The Bus Stop

This story was produced as part of Paranda a writer development programme and global network for women writers in Afghanistan and the diaspora, facilitated by Untold Narratives, a development programme for writers structurally marginalised by community or conflict, and supported by KfW Stiftung.

Young children were running between the rows of idling cars. Sweat glistened on their foreheads as they weaved from one car window to the next, bottles of cold water in hands, shouting, ‘Cold water! Get your cold water!’

Their voices were barely audible above the blaring car horns and the roar of the heavy road-paving machines.

The driver looked back over his shoulder. ‘If anyone’s in a rush, they better get out and walk. We’re going to be stuck here for a while.’

No one answered. The sweltering summer heat had made enduring the traffic jam in the minibus preferable to giving up and walking.

I cracked open the window. The hot air outside hit me like a wall of fire from the tanoor. Under my black mask, my face was soaked in sweat and I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I longed to pull my mask down below my chin just long enough to breathe some fresh air. I did so for just a moment, but then immediately slid it back on again. Without a mask nowadays, I worry that my hijab is incomplete. Yet another thing I have become accustomed to over the last five years: covering my face and wearing a black abaya before leaving the house.

Mother would tell me to make sure my hijab didn’t fall and my hair didn’t show, and insist that I covered my face with a mask, covered from the eyes that assessed the crowds in the streets, markets and squares. Whenever I saw one of them in their white coats, a terror would grip me, and my hand would instinctively reach for my mask and headscarf, knowing that, at any moment, I could be stopped by an agent because of it.

It was a summer afternoon. On the side of the road, several workers with sunburnt skin and faces dripping with sweat were working with the steaming asphalt. Some were hastily smoothing the smoking tarmac while others were hammering the edges of the road with shovels. The smoke from the asphalt joined the hot air and the scorching sun.

A young worker’s clothes were drenched in sweat and clung to his body. He paused for a moment, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, before grabbing his shovel again.

It was because of this construction work that on both sides of the roads, the traffic stood still into the distance. Occasionally, a car would move forward slightly, only to stop again.

I rested my head against the glass window. The faces behind every car window looked tired, battered by the sun.

The man in the front seat was looking out of the window. Pointing to the asphalt paving machine on the side of the road, he said to the man next to him, ‘The truth is, no past government ever did this kind of work. Look at this, new roads are being built everywhere.’

‘Wallah, if we’re honest, they’ve achieved a lot in terms of development.’ The man beside him said. ‘Whichever province you visit, you see roads and bridges being built. Construction is going on everywhere.’

A third man agreed, ‘That’s what good government looks like. They have brought progress: starting the reconstruction effort while at the same time providing people with employment opportunities –’

I pressed my head harder against the window and tried to ignore the rest of what they were saying. What progress?

‘Sister?’ I was brought out of my thoughts by the girl next to me.

I turned to her in my seat. ‘Are you talking to me?’

‘Yes. Can you read?’

‘I can. Why?’

She pulled a folded piece of paper from her small plastic bag and held it up. ‘Can you read this address and tell me how long until we get there?’

I took the note from her. ‘It’s a bit further up. We haven’t reached it yet.’

She sighed softly and put the note back in her bag. She didn’t look over sixteen. The henna on her hands was fresh, and whenever she moved her fingers, the red patterns shone in the sunlight.

There was silence for a few moments. I couldn’t help myself from asking, ‘Didn’t you learn to read at school?’

She smiled. ‘I studied up to the third grade but then I couldn’t continue. I haven’t opened a single book in five years. What little I learned, I have forgotten now.’

‘Don’t you have anyone at home to teach you? A brother or your father?’

She laughed. ‘Thankfully I’m now in my own home.’

‘Do you mean you’re married?’

She nodded.

‘Where are you going now?’

She leaned in and whispered in my ear. ‘My husband is waiting for me. We’re going to see the midwife for an examination.’

‘For what?’ I asked.

‘I’m three months pregnant.’

I looked at her face. She was just a child herself. But I couldn’t say that, so instead I asked, ‘Why such a hurry? Surely you’re not old enough to get married, let alone have a child. How old are you?’

‘I will turn seventeen next year.’

What could I say? ‘Well, it sounds like you might have rushed into things.’

The old woman next to me, who had been quiet until then, joined in the discussion. ‘Don’t say that to her, my daughter. Getting married at a young age is better.’

The girl laughed softly, as if taking courage from the woman’s words.

The old woman continued confidently, ‘Take it from me – I was married at the age of twelve, and thank God, now I have grandchildren and great-grandchildren.’

I looked at both of them in disbelief.

The old woman turned to me, ‘Are you married?’

‘No, not yet.’

She laughed meaningfully. Then said something I didn’t catch under her breath and turned to me again. ‘So, that’s why you said she was being hasty.’

The girl and the old woman laughed together.

I didn’t like their laughter, it made me feel inadequate.  How could a girl who has not yet left her childhood world shoulder the responsibility of married life? And how could she be responsible for raising a child?

I fell silent for a moment. I saw a strange light of confidence in the young girl’s eyes that made me forget the words I had prepared. The old woman took my silence to mean that I was upset. She placed her hand on mine and, to reassure me, said, ‘Don’t be upset. I was just kidding.’

‘No, it’s okay, I’m not upset. I was only saying that she isn’t that old. There would have still been time for her to get married and have children. She could have finished her studies first.’

‘Nevertheless, girls belong in another home. And also, where is this education that you’re talking about now?’

‘It can’t be like this forever. Schools and universities might still reopen. And then she could have finished–’

The young girl said, ‘My uncle’s daughters said the same thing; before, they always said they didn’t want to get married and wished to finish their studies. Now that there are no universities and no education, they just sit in their childhood home. They’ve grown old too. God only knows if anyone will propose to them.’

I felt singled out by their whole conversation. They spoke as if they were discussing my life, deciding whether it was a failure or success, but they didn’t know my life story. In their eyes, and the eyes of society, women like me, deserved scorn. And why – because we had hoped? We had experienced and believed in something different? Perhaps, if I hadn’t been educated, hadn’t been partly through my studies five years ago, I would have felt just the same. But the difference was that I had. I had experienced all of that possibility, and now, the lack of it.

The girl looked over at the sitting cars. ‘It’s late… my man will be waiting for me in this scorching weather…’

‘If you’re in a hurry, you can get off here. It’s not that far – only a five-minute walk.’ I responded.

‘You know this area pretty well?’

The question immediately took me back to when I used to walk this exact path from the Dehbori bookshops to university. I wanted to tell her, Yes, at one time I used to walk to the university on this very street.

But her insult about her cousins – they just sit in their childhood home – was still ringing in my ears.  I was one of those girls whose life was a failure in her eyes. ‘Yes, I used to take this path a lot.’

She didn’t ask any more questions.

I left her alone as well.

The driver looked over his shoulder again and asked, ‘University! Does anyone want to get off?’

No one answered.

He shouted again, but his voice was drowned out by the noise of the cars. ‘University stop!’

Five years ago, when the minibus would arrive at this area everyone would shout. ‘Mister, we’re getting off! Please stop here…’

The minibus would then empty out. The girls holding their books would hurry down. Each of them carried the hope of a better future, and I was one of them. But today, not a single girl, myself included, got off at this bus stop.

A car slowly passed the entrance to the university. I couldn’t stop looking at the building. It looked completely the same, but also completely different, since now, of course, no female students stood outside the gates. All I want is for our lives to return to the way they were – a miracle, I know. But it is so much worse to have seen what we could hope for, only to lose it, again.

Today, as I passed this bus stop, I knew that a piece of me was still stuck here waiting.