In the Darkest Corner there is Light: Part One by Jennie Hart

credit Gencraft AI

Mother: a nurse

Kamel: father

Arman: elder son

Naghma: daughter

Babek: younger son

Mina: Babek’s wife

Part 1

Naghma moved restlessly around the gloomy living space and gazed towards the two blacked-out windows; faint streaks of morning light seeped through. She shared the typical mud-and-stone-built house with her mother, her elder brother Arman who was unmarried and her younger brother Babek who had brought his young wife Mina to live with them.  Since the latest decree, no woman must be seen through any window facing the street, and new buildings in Kabul were ordered to be built with none overlooking women’s areas. Naghma had applied the black paint herself while thinking bitter thoughts on the latest edict,  

‘Those pathetic bullies, what are they scared of? Do they think they’re going to see us half-naked? What other nasty ideas will they come up with?’

Privately, Naghma dreaded each day, but for her family’s sake, she strived to be optimistic. As a child, she had been fun, seeing light in the darkest corners but it was getting increasingly difficult. She was a tall young woman, with bold, dark eyes, the only parts of her body visible when she stepped outside. She cared for her brothers and knew they equally despised the regime. Babek preferred to be clean-shaven, appreciating the soft, fresh air on his skin, but today, each man must wear a beard. He was stocky in build, like his father with the compassionate nature suited to his profession. He was a qualified junior doctor at the Kabul Jamhuriat Hospital where their mother was also a nurse. Her position was fragile and might be terminated with no warning at the whims of the Taliban.

The family were very angry at Naghma’s plight; four years ago, she had completed her medical studies and was to be a doctor at the Indira Ghandi Children’s Hospital in Kabul. She was fond of children and had enjoyed helping Paternal Grandmother care for Babek while her mother was working. When the Taliban gained power they allowed only experienced women in the medical profession to remain; Naghma’s graduation was too late. Babek’s wife Mina was a comforting friend to Naghma, she was an educated girl but her career had also been terminated. It was at the Jamhuriat hospital that she met Babek while training to be a nurse but when she was forced to stop working, Babek had asked her family if they could marry and she came to live in the family home.

Naghma could not bear to witness her mother’s anxiety, now virtually a widow but a strong woman and not yet old. Her husband, Kamel, a modern father, had wanted his children to have the opportunities he’d been given. His education had been his downfall because, after studying languages, he became an English teacher and an ideal recruit as interpreter for the British army. After the rapid departure of the British from Afghanistan in two thousand and twenty-one, Kamel was arrested and the family still knew nothing of his fate. Their mother was under suspicion as the wife of a designated traitor and under regular surveillance. She frequently saw guards watching the house from the street corner and since Kamel’s disappearance, she had been called each year for questioning before the National Security Committee. The family lived close to a number of bus routes and each day Babek chaperoned his mother to work. Women were harassed by the Taliban if not accompanied by a male family member. If mother wanted to visit her parents in a distant village, it was unlawful for her to go alone.

Arman was tall like his mother and sister and might have been an athlete. When young and not studying at the madrasah, he had liked to run and fly his kite and work strenuously in the garden, growing vegetables and helping his father tend his treasured trees; a pomegranate, apricot and fig.

At school leaving age, Arman received training in agriculture through the Aga Khan Development Network. There was an urgent need to grow food for the Afghan population and since the extreme decree forbidding most women to work, the economy was failing. The Agronomy department, where Arman held a senior position, lay in the Kabul River Basin. At eighteen hundred metres above sea level, Kabul was one of the highest capital cities in the world and the Hindu Kush formed a stunning mountainous backdrop. Only a small percentage of land in the Kabul River Basin was designated for agriculture because there were several more cities in that region, and an expanding population, but of all the crop-growing areas in Afghanistan, this was the most important.

Arman had progressed in his studies and was a senior researcher in crop cultivation, most importantly, potatoes, a valuable food crop for the under-nourished Afghani people. Amongst mothers and children, malnutrition was rife and potatoes were a life-blood. Much of the land was poor and drought-ridden, yet also likely to flood. Arman’s carefully researched solutions had come to the attention of the Taliban and he had received commendations. He was a frequent advisor to the Canal Irrigation Board and his ideas helped the success of the sophisticated irrigation techniques in operation, channelling water in a series of canals and capturing surface water, especially when the river flooded.

He was especially passionate about the soil. Chemicals were used in commercial farming but were not the preferred method, as they were harsh and expensive to import. The Afghans, a rural nation, had a long and deep love for the trees and flowers they grew and for all aspects of their land. Arman had developed the age-old idea of using the poorest land to grow nitrogen-fixing crops that could be harvested and made into nutrient-rich fertiliser. This was all part of a major project using circular agriculture to ensure organic material from poultry and livestock farms was also kept in the food chain loop and nothing wasted. Arman’s colleagues and students were proud to be working with him and excited when his achievements came to the attention of the Taliban. Most attended the ceremony when he received his latest award. Even so, Arman hated the totalitarian government and disliked the narrow, unreconstructed thinking of some of his fellow workers, in particular their views on women’s rights, but he never shared his thoughts. He had learned a phrase from the British, ‘Walls have ears’.

Naghma’s lively mind and sense of humour made her family smile, so despite the constant fear from local officials, she begged her family to be positive;

‘They’re tyrants, they’re not going to win; good will win and we’ll look back on our suffering as a bad dream.’