“Everything will be fine. Tonight is about celebrating our country’s past with people important for our country’s future.”

“The Russians will be here?”

“And the Americans, the Indians, and the French too. And maybe some others.”

“But our tutor taught us that the Americans and Russians do not like one another. Will there not be fighting?”

“No, my love,” Mother replied, smoothing my hair. “Food and art are very capable peacekeepers. And besides, they should know better than to have their schoolyard scuffle in our home. Our people have seen enough. We finally have the peace we deserve.”

I knew the history to which she was alluding. I could recite Afghanistan’s record of fighting off conquerors and knew that every changing of the guard came with turbulence. Most people in my world adored President Daoud Khan. But out in the public gardens one day, I had heard a man singing a popular song. He’d replaced the lyrics with ones that haunted me and lodged in a corner of my brain with the power of rhyme:

My brother turned martyr by your dark night,

Sleep lightly, dear President, sleep light.

“Perhaps I should join the event? I might be able to write about it for the newspaper,” I suggested in my most erudite voice.

Mother pursed her lips.

At the end of the last school year, our principal had announced a writing contest for the graduating eighth-graders in our school.

How can the people of Afghanistan best celebrate our nation’s Independence Day?

Though I was only in the fourth-year class and not much of a writer, my brain churned with discussions I’d had with my parents over dinner about the three times Afghans had to fight off the British. I penned an essay that began with a verse by the British poet Rudyard Kipling.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

The world read Kipling’s poem, I explained, and saw Afghan women as butchers, whereas these women were defending their homes and families from invaders. Afghans could best celebrate Independence Day by recording our history in our own words.

I had slipped my carefully written paper into the principal’s box. On the final day of classes, the principal called me into her office. I was terrified that a teacher had reported me for daydreaming or poor penmanship.

Ask your parents to pick up this Thursday’s newspaper, Sitara. Your essay won the contest and will run in the paper.

My father came home with half a dozen copies, and my parents beamed to see my byline. President Daoud even joked that I might have a place in his cabinet before I graduated from school.