The door swung open, and a Bangladeshi policeman stepped into the room, an aide behind him. He was definitely the man in charge. Thin, with a tight-fitting blue uniform, perfectly pressed, and a breast full of colorful badges, he glanced over us with an imperious air. Two gold diamonds and a golden leaf gleamed on his epaulets. He had a wispy black mustache on his dark olive skin. A blue beret with a gold medallion was cinched down over his short black hair. Despite his stern demeanor, he had the softest dark eyes. I wondered if he had any children of his own.
He stood erect, as if he were born that way.
He held a document in his hand and one of the ticket packets Padar had tried to pass to the border guards. “Are you Abdullah Ahmadi of Kabul?” he asked. His voice had an official tautness to it.
“Yes, I am,” Padar said from across the room. “And these are my children.” He spread out his hands toward us. “Zia, Laila, Enjeela, and Zulaikha. We are on our way to New Delhi to be reunited with my wife.”
“And you expected to pass through customs without passports,” the policeman said, holding up one of the packets stuffed with rupees. The bills hung out of the ticket folder like wilted lettuce.
“We have been deprived of our rights by the Afghan government to emigrate legally. We have come here as political refugees,” he said, speaking confidently.
“I have spoken to the Afghan embassy. I was told that’s not the case. That if you had applied through proper channels in Kabul, you would have been given every consideration as any Afghan citizen.”
“I would have been jailed by the Soviet puppet government if I had applied to emigrate. You well know that.”
“I know nothing of the sort. The Afghan ambassador is adamant that you return to Kabul, Mr. Ahmadi.” He folded the bills back into the packet and handed it to his aide. “Apparently you have some unfinished business there. Once that is complete, I’m sure you will be allowed to emigrate as you wish.”
“We are political refugees,” Padar protested.
“You mock us with your conduct, Mr. Ahmadi. We have no such status for those who would bribe their way past our customs.” He held out his hand. “Please give me the other packets you offered the guards.”
He dug them out of his coat pocket. The officer checked each one. “We will purchase one-way tickets for you and your family’s return to Kabul. You can apply for your passport and exit visa through proper channels. Then you can return to our beautiful country at your leisure, as a treasured guest.”
I shot up from my seat. “You’re sending us back!”
“Enjeela, please,” Padar said, reaching toward me.
“You can’t send us back,” I yelled. “You can’t.”
“Please, little girl,” the officer said. “You must understand—”
“We have to get to India,” I shouted at him. “We’ve traveled for nearly two years to get here.”
“That is no concern—”
“You can’t stop us from going to India.”
His grin became more resolute. He folded his arms over his chest, and for the first time, his eyes hardened. “There is a flight tomorrow that will take you to Islamabad. You will be met—”
“No, no, you can’t send us back.” I couldn’t hold back my tears. I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.
“Enjeela…”
I shrugged it off. “If you send us back, they will put us in jail. They will beat us like they’ve done to so many others, they will kill us!”
He shook his head. “That is none of my concern. You can’t come here illegally and expect to be greeted with open arms.”
“Please, please, please,” I pleaded. All I could think of was all the grief we’d been through to reach Mommy, and I couldn’t accept this decision in silence. “You have to let us through so we can see our mother.” I reached out for his sleeve, but he fended me off.
“You can stay the night here. Be ready to travel in the morning.”
I fell to my knees and began screaming. I couldn’t control my voice, the words, the tears, the anguish; they poured out of me. “You have to let us go. You have to. You have to. We can’t return to Kabul. They’ll kill us. They’ll murder Padar.”
I was so weak I couldn’t lift my head. I don’t know how long I pleaded with him, but he stood over me in silence while I stooped on my knees, wailing with every bit of strength in my being. When I fell into convulsive weeping, he turned to the door and closed it hard behind him. The latch fastened on the other side. I remained on that floor for hours before my sisters and Padar were able to console me enough to get up onto the wooden bench. I laid my head in Padar’s lap, and I finally drifted off into a hazy sleep.
18
INSHALLAH
Sometime in the night, a guard opened the door, and Padar helped me to the restroom on the concourse. I went in with Laila and Zulaikha. We relieved ourselves, then washed our faces, and cleaned ourselves as best we could. My face had streaks from crying so hard. My dress was dirty from kneeling on that filthy floor. I rearranged my clothes the best I could to be presentable. Followed closely by the airport police, Padar led us to a restaurant that was open, and he purchased some rice and chicken. A guard stationed himself outside the restaurant.
I ate slowly, thinking of what it would be like arriving in Kabul. I could muster few feelings about returning. My crying had drained everything out of me. I felt like melting right through the plastic bench.
“How can they do this to us?” Laila finally asked, breaking the silence. None of us wanted to bring up the dismal subject of our deportation.
Padar ate rather languidly, not at all in a hurry. “There are always reasons to hope for the best to happen, children. Remember that. We are in the hands of Allah.”
Hands of Allah. Mina is also in the hands of Allah.
“Do you remember the poem by Hafiz?” he said.
Laila rolled her eyes. “Which one. You’ve told us hundreds.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “It’s called ‘Out of This Mess.’”
We all shook our heads. I could not recall it. Here in this cold café in the airport concourse, he lifted our spirits, reciting with his deep and resonant voice. He recited a poem about being humble and asking God for guidance and help. It gave me a sense of security.
My sisters and Zia laughed. I didn’t understand why they were laughing; maybe because we’d been through so much already. I felt stiff inside, and trying to laugh felt like peeling the scab off a fresh wound.
“I don’t see how being humble is going to get us out of this mess,” Zulaikha said.
“One never knows,” he said.
I admired that he always seemed, in these difficult moments, to keep things in perspective. His strength in God gave me strength to believe, even though at times I had grave doubts, that I was in the palm of my maker, and he was holding me there. My fatigue had not lifted, and my body struggled between sleep and panic. But the fear of being forced to return to Kabul had lifted. I had no way of knowing what would happen, but there had to be a way out of this mess.
After we finished, a guard escorted us to the gate of the Pakistan International Airlines flight that would take us back to Islamabad. We tried to make ourselves comfortable in the hard plastic seats of the waiting area. I must have dozed off for a few hours, because when Laila shook me awake with a yank of my arm, the room was flooded with early-morning light.
I rubbed my eyes. The sky outside the large windows overlooking the tarmac had brightened with a new day. Padar seemed optimistic this morning. As if help would show up from somewhere.