21 #2
A young woman dressed in jeans and a long white button-down shirt must have overheard Farrah.
Marjan was most taken by the brightness in her eyes and the bold lip color she wore, the same shade of pink as the flowers in the mulched bed in front of the building.
“He’s stepped out but has a note to leave your assignment on his desk. ”
“Oh, thanks for the warning,” Farrah said to the other student. “Marjan, I’m going to drop this off and we can be on our way.”
Marjan stood in the hallway by a bulletin board, grateful that she could appear busy reading flyers about job announcements
and computer-repair services.
From down the hall, Marjan heard distant shouts. Curious, she took a couple of steps toward the stairs.
Then came the pops, the unmistakable eruption of gunshots followed by screams and loud thuds. They were coming from behind
her, the long hallway in the opposite direction of where Farrah had gone.
“What is . . . Oh, God. Farrah. Farrah!”
Marjan understood then. They were all primed to understand what was happening. Just weeks ago, gunmen had stormed a different
university in Kabul. Last year, they’d attacked an office where tuition assistance was distributed. Marjan ran down the hallway.
She heard glass shattering and looked over her shoulder. There was no one there, at least not for the moment.
She opened the door to the office she’d seen Farrah enter, a windowless space that barely had enough room for a desk and a
bookcase against the wall.
“Farrah!”
Farrah stood in front of the professor’s desk. She appeared stunned, her mouth agape and her eyes wide.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
A loud boom rattled the building, shaking away all doubt about what was unfolding around them. Farrah’s hands flew over her
ears.
Marjan closed the door behind her and darted to the other side of the professor’s desk. She shoved Farrah into the kneehole, hidden from view by a laminate panel. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the desk and then crouched to the ground.
Marjan heard movement in the hallway. It was the slow, casual pace of the footsteps that sent a chill through her bones.
They held their breath, tried not to make a sound.
A door opened nearby. More gunfire erupted, this time treacherously close. There were shouts and long groans, the sounds of
metal clattering, chairs scraping against the floor. The sounds were barely muffled by the closed door, and the smell of gunfire
and smoke seeped into the professor’s office.
Farrah and Marjan sat facing each other, hands holding their knees.
“Should we run?” Farrah whispered.
Marjan shook her head. They were too close, whoever they were. Hiding behind this desk was their best chance, maybe their
only chance.
They spent the next thirty minutes trying to block out the sounds coming from across the hall.
“We need to get out of here,” Marjan said. She stuck her head into the hallway to assess the situation.
“No, no, no,” Farrah refused, her voice a whisper. “We can’t go out there!”
Marjan saw no one and realized the gunman or gunmen must be on the other end of the building. Marjan didn’t want to be stuck
inside this small room, two sitting targets.
“The hallway is empty going down the stairs. We need to get outside!”
Marjan grabbed Farrah by the arm.
“Quickly,” she said. She pulled Farrah into the hallway. The screams and shouts continued. Two figures burst into the hallway.
Farrah started to scream, then clapped a hand over her own mouth. These were students too, terrified and seeking safety. One
was the young woman who had told Farrah to leave her assignment on the professor’s desk.
They raced down the stairs, legs trembling. Farrah’s headscarf fell away.
More gunshots.
Marjan heard a shout behind her and turned to see one of the other students had fallen. She was struggling to get back on
her feet.
“You’ve got to move,” Marjan barked as she helped the young woman to her feet. She took a step but yelped with pain when she
put her weight on her left foot.
“Farrah, get on the other side of her,” Marjan ordered. Farrah did as instructed. Marjan and Farrah each clasped hands with
the injured woman, who grimaced and nodded. She leaned on their forearms as they went down the six steps to exit the building.
The campus lawn was a scene of chaos. People running toward the perimeter, hands over their heads. Marjan led Farrah and the
woman away from the building and toward the street. The university was the target, and they needed to get as far away from
it as possible.
More shouts.
They were approaching the campus gate when Marjan turned around and saw two men with blunt-cut military vests over their clothing.
One had a brown cloth tied around his head and covering his face. His narrowed eyes sent a chill down Marjan’s spine. The
men were about to enter the building the woman had just fled when one of them turned his attention to the group of students
and staff running toward the university’s exit.
Marjan darted to the right, pulling their trio toward a row of thick shrubs.
“Down!” Marjan yelled as she pulled Farrah and the other woman behind the wall of green. More shots rang out. One man stumbled,
then fell face forward onto the ground. From where they were crouched, Marjan could see a bloom of red on the back of his
shirt.
Marjan peeked through the shrub and saw that the gunmen had entered the building.
Gray smoke floated out from broken windows, jaws of shattered glass.
On the right side of the building, Marjan saw a figure opening a window.
She saw the man consider the distance to the ground, look back into the classroom, and then take a leap.
He landed with a thud and a cry, then scrambled to his feet.
Lopsided and limping, he ran away from the building.
“They’re inside. We run now,” Marjan ordered. The trio took off toward the exit, arms linked and eyes on their surroundings.
They made it through the gate and onto the street, where soldiers with rifles on their shoulders guarded the walls of the
school. A tank rolled down the road, passed the procession of evergreen trees, the silent witnesses to the day’s madness.
They felt safer in the presence of armed forces, their breathing steadied. Marjan’s forehead was damp with sweat, as were
her clothes.
An ambulance wailed, maybe a block away.
“God, why?” Farrah yelled. Her classmate leaned her back against a tree, one foot off the ground. She put a hand on Farrah’s
shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Marjan asked her, struggling to catch her breath. The air was acidic and thick and made it harder to breathe.
“I wouldn’t have made it,” she said, her face drawn. Her partially smeared lipstick emphasized the pallor of her face. Her
hand shaking, she dug her phone out of her pocket, probably to let her family know she had made it out.
Marjan had no one to call, no one waiting on word of her well-being. She had only Hawa.
The wail of the ambulance grew louder.
Marjan wanted to run to the apartment. She wanted to wrap her arms around Hawa, because it felt like only then could she be
sure she’d survived this bloody event.
“I need to go,” she said. She started to walk, then broke into a jog. But the gunfire and grenades had only been an opening.
As she rounded the corner, a deafening blast sent her stumbling into the street just as the ambulance turned the corner.
There was suddenly a bewildering distance between Marjan’s feet and the ground and not nearly enough time to set the world
right.