Haunted Eyes Of A Past War

• Anjali Nadaradjane, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2013

Her eyes were a piercing green at the centre, rimmed in a mottled sea blue and speckled in yellow, haunted and ghostlike like the many faces of refugees that I passed during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It was 1983, I was a journalist brimming in audacity, travelling through a war-torn frontier, of devastated villages and refugee camps, when I came across the unknown woman with the beautiful yet haunted eyes. I say unknown, because women of her caste didn’t usually disclose their names publicly.
We had just arrived at a village, the north portion already dilapidated by a surprise bombing, buildings precarious, dangerously crumbling , the crops turned to crisp, ashen and as black as charcoal. Yet most of the village seemed to have moved on, attempting to make a life as normal as possible. That is when I met her. She was a young girl, heavily pregnant and ambling down the road laden down with food wrapped in linen. When we met she was tentative, hesitant upon first meeting me. I was drawn to her eyes which were green, yellow, blue, even some sparks of red mingled in the specks of yellow in her eyes. After some introduction on my part, she kindly invited me into her small, humble home. Her children ran around on the damp earth outside; laughing, playing, their youth and free-spirit still intact, undestroyed by the brutality and ugliness of war.
She spoke in a lilting accent of her native Pashtu. She talked of her life, the hardships she faced and insisted I stayed for dinner. Her husband came home…he’d been toiling in the fields along with the other young men, attempting to restore and cultivate the last of the crops. Their kindness extended to the point where they gave me a bed for the night. Their benevolence was touching.
At four in the morning, I was awakened to deafening thunder– bombs! We were under attack. I could hear chaos outside, screams and frantic running. The door of my room burst open and the unknown woman’s husband signalled urgently for me to come. “The bomb shelter is this way!” He spoke rapidly, distracted, distraught. I could hear the terrified voices of the unknown woman’s children as they climbed down the basement. The youngest daughter was in fearful tears. I thought this was it. I was going to die, be smothered by dust and rubble. The sounds of screams heightened as I heard the billowing of fire, wailing children…
We survived, but out of luck. As we clambered out of the bomb shelter and drifted petrified onto the streets in the early morning, rubble scattered the streets, wisps of smoke filled the air. I thought of this unknown woman how vulnerable and scared she must feel for her family’s safety, having a newborn child in such terrible hardships. War is like a chess set, black and white pieces like opposing forces, armies maybe. But in the end, Chess is just a game, unlike war.