A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan by Nelofer Pazira

Author:Nelofer Pazira [Pazira, Nelofer]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2005-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

“Give me a glass of water.” My father sits on the hallway sofa to untie his shoes. It is dark, close to nine o’clock. “I spent the last five hours in an interrogation session,” he says.

He left his office around three, but just metres away from the clinic, two men approached him. “I could tell from their greased moustaches that they were government agents,” he says. “They asked me to follow them to their office.” My father asked if he could call home to tell us he might be late. “They said it would be only a few questions and wouldn’t take too long.” Anger and fear are written on the lines on his forehead.

“What were they asking?” inquires Aunt Najmeya.

“The usual nonsense,” he replies.

The question is how worried we should be. Was it a random check, or do the authorities know what we’re planning? My mother tells me to get in touch with the smuggler. We are running out of time. “What if they had kept your father today? What if they come for him again?” My father’s guess is that the government is on another aggressive round of arrests, targetting those with a prison record or with one in the family. In that context, Ali’s arrest makes sense. Najibullah is desperate to maintain some degree of rule over a country that has long been out of control. For the past three years, he’s been trying to do this and failing. There is talk that the mujahidin have managed to take the city of Jalalabad, that heavy fighting is going on to recapture it. Rumour has it that the Soviets have temporarily withdrawn from Afghanistan.

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