1996

1996 was the year the Taliban rolled into Kabul, ending the bloody infighting among Mujahedin factions that had ravaged the city since 1992. For the war-weary population, their arrival initially felt like salvation. Rahim Khan, who had lived through the rocket attacks and street battles, recalled dancing on the street when the Taliban entered, and he was not alone: people celebrated at Chaman and Deh-Mazang, greeting the Taliban in the streets, climbing their tanks, and posing for pictures. After years of constant fighting, snipers, and explosions, the promise of peace at last seemed real. But the hope was short-lived and came at a terrible price.

The Taliban's Rise and the Ban on Kite Fighting

Almost immediately after taking power, the Taliban began enforcing their extreme interpretation of Shari'a law. One of the most symbolic acts of repression was the ban on kite fighting, an ancient Afghan tradition that had been the centerpiece of winter life in Kabul. For Hassan, who had grown up running kites with Amir and later taught his own son Sohrab the same art, this was a devastating blow. The kite-fighting tournaments that had once filled the skies with color and the streets with chasing children were now forbidden. The simple joy of flying a kite, which had been a paper-thin slice of connection between Amir and his father Baba, was erased from public life.

The Massacre of Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif

The Taliban's ideology was explicitly racist and sectarian. Hassan, a Hazara, had foreseen the danger. When Rahim Khan celebrated the Taliban's arrival, Hassan had a sober look in his eyes and said, "God help the Hazaras now, Rahim Khan sahib." His fears were tragically realized in August 1998, when the Taliban massacred thousands of Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif. Assef, the sociopathic bully from Amir's childhood who had joined the Taliban, later described the massacre with chilling pride: "Door to door we went, calling for the men and the boys. We'd shoot them right there in front of their families." He spoke of leaving the bodies in the streets for dogs, a grotesque fulfillment of the ethnic cleansing he had advocated as a teenager.

The Destruction of Baba's Orphanage

The civil war and Taliban rule also destroyed the physical landmarks of Amir's childhood. The orphanage that Baba had built with his own money and blueprints, a symbol of his redemption and generosity, was reduced to rubble. Rahim Khan told Amir that the Mujahedin factions had destroyed it during their infighting, and that sifting through the rubble meant finding "body parts of children." The building that had once been a source of pride for Baba, where he had delivered a speech in the wind while his son held his hat, became just another pile of wreckage in a city of ruins.

Life Under the Taliban for Hassan's Family

Despite the danger, Hassan and his family remained in Kabul, living in the servants' hut in Baba's old house. Hassan, now a grown man with a wife and son, continued to serve Rahim Khan with the same unwavering loyalty he had once shown Amir. He tended the garden, rebuilt walls damaged by rockets, and raised his son Sohrab, teaching him to read and write and to shoot a slingshot. But the Taliban's presence was inescapable. Hassan's wife Farzana was beaten in the bazaar for speaking too loudly, a violation of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue's rules. The family lived in constant fear, knowing that the regime that now ruled was the same one that had massacred their people in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Murder of Hassan and Farzana

The Taliban's persecution of Hazaras eventually reached Hassan's doorstep. Shortly after Rahim Khan left for Pakistan in 2001, a rumor spread that a Hazara family was living alone in the big house in Wazir Akbar Khan. Taliban officials came to investigate, accused Hassan of lying, and ordered him to leave. When he protested, they took him to the street, forced him to kneel, and shot him in the back of the head. Farzana came screaming and attacked them, and they shot her too, claiming self-defense. The Taliban then moved into the house, and no one spoke out against the murders because, as Rahim Khan said, "no one was going to risk anything for a pair of Hazara servants." Their son Sohrab was taken to an orphanage, beginning a new chapter of suffering that would eventually draw Amir back to Afghanistan.