My name is Parvana

ONE

"Is your name Parvana?" The girl in the dusty blue chador gave no response. She sat without moving on the hard metal chair and kept her eyes lowered. The cloth of the chador covered the lower half of her face. If her mouth twitched in recognition of the English words, the uniformed man and woman staring at her could not tell.

"Is your name Parvana?" The woman repeated the man's question, translating it into Dari, then Pashtu. Then, after a pause, into Uzbek. The girl stayed still. 

"She's not answering, sir." 

"I can see that, Corporal. Ask her again."

The woman cleared her throat, then repeated the question in all three languages.

"Is your name Parvana?" The words were louder this time, as though it were a lack of volume that kept the girl from responding.

The girl did not move and she did not answer. She kept her eyes on a scuff mark on the floor and did not look up. Sounds reached the little office, sounds muffled by walls and from far away. A truck engine. Boots pounding sand. A jet flying overhead. The whirl of a helicopter blade.

The girl knew there were other people around. She had seen them when they rushed her from the truck and brought her in to sit in their small room on this hard chair. She had not looked around then, either, keeping her eyes on the sand and rock of the yard then on the cement block stairs and then on the hard grey floor of the long hallway leading to her chair. But she had heard the voices. "Perhaps she is deaf, sir."

"She's not deaf," the man replied. "Look at her. Does she look deaf?"

 "I'm not sure...."

"If she were deaf, she would be looking all around, trying to figure out what was going on. Is she looking around? Has she raised her head? No. Her eyes have been lowered since she was brought in, and I haven't seen her raise her head once. Trust me, she is not deaf."

"But she hasn't spoken, Major. Not a word." 

"She probably said something when they grabbed her and put her in the truck. Did she scream or yell anything?" 

"No, sir."

 "Well, what did she do?"

The girl in the dusty blue chador heard the sound of papers fluttering as the women in the green army uniform read through a report. "Sir, it says here that she stood still and waited."

"Stood still and waited." The man said the words slowly, as though he was chewing them around in his mouth. "Corporal, what is your gut telling you about her?" There was a pause. The girl in the blue chador imagined the women was trying to figure out what sort of answer would please the major. "Sir, I don't have enough information to be able to form an opinion."

"Corporal, are you a career soldier?" 

"No sir, I was called up from the Reserves."

 "And what are you in civilian life?" 

"My family runs a small-town bakery." 

"Bread?" 

"Some bread. Cookies, squares, pies, cakes. Things like that."

"Apple turnovers?"

"Certainly, sir."

"My favourite."

"If you like, I can ask my parents to send you some."

"Thank you, Corporal. They will be stale by the time they get here, but still pretty good, I'll bet. So, a small-town bakery with a little bit of everything. And when you work there, you do a bit of everything - baking, calling, suppliers, dealing with customers?"