The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (5 page)

It wasn't long before Najeeb and his mother decided he would have to leave for Pakistan with several other young men whose families the Sidiqis knew. If he couldn't find work there he would go to Iran and would send his salary home to the women as soon as he could. But it was impossible to know when that would be. Already tens of thousands of refugees had headed across the border. Kamila and her sisters heard countless stories of the difficulties they faced finding jobs and places to live. Most were stuck in massive, crowded refugee camps where families competed for assistance from an overburdened aid community that struggled to provide health care, schools, and work programs.

The Sidiqi family needed help now. If only she could come up with a plan that would allow her to earn money while staying within the Taliban's rules, Kamila thought, she could take the pressure off Najeeb and her father. She felt just how much her family needed her, and knew she had to find a way to do her part. Dr. Maryam, who rented the Sidiqis' apartment and used it as an office, had managed to do just that; she was a doctor who was still able to practice medicine, despite the restrictions. As long as no men entered her office and all her patients were female, her clinic had no problems from the Taliban.

This is what I have to figure out, Kamila thought to herself. I need to find something I can do at home, behind closed doors. I need to find something that people need, something useful that they'll want to buy. She knew she had very few options. Only basic necessities mattered now; no one had money for anything else. Teaching school might be an option, but it was unlikely to earn her enough money, since most families still kept their girls at home out of fear for their safety. And she certainly didn't want her income to depend on an improvement in the security situation.

Kamila spent long days thinking about her options, considering which skills she could learn quickly that would also bring in enough afghani to make a difference for her family. And then it came to her, inspired by her older sister Malika, who, along with being a great teacher, had over many years developed into a talented--and sought-after--seamstress. Women from her neighborhood in Karteh Parwan loved her work so much that Malika's tailoring income now earned her almost as much as her teacher's salary. That's it, Kamila thought. I'll become a seamstress.

There were many positives: she could do the work in her living room, her sisters could help, and, most important of all, she had seen for herself at Lycee Myriam that the market for clothing remained strong. Even with the Taliban in power and the economy collapsing, women would still need simple dresses. As long as she kept quiet and didn't attract unnecessary attention, the risks should be manageable.

Kamila faced just one major obstacle: she had no idea how to sew. Until now she had been focused on her books and her studies and had never shown any interest in sewing, even though her mother was an expert tailor, having learned from her own mother when she was growing up in the north. Mrs. Sidiqi had made all of her own clothing as a teenager, and she in turn had taught Malika when the young woman was struggling with her first high school sewing assignment. Now that the Taliban had barred women from classrooms, Malika was again considering becoming a full-time tailor, particularly since her husband's transport business had slowed considerably under the new regime.

“Malika,” Kamila whispered to herself. “Surely she will teach me. And no one is as talented as she is. . . .”

A few days later Kamila set off for Malika's house in Karteh Parwan, making her way in her chadri toward the bus stop under the late morning sun. She hadn't been able to send word ahead to her sister to expect her visit, but these days there was little risk of finding Malika or any of her other older sisters away from home; life had moved indoors. Since Rahim was in school Kamila went by herself, unaccompanied by a mahram, and her heart pounded as she walked all alone the few hundred yards to the corner. The city looked like it had been evacuated. Kamila kept her head down and prayed that no one would notice her.

Fortunately, she had to endure only a short wait before the aging blue and white bus lumbered down the street and shuddered to a stop. Kamila quickly noticed that, like everything else in Kabul, there was something different about the vehicle. She was no longer allowed use the front door, as she always had, but was forced to enter through a door toward the rear, into a new women's section. An old patoo, a woolen blanket that often doubled as a covering for men, hung unevenly from a white rope and managed to hide the women in the back from the men who sat up front with the driver. As she boarded the bus, a young boy took Kamila's fare in his palm; children his age were the only males who were still permitted to have contact with women outside their family.

As the bus pulled out of Khair Khana's main road, Kamila gazed out the window. She could see almost no cars and very few people, mainly men who were huddled together in the cold trying to sell whatever their family still owned. Their wares lay sprawled out on ratty blankets on the side of the street: rubber tubes from old bicycles, unkempt baby dolls, worn shoes without laces, plastic jugs, pots and pans, and stacks of used clothing. Anything they had that they thought others might value. Armed Mujahideen no longer manned the checkpoint at the traffic circle that marked the end of her neighborhood and the beginning of Khwaja Bughra; instead, groups of Kalashnikov-wielding Taliban guarded the intersection.

Inside the bus the women spoke in hushed tones of Kabul's growing desperation.

“Things have never been so bad for us,” one woman said. Kamila could see nothing of their faces; all she had were voices, which sounded slightly muffled from behind the chadri. “I don't know what we will do. My husband lost his job and my girls are home with me. Perhaps we'll go to Pakistan, but who knows if things will be any better there.”

A woman sitting opposite answered in a quiet voice, shaking her head from side to side while she spoke. She sounded exhausted.

“You know, my husband has left for Iran and now I fear they'll try to send my son to the front lines. What will happen to my children? There's no one left to help us. It has become so difficult.”

Kamila listened as the women shared their troubles. At last, about fifteen minutes later, the bus arrived in Karteh Parwan.

Stepping onto the street, she walked down Karteh Parwan's main boulevard until she arrived at Malika's narrow lane. Once there she exhaled fully for the first time since she left Khair Khana. She hadn't realized how nervous she had been. After passing row on row of one- and two-story houses she finally reached Malika's, a white, squat, two-family home. Malika and her husband lived on the first floor and her brother-in-law's family lived above them.

Kamila knocked on the wooden door, and in only a few moments she found herself in her older sister's warm and powerful embrace. Kamila felt a rush of relief as she stepped inside the living room she knew so well.

“Come in, come in, I'm so glad you're here. This is a surprise!” Malika said as she kissed her sister on each cheek. Her belly had gotten so much bigger; Kamila realized that the baby must be due soon. “Did you have any problems on the way? I've heard the patrols are very strict now. You have to be so careful when you go out.”

“Oh, no, it was fine,” Kamila said, dismissing her fears of just a minute earlier. No need to make Malika worry more than she already did. Her oldest sibling had been like a parent to the younger children in the large Sidiqi brood; she had helped to raise all seven of her younger sisters, feeding them and getting them ready for school every day, since their mother had her hands full with eleven children, a husband, and a household to run. “There were a lot of women on the bus. Everyone was talking about how hard things are.”

The two women sat down to steaming glasses of freshly made chai and a plate of nuts and butter cookies. Kamila filled Malika in on all that was happening at home, including Najeeb's imminent departure and her own worries about their finances. Then, after a moment's silence, Kamila came to the point of her visit.

“Malika Jan,” she said. “I need your help.”

She recounted to her sister how she had explored every idea she could think of to make money for the family, how she wanted to find a way to support them, to make things easier for their father and mother.

“Malika, I think that if I knew how to sew I could start making dresses at home and perhaps I could sell them to the shops at Lycee Myriam.”

Malika listened intently as her sister spoke.

“Would you teach me?” Kamila finally asked.

Malika sat silently as she weighed the idea. She, too, had been hearing of women who, out of sight of the Amr bil-Maroof and interfering neighbors, sewed dresses or knitted blankets in their living rooms to earn money for their families. Necessity was turning these women into entrepreneurs. With no jobs available and no employers willing to hire them, they were making their own way, creating businesses that would help them feed their children.

Malika worried about her sister taking such risks, but she knew the family needed the income. It was the best option Kamila had.

“Yes, of course I'll help,” she said. “I'm sure you'll learn quickly; you always have, ever since you were little!”

But there were conditions.

“You have to follow my rules, Kamila. Number one: never go out alone, as you did today. You have to bring Najeeb or someone else with you. And you can't ever be on the streets during the time of prayer--that's when soldiers are patrolling the shops and it will be very dangerous.”

Kamila listened, nodding at everything she said.

“No talking to strangers, ever, including women, because you never know who might be listening. Or who might want to turn someone else in for their own reasons. And most of all, you can't ever be seen speaking with any men other than one of our brothers, particularly shopkeepers. You have to assume that the Taliban are always watching, that you are never invisible. You just have to be watchful every second you're outside, okay?”

“Definitely,” Kamila said. “You're right. You know I wanted to bring one of our brothers with me today but they were both very busy. I promise I'll do everything you say and will be extremely careful from here on out.”

Malika looked at her, unconvinced. She wasn't sure her strong-willed sister had ever stopped to think about the consequences once she set her mind on something.

“Really, I promise you,” Kamila said, seeing her sister's hesitation. “I don't want to break the rules or cause problems for anyone; I just need to work for our family. And Malika, I am going mad with nothing to do. I have to be useful again.”

Malika realized that it would be pointless to stand in her sister's way, no matter how worried she was. She could tell by Kamila's tone of absolute certainty that she had already decided to go forward with her plan anyway--with or without her help.

“Well, then,” Malika said, putting down her tea and removing the snacks from the wooden table. She moved like a woman with no time to waste. “Let's begin.”

Kamila followed her sister into her sewing area, which was just off the living room. Malika had carved out this small workspace a few years earlier, and it had become her own private refuge, a corner of quiet amid the noise and laughter of her two boys. Partially completed dresses and a dark pair of women's trousers hung here and there from chairs and table corners. Malika was in the middle of making a pantsuit for a neighbor, she explained.

Three small machines stood at attention on the sewing table. Malika used one to hem clothing, particularly garments that were made from thick fabric. Another was for embroidery. But the device she turned to most often was her “zigzag,” a lightweight beige-colored machine that could make more than a dozen kinds of stitches and was powered by a black pedal that sat beneath it on the floor.

Reaching for a swath of powder blue rayon fabric that was leaning against the wall, Malika began to explain to Kamila how to make a simple dress with beading.

“First, you begin by cutting the fabric,” she said.

As she continued, Malika grabbed a pair of fabric shears from a nearby shelf that was filled with sewing supplies--measuring tape, needles, dozens of spools of colored thread. A dusty shaft of afternoon sunlight streamed into the sitting room from the courtyard, glancing off the metal scissors. Malika carefully maneuvered a smooth, straight line against the material she was cutting.

She picked up a plastic stencil in the shape of a flower from her worktable and held it against the top corner of the cut fabric. With a thin marker she outlined the shape of the petals, tilting the fabric to show Kamila what she was doing. Then she stuck a small silver needle through the neat and even holes of the stencil to puncture the fabric beneath. Beading would later fill these small spaces.

Malika was a natural teacher. She explained each step to her sister in detail as she went, demonstrating her technique in slow and deliberate moves. Her attentive pupil followed the lesson closely, and took over where she could in the hope that doing it herself would help her better remember everything Malika was showing her. “Now I wish I had paid better attention when Mother taught you to sew, Malika Jan!” she exclaimed.

Soon Kamila was ready to bead. Together she and her sister sewed the tiny, hollow stones onto the flower by hand until the dress had a yellow blossom with small spaces of blue at its center.

Malika then turned back to finishing the garment, and announced that Kamila was ready to learn how to use her cherished zigzag. Malika showed her how to thread the machine, and how to properly, and comfortably, position herself in the chair. In only a few minutes Kamila was moving the pedal expertly.

“See? You're a very good student, just as I expected,” Malika exclaimed, as together they worked on the final seams of the pantsuit. Kamila smiled and shared a laugh with her sister; after three hours of intense focus she was finally relaxed. It felt great to be working again, and she was so excited to be learning a skill that could very well become the lifeline she needed. Malika ended her sister's first training session by showing her how to complete the hems at the bottom of the skirt and sleeves. When the machine's staccato finally stopped, they had an elegant blue dress with a beaded flower near the neckline that would be smart enough for any occasion, including their cousin's upcoming Kabul wedding. Kamila felt proud of her work and--she confessed only to herself--was somewhat amazed that she had helped make such a pretty garment.