Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller - The Broken Circle - A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“It’s good to finally see you,” I said as she scrubbed my back.

“It’s been too long, Enjeela. Too long.” Her voice faded into a soft lilt.

As much as I wanted to remonstrate and tell her that I had grown up in the years since I’d seen her, I closed my eyes and indulged the warm feeling; the soothing water penetrated to my weariness. Her touch over the cloth was nurturing in a motherly way. This is what I had missed all those years, and now she instinctively sensed it.

I wanted to tell her everything that had happened since that day she left Kabul: the days I spent huddled around coal stoves in freezing houses, with only the company of an emotionally depleted father and three frightened siblings. How we scraped by to survive. How we lived on the road; slept in the dirt, in the forest, on the side of the road, in mud huts; and ate like impoverished peasants. The memories strummed through me as she continued to scrub away—I wasn’t the child she remembered. Yet the warmth of her touch kept me silent for a long while. I was her child. So I let her care for me.

Before I finished, Vida bounced into the room, a ball of sunshine and cheer, her hair flying about her face. “Enjeela,” she shouted. “Move over. I need a shower too. I’ll get in with you.”

I laughed shyly, not wanting to hurt her feelings. We used to bathe together all the time, but I’d grown and matured. “Aren’t we a little old for that?” I said as gently as I could.

With a look of disappointment, she stood in the middle of the bathroom in her underwear. “So I can’t take a shower with you?”

“I’m almost done now anyway,” I said, turning away from her. “Stay and talk to me while I finish up.”

She shrugged and stepped back into her dress. But she was not one to stand still. So full of energy, she moved from foot to foot as if dancing and rattled off every possible thing we could do together.

“I can teach you Hindi,” she said. She recited a list of phrases she knew well. She spoke them so fluently I was impressed. “I’m learning it in school, but I learned more just walking around and talking to people.” Without taking a breath, she continued on. “Oh, and I’ll take you to this market where we go—Mom, can we take her to the market? Please, please?”

Mommy had me lean back as she worked shampoo into a lather in my hair, kneading my scalp with her fingers. “Of course,” she said. “Just not tonight, Vida. Enjeela needs her rest.”

“Okay, tomorrow, then,” she said, bouncing on her toes as if she were ready to take off and fly. “We’ll go first thing in the morning. You’ll love it, Enjeela. There’s so much good food. So many nice things to buy. And I know everyone there. I speak to all the shop owners in Hindi. Oh, and we’ll buy you a shalwar kameez. Oh, won’t she look good in one, Mom? A pretty orange or a bright-yellow one.”

Vida’s rapid speech about every detail of the market, what we could buy and eat, was invigorating. Her energy seemed pent up, as if she had been saving all of these adorable descriptions just so she could shower them on me.

She kept talking as I toweled off, and she followed me into my room, talking away. There on the bed, new pajamas were laid out for me, and I climbed into them. I ran the soft cloth between my fingers. Mommy had made these herself, I could tell. They were my size and had been waiting for me to arrive. I felt so much less like a stranger, dressed in these pajamas from her own hands.

Mommy peeled back the covers of the bed, and I climbed in. Fatigue hit me as soon as she tucked the covers up to my chin. “We will get new clothes tomorrow,” she said, “at the market.” Finally, Vida stopped talking.

She bent over and kissed me on the forehead, a seal of her kindness to me. All those years of waiting welled up inside me; after so much travel and doubt, here I was in a warm bed, tucked in by Mommy. Her care brought moisture to my eyes as she pulled away.

“Sleep well, my child,” she whispered. She brushed some hair off my forehead and gazed at me for an instant. I saw the tenderness in her eyes, as if she wanted to sew up everything that had been torn apart in our lives and mend every broken promise between us. I had so many things I wanted to say to her, but right then her touch was enough.

“Come, Vida,” she said, turning away. “It’s your turn for a bath.”

Vida stood over me. I reached up and touched her soft cheek, so young and beautiful and full of life, so well cared for here in this home. She had grown into such a vivacious girl, it was hard to take in.

“It’s good to be here, Vida.” She leaned her cheek into my palm. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. And as she bent over and kissed me, she said in her bubbly way, “I’ve waited so long for you to come home.” Then she skipped back to Mommy. The light clicked off, the door closed, and I was alone in the darkness of my first night at my new home. A draft riffled the curtains through an open window. The night had turned the blazing-hot daytime temperature into a tolerable warm breeze. The gauzy fabric of my pajamas in my hand felt so good, like ones at the home I remembered from long ago. The glass bangles around my wrists clanked subtly as I shifted in bed. Sleep closed in on me as I let it take me away. But not before the smells of Mommy’s cooking filled my thoughts, and the music in the streets as we rode through the city, and sights of the markets so full of fruit of every color and size. I was done being a Kuchi girl. I was home.

The sun hadn’t been up very long before Vida bounced into my room, shook me awake, and took up exactly where she’d left off the night before. “We’re going shopping today. Get ready, get ready.” She had not lost one bit of her enthusiasm, and it made me jump out of bed. Yellow sunshine streamed in through the open window, and the freshness of the new day wafted in on a warm breeze. She sat on the edge of the bed as I went through the closet full of clothes Mommy had prepared for me. She had sewn dresses, slacks, blouses, and skirts. I chose a tan linen skirt and matching blouse. Glancing over all the clothes in the closet, I didn’t think I needed much in the way of new clothes. She had been thinking of me, preparing for my arrival, from the looks of my closet. She had thought of everything—except for shoes.

Vida saw me staring down at my travel-worn shoes. “Looks like you need some new ones. We can get new ones today at the market,” she chirped with a broad smile.

I held out my hand. She leapt off the bed, and we went downstairs, hand in hand, into a kitchen full of aromas of a delicious breakfast. The entire family was already seated around the table, eating heartily.

“Enjeela.” Mommy greeted each of us with a kiss on the top of the head. I slid into a seat next to Padar, and Vida squeezed in between Zia and Zulaikha. Zia immediately began to tease her, and soon both of them were laughing.

“How did you sleep?” Padar asked me as he scooped out food onto my plate.

“Very good,” I said. He filled my plate with slices of yellow mango, sweet banana, bright-orange papaya, dollops of yogurt, and what looked to me like a rolled-up omelet with musky-smelling spices and mushrooms. Though I’d eaten well the night before, I felt famished. I wondered if all those months of eating on the road had left me permanently hungry. I ate ravenously as Padar sipped his hot masala chai—a mixture of black tea and Indian spices and herbs.

“Do you eat like this every morning?” I asked Mommy as she sat with us.

She smiled warmly at me. “Some days, yes. Today is special. We are together after a long time.”