough to keep everyone fed and cared for. Her job was to get on with her work. Her father's words reminded her of that. Still, it would be difficult to know that he was so far away. And she knew how dangerous a journey he still faced.

Early the next morning he set off for Iran. Kamila sent with him an envelope that contained a letter for Najeeb and as much money as she could afford to give them.

Only a few weeks after he left, Mrs. Sidiqi arrived. Before he had departed from Khair Khana, Mr. Sidiqi had instructed Rahim to return to Parwan and bring his mother back to the capital, where she could live with her children rather than remain alone in the north.

Kamila was struck by how tired she looked. The trip to Kabul was hard enough to exhaust a teenager, let alone a woman in her late forties who had suffered from heart problems since the birth of her eleventh child. And she must have worried for weeks about her husband's safety. Her gray braids hung loosely from their tight rows and her breath came in short, labored intervals. While the younger girls raced to roll out a mattress for her to rest on, Malika and Kamila served tea and warm bread. Kamila recounted how Malika had arrived several months earlier and helped get the business started, teaching the sisters everything that their mother had taught her back in high school.

When Kamila awoke the next morning, she found her mother already out of bed and hard at work making breakfast. How she had managed to get up before any of them, Kamila could not imagine, since it was barely seven. After was.h.i.+ng and saying her prayers, Kamila entered the kitchen to find water already boiling on the small gas stove and toasted naan sitting on the counter. It had been a long time since she and her siblings had had their parents with them.

As they shared their tea, the girls told her the story of a wedding they had just attended in Kabul for their cousin Reyhanna. Any such celebration was a marketing opportunity for their business now, and the girls had designed four stunning new dresses for the occasion. Unlike the traditional clothes they made for the stores at Lycee Myriam or Mandawi Bazaar, the gowns they wore to the wedding dinner were both modern and stylish, designed with Kabul girls in mind-as much as the new rules would allow, anyway. Malika's had been light blue with a navy and gold beaded waistline and full sleeves that reached to the wrist, while Kamila's had been red with small and finely embroidered flowers ringing the sleeves and the neckline. After the wedding, their teenage cousins and a handful of the bride's friends had flocked to place orders for similar gowns. Laila told her mother that they were planning to make a new round of dresses in preparation for Eid al-Adha, the holiday commemorating the prophet Abraham's devotion to Allah. Though they themselves were on their own in the capital and had few visits to make, the girls' students and their parents now came to offer their respects during the holiday. The sisters in Khair Khana had become as much their family as any relative still living in Kabul.

After everyone had eaten and Rahim had put on his turban and headed off to school, Kamila and her sisters gave their mother a full tour of the works.p.a.ce. Laila showed her the schedule she had created and described how Saaman would cut the long bolts of fabric for the seamstresses and get the material ready for the sewing, stenciling, beading, and embroidery that followed. With particular pride Kamila told her mother how Rahim had become an expert tailor and how Laila was helping manage not just the operations of the business but also the menu, since she helped prepare the girls' lunch each day.

As the morning wore on, the students soon began to arrive, one by one. Mrs. Sidiqi made sure to greet each of them. As she expected, she knew many of the young women's families; she asked after their parents and attentively listened to the stories of their hards.h.i.+ps, silently shaking her head in sympathy and concern. Several of the girls seemed grateful to have someone they could trust outside their own family to discuss their problems with. One young woman explained that her mother, a widow, received the green ration cards from the United Nations' World Food Program to buy subsidized bread from the bakery nearby, but the help was hardly enough to feed a family of eight. That is why she needed the money she earned from her sewing, plus whatever her little brother earned selling candy on the street.

Mrs. Sidiqi listened to each of the young women and comforted them as best she could, reminding them how much they had already survived and a.s.suring them that things would get better eventually. "Don't forget your school lessons," she urged them; "you don't want to fall far behind when cla.s.ses begin again." In the meantime, she encouraged the girls to consider her home as their own and to help one another to get through the difficult times.

Saaman and Laila taught the morning's sewing cla.s.ses while Mrs. Sidiqi sat toward the back of her living room looking on. She told Kamila later that she was deeply impressed to see how much the girls had grown up while she and their father had been away. Kamila, she said, must work with Malika to keep the family going now that her father was abroad. No matter what happened, she said, they must stay together and remain in their home. G.o.d would keep them safe if it was his will.

A few weeks later she returned to Parwan amid promises to return again soon.

Again the girls were on their own, and the fighting around them intensified. It was 1998, and the end of summer saw the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif fall to the Taliban once more, handing the new government a significant victory amid allegations of brutality on all sides that went beyond the usual wartime bloodshed to which they were all so accustomed. In Kabul, rocket attacks came at unexpected intervals, and the noose continued to tighten around the lives of families all over the city, particularly for the women. The Taliban decreed that women must be treated at female-only hospitals, but most of these had closed due to either a lack of supplies or of doctors. The one that remained open struggled to find beds for its patients, whom it cared for without the benefits of clean water, IV fluids, or functioning X-ray machines. With autumn came a frigid cold that threatened the desperate city with starvation, along with a cholera epidemic. Relief programs funded by the UN and other organizations tried to get wheat, oil, and bread to those who were worst off, but the need swamped anything that a single agency was capable of providing. Drinkable water was in short supply, and few families had much of anything left to sell.

Kamila and Rahim visited markets around the city at least twice a week, regularly returning to the Shar-e-Naw neighborhood to meet new shopkeepers whom people they trusted had told them about or introduced them to. When the siblings took the bus, Kamila noticed that the talk among the women in the back was all about who was making what handicraft at home, which store owners were buying which goods, and how much a shopkeeper would pay for this or that item. "Everyone seems to have become an entrepreneur," Kamila observed, astonished by how much had changed. Before the Taliban, women had spent their bus rides discussing work or school or the latest government intrigue. Now they seemed to speak only of marketing and business.

Arriving home from the old city's Mandawi Bazaar with Rahim one gray and chilly afternoon, Kamila was surprised to find two women sitting in her living room warming up near the wooden heater. The ladies had stopped by the day before at the urging of Kamila's cousin Rukhsana, who had told them about Kamila's small business and suggested they see her work for themselves. They worked with Rukhsana at UN Habitat, formally known as the UN Centre for Human Settlements, and they were in Kabul recruiting women for a project that was just now expanding. The pair had spent their first afternoon at Kamila's asking all about the girls' operation: how many women were working with the sisters, how they found markets for their goods, and how their apprentice program worked.

Kamila wondered why her esteemed guests had decided to stop in again so soon. She had great respect for the work of the two ladies, Mahb.o.o.ba, a st.u.r.dy woman with thin eyebrows and a no-nonsense demeanor, and Hafiza, a quite handsome woman with curly dark hair that fell around her shoulders. Hafiza had mentioned to Kamila that she was a scientist by training, and it showed; she had a cerebral seriousness that commanded Kamila's attention. Surrounding the important visitors and dangling from every available perch in the sitting room/workshop were dozens of wedding dresses for a large order Saaman was in the middle of completing. The gowns were to go to Mazar in the morning with Ha.s.san, another of Ali's older brothers, who would sell them to shopkeepers in the northern city eager for bridal inventory.

Kamila bounded into the room and warmly embraced both her visitors, asking about their families and welcoming them to her home. Laila brought a snack of sweets and special b.u.t.ter cookies that the girls enjoyed only on special occasions, and finally Mahb.o.o.ba began to speak. She described to her young host the work she did with UN Habitat, which was why she was here today. Kamila had first heard about Habitat during the civil war when the agency stepped in to repair some of Kabul's ruined water systems. Several years later, her cousin Rahela, Rukhsana's older sister, had joined the organization at the urging of its energetic new leader in Mazar-e-Sharif, Samantha Reynolds.

A tenacious Englishwoman who was not yet thirty, Samantha had succeeded in engaging women for the first time in the process of identifying and solving the city's vast infrastructure problems. Prior to her arrival at the UN, women had been routinely ignored during community consultations, remaining inside while their husbands, fathers, and sons went to the mosque to meet with international donors and tell them which water, sewage, and waste removal projects mattered most to the neighborhood.

Samantha recruited Rahela to join her in changing that equation, with backing from the city's mullahs. Together they helped communities tackle their own local sanitation and infrastructure problems and start neighborhood schools and health clinics for women and girls. The last Kamila had heard, Rahela had enlisted Rukhsana to grow what were now known as the Women's Community Forums where people-where women-gathered to take part in jobs and social programs they designed, supported, and supervised. Most of the profits the women earned from their work were plowed back into the forums to fund more gra.s.sroots projects. Mahb.o.o.ba explained that she had only recently returned to Kabul from Mazar, where she had found safety after leaving her Kabul University teaching position during the civil war. For the last few years she had helped Samantha and Rahela establish Women's Forums in the north, and now they had gotten funding to expand the program.

"Kamila," she said, pointing at the dresses and machines around the room, "Rukhsana told us about your business, but even she didn't know it had grown so much. We were looking around yesterday and today before you came home, and we saw all the bustle and all the girls sewing here. Your sisters Saaman and Laila told us a little bit about the contracts you have and how the cla.s.ses work. It's very impressive that you've managed to do so much-and without running into problems with the Taliban."

Kamila blushed in grat.i.tude, and explained that she wanted to keep growing the business, even though it was getting harder to find new shopkeepers who would place orders. "I'm starting to realize that we're just never going to have enough work for all of the women who come here looking for jobs."

"That is why we're here," Mahb.o.o.ba replied. "You know about the Community Forums from Rahela Jan and Rukhsana's work, I believe. Well, we opened the first few forums here in Kabul about a year ago, and now we're in the process of starting several more around the city. District Ten will open soon and we want you to come and be part of it. We need girls like you with real experience in business."

Kamila sat perfectly still, her nearly full gla.s.s of green tea now cold. A rush of questions flooded her mind.

"May I ask: How are you even opening forums here now?" she began. "I thought it was illegal to work with foreigners or foreign organizations. How is the UN still hiring women? I heard that all their female employees had either gone to Pakistan or been sent home."

It was Hafiza, the scientist, who answered. "Anne, the Frenchwoman who manages the Community Forums here in Kabul, meets frequently with the Ministry of Social Affairs and has kept good relations with them, so we've been able to get permission to expand our forums. And Rahela has been negotiating with the local Taliban ministries nonstop to keep the centers in Mazar open. We have great support from the community, which is the biggest reason that we've been able to continue our work. Otherwise we would have had to stop a long time ago. At the moment the forums here in Kabul are more or less permitted since only women meet there and they're offering small income-generation programs. And with the help of a neighborhood mullah we even received Taliban approval for girls to attend cla.s.ses at one of the men's forums, so you see that some local commanders can be convinced of the value of our work. In any event, the forums officially belong to the Community Fora Development Organization, which is an Afghan organization, not a foreign one, so the restrictions don't exactly apply. Of course the rules change nearly every day, so some weeks require far more cleverness than others to keep things going. But, as you know, there's always a way when the need is so great."

Kamila nodded. There was indeed.

"But what exactly can you still do here in Kabul?" she asked the two women. "And where are you holding your programs? Surely you're not permitted to have offices?"

"Oh, no, that's impossible now," Hafiza confirmed. "The forums usually operate out of people's homes or houses that neighborhood women rent specifically for the program. That makes it easier for the forum to be a part of the community and also enables them to move locations quickly if problems arise."

Mahb.o.o.ba picked up her colleague's thread: "As for the specific programs we're running here, they usually fall into three categories-but you will learn more about this during your training, of course."

Kamila let out a small laugh. She loved meeting women who were as dogged as she.

"First, there is education. Right now a few hundred students, mostly girls, but boys as well, are learning in our schools, where we teach in two sessions each day. We study the Holy Q'uran, which gives us some protection in the event the Taliban come to see us, as well as Dari and mathematics. For older women, we hold literacy courses.

"Then we offer services. Some of the forums run small clinics that offer basic medical care to women and teach things like health and hygiene. We also have a kitchen garden program that teaches women how to grow tomatoes and lettuce so they can provide food and better nutrition for their families.

"And then there's the production section, where we think your experience will be most helpful. The forums provide sewing, carpet weaving, and knitting supplies, and women receive money for the clothing, blankets, and carpets they make. It's not very much, but it's something, and almost as important, it gives the women work to do for the income we give them. They're very reluctant to take our help otherwise, you know, since they don't want handouts. We're also setting up a shop at the UN guesthouse to sell the women's goods to the foreigners who stay there. And of course we'd love to have your ideas as well."

Kamila's mind was racing with new business ideas for the forums. Surely she could help market the crafts and clothes the women were making, even if they were too simple for the shops at Lycee Myriam. The work sounded important-and exciting. Kamila was beginning to see what the next step might be for her, after the sewing school and the tailoring business: something even larger, where she could help many more women.

When Mahb.o.o.ba asked, "Will you join us?" Kamila didn't have to think about her answer. "Oh, yes," she replied. "I'm definitely interested." But she paused for a moment, then added, "I have to speak with my sisters first. I'm not sure how Malika Jan will feel about it since we already have so much work here at home."

Mahb.o.o.ba heard the hesitation in Kamila's voice; she knew from Kamila's cousin Rukhsana that Malika was the eldest in the house now, and that Kamila would need to defer to her will. She ramped up her pitch.

"Kamila Jan, of course there are risks, but this program is really making a difference. It's almost all that's left out there for women now; you know that. When we announce that we're starting an income-generation program for one hundred people, do you know how many women show up to wait in line for hours, even on the coldest days of winter? Four hundred, sometimes five hundred. Each winter we run emergency relief programs and we cannot even come close to meeting the enormity of the need. Not one woman we've spoken with has yet said no to working with us. I know from your cousin and I can see from your work that you are not one to turn down an opportunity to serve our community and to share all the business skills you've learned."

Kamila a.s.sured the women that she would take to heart everything they had said and that she considered it an honor even to be considered for such a post with so prestigious an organization. After all, she was just a girl from Khair Khana and here was a chance to be part of a program led by professionals in j.a.pan and Switzerland and the United States, at a time when her country was entirely cut off from the rest of the world.

"I promise I'll get back to you in just a few days," she told her visitors as she helped them on with their coats and chadri and walked them to her gate. "Thank you for coming."

As soon as they had left, Kamila collapsed on a pillow to think about everything the women had said. She was amazed that Habitat was managing to create opportunities at a time when it seemed that every door for women was closing. And she couldn't imagine saying no to this chance, given the miserable state of her city. Besides, wasn't this exactly what she and her father had discussed only weeks ago-helping as many people as she could? Didn't she have his blessing to do precisely this sort of work? She knew she could learn so much from the women who ran the forums and the foreigners who led Habitat. And surely she would make connections in this new job that would only help her family. With her cousins already working there, Malika and her parents couldn't raise too many objections, could they?

Later that evening, just after dinner, Kamila went to find her older sister to tell her all about what had happened that afternoon.

She found Malika still at work, sitting next to her babies' wooden crib sewing a seam on a burgundy dress that Kamila had been admiring for days.

"That is just so beautiful," she said. "I'm ready to order one for myself!"

"Thank you," said Malika, looking up at her sister and laughing. "How are you? We haven't spoken all day; it's been so busy!"

"Malika Jan," Kamila began, "there's something I want to discuss with you-it's about the visit we had today from Rahela and Rukhsana's colleagues, Mahb.o.o.ba and Hafiza. They are working here with UN Habitat; you know, the group Rahela works with in the north? Anyway, they are starting a new Community Forum in Kabul that will offer cla.s.ses for girls and jobs programs for women."

Kamila paused for a moment and took a breath in, aware that her sister was no longer smiling.

"They want me to join them," she went on. "I would help with home business projects like sewing and knitting and carpet making. It's a bit like what we've been doing here, but on a smaller scale."

Kamila's hopes that her sister would be as thrilled as she was to hear the news were quickly dashed; it was clear from Malika's face that she was anything but. Malika stared at the wall beyond Kamila and inhaled deeply, trying to calm her nerves the way she did whenever she was upset.

"Are you serious about this, Kamila Jan?" she asked. She spoke in a low and carefully controlled tone of pained disappointment. Kamila could tell that her sister was trying to hold back her anger, but she feared Malika was on the verging of losing it as her voice began to rise. "Do you know the punishment for girls who get caught working with foreigners? They get thrown in prison, or even worse. Do you know that? What could you possibly be thinking?"

Kamila answered in a measured and respectful tone, hoping to cool her sister's ire. She did not want to fight with her about this, but she had no intention of giving in. It was like her fight to attend Sayed Jamaluddin during the civil war all over again.

"Malika Jan, this is important," she said. "This is an opportunity to support a lot of women, women who have no place else to turn." Kamila paused for a second, marshaling the points in her argument.

"And it's a chance for me and for our family. I need to learn more and I want to work with professional people. I have to think about my future. I was never meant to be a tailor; you know that. It's the business and the management that I'm good at, that I really enjoy."

Kamila's short speech only made Malika more unhappy. She saw now that her younger sister was determined to go forward with this mad idea, and Malika was willing to do anything she could to stop her.

"Kamila Jan, if it's money you need, we have it," Malika said. "Our family is doing okay; we have plenty of work. I'll make sure that you get whatever it is that you want. But you cannot take this job. If something happens, I am responsible for you. Our parents are not here and it will be on my head. We don't need your salary and we definitely don't need the problems this job will surely bring."

Kamila started to answer, but her sister wasn't finished. Her face flushed with indignation.

"What do you think will happen to me, to your other sisters, if you are caught? And to my husband, the father of these twins? They punish the men in the family, too, you know. Are you willing to put all of us at risk? In the name of your family and all that is sacred"-she finished by pleading to Kamila with words that forbade defiance-"do not take this job."

For a moment they sat in silence, locked in their unhappy standoff. Kamila hated that she had upset someone she loved so dearly, but Malika's opposition had only toughened Kamila's resolve by showing her the stakes of this decision. Her life was about more than her own safety.

"I have to," Kamila said, looking down at the floor, and then at the twins, anywhere but at her sister. She just could not believe that Malika, who had supported her through every trial she had faced for the past twenty-one years, was refusing to back her now. "G.o.d will help me because I am going to help my community. I put my life in the hands of Allah and I am sure he will keep me safe because this is work for his people. I must do this. I hope you'll understand one day."

She was halfway out of the room before she offered the final words of the conversation-heated ones she immediately regretted.

"If something does happen to me, I promise I will not come to you to get me out of it," she said. "It will be my responsibility."

One week later, Kamila began working in District 10's Community Forum. Her salary was ten dollars a month. Kamila studied her Habitat leaflets every night and committed to memory Habitat's founding principles about the importance of leaders.h.i.+p, consensus, and transparency. She also received her first formal lessons in bookkeeping. Habitat closely tracked the $9,900 that the UN provided to fund each new forum, and one of Kamila's tasks was to help detail how every production section dollar had been spent.

In time, Kamila herself began to teach a cla.s.s on the Holy Q'uran in addition to her work running tailoring programs for women. Each morning, packs of students tiptoed excitedly through the foyer, working hard not to succ.u.mb to their enthusiasm and break the rules with loud shouts or giggles. It had stunned Kamila to hear through the Khair Khana grapevine that several Afghan girls she knew who had fled to Pakistan had lost interest in their studies. Now that it had been taken away, Kabuli girls of every age understood exactly how precious education really was.

Many of the students' families struggled to afford the small fee the forum charged for its cla.s.ses, and some had no money for even one pencil or a few sheets of paper. But the women in charge found a way to make the donated books last longer and to use and reuse the provisions they had. The children shared everything.

Growing the home business projects remained Kamila's favorite part of the job. At the Community Forum headquarters she and her colleagues ran training sessions on the basics of tailoring and quilting. Afterward they would deliver fabric, thread, and needles to women in the Taimani section of Kabul, returning days later to pick up the sweaters and blankets the women had made.

These outings gave Kamila a close-up view of Kabul's poverty. She saw families of seven or even twelve people forced to survive for days on boiled water and a few old potatoes; she knew women who had sold the windows of their homes to feed their children. Some desperate parents she met had sent their little girls and boys, as small as eight and nine, to Pakistan to work. No one knew if they'd ever see them again. She grew even more committed to the Community Forums' efforts. With all this despair crippling her city, who was she not to do her part?

Soon, Habitat managers asked Kamila and her District 10 colleague Nuria to help with several other forums as well. An experienced teacher and an expert accountant who had finished her studies at Sayed Jamaluddin several years ahead of Kamila, Nuria supported her father and two nephews on her Habitat salary. Each morning, regardless of the cold or the rain, she and Kamila shared the forty-minute walk along the back roads to their center in Taimani, discussing their lessons for the day and ideas for future projects, including a women's center that Mahb.o.o.ba had suggested they help develop.

Families showed their grat.i.tude for the forum's presence by protecting the women as much as they could. "Tell Nuria and Kamila a new Talib is patrolling the neighborhood; they should be extra careful this morning," the father of one of her students whispered early one morning to a little girl who answered the school's door. He had come running over to warn the women as soon as word of the neighborhood's new minder had reached him. Kamila, Nuria, and three dozen little girls spent the next half hour huddled together on the drafty floor in total silence while the Talib knocked again and again on their door, until at last, hearing nothing, the soldier gave up and moved on. An hour later, once Kamila could convince her heart to stop racing, cla.s.ses were back up and running.

Everyone, it seemed, had learned how to adapt. And that held for Kamila's house, too. With their sister spending most of her time at the Community Forum, Saaman and Laila had taken over the day-to-day management of the business, naturally a.s.suming the new roles they had been preparing for. Kamila knew the girls could handle the work, but she was delighted to see how easily they took charge of teaching the students and fulfilling all their contracts. Kamila still went to Lycee Myriam most weeks to do the marketing. She also kept for herself the task of visiting Mandawi Bazaar, whose shopkeepers preferred not to place orders in advance but to sift through the dresses Kamila and Rahim brought them and purchase the ones they liked. The downtown bazaar was too far from Khair Khana for her younger sisters to make the trip, Kamila decided, and she refused to let them take the risk of getting caught on their own, far from home. She and Rahim were used to such work and Kamila wanted to keep it that way.

As for Kamila's own protective older sister, things had improved-but only slowly. The weeks immediately following the fight with Malika had been painful, filled with a wordless tension that Kamila found difficult to bear. She missed her sister intensely and craved the advice and encouragement she had relied upon her whole life. She ached with the strange sensation of having lost a loved one she still saw every day.

At last Malika came to Kamila after overhearing her tell the girls about a District 10 embroidery project one evening as the girls were wrapping up their work. For the first time, she seemed resigned to Kamila's decision, though she was still clearly far from being at peace with it.

"Just promise me that you will be discreet and keep your work hidden; don't carry any UN papers or Community Forum forms they could find if they search your bag," she said. She had waited until the younger girls had gone to bed and the two of them were sitting alone in the living room, near Kamila's old sewing station. Kamila detected the lingering note of disappointment in her sister's voice, but concern and love clearly predominated. "And if you have to carry money around the city to pay the women you work with, then take Rahim and get a taxi for goodness' sake. I know that you know what you are doing and that you think all the tailoring work has taught you how to move around the city as if you're nearly invisible, but remember that they only have to catch you once to destroy everything. Your name, your family, your life. Everything. Don't trust anyone other than your colleagues, and never talk about your work in public, even if you think you are the only ones on the street. Be careful all the time: don't ever let your guard down and get comfortable, even for a moment, because that's all it takes for them to arrest you. Okay?"

Kamila wanted to speak but the words failed to come. She nodded her head, over and over, and hugged her sister tightly.

And she prayed she would be able to keep her promise.

9.

Danger in the Night Sky Loud voices jolted Kamila from her sleep. In a fog she pulled herself upright and found herself sitting on the worn vinyl seat of an old Pakistani-made bus. "We are on the way to Peshawar," she remembered, now almost fully awake and realizing the bus was no longer moving. Something must be wrong. ...

It had been nearly four years since another bus ride had taken Kamila, with her new diploma in hand, from Sayed Jamaluddin back to her home in Khair Khana on the day the Taliban arrived. Kamila thought about it often-how much had happened since then. She and her sisters had lived through so much, and she was no longer a nervous teenager preparing to teach school. Now she was an entrepreneur and a community leader with the Women's Community Forum program, and she was on her way to a training session in Peshawar hosted by her international bosses: Samantha, the unrelenting head of UN Habitat who had battled both her own superiors as well as the Taliban to keep the Community Forums running; and Anne, who headed Habitat's programs in Kabul. There would be other foreigners there, too, teaching the Community Forum workers such as herself cla.s.ses in leaders.h.i.+p, management, and business skills. It was an extraordinary opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with talented Habitat women who worked all around Afghanistan. Gathering everyone together in Kabul was impossible given the Taliban's rules, so the women were traveling to Pakistan, where the UN had moved much of its Afghan staff.

Shouts again interrupted Kamila's thoughts.

Through the window of her chadri, Kamila watched as a young Talib yelled questions at Hafiza, her traveling companion and Habitat colleague. Sitting next to Hafiza was Seema, another Community Forum organizer on their team. The soldier, Kamila a.s.sumed, must have boarded the bus at the government checkpoint on the edge of Jalalabad while she was dozing.

"Where are you coming from?" the Talib shouted. "Who is your mahram mahram? Where is he? Show him to me."

Not only were the women riding to Pakistan without a mahram mahram but they were headed to a meeting hosted by foreigners who worked for the United Nations. Relations between the Taliban and international agencies in Afghanistan had worsened steadily during the past few months, and the Amr bil-Maroof was again warning that Afghan women were not to be employed by foreign aid organizations. If the angry Talib now questioning Seema found out about their jobs, there would be big problems for them all. but they were headed to a meeting hosted by foreigners who worked for the United Nations. Relations between the Taliban and international agencies in Afghanistan had worsened steadily during the past few months, and the Amr bil-Maroof was again warning that Afghan women were not to be employed by foreign aid organizations. If the angry Talib now questioning Seema found out about their jobs, there would be big problems for them all.

Kamila sat quietly, thinking through every possible scenario that might help them escape the trouble they were in. Her years of visiting the shops at Lycee Myriam and Mandawi Bazaar with Rahim had taught her there was usually a way out of such situations if she could find the right words. A few weeks earlier a member of the Vice & Virtue forces bounded into Ali's store just as Kamila was unwrapping the dresses the shopkeeper had ordered. Thinking fast on her feet she explained to the soldier that she was here visiting Ali, a member of her family. "Thank you very much for checking on us; my relatives and I appreciate all the hard work that you and your brothers are doing to keep our city safe. We have great respect for the Amr bil-Maroof," Kamila had told the soldier. "I've just come to see my cousin here to try to sell a few dresses to support my brothers and sisters at home." The soldier looked almost persuaded but not quite. "Now surely you have more important work to do to find real lawbreakers and keep this neighborhood free of danger and dishonor for all of us, no?" In the end, that seemed to satisfy him and he left her with a warning to "be careful" to speak only with men in her family and to get back home right away, as quickly as possible. "Women should not be out on the streets." Ali remained silent and terrified throughout the exchange, and he asked Kamila afterward how she had dared to speak like that to a Talib. Her answer showed how much she had learned during the years of visits to Lycee Myriam with Rahim: "If I didn't speak to him like a brother," Kamila replied, "he would have been sure we were guilty of doing something wrong, which we were not. You are like my family and we are only trying to work on our family's behalf. If I did not explain myself, there could have been problems for you and me and Rahim." Experiences like this had taught her that many of the men who now worked for the government could be reasoned with as long as one was polite, firm, and respectful.

So far, she now observed, the soldier on the bus was still talking to them, and that was a good sign. If things got quiet, then they were in real danger.

Just then Seema pointed toward a middle-aged man who was sitting a few rows behind her.

"He is our mahram mahram," she said, leaning her covered head toward a bearded gentleman who had a kindly, open face that suddenly went tense with fear.

The soldier turned his black-rimmed eyes toward the middle-aged man and stepped toward his seat, towering over him.

"Is this true?" he demanded.

Kamila and her colleagues were too frightened to look at each other across the aisle of the bus. School examinations had prevented both Rahim and Seema's son, their usual mahrams mahrams and travel companions, from accompanying them on this trip. Eager to get to their training, the women had decided to go ahead on their own, despite the risks. Rahim had done all he could to help, including purchasing the women's tickets in his own name, though they all knew this would be of little help if they were caught without a male chaperone. The three colleagues had agreed to say, if they were stopped and questioned, that they were family traveling to Peshawar to visit relatives. A few minutes into their journey they had decided on one more precaution and asked their fellow pa.s.senger, the man who now sat terrified behind them, to say he was their uncle if the Taliban appeared. This had become standard practice in Kabul, since widows and women without sons or male family members still had to do their shopping, visit their relatives, and take their children to the doctor. The man rea.s.sured them with a smile. "No problem, I am here," he had promised. and travel companions, from accompanying them on this trip. Eager to get to their training, the women had decided to go ahead on their own, despite the risks. Rahim had done all he could to help, including purchasing the women's tickets in his own name, though they all knew this would be of little help if they were caught without a male chaperone. The three colleagues had agreed to say, if they were stopped and questioned, that they were family traveling to Peshawar to visit relatives. A few minutes into their journey they had decided on one more precaution and asked their fellow pa.s.senger, the man who now sat terrified behind them, to say he was their uncle if the Taliban appeared. This had become standard practice in Kabul, since widows and women without sons or male family members still had to do their shopping, visit their relatives, and take their children to the doctor. The man rea.s.sured them with a smile. "No problem, I am here," he had promised.

Now, however, the danger was real and not just theoretical, and this man wanted nothing to do with them. Staring at the Kalashnikov, he deserted them.

"No, it is not true," the man said quietly. "I am not their mahram mahram. They are not with me."