Chapter Text
A Story about the Breadwinner
“Aatish! Hey, Aatish!”
“I’m coming, Deliwar.”
Two… boys? in caps and vests. Kabul; a broken terrace; a high place. They can see the ocean… just barely. The Homemaker, Deliwar, is the one with the hair. The Breadwinner, Aatish, is the one with the eyes.
“This will be the last time. For a while…”
“I know.”
“Soraya… My sister is getting married.”
“I know.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Afghanistan. The Breadwinner in hijab. The Homemaker with long, curly hair. School. (There still is a school at this point.)
Hey, you! What’s your name?
It’s Parvana.
I’m Shauzia, the Homemaker says. Let’s be friends, okay?
“Will we… Will I ever see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
1996. The Taliban takes Kabul. Like the Talib grenade takes her brother… Like the Talibs take her father… Leaving them - the Breadwinner, her mother and sister and toddler brother - prisoners themselves. Women are forbidden to travel without escort. The Breadwinner is a girl though. Exceptions can be made.
“Come with me!”
“What?”
“Come with me to Mazar-i-Sharif. Maybe they can find a husband for you too… for both of us. And we could be-”
“I don’t want a husband.”
“Me neither! But maybe… if I’m with you-”
“I can’t just leave, Par- Aatish. I can’t! What about my family? My father-”
The Homemaker’s father has never been good for much. He doesn’t work. He doesn’t do much of anything, really, but raise a hand to her and his wife and other girl children. He has no sons. What little money they have comes from her.
All you’re worth as a woman…
But she’s not a woman, is she?
“And who would have me?”
The Taliban cracks down hard on prostitution. The Breadwinner’s mother leaves home without an escort and comes home beaten black and blue. Even then… they’re desperate. So desperate. The Breadwinner faces Mecca and prays. The next day, she goes out, dressed in her brother’s clothes.
May Allah be with you. May Allah protect you.
He is. He does.
“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” The Breadwinner puts her arms around her, shaking with the Homemaker. Hard. “Please… This isn’t goodbye. It’s just good bye for now. Inshallah. We’ll meet again someday.”
The Breadwinner leads her family to mosque on Fridays. And sits in the men’s section with her toddler brother. Mother and sister sit on the women’s side. They pray to the same God. For the same thing.
“Do you believe in God, Parvana?”
“Don’t call me that! Someone might hear you.”
“Fine. Do you believe in God, Aatish?”
“Of course I do!”
The Homemaker’s father doesn’t attend mosque at all. He doesn’t rise early to pray at dawn. He doesn't stay up late. Still though…
Give me the money. All of it!
But… but Baba-
Give to me NOW, Shauzia! Allah places men at the head of the household.
Still…
Shh. Don’t wanna wake your mother, do you?
Baba. Stop. You’re hurting me.
He hits her. Hard.
Shauzia. Allah commands children to obey their parents.
“Write to me?”
“I can’t. You know that.”
Even if she did, the Breadwinner would never be allowed to read it.
“Then… I guess this is goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Aatish. Until we meet again?”
“Until we meet again.”
American soldiers in Kabul. In her father’s house. And their allies. The Homemaker’s father calls her into the room. But not by her name.
Deliwar! Entertain our guests, will you?
I don’t…
They call it Bacha Bazi. “Boy Play”.
I’m not a boy.
Who cares? So long as you look like one.
“Just… just promise me something, alright?” The Breadwinner reaches through shorn hair, tries to twist a lock around her finger. It’s not long enough. Not anymore. “When we meet again. Call me by name. My real name.”
“Inshallah,” the Homemaker repeats. “I promise. I will.”
A Story about the Homemaker
“Is… is that you, Parvana?”
“Shauzia!”
Two women - there’s no doubt of that now, no ambiguity - on the California shoreline. The ocean. Their children splashing in the shallows, gathering handfuls of broken shells. Their positions have been reversed - the one with the eyes, Parvana, is the Homemaker now, and the son who looks nothing like her. The Breadwinner, Shauzia, is the one with the hair and the boy who bears a striking resemblance to “Deliwar.”
“It’s Dela now,” the Breadwinner says. “That’s what they call me. Short for… Well, you remember. My husband used to call me that. Started as a joke… but, you know, it’s grown on me. I like it.”
“Still Parvana,” the Homemaker says. “My husband - he’s a doctor - calls me Parvin sometimes. I like it too.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Kabul. 2001. The Americans aren’t much better than the Talibs had been. The only difference is the way they look at the Homemaker when she steps outside.
“We met after you left. When I was still… him, you see? He recognized me when I went back to school. We were… fifteen, I think?” The Breadwinner fluffs her uncovered hair. “My father died during the war. It was an accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
The Breadwinner smirks. “You are not. Me neither.”
With the Talibs their hatred of her had been colored with superiority. Big, strong men. With their big, strong feelings. Given the right to rule by Allah himself… supposedly. They saw her like they saw all women as weak, inhuman, something to be broken and possessed. The American men are… not so different in that regard. But there is also, always, a tinge of fear.
It’s because we are Muslim, Parvana.
We’re all Muslims. Didn’t they know that? Didn’t they come to save us?
Not us, her mother says tiredly. Let me sleep.
“My mother died almost ten years ago. She was… very sick. It was too late. By the time she was allowed to see a doctor.”
“A doctor? You said you married-”
“Oh. Oh, Shauzia, no. It’s not like…” She sighs. “He worked at the hospital. But he wasn’t… He is a little older, but we’re happy. We are. He lost his father too. To cancer. He worked in one of those awful factories… Making the bombs that poisoned her.”
Her father never speaks of his time in the Taliban prison. Sometimes the Homemaker asks. And still no answer.
“It’s just as well. Sarbaz died last year. It’s been… hard without him. Money is tight. Most of it goes into running the store. But it was tight in Kabul. At least here, I know it’s mine.”
She’s arrested by the Americans, walking home from school. Her backpack taken. Locked naked in a room for hours and hours, the same song played over and over and over again… The hours add to days and weeks. She doesn’t - doesn’t want to - think of her father. Doesn’t want to miss her mother. She thinks of the Breadwinner instead. Of bread. And of God, finally.
Free me. Inshallah. Get me out.
“You know something, Parvin? Can I call you Parvin? Or is that something only your husband can, um…”
“Call me anything you like. Just not Aatish. Not again.”
“I think there is a God.”
“I know there is.”
Of course there is. The Homemaker’s prayers are answered. She goes home to her father. Her sister and brother. And mother. And never speaks of her time in American custody. They leave within the year anyway. Her mother’s cancer has progressed. They leave for California. And better medical care. Radiology.
“When she died, I was just starting on my graduate degree. I never… The program was hostile to Muslim students.”
“Hostile how?”
“Really, Shauzia? The sciences?”
“I never finished school. You know that.”
Her classmates are mostly men. Who mostly look down on her for not being one. Mostly White kids. Mostly atheists. I hate all religion. But they only make fun of hers. The professor won’t let her leave the room to pray. Still though. Still. God is with her. God protects her.
“My mother’s death was the final straw. I… Alex worked at the hospital, but we met during grief support. He lost his father. We both needed someone. One thing led to another…” She nods to the child playing in the sand. “Sulayman.”
“After your brother?”
“After his uncle.”
Still in school. Juggling a child on top of that. The men in her program make jokes. The same kind of jokes she’s heard all her life.
“It was never about religion. Or Allah. Or ‘God.’ It was just about men.”
“I know. I see that now.”
The Breadwinner marries; has a child; becomes a widow. The lady at the desk looks at her strangely when she goes to apply for benefits - holding tightly to her young son’s hand.
Elevator? What kind of a surname…
“Elevator?” The Homemaker guffaws. “What kind of a surname…”
“You’re one to talk, Aatish. We were new immigrants. We’d never needed surnames before. It sounded English…” She smirks and shakes her hair back. “But you have an American husband. What did you…”
“It’s Sartorius.”
“That’s even worse!”
“It is not!”
And, for a moment, they’re kids again.
The Homemaker has a child; moves in; marries. In that order. He’s a few years older. Blond hair. Lines set deep in his face. Their child looks just like him. Down to the eyelashes and the tips of his toes.
“He specializes in cancer research.”
“That’s… noble?”
Radiation. Atomization. The work is there, but not the funding.
‘Too experimental,’ he says. Can you believe that? How am I supposed to prove it, if they won’t fund my research?!
“Mm.”
He finds an investor. Eventually. A fat, gray haired man. With a fat cigar between his teeth. Here’s the deal, Sartorius. We fund you, you give us… whatever it is, you get from it. To share with our friends overseas.
Bialya.
The fascist regime?! I don’t like this, Alex.
I don’t like them either, Parvin. But… a way to cure cancer without harming the patient? That’s worth dealing with anyone.
“With that treatment my mother might still be alive. His father…”
“Maybe there’s another way…”
She helps him. To forge the paperwork. The numbers. The mathematical equations. Homemaker or not, she’s at least as clever as he is.
I just pray this works.
Alex, she says. You’re an atheist. Leave the praying to me.
“It’ll be alright,” she says like she’s trying to convince herself. “We’ll be alright… won’t we?”
“Well,” says the Breadwinner, looking out across the sea. “We’ve lasted this long.”