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“Dear brother, which way do we go?” Mina says without an ounce of mirth. It is her turn to be shrouded today. She’s pulled
her headscarf around the lower half of her infamous face, a makeshift niqab. She pulls her sunglasses out of her handbag and
starts to put them on.
“Mina, no,” Marjan says.
The sunglasses are black with gold embellishments. They look expensive.
“Fine. I’ll go blind,” Mina says gruffly, and stuffs her shades back into her bag. “Hawa, take my hand. It’s more believable.”
Marjan checks her phone once more to confirm the directions she’s received from Jenna. What would she do without these women
behind the scenes to help them escape? They have sacrificed so much, showing up for missions on principle, not politics.
“This way,” she says, and they start to make their way to the gate where the marine, a friend of a friend of a total stranger,
is stationed. They move lightly today, having left their bags behind. At least their belongings would go to good use, distributed
among the women and children of the City of Widows.
Marjan keeps her head bowed, tries to avoid anyone’s gaze. She worries what the heat and sweat will do to the ash and ink
that are her disguise.
They press forward through crowds of people and scan their surroundings, still far enough from the gate that they can see Taliban circulating in the area, rifles at their sides.
In the distance, closer to the gates, Marjan knows the area is secured by a small cadre of Afghan men, the notorious special forces unit of the national army carrying out their final duty before they too, will be allowed to board a flight leaving the country.
Atop the walls of the airport, American marines stand guard.
It is a most bizarre triangulation of enemies and allies.
Marjan reaches for Hawa’s hand, then stops herself. She focuses on forging ahead and carrying herself as a man might, arms
at her sides, space between her feet, leading with her torso. She wears a frown, furrows her heavy brows beneath the cap.
“Hold on tight,” Mina says to Hawa. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Hawa nods. She is less afraid than she should be. She watches her mother’s new silhouette, her pulled-back shoulders and squared-off
hips, and understands that in this woman, she has an army fighting on her behalf.
“Why did I listen to you?” a man shouts at his wife. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
A girl with wide eyes and a pink shirt trips and falls to the ground. For a moment, Hawa mistakes the girl for Layma, her
classmate. A passerby stumbles over the girl, nearly crushes her.
“Watch where you’re going!”
There are more angry shouts, the bubbling of blame as temperatures creep up around them.
Marjan darts left, wanting to steer clear of the situation. Mina follows her lead, dragging Hawa behind her, but it is hot
and crowded. Her hand slips away from Mina’s. Hawa looks over her shoulder, tries to see if the girl, who bears an uncanny
resemblance to her friend, is back on her feet. And in this distracted second, Hawa steps on a man’s foot.
She looks up, ready to apologize, but freezes.
Behind the man is a face she last saw at this airport. Her father. There is hardly any distance between them.
Marjan feels a prickle on the back of her neck. She turns in time to see Hawa within arm’s reach of Abdul Khaliq. Would he
recognize himself in her face?
Marjan pushes through people and grabs her daughter’s hand roughly, as an angry father might, pulls her away from these five men, Abdul Khaliq and his entourage. She looks up briefly, despite herself, and their eyes meet.
“Forgive her,” Mina says, her voice soft and quivering. She steps between Abdul Khaliq and Marjan, envelops Hawa in the long
caftan she’s wearing, and keeps her back to the men. Without her makeup and in this shrunken pose, Mina passes for a nondescript
woman.
They move away, expecting at any minute to feel something lash at their backs, or at the very least to hear a shout. Marjan
is trembling, but with adrenaline, not fear.
“Keep going,” Mina whispers to Hawa.
When there is sufficient distance from the men, they pause to take a breath.
Marjan holds her daughter by the shoulders, looks at her face. “Are you okay?”
Hawa nods, though she feels like she’s breathing through a straw.
“What do we do?” Mina asks.
Marjan needs to think. Her plan to draw Abdul Khaliq away from the airport has clearly failed. He either didn’t see the video
they posted or chose not to abandon his post here in Kabul as a deputy Talib. Do they proceed with the rest of their plan
now? Do they dare draw attention to themselves while he is here?
“They haven’t chased after us, so I don’t think they recognized me. I think we should do what we came here to do,” Marjan
says.
They move closer to the gate. Mina does not tell Marjan that, as she’s feared, the beads of sweat on Marjan’s forehead have
dampened her new brows.
They are as close as they can get to the gate. Marjan reaches under her tunic, removes the tula that she has tucked into the
binding holding down her breasts. She hands it to Hawa and nods at her. It is her time now.
Hawa takes in a deep breath. Mina and her mother stand on either side of her, protecting her space.
Hawa brings the wooden flute to her lips, arranges her fingertips over the oval openings of the cylinder.
She draws a breath of exhaust-filled air, turns that air into breath and breath into sound and sound into a song she has been practicing since yesterday, a song that she has committed to memory.
My homeland,
Without hymn, without melody
My homeland
On you suffer without remedy
Heads turn, but Hawa plays on.
More heads turn, but still not the marine’s who stands over the wall. Marjan looks back at the hordes of people behind her,
at the ground they have covered. Could she have gotten this far if she weren’t fighting for Hawa? She doubts it. There is
a parting in the crowd, a narrow splitting of the sea. Marjan sees Abdul Khaliq in the distance. This time there’s no mistaking
it’s him.
Hawa looks at her mother, who signals her to continue. Hawa takes a deep breath and plays again, another forlorn verse.
The marine takes two steps in their direction. It is impossible to read his face, his gaze hidden behind dark sunglasses.
He has been vigilant since the day of the bombing. He can still feel the weight of the fallen in his arms. He is more tired
than he has ever been, and he is counting down the final hours of this mission. He wants nothing more than to sing happy birthday
to his wife next month, to put all of this behind him.
He commits all five senses to his duty. What is that sound? His lips are dry, cracked by this desiccating heat.
Marjan sends a message to Jenna, and the reply comes almost instantly.
Tell her to keep playing.
Hawa takes in another breath, sends it through the flute.
The marine focuses on the crowd to his right, homes in on the source.
Marjan and Mina wave their arms like bodies fighting to stay above water.
They dare not shout. They need the sound of Hawa’s flute to reach the marine.
She needs this music to save her now as it has saved her before.
The music does just that, knowing that Hawa will spend the rest of her life repaying the favor.