The Secret Sky: A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan Read online

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2014 by Atia Abawi.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Abawi, Atia.

  The secret sky : a novel of forbidden love in Afghanistan / Atia Abawi. pages cm

  Summary: Two teens from different ethnic groups in present-day Afghanistan must fight their culture, tradition, families, and the Taliban to stay together as they and another village boy relate the story of their forbidden love. 1. Hazaras—Afghanistan—Fiction. [1. Love—Fiction. 2. Ethnic relations—Fiction. 3. Family life—Afghanistan—Fiction. 4. Pushtuns—Afghanistan—Fiction. 5. Taliban—Fiction. 6. Afghanistan—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.A136Sec 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013026895

  ISBN 978-0-698-15854-2

  Edited by Jill Santopolo.

  Dari alphabet provided by Abdul Wahid Abawi.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  To the people who taught me love in all its forms—my parents, Wahid and Mahnaz; my brother, Tawab; and the true love I was destined to find, Conor.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Part Two

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Author’s Note

  Epigraph

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  THIS IS LOVE: TO FLY TOWARD A SECRET SKY, TO CAUSE A HUNDRED VEILS TO FALL EACH MOMENT. FIRST TO LET GO OF LIFE. FINALLY, TO TAKE A STEP WITHOUT FEET.

  —Jalal ad-Din Rumi

  INTRODUCTION

  I was in my mother’s womb when my parents and two-year-old brother fled Afghanistan with only the money in their pockets and two suitcases. They left on a sweltering Kabul summer day during the Soviet War in a chilling and stressful escape that involved their plane being stopped on the tarmac and the communist police walking up and down the aisle for four hours before they could take off. The flight first took them to Moscow on their way to their destination, West Germany. I was born a month later, and we moved to the United States a year after that. I will always be grateful and in awe of my parents for having had the courage to leave everything they had ever known to try and give their children a better life.

  As I grew up, my parents shared their memories of a land they so desperately wanted to see again. “When we return . . .” was the start of so many sentences throughout the 1980s. They even enrolled my brother and me in an Afghan school on Saturdays, believing we should know how to read and write at least one of the Afghan languages, as it would be useful upon our eventual return. They immersed our lives in the Afghan culture inside the home while allowing us to embrace our new culture outside of the home. My mother’s glowing descriptions of Afghanistan and its various ethnic groups made me envision the country as a virtual Candyland—different tribes of people dispersed through various parts of the country, making it a land of diverse beauty and kindness. It was not until I was older that I read about the ethnic divisions and bloody rivalries. I almost felt betrayed by the truth.

  As the years went on and one war in Afghanistan turned into another, my brother and I no longer heard the words “when we return . . .” I could see the devastation in my parents’ eyes as they watched the news and saw the country they loved shatter into pieces night after night. It’s hard to witness your parents’ dreams fade away before your eyes. I would listen as their friends talked politics over endless cups of green tea with a sprinkle of cardamom about a situation they knew they were too far away from to have any effect on. This was a scene played in the homes of most in the Afghan Diaspora all over the world.

  It was after the United States led an invasion in 2001 that the country became a topic of conversation again throughout the world, not just in Afghan homes. I went to Afghanistan for the first time in 2005 to shoot a documentary and hoped to see a country rebuilding. It was a museum of war relics, with Soviet tanks still lining the runway of Kabul Airport, disabled Afghan men and women maimed from the fighting and tales of horror from those who had survived the years of barbarism from one war to the next. I heard story after story of devastation and triumph. Although the people were exhausted, there was still hope that things would get better—“How could it get worse?” they said. During that five-week trip, I had the incredible opportunity to spend time in a small remote village in central Afghanistan, cut off from the rest of the country and governmental rule of law. It was a village that had survived through the efforts of its people, a mix of ethnic Pashtuns and ethnic Hazaras—a village similar to the one described in this book.

  In 2008, I moved to Afghanistan full-time as an American television correspondent, first for CNN and then for NBC News, and immersed myself in the country and its people. I may be of Afghan origin, and I may speak the language, but in the end, I knew I was an outsider and my mission was to share the voices of those who didn’t have a way to connect with a world now involved in their story. In the more than four years I lived in Afghanistan, I experienced life in the most spectacular ways—and death in the most horrific. I learned quickly that Afghanistan is a land of contradictions. It holds unimaginable beauty and inconceivable ugliness. I’ve known good people who were needlessly killed and bad people who got away with the slaughter of so many. There were times my safety was put in jeopardy by people I did not know, and times when the threat came from those I knew all too well. I saw the best and worst in life on a daily basis.

  But even through the despair and hardships Afghanistan has experienced during the years, I do believe it holds a magic that is hard to define. My heart broke a little during the nearly five years I lived there, listening to
and witnessing all the suffering. But I strongly believe that God works in mysterious ways, and God granted me the greatest gift of all in Afghanistan—love. First, the love of a family who knew to flee in order to give me a better life and then the love of a husband I met while covering a heartbreaking war. And it is that love that has helped piece together the broken bits and make my heart whole again.

  This novel was inspired by my time in Afghanistan. The cities and villages I’ve seen, the people I’ve met, and the hope many have for a brighter tomorrow. I’ve illustrated real-life experiences in Afghanistan to the best of my ability, hoping the reader will get a small glimpse into a beautiful and tragic world unseen by so many. Afghanistan is a large country with millions of people who have different thoughts and different beliefs, and many of their lives differ greatly from the ones depicted in this novel. But though this story is fiction, it’s influenced by real events and real people. I hope it touches your heart the way the people who inspired it touched mine.

  Atia Abawi

  One

  FATIMA

  I know this worn path better than I know myself. As I walk through the nut-colored haze, I can taste the salty bitterness of the parched ground meeting the air and then meeting my mouth. Since I was a child, I’ve always tried to walk in front of everyone, so the dirt wouldn’t hit my clothes. There’s nothing worse than the smell of earth on your clothing when you are lying on your mat and trying to sleep at night. It lingers, making its way into your dreams.

  But still, the path brings me comfort. It’s something I am familiar with. I don’t know the new curves on my body the way I know the bends on the footpath.

  I look down and am glad that I can hide myself under an oversized payron. I’m jealous of my three-year-old sister, Afifa. She doesn’t have to worry about becoming a woman. At least, not yet. I turn and see her behind me, jumping onto the footprints I’ve made, carefree like I used to be.

  “What are you doing, crazy girl?” my best friend, Zohra, asks my little Afifa.

  “I’m jumping so I don’t drown!” she says with determination, sticking her tongue out to the side as she lands on another print.

  “Drown in what? We’re walking on dirt.” Zohra shakes her head.

  “No, it’s a river!” Afifa responds. “And Fato’s footprints are the rocks I need to jump on so I don’t drown!”

  “Okay, you dewanagak,” Zohra says, laughing. “Fatima, your sister has a lot of imagination. I don’t think we were that colorful when we were her age.”

  “I think we were,” I say. “At least I was. You were always so scared of everything, including your own shadow.” I can’t help but laugh.

  “What do you know?” Zohra pouts, just as I thought she would. The best part about teasing her is that she is horrible at pestering back. She’s my best friend for many reasons, and that is definitely one of them.

  I keep chuckling, and eventually Zohra starts to giggle too. She’s never been able to stay mad at me, even when I deserve it.

  We’re nearly at the well when we both see the tree log. It’s a log we pass almost daily, and every time, it brings back memories of what life used to be like, when all the kids from the village spent the days playing together. My mother says that it’s no longer proper for a girl of my shape to go out and play, that it will be seen as indecent. But even if she did let me play outside, I don’t have anyone left to run in the fields with. Most of the girls around my age aren’t allowed to leave their homes, and the boys have begun helping their fathers in the fields and shops.

  Zohra and I are still allowed to see each other, but even time with her isn’t the same as it used to be. She doesn’t want to run around anymore; she would rather sit and gossip about the village, sharing all the information she hears from her parents while braiding my hair.

  For the first time in my life, I feel alone. Lonely. Even though my little brothers and sister are always around, it seems like I no longer belong in my family—at least not the new me—the bizarre, curvy, grown-up me. This feeling of nowhereness makes me empty inside in a way that I can’t explain to anyone, not even Zohra. She seems to be embracing all the changes that I can’t.

  I wish I could be like that log. It’s always been the same—able to fit the tiny backsides of a dozen or so children, squeezed tightly together. We’d sit there taking breaks from running around the village, sharing treats if we had them, munching the nuts and mulberries we’d picked from the nearby woods.

  “What are you smiling at?” Zohra breaks my train of thought.

  “Nothing. I was just remembering how we used to play around that log,” I say as my smile fades. “It looks so sad without us there.”

  “You’re the one who looks sad over a piece of wood,” Zohra says. “Besides, I don’t think we could all fit on that thing anymore. If you haven’t noticed, our backsides have grown a bit.” She smirks. “I remember when Rashid found that thing in the woods while we were picking berries and we all had to roll it up here. I think my back still hasn’t forgiven me!” Zohra dramatically puts one arm on her back and slouches like an old bibi, and in fact, she looks a lot like her own grandmother when she does it.

  I remember that day so clearly, even though it was a lifetime ago. Rolling that chunk of timber, all of us together as a team. It was a grueling task, and we didn’t think we could make it, but Samiullah, whose family owns the well and the fields beyond it, he knew we could. Every few feet of progress, one of us would want to stop. But Samiullah wouldn’t let us. He kept encouraging us to keep pushing.

  He was always the leader out of our little gang of village kids. Some families didn’t allow their children to play with us because we were a mixed group—Pashtun children playing with Hazara children—but our parents didn’t mind. We were connected through the land and through our fathers—Samiullah’s Pashtun father is the landowner, and our Hazara fathers are the farmers.

  After we moved the log to its current spot, we all sat on it, picking out one another’s splinters. We couldn’t believe we’d done it, just like Samiullah said we would.

  “Did you hear that Sami’s back?” Zohra cuts off my thoughts of the past.

  “What?” I don’t think I heard the words correctly. Samiullah had left for religious studies—he was supposed to be gone for years. There was no way he was back.

  “Yeah, I heard he’s back from the madrassa, at least that’s what my father told my mother and grandmother last night. He heard it from Kaka Ismail,” she adds, throwing her empty plastic jug up in the air before catching it again, sending Afifa into a fit of giggles.

  “Sami’s father told your father?” I ask, still confused.

  “Yeah, didn’t your father tell you? Apparently he spoke to them when he came by to check on the fields.” This time she misses the jug after her toss. “He didn’t last long, did he?” She picks it up and slaps the dirt off the plastic.

  “What do you mean?” I can’t seem to process anything Zohra is saying right now. How is Samiullah back? Why haven’t I seen him yet? Why didn’t I know he’d returned? We used to be best friends, Sami and I. Could he be around here? We are near his house right now. He could be anywhere on these grounds.

  “Most boys don’t come back until they’re adults with their scraggly beards, telling us all what bad Muslims we are,” Zohra says, rolling her eyes. “Thank God he left early. Apparently Rashid is still there. Kaka Ismail said he’s coming home soon, too, but just to visit. Knowing Rashid, once he finishes at the madrassa, he’ll want to hang all of us for being infidels just because he can.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What? We both know he’s always been a little dewana.” Zohra shrugs her shoulders before crossing her eyes.

  I cluck my tongue at her in disapproval while grabbing her jug. Samiullah’s cousin has always been a bit rougher than the rest of their family, but he’s not crazy. He was a
part of our childhood. He was a part of what made us us.

  As I walk down the path, My heads spins with Zohra’s news. Is Samiullah really home? When he left three years ago, I thought I’d lost my friend forever. Could he really be back?

  I look through the trees that guard their house from the well, and a stampede of questions race through my brain: Is he there? Can he see me right now? Is my dress clean? Why didn’t I let Zohra braid my hair today? Why does it matter if I let Zohra braid my hair today?

  But I know the answer to that last question. I know why it matters.

  I always thought that by the time Samiullah came back, I wouldn’t be allowed to see him anymore—that we would be at the age where a man and woman can’t visit each other unless they’re related. I figured they would find him a wife and marry him as soon as he arrived home. And I’d probably be married by then too. To someone else. My stomach stings at the thought.

  Sami was always different from the rest of the boys. He saw me for who I was, not just as Ali’s little sister. And he took care of me . . . but I guess he took care of everyone.

  As we fetch the water from the well, I realize I’m conscious of my every movement, wondering if he’s watching. It’s so stupid. I know he hasn’t missed me the way I’ve missed him. But I can’t resist stealing glances past the foliage at his family’s home.

  I drop the bucket back into the water. When I feel the weight filling the plastic tub, I begin pulling the rope. I follow one tug with another. When the bucket makes it to the edge of the well, I pull it up and pour it into our containers, only to drop the bucket down again, repeating the tedious process.

  Afifa eventually gets bored of our silence, and her little arms can’t help pull the water from the well, so she runs back home. Zohra and I continue to work quietly, which makes us more efficient. The sun is starting to set over the mountains, painting the sky a bright maroon color, like my favorite tangerines. Before long it will be nighttime, and Zohra still needs to make her way home. I pour the last bucketful of water into the second container, watching some splash over the edges of the plastic mouth, making its way to my dress and turning the red fabric into a blood-burgundy.