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The American women and Afghan women spent downtime together, learning about each other through observations and questions
and discussing their latest crushes. Everyone, it seemed, was in love with someone or something. An impromptu henna party,
Elaha’s idea, had been an entire education. Zarifa had a tube of muddy paste and was making intricate patterns on the backs
of the hands of her fellow soldiers. Jenna took a sniff of the paste and raised an eyebrow.
“And this stuff is good for hair too?” she asked.
Zarifa nodded.
“They do it on the boardwalk in Ocean City too,” Misty added. She and her four younger siblings were raised by their grandmother.
She doesn’t talk about her mother or father at all, Marjan noted early on.
“Christmas came early, ladies. Look what I got!” Krista sang out as she entered the room. In her hands was an olive-colored
funnel, flat in shape and with a very long stem.
“What is that?” Soraya asked.
“A genius invention,” Krista said. She placed the funnel near the crotch of her pants to demonstrate. “You can use it to pee
outside without having to drop your pants all the way.”
Marjan stifled a laugh.
“Perfect stocking stuffer for a tomboy.” Jenna laughed. It was late November, and it was hard for the Americans not to think about the holidays they would miss because of this deployment.
“What is a tomboy?” Marjan asked.
“A tomboy,” Jenna explained, “is a girl who likes to do things boys usually like to do. Like playing football or climbing
trees. They don’t want to wear skirts or makeup or play with dolls.”
Marjan’s mouth fell open. Was Jenna describing a bacha posh? Did Americans dress some of their daughters as sons as well?
“I . . . I liked to do those things when I was a kid.”
“So you were a tomboy too? I think most of us were,” she said, pointing to herself and meaning the American soldiers. “Actually,
I thought only tomboys would want to be in the military. But it’s different for you all. You’re the most feminine soldiers
I’ve ever seen.”
Krista nodded. “Heck yeah. Can you imagine what would happen if we showed up to basic training with red lipstick and mascara?
These Rangers already call us the ‘bun brigade.’ They can’t stand us being here and think we’re going to get them killed.
We need them to see us as soldiers, and not women soldiers.”
“That’s why I curse hard and chew tobacco,” an American woman joked from the back of the room before returning to her magazine.
Jenna stuck her tongue out in disgust.
“It’s like we had to leave part of ourselves behind to show up for this job. But that’s not the case for you all and especially
not this one,” Krista said, pointing at Soraya.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Soraya said, batting her eyelashes and pretending this was the first time her flair
for makeup and fashion had been brought up.
Marjan thought of those years she spent as a bacha posh, the freedom she’d had to live as a boy. Without a son, her parents
cowed to pressure to keep their daughters home instead of sending them to school. Marjan had gladly become the brother they
needed. She’d loved the power she’d gained by masquerading as a boy, the authority and the confidence.
What a lie it had been.
A girl dressed as a boy was still a girl and would inevitably be treated like a girl.
“But this is the problem. So many Afghans think women cannot do this work. If we wear no makeup and sit like a man and talk
like a man, then they will tell us we are trying to be a man. They have to see women doing this work to understand that a
woman can do this work. Not just a woman acting like a man,” Marjan explained.
“Yes, yes,” Khatol, an FTP with a round face and kind eyes said, clapping her hands. Khatol was one of the few FTPs to have
a father fully supportive of her military ambitions. She was engaged to a soldier she’d met while stationed in one of the
provinces. “She is right. My uncle says if women work, they will be too tired to take care of their children. They will come
home hungry and wanting to sleep.”
“He is right,” Soraya said, which drew looks. “I hear this happens to many men.”
Marjan noticed that both the Afghans and the Americans laughed. The only person not laughing was Elaha, their commander. Elaha
was soft-spoken, deceptively gentle in demeanor. But she was a commanding force as well and knew how to coax courage from
her platoon.
“When I first had the idea to join the army, I didn’t want to be anything like the women who marry and are surrounded by children
and in-laws,” she said. “I wanted to be different, the only one. But then I heard the story of the simurgh. It’s from a book
called The Conference of the Birds. Do you know it?”
No one moved. Khatol was the first to admit she hadn’t read it. It was a centuries-old Persian poem and these women weren’t
exactly students of ancient literature.
“I’ll tell you, then.”
With the promise of a story, Elaha had their attention.
“Before us, in the times of warriors and winged creatures, a conference of birds gathered to choose from among their flock a leader.
But a hoopoe announced that the ideal leader already existed and lived at the peak of the highest mountain in the lands.
It was the simurgh, a bird of epic proportions.
If it stretched its wings, it could hide a mountain behind its feathers.
So, off the birds went to find this noble chieftain.
On the way, they encountered seven challenges, and many abandoned the quest because they were distracted or fatigued or led astray by diversions.
When they neared the mountain, they were reduced to a flock of only thirty.
And how did he describe them? Thirty exhausted, wretched, broken things / with hopeless hearts and trailing wings.
These thirty, the ones who persevered, flew to the peak of the mountain, but instead of finding a winged leader, they were
rewarded with the realization that they, together, were the epic simurgh. Their unity and determination had helped them ascend
to the highest peak.”
“She’s not making it up,” Khatol said, holding up her phone. “I found it online. Shall I read you a verse?”
Khatol cleared her throat, closed her eyes as if she were in a cloud of smoke, and read in a breathy, operatic voice:
We’ve gone too far, we can’t turn back
Bemoaned the Sorrow bird
One can’t retreat on a circular path
Said the Hoopoe, undeterred
The Phoenix lived a thousand years
A wise creature without a herd
And when his final hour came
His nobility was stirred
He spread his wings, summoned flames
And from his ashes a new Phoenix emerged.
Marjan stared at her feet then, willing herself to remember every detail of this tale so that she could relay it to Hawa,
to seed her with legends just as Khala Shaima had done for her.
“Commander, are you telling us that we are a bunch of birds?” Wahida asked.
“Didn’t you say your father calls you his little canary?” Khatol teased Wahida.
“He calls me an eagle!” Wahida replied, flicking Khatol’s shoulder. “He would call you a crow if he heard you singing along
to the radio.” She tilted her head back and cawed.
Khatol’s mouth opened in feigned indignation.
Elaha sighed as an exhausted mother might.
“I’ve only shared the story with you. It is up to you what you will make of it.”
Their time on the base was steeped in physical activity, in labor meant to strengthen their bodies. But there were also moments
like these, unintentional and scattered, that strengthened their warrior spirits and their sisterhood.
Two days later, ahead of the morning training sessions, Elaha presented Marjan with a worn paperback copy of the Shahnameh, yet another centuries-old poem. The book had more pages than any Marjan had ever held.
“What is this for?” Marjan asked.
“You seemed to be intrigued by the classics,” Elaha said. “You might like this as well.”
Marjan thanked her, wished she had something equally thoughtful she could offer in return, but Elaha was already on her way
to change into her uniform.
That evening, her body ached from another full day of training. Her hair was still wet from her shower. The other women played
cards nearby, but Marjan had declined to join. She missed Hawa fiercely. It was harder than she imagined to be away from her
for so long, and though the trainings kept her busy, she was left with plenty of time to second-guess every decision she’d
ever made, especially those involving Hawa.
What had made her think she could be a soldier? Who was she trying to be?
Marjan picked up the book Elaha had given her. It was impossibly long, and she would never finish it. She decided to let naseeb guide her, fanning through the passages and reading a verse here and there in the epic poem about love and war.
Flipping through, she landed on a verse about a woman named Gordafarid. Daughter of a warrior, Gordafarid was standing in
a fortress when she learned their commander had been taken by the enemy.
Shamed on her leader’s behalf,
Her cheeks turned dark as night.
Into the armor and helmet she went
To ride fearless toward the fight.
She, a lion, roaring at enemy ranks:
Show me your men of might!
Marjan set the book down, thinking suddenly of her orphaned great-grandmother dressed in a man’s guard uniform. She thinks
of herself in a soldier’s uniform. These lines were written thousands of years ago. Why did she feel as if they’d been waiting
for her to turn the page and discover them? And why was she finding them now?