The following is an excerpt from ‘Breaking in Boots’, my account of a hitchhiking expedition from New York to Virginia. My rides on this particular journey were notably winsome and interesting in every regard. Omar, a kind-hearted, well-spoken, middle-aged Afghan who drove me across the Maryland border is a prime example of this.
I was picked up by a man named Omar near the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania. He had kind eyes and smile lines deeply embedded into his dark olive skin.
“You are a writer? I have a story for you.”
He began by telling me about his life before America. Omar was born in Afghanistan and lived in Kabul during the Afghan civil war. Because of the region’s ongoing conflict in and around the region, many residents of the city began fleeing to Pakistan and Iran in the early 90’s, risking uncertain travel in new lands for the hope of sustainable refuge. But not Omar. - he had a shop to keep.
“I owned a small bookstore in the city,” he told me. “I sold used books which I bought from families and other shops. When the war broke out, and people began leaving their homes behind, everyone started bringing me their books. Box after box of books people thought were too important to abandon, even with the rebels closing in. One day, after an especially large donation, I was going through a cardboard box when I came across a black notebook about this big,” said Omar, holding up his hand and putting about an inch and a half of space between his pointer finger and thumb, indicating the thickness of the journal.
“I opened it, flipped through the worn pages, and saw page after page of poetry, all written in small and crowded but beautiful handwriting. I was busy, but I was curious, so I put the book in my pocket to take home. That is one thing… I never read much, even with the shop. I thought, for the first time in a long while ‘Maybe tonight I’ll do some reading before bed’. Anyways, later that night, I brought out the black notebook and read it under a lamp.”
Omar quickly discovered it was the personal journal of a woman he guessed to be in her early 20s.
“She observed the world and she wrote funny things, simple things, all very poetic and witty. I could tell she would carry the book wherever she went, she would always write in it. The first entry was dated in February, ‘91, the last was in November of the same year. If she saw a boy steal something in a market and a vendor give chase she would recount the event with vivid words. She was a good storyteller.”
Omar explained that while there was a woman’s name scribbled on the front page, there was no way for him to track her down, especially during the war. He told me about the pangs of guilt that he would feel while reading through this private log. As if the most secret parts of her could somehow be understood by a total stranger. But Omar did understand her, in a way.
“I felt like I figured out her humor, that helped me understand her fear and even her pain.”
The mystery author did not indicate much about the rising violence in and around Kabul. She wrote only about the streets and her insights and what she thought of herself and her brother and her parents, whom she loved but made fun of throughout the log.
The sun was striking the horizon as we passed the Gettysburg Battlefield. The sky turned hues of copper and auburn, becoming a rich sunset, the last hour of golden light illuminating Omar as he drove us through hills and plains, south towards the town of Fredrick, Maryland.
He took a break from his narrative to take a few long sips of his lukewarm green tea, then, with a deep sigh and a smile, he jumped back into his story, telling me about a young Afghan woman somewhere who, over 30 years ago, gave a rough and beautiful insight into what life in 90’s Afghanistan must have been like.
“...She painted pictures with her words. Big vocabulary, very descriptive. How she cooked her food, the disputes of her neighbors, the emotions she’d get caught up in. I do not know how she got to be such an excellent writer. But I thank God—-” He took a moment to point toward the ceiling of the car with a look of gratitude, then continued, “—that I picked it up. It helped me read all sorts of other things, Dostoevsky, uh, Jane Austin, Mahapatra. She got me into reading great stories and poetry.”
I asked him if he had ever tried writing poetry. “Not then,” he said. “4 days after 9/11 I fled Afghanistan. I sold the shop and began traveling the world, first for school, then for work. The whole time I had this black journal, usually at the bottom of my bags. I returned to my country to marry my wife in 2008 and in 2009 we moved to America to raise our kids. My job at the time, working with the ambassador's office, helped make the move smooth. I went to the States first to start work while my wife stayed for a few weeks to pack up our things. The journal fell out of my mind when I got married and I didn’t think about it once during my move to the U.S.”
Four or fivemonths later, at their new home in Pennsylvania, Omar came across a peculiar black book under a pile of unorganized documents. When his wife came into the room and saw Omar and the journal she said something along the lines of “Oh, dear, I was going to ask you about that. I found it while packing up our things and I could not put it down once I began reading.”
Evidently Omar’s wife, whose name is Amira, was also of the sound opinion that the young author who wrote the log was gifted in prose and poetry and this, coming from Amira, who is an English teacher and frequently reads, was a huge validation for Omar. As they raised their family the book kicked around the house and was read every so often by all members of the family, even the young children.
“I considered it to be a piece of history. I could not write very well and so I would point to these handwritten descriptions and say to my boys ‘Look! Read this, this is what growing up in our country was like.’”
In 2016 Omar and Amira decided to try and track the author down in pursuit of a romanticized end to a decade’s long mystery. “I felt a responsibility to at least try and find her.” What happened to her? Did she remain in Afghanistan or has she died there? Was the book donated by her or someone she knew, and what was the course of events that led to the discarding of such a seemingly valuable item?
After three months on Facebook and Instagram, dozens of emails and messages, along with many dead ends, they found her. She now lives in Boston and has three children. She never pursued writing professionally.
Omar insisted on returning the book to the then 47-year-old woman, whose name will remain a mystery to readers like it was a mystery to me on that drive with Omar, and like it was for Omar all those years ago?
“I drove to Boston with the black journal in the passenger seat. It had seen four continents and over 30 countries. It was intact, though the ink on the pages were slightly faded. It would retire in Boston.” Omar said, laughing to himself.
“What was the meeting like between you two?” I asked.
“Very short, she seemed very shy but also nice. I told her how much the journal meant to our family, what I suppose it had come to represent. She scolded me, saying things like ‘I was no writer as a girl. It was only a silly diary. Kids stories.’ and I tried to convince her otherwise but she would not have it. She thanked me for returning the book and I went on my way.”
He pulled off the highway into the town of Frederick. He had drained his green tea cup completely. The richness was gone from the sky and all the colors faded to a mild pink hue. His last sentiment before he dropped me off in a Waffle House parking lot:
“Driving home from Boston I stopped to pick up a journal, so I could have it on hand, just for writing for the fun of it, not for work and not because I have to, but because I can. I thought ‘Hey, maybe I could try this out, and if I lose interest after a while, maybe I’ll donate it someplace so some curious young person can pick it up and learn to worship the lines of poetry I thought were garbage’.”
