Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [99]
Leda knew the Afghani women from her work at a dog food company, rather grisly work for women who had seen so much blood and death. The four women in this group, Leda, Ritu, Zahra, and Nessima, were a complex combination of similar and different. All belonged to the community of the bereaved and downtrodden. Yet they brought very different characteristics and human capital into their new situations. Zahra was in her sixties and alone; Ritu, who was only in her late twenties, was widowed, pregnant, and supporting three children. Nessima was stoic and a hard worker, but she had been an arranged bride at fourteen and couldn't read or write in any language. Her husband was unhappy in America and sometimes took his frustrations out on his family.
Ritu was dressed in slacks and a shirt. Leda and Zahra wore traditional head coverings, and Nessima was totally covered in a long robe that even had black embroidery covering her eyes. The women spoke broken English, although Leda's English was amazingly good and she often translated for me with the others.
Zahra had lost almost everyone, including her husband, her three daughters, two of her sons, and her grandchildren. Her husband had been shot in front of her, her daughters raped and killed. Her daughters had tried to hide their attractiveness by smearing their faces with engine oil, but the soldiers had made them wash and then had raped them. Her only surviving son was in prison in Turkey with passport problems. He could buy his way to freedom, but neither he nor Zahra had any money.
Zahra was actually about my age, but she looked much older. I compared her life to mine. While she had worried that her children would be killed, my worries had been about my kids getting into graduate school or finding a nice apartment to rent. While she struggled to keep from starving and freezing to death, I had debated whether to become a vegetarian. Our lives showed in our faces and our bodies. Zahra had arthritis and decayed teeth. I had no serious health issues and had access to good doctors and dentists.
At first Zahra had worked cleaning office buildings, but she had been fired for moving slowly. She was unlikely to find a new job with her age, limited English, inability to read or write, health problems, and depression. Zahra was terribly lonely here, and she worried constantly about her son. I asked her once if she had any dreams and she had burst into tears and moaned, "I have no dreams."
She sat alone in her basement apartment watching the worst possible television shows and accumulating a great deal of misinformation. She had heard that Americans had half a million sex slaves hidden away in their basements. I said I doubted that. She had heard a computer could make all the airplanes in the world crash at once. I said I had never really thought about that. She asked me if all American men had mistresses. I offered a definitive no.
I advised her, "Please do not watch so much television. Sit outside under the trees or visit with your friends."
The one thing that gave me hope was that Zahra was interested in Ritu's pregnancy. She would feel Ritu's rounded belly and smile her toothless grin. "Baby," she would say. "Baby good."
Zahra had few visible attributes of resilience, no family, and a terrible history. She had no hope, energy, ambition, or trust. She felt cursed and wished she could visit a shrine and pray for forgiveness. She wondered what terrible crime Afghanis had committed that their nation was being punished so heavily. If anything could save Zahra, it would be this community of women who included her in their lives.
Nessima had a better situation. She was hardworking and healthy and her family was intact. But her lack of education would keep her in minimum-wage jobs. Her husband's family had checked her teeth like she was a horse the day they met and inspected her. She and her husband had always had a troubled relationship and in Nebraska it had deteriorated. However, at least they could both work and provide their four children with a home and