DON'T LEAVE WITHOUT ME!

Staying in Kabul meant death for this Afghan journalist. A US naval officer and a reporter were ready to help her flee the Taliban-if she could make it to the airplane

- Fatema Hosseini with Kim Hjelmgaard and Kelley Benham French

THE DAY KABUL FELL

FATEMA HOSSEINI: It seems impossible that civilization can be knocked back a few decades in an afternoon, that life as you know it can collapse before lunch, but it did.

Sunday morning, 15 August 2021, began like most any other day. I picked up warm naan from the bakery and headed to the office in my usual jeans, dress, scarf, and sneakers. The streets were crowded. Hundreds of vendors spilled into the road hawking vegetables and fruits over loudspeakers: "Apple! Melon! Mango!" I weaved through their carts among women in colourful dresses. Kabul must be one of the loudest cities on earth.

I passed my favourite restaurant, Taj Begum, always brimming with hookah mist and laughter. It is named for an Afghan warrior princess and owned by the fiercest woman in Kabul. She drives through the streets shouting at the other drivers, nearly all of them men.

In the office of the Etilaat-e-Roz news agency where I work, phones were ringing as the Taliban advanced toward Kabul, on the cusp of taking over the government.

My mother called me, crying. "Put on your long dress. The Taliban are everywhere." She, my father, my brother, and my baby sister were staying in my small apartment after the Taliban had ransacked their home in Herat. She was now scared for me. I should have been, too. I was 27, a bad Muslim, as far as the Taliban might be concerned: an educated single woman who asked too many questions and rarely wore a hijab, a veil that covers the hair, neck and shoulders. I was a working journalist, a member of the oppressed Shi'a Hazara ethnic group, daughter of an Afghan national soldier. To a Taliban fighter heady with new power, silencing my voice would be a golden step on the stairway to paradise.

"Mom, it's OK. My dress is not that short!"

She started shouting. "You're not listening to me!"