The Other Afghan Women

Late one afternoon this past August, Shakira heard banging on her front gate.

今年八月的一个下午晚些时候，夏奇拉听到前门被敲击的声音。

In the Sangin Valley, which is in Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan, women must not be seen by men who aren’t related to them, and so her nineteen-year-old son, Ahmed, went to the gate.

在阿富汗南部赫尔曼德省的桑金河谷，女性不得被与她们无关的男性看到，因此她十九岁的儿子艾哈迈德走到了门口。

Outside were two men in bandoliers and black turbans, carrying rifles.

外面有两个戴着弹带、戴着黑头巾、拿着步枪的男人。

They were members of the Taliban, who were waging an offensive to wrest the countryside back from the Afghan National Army.

他们是塔利班成员，塔利班正在发动攻势，从阿富汗国民军手中夺回乡村地区。

One of the men warned, “If you don’t leave immediately, everyone is going to die.”

其中一名男子警告说：“如果你不立即离开，所有人都会死。”

Shakira, who is in her early forties, corralled her family: her husband, an opium merchant, who was fast asleep, having succumbed to the temptations of his product, and her eight children, including her oldest, twenty-year-old Nilofar—as old as the war itself—whom Shakira called her “deputy,” because she helped care for the younger ones.

四十岁出头的夏奇拉把她的家人聚集在一起：她的丈夫是一名鸦片商人，在鸦片产品的诱惑下睡着了；还有她的八个孩子，其中包括她最大的二十岁的尼洛法尔——和战争本身一样大——夏奇拉称她为“副手”，因为她帮助照顾年幼的孩子。

The family crossed an old footbridge spanning a canal, then snaked their way through reeds and irregular plots of beans and onions, past dark and vacant houses.

一家人穿过一座横跨运河的古老人行桥，然后蜿蜒穿过芦苇丛和不规则的豆类和洋葱地，经过黑暗而空置的房屋。

Their neighbors had been warned, too, and, except for wandering chickens and orphaned cattle, the village was empty.

他们的邻居也收到了警告，除了流浪的鸡和孤儿牛之外，村子里空无一人。

Shakira’s family walked for hours under a blazing sun.

夏奇拉的家人在烈日下走了几个小时。

She started to feel the rattle of distant thuds, and saw people streaming from riverside villages: men bending low beneath bundles stuffed with all that they could not bear to leave behind, women walking as quickly as their burqas allowed.

她开始感觉到远处传来的嘎嘎声，看到人们从河边的村庄涌过来：男人们弯着腰，在装满了他们不忍离开的东西的包裹下，女人们在罩袍允许的情况下尽可能快地走着。

The pounding of artillery filled the air, announcing the start of a Taliban assault on an Afghan Army outpost.

空中弥漫着炮火的轰鸣声，宣告塔利班对阿富汗军队前哨基地的进攻开始。

Shakira balanced her youngest child, a two-year-old daughter, on her hip as the sky flashed and thundered.

夏奇拉将她最小的孩子（一个两岁的女儿）放在臀部上，天空闪烁着雷鸣。

By nightfall, they had come upon the valley’s central market.

夜幕降临时，他们来到了山谷的中央市场。

The corrugated-iron storefronts had largely been destroyed during the war.

波纹铁皮店面在战争期间大部分被毁。

Shakira found a one-room shop with an intact roof, and her family settled in for the night.

夏奇拉找到了一家屋顶完好无损的单间商店，她的家人在那里过夜。

For the children, she produced a set of cloth dolls—one of a number of distractions that she’d cultivated during the years of fleeing battle.

她为孩子们制作了一套布娃娃——这是她在逃离战争的岁月里培养的众多消遣之一。

As she held the figures in the light of a match, the earth shook.

当她用火柴照亮这些人物时，大地震动了。

Around dawn, Shakira stepped outside, and saw that a few dozen families had taken shelter in the abandoned market.

黎明时分，夏奇拉走到外面，看到几十户人家已经在废弃的市场里避难。

It had once been the most thriving bazaar in northern Helmand, with shopkeepers weighing saffron and cumin on scales, carts loaded with women’s gowns, and storefronts dedicated to selling opium.

这里曾经是赫尔曼德北部最繁华的集市，店主在秤上称藏红花和小茴香，推车上装满了妇女的礼服，店面专门出售鸦片。

Now stray pillars jutted upward, and the air smelled of decaying animal remains and burning plastic.

现在，零散的柱子向上伸出，空气中弥漫着腐烂的动物遗骸和燃烧的塑料的味道。

In the distance, the earth suddenly exploded in fountains of dirt.

远处，大地突然炸开，化作泥土的喷泉。

Helicopters from the Afghan Army buzzed overhead, and the families hid behind the shops, considering their next move.

阿富汗军队的直升机在头顶盘旋，一家人躲在商店后面，考虑下一步行动。

There was fighting along the stone ramparts to the north and the riverbank to the west.

北边的石墙和西边的河岸上发生了战斗。

To the east was red-sand desert as far as Shakira could see.

夏奇拉的视野范围内，东边是一片红沙沙漠。

The only option was to head south, toward the leafy city of Lashkar Gah, which remained under the control of the Afghan government.

唯一的选择是向南前往仍在阿富汗政府控制下的绿树成荫的城市拉什卡尔加。

The journey would entail cutting through a barren plain exposed to abandoned U.S. and British bases, where snipers nested, and crossing culverts potentially stuffed with explosives.

这段旅程将穿过一片贫瘠的平原，暴露在废弃的美国和英国基地（狙击手在此扎营），并穿越可能装满炸药的涵洞。

A few families started off.

几个家庭出发了。

Even if they reached Lashkar Gah, they could not be sure what they’d find there.

即使他们到达了拉什卡尔加，他们也无法确定会在那里发现什么。

Since the start of the Taliban’s blitz, Afghan Army soldiers had surrendered in droves, begging for safe passage home.

自塔利班闪电战开始以来，阿富汗军队士兵纷纷投降，乞求安全回家。

It was clear that the Taliban would soon reach Kabul, and that the twenty years, and the trillions of dollars, devoted to defeating them had come to nothing.

很明显，塔利班很快就会到达喀布尔，而为击败他们而投入的二十年和数万亿美元却化为乌有。

Shakira’s family stood in the desert, discussing the situation.

夏奇拉的家人站在沙漠中讨论当前的情况。

The gunfire sounded closer.

枪声听起来更近了。

Shakira spotted Taliban vehicles racing toward the bazaar—and she decided to stay put.

夏奇拉看到塔利班车辆冲向集市，她决定留在原地。

She was weary to the bone, her nerves frayed.

她疲惫不堪，神经紧绷。

She would face whatever came next, accept it like a judgment.

她会面对接下来发生的一切，像接受审判一样接受它。

“We’ve been running all our lives,” she told me.

“我们一生都在跑步，”她告诉我。

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“我哪儿也不去。”

The longest war in American history ended on August 15th, when the Taliban captured Kabul without firing a shot.

美国历史上持续时间最长的战争于8月15日结束，塔利班不费一枪一弹就占领了喀布尔。

Bearded, scraggly men with black turbans took control of the Presidential palace, and around the capital the austere white flags of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan went up.

戴着黑头巾、留着胡须、衣衫褴褛的男人控制了总统府，首都周围飘扬着阿富汗伊斯兰酋长国朴素的白旗。

Panic ensued.

恐慌随之而来。

Some women burned their school records and went into hiding, fearing a return to the nineteen-nineties, when the Taliban forbade them to venture out alone and banned girls’ education.

一些妇女烧毁了她们的学校记录并躲藏起来，担心回到十九世纪九十年代，当时塔利班禁止她们独自冒险，并禁止女孩接受教育。

For Americans, the very real possibility that the gains of the past two decades might be erased appeared to pose a dreadful choice: recommit to seemingly endless war, or abandon Afghan women.

对于美国人来说，过去二十年的成果可能被抹去的现实可能性似乎构成了一个可怕的选择：要么重新投入看似无休止的战争，要么抛弃阿富汗妇女。

This summer, I travelled to rural Afghanistan to meet women who were already living under the Taliban, to listen to what they thought about this looming dilemma.

今年夏天，我前往阿富汗农村，会见了已经生活在塔利班统治下的妇女，听听她们对这一迫在眉睫的困境的看法。

More than seventy per cent of Afghans do not live in cities, and in the past decade the insurgent group had swallowed large swaths of the countryside.

超过百分之七十的阿富汗人并不居住在城市，在过去十年中，叛乱组织吞并了大片农村地区。

Unlike in relatively liberal Kabul, visiting women in these hinterlands is not easy: even without Taliban rule, women traditionally do not speak to unrelated men.

与相对自由的喀布尔不同，拜访这些内陆地区的女性并不容易：即使没有塔利班的统治，女性传统上也不会与无关的男性交谈。

Public and private worlds are sharply divided, and when a woman leaves her home she maintains a cocoon of seclusion through the burqa, which predates the Taliban by centuries.

公共世界和私人世界是截然分开的，当一个女人离开家时，她会穿着罩袍来保持与世隔绝，罩袍的出现比塔利班早了几个世纪。

Girls essentially disappear into their homes at puberty, emerging only as grandmothers, if ever.

女孩在青春期基本上就消失在自己的家里，只有当祖母（如果有的话）的时候才会出现。

It was through grandmothers—finding each by referral, and speaking to many without seeing their faces—that I was able to meet dozens of women, of all ages.

正是通过祖母们——通过推荐找到了每一位，并在没有看到她们脸的情况下与许多人交谈——我才得以结识了数十名各个年龄段的女性。

Many were living in desert tents or hollowed-out storefronts, like Shakira; when the Taliban came across her family hiding at the market, the fighters advised them and others not to return home until someone could sweep for mines.

许多人像夏奇拉一样住在沙漠帐篷或挖空的店面里；当塔利班发现她的家人躲在市场上时，战士们建议他们和其他人在有人扫雷之前不要回家。

I first encountered her in a safe house in Helmand.

我第一次见到她是在赫尔曼德省的一个安全屋里。

“I’ve never met a foreigner before,” she said shyly.

“我以前从未见过外国人，”她害羞地说。

“Well, a foreigner without a gun.”

“好吧，一个没有枪的外国人。”

Shakira has a knack for finding humor in pathos, and in the sheer absurdity of the men in her life: in the nineties, the Taliban had offered to supply electricity to the village, and the local graybeards had initially refused, fearing black magic.

夏奇拉善于在悲情和她生活中的男人的荒谬中找到幽默：九十年代，塔利班提出为村庄供电，当地的灰胡子最初拒绝了，因为担心黑魔法。

“Of course, we women knew electricity was fine,” she said, chuckling.

“当然，我们女性知道电很好，”她笑着说。

When she laughs, she pulls her shawl over her face, leaving only her eyes exposed.

当她笑的时候，她会把围巾拉到脸上，只露出眼睛。

I told her that she shared a name with a world-renowned pop star, and her eyes widened.

我告诉她，她和一位世界知名的流行歌星同名，她睁大了眼睛。

“Is it true?” she asked a friend who’d accompanied her to the safe house.

“是真的吗？”她询问了一位陪她前往安全屋的朋友。

“Could it be?”

“有可能吗？”

“So there’s no way to take her off desk duty?” Cartoon by Brendan Loper Link copied

“那么就没有办法让她下班吗？”布伦丹·洛珀 (Brendan Loper) 的漫画 链接已复制

Shakira, like the other women I met, grew up in the Sangin Valley, a gash of green between sharp mountain outcrops.

夏奇拉和我遇到的其他女性一样，在桑金山谷长大，那是尖锐的山体露头之间的一道绿色裂缝。

The valley is watered by the Helmand River and by a canal that Americans built in the nineteen-fifties.

该山谷由赫尔曼德河和美国人在十九世纪五十年代修建的运河灌溉。

You can walk the width of the dale in an hour, passing dozens of tiny hamlets, creaking footbridges, and mud-brick walls.

你可以在一小时内走完山谷的宽度，经过数十个小村庄、吱吱作响的人行桥和泥砖墙。

As a girl, Shakira heard stories from her mother of the old days in her village, Pan Killay, which was home to about eighty families: the children swimming in the canal under the warm sun, the women pounding grain in stone mortars.

作为一个女孩，夏奇拉从她母亲那里听到了过去在她的村庄潘基莱的故事，这个村庄有大约八十个家庭：孩子们在温暖的阳光下在运河里游泳，妇女们在石臼中捣碎谷物。

In winter, smoke wafted from clay hearths; in spring, rolling fields were blanketed with poppies.

冬天，土灶里炊烟袅袅；春天，连绵起伏的田野上开满了罂粟花。

In 1979, when Shakira was an infant, Communists seized power in Kabul and tried to launch a female-literacy program in Helmand—a province the size of West Virginia, with few girls’ schools.

1979 年，当夏奇拉还是个婴儿时，共产党在喀布尔夺取了政权，并试图在赫尔曼德省启动女性扫盲计划——该省面积相当于西弗吉尼亚州，几乎没有女子学校。

Tribal elders and landlords refused.

部落长老和地主拒绝了。

In the villagers’ retelling, the traditional way of life in Sangin was smashed overnight, because outsiders insisted on bringing women’s rights to the valley.

在村民的讲述中，桑金的传统生活方式一夜之间被打破，因为外来者坚持将妇女权利带入山谷。

“Our culture could not accept sending their girls outside to school,” Shakira recalled.

“我们的文化不能接受送女儿去外面上学，”夏奇拉回忆道。

“It was this way before my father’s time, before my grandfather’s time.” When the authorities began forcing girls to attend classes at gunpoint, a rebellion erupted, led by armed men calling themselves the mujahideen.

“在我父亲的时代、我祖父的时代之前就是这样。”当当局开始在枪口下强迫女孩上课时，一场由自称为圣战者的武装人员领导的叛乱爆发了。

In their first operation, they kidnapped all the schoolteachers in the valley, many of whom supported girls’ education, and slit their throats.

在他们的第一次行动中，他们绑架了山谷里所有的学校老师，其中许多人支持女孩的教育，并割断了他们的喉咙。

The next day, the government arrested tribal elders and landlords on the suspicion that they were bankrolling the mujahideen.

第二天，政府逮捕了部落长老和地主，怀疑他们为圣战者提供资金。

These community leaders were never seen again.

这些社区领袖再也没有出现过。

Tanks from the Soviet Union crossed the border to shore up the Communist government—and to liberate women.

来自苏联的坦克越过边境支持共产党政府并解放妇女。

Soon, Afghanistan was basically split in two.

很快，阿富汗基本上一分为二。

In the countryside, where young men were willing to die fighting the imposition of new ways of life—including girls’ schools and land reform—young women remained unseen.

在农村，年轻男子愿意为新的生活方式——包括女子学校和土地改革——而奋斗，而年轻女性却始终不见踪影。

In the cities, the Soviet-backed government banned child marriage and granted women the right to choose their partners.

在城市，苏联支持的政府禁止童婚，并赋予妇女选择伴侣的权利。

Girls enrolled in schools and universities in record numbers, and by the early eighties women held parliamentary seats and even the office of Vice-President.

就读中小学和大学的女童数量创历史新高，到八十年代初，妇女占据了议会席位，甚至担任副总统。

The violence in the countryside continued to spread.

农村暴力事件继续蔓延。

Early one morning when Shakira was five, her aunt awakened her in a great hurry.

夏奇拉五岁时的一天清晨，她的姨妈急忙叫醒了她。

The children were led by the adults of the village to a mountain cave, where they huddled for hours.

孩子们被村里的大人带到一个山洞里，在那里挤了几个小时。

At night, Shakira watched artillery streak the sky.

晚上，夏奇拉看着炮火划过天空。

When the family returned to Pan Killay, the wheat fields were charred, and crisscrossed with the tread marks of Soviet tanks.

当一家人回到潘基莱时，麦田已被烧焦，并布满了苏联坦克的足迹。

The cows had been mowed down with machine guns.

牛被机关枪扫倒了。

Everywhere she looked, she saw neighbors—men she used to call “uncle”—lying bloodied.

无论她放眼望去，她都看到邻居们——她过去称他们为“叔叔”——浑身是血。

Her grandfather hadn’t hidden with her, and she couldn’t find him in the village.

她的爷爷没有躲在她身边，她在村子里也找不到他。

When she was older, she learned that he’d gone to a different cave, and had been caught and executed by the Soviets.

当她长大后，她得知他去了另一个洞穴，并被苏联人抓住并处决了。

Nighttime evacuations became a frequent occurrence and, for Shakira, a source of excitement: the dark corners of the caves, the clamorous groups of children.

夜间疏散变得频繁，对夏奇拉来说，这是兴奋的源泉：洞穴的黑暗角落，吵闹的孩子群。

“We would look for Russian helicopters,” she said.

“我们会寻找俄罗斯直升机，”她说。

“It was like spotting strange birds.” Sometimes, those birds swooped low, the earth exploded, and the children rushed to the site to forage for iron, which could be sold for a good price.

“这就像发现奇怪的鸟一样。”有时，那些鸟儿低空俯冲，大地爆炸，孩子们就争先恐后地跑到现场去捡铁，这些铁可以卖个好价钱。

Occasionally she gathered metal shards so that she could build a doll house.

有时她会收集金属碎片，以便建造一个玩具屋。

Once, she showed her mother a magazine photograph of a plastic doll that exhibited the female form; her mother snatched it away, calling it inappropriate.

有一次，她给母亲看了一张杂志照片，上面是一个展示女性体态的塑料娃娃。她的母亲把它抢走了，认为它不合适。

So Shakira learned to make dolls out of cloth and sticks.

于是夏奇拉学会了用布和木棍制作娃娃。

When she was eleven, she stopped going outside.

当她十一岁的时候，她就不再出门了。

Her world shrank to the three rooms of her house and the courtyard, where she learned to sew, bake bread in a tandoor, and milk cows.

她的世界缩小到了房子的三个房间和庭院，在那里她学会了缝纫、用泥炉烤面包和挤奶。

One day, passing jets rattled the house, and she took sanctuary in a closet.

有一天，飞过的喷气式飞机震动了整个房子，她躲进了一个壁橱里。

Underneath a pile of clothes, she discovered a child’s alphabet book that had belonged to her grandfather—the last person in the family to attend school.

在一堆衣服下面，她发现了一本属于她祖父的儿童字母书，祖父是家里最后一个上学的人。

During the afternoons, while her parents napped, she began matching the Pashto words to pictures.

下午，当她父母午睡时，她开始将普什图语单词与图片进行匹配。

She recalled, “I had a plan to teach myself a little every day.”

她回忆道：“我有一个计划，每天自学一点。”

In 1989, the Soviets withdrew in defeat, but Shakira continued to hear the pounding of mortars outside the house’s mud walls.

1989 年，苏联人战败撤军，但夏奇拉继续听到房子泥墙外迫击炮的轰鸣声。

Competing mujahideen factions were now trying to carve up the country for themselves.

相互竞争的圣战者派别现在正试图瓜分国家。

Villages like Pan Killay were lucrative targets: there were farmers to tax, rusted Soviet tanks to salvage, opium to export.

像潘基莱这样的村庄是利润丰厚的目标：那里有农民可以征税，有生锈的苏联坦克可以打捞，有鸦片可以出口。

Pazaro, a woman from a nearby village, recalled, “We didn’t have a single night of peace.

附近村庄的妇女帕扎罗回忆道：“我们没有一个平安夜。

Our terror had a name, and it was Amir Dado.”

我们的恐怖有一个名字，那就是阿米尔·达多。”

The first time Shakira saw Dado, through the judas of her parents’ front gate, he was in a pickup truck, trailed by a dozen armed men, parading through the village “as if he were the President.” Dado, a wealthy fruit vender turned mujahideen commander, with a jet-black beard and a prodigious belly, had begun attacking rival strongmen even before the Soviets’ defeat.

夏奇拉第一次看到达多时，是透过她父母家的前门，他坐在一辆皮卡车里，后面跟着十几个武装人员，在村庄里游行，“就像他是总统一样”。达多是一位富有的水果商，后来成为了圣战者组织的指挥官，留着乌黑的胡须，大腹便便，甚至在苏联战败之前就开始攻击对手的强人。

He hailed from the upper Sangin Valley, where his tribe, the Alikozais, had held vast feudal plantations for centuries.

他来自桑金山谷上游，他的部落阿里科扎伊人 (Alikozais) 在那里拥有广阔的封建种植园几个世纪了。

The lower valley was the home of the Ishaqzais, the poor tribe to which Shakira belonged.

较低的山谷是夏奇拉所属的贫穷部落伊沙克扎伊人的家园。

Shakira watched as Dado’s men went from door to door, demanding a “tax” and searching homes.

夏奇拉看着达多的手下挨家挨户挨家挨户要求“征税”并搜查房屋。

A few weeks later, the gunmen returned, ransacking her family’s living room while she cowered in a corner.

几周后，枪手又回来了，洗劫了她家的客厅，而她则躲在角落里。

Never before had strangers violated the sanctity of her home, and she felt as if she’d been stripped naked and thrown into the street.

从来没有陌生人侵犯过她家的神圣性，她感觉自己好像被剥光了衣服，扔到了街上。

By the early nineties, the Communist government of Afghanistan, now bereft of Soviet support, was crumbling.

到了九十年代初，阿富汗共产党政府失去了苏联的支持，正在崩溃。

In 1992, Lashkar Gah fell to a faction of mujahideen.

1992 年，虔诚军落入圣战者组织的一个派系之手。

Shakira had an uncle living there, a Communist with little time for the mosque and a weakness for Pashtun tunes.

夏奇拉有一个叔叔住在那里，他是一名共产党员，很少有时间去清真寺，而且很喜欢普什图音乐。

He’d recently married a young woman, Sana, who’d escaped a forced betrothal to a man four times her age.

他最近与一位名叫萨娜的年轻女子结婚，她逃脱了与一个年龄是她四倍的男人的强迫订婚。

The pair had started a new life in Little Moscow, a Lashkar Gah neighborhood that Sana called “the land where women have freedom”—but, when the mujahideen took over, they were forced to flee to Pan Killay.

两人在小莫斯科开始了新生活，萨纳称之为“妇女享有自由的土地”，但当圣战者接管后，他们被迫逃到潘基莱。

Shakira was tending the cows one evening when Dado’s men surrounded her with guns.

一天晚上，夏奇拉正在放牛，达多的手下用枪包围了她。

“Where’s your uncle?” one of them shouted.

“你叔叔在哪儿？”其中一人喊道。

The fighters stormed into the house—followed by Sana’s spurned fiancé.

武装分子冲进了房子，身后跟着萨娜被抛弃的未婚夫。

“She’s the one!” he said.

“就是她了！”他说。

The gunmen dragged Sana away.

枪手将萨娜拖走。

When Shakira’s other uncles tried to intervene, they were arrested.

当夏奇拉的其他叔叔试图干预时，他们被捕了。

The next day, Sana’s husband turned himself in to Dado’s forces, begging to be taken in her place.

第二天，萨娜的丈夫向达多的部队自首，请求接替她。

Both were sent to the strongman’s religious court and sentenced to death.

两人都被送往强人宗教法庭并被判处死刑。

Not long afterward, the mujahideen toppled the Communists in Kabul, and they brought their countryside mores with them.

不久之后，圣战者在喀布尔推翻了共产党，他们也带来了农村习俗。

In the capital, their leaders—who had received generous amounts of U.S. funding—issued a decree declaring that “women are not to leave their homes at all, unless absolutely necessary, in which case they are to cover themselves completely.” Women were likewise banned from “walking gracefully or with pride.” Religious police began roaming the city’s streets, arresting women and burning audio- and videocassettes on pyres.

在首都，她们的领导人——获得了美国慷慨的资助——发布了一项法令，宣布“除非绝对必要，否则妇女根本不得离开家园，在这种情况下她们必须把自己完全遮盖起来。”女性同样被禁止“优雅或骄傲地行走”。宗教警察开始在城市街道上巡逻，逮捕妇女，并在柴堆上焚烧录音带和录像带。

Yet the new mujahideen government quickly fell apart, and the country descended into civil war.

然而新的圣战者政府很快就垮台了，国家陷入内战。

At night in Pan Killay, Shakira heard gunfire and, sometimes, the shouts of men.

晚上，夏奇拉在潘基莱听到枪声，有时还听到男人的喊叫声。

In the morning, while tending the cows, she’d see neighbors carrying wrapped bodies.

早上，当她照顾奶牛时，她会看到邻居们抬着包裹着的尸体。

Her family gathered in the courtyard and discussed, in low voices, how they might escape.

她的家人聚集在院子里，低声讨论着如何逃走。

But the roads were studded with checkpoints belonging to different mujahideen groups.

但道路上布满了属于不同圣战者组织的检查站。

South of the village, in the town of Gereshk, a militia called the Ninety-third Division maintained a particularly notorious barricade on a bridge; there were stories of men getting robbed or killed, of women and young boys being raped.

在该村以南的格雷什克镇，一支名为“九十三师”的民兵在一座桥上设置了一个特别臭名昭著的路障；有男人被抢劫或杀害、妇女和小男孩被强奸的故事。

Shakira’s father sometimes crossed the bridge to sell produce at the Gereshk market, and her mother started pleading with him to stay home.

夏奇拉的父亲有时会过桥去格雷什克市场出售农产品，她的母亲开始恳求他留在家里。

The family, penned between Amir Dado to the north and the Ninety-third Division to the south, was growing desperate.

这个家庭被困在北部的阿米尔·达多和南部的第九十三师之间，他们变得越来越绝望。

Then one afternoon, when Shakira was sixteen, she heard shouts from the street: “The Taliban are here!” She saw a convoy of white Toyota Hiluxes filled with black-turbanned fighters carrying white flags.

然后有一天下午，夏奇拉十六岁时，她听到街上传来喊叫声：“塔利班来了！”她看到一支白色丰田海拉克斯车队，里面满是戴着黑头巾、举着白旗的战士。

Shakira hadn’t ever heard of the Taliban, but her father explained that its members were much like the poor religious students she’d seen all her life begging for alms.

夏奇拉从未听说过塔利班，但她的父亲解释说，塔利班的成员很像她一生中见过的乞讨施舍的贫穷宗教学生。

Many had fought under the mujahideen’s banner but quit after the Soviets’ withdrawal; now, they said, they were remobilizing to put an end to the tumult.

许多人曾在圣战者的旗帜下作战，但在苏联撤军后退出。他们说，现在他们正在重新动员起来，以结束骚乱。

In short order, they had stormed the Gereshk bridge, dismantling the Ninety-third Division, and volunteers had flocked to join them as they’d descended on Sangin.

很快，他们就冲进了格雷什克桥，解散了第九十三师，当他们袭击桑金时，志愿者们蜂拥而至加入他们。

Her brother came home reporting that the Taliban had also overrun Dado’s positions.

她哥哥回家报告说塔利班也占领了达多的阵地。

The warlord had abandoned his men and fled to Pakistan.

军阀抛弃了他的部下逃往巴基斯坦。

“He’s gone,” Shakira’s brother kept saying.

“他走了，”夏奇拉的哥哥一直说。

“He really is.” The Taliban soon dissolved Dado’s religious court—freeing Sana and her husband, who were awaiting execution—and eliminated the checkpoints.

“他确实是。”塔利班很快解散了达多的宗教法庭，释放了等待处决的萨娜和她的丈夫，并取消了检查站。

After fifteen years, the Sangin Valley was finally at peace.

十五年过去了，三银谷终于平静了。

When I asked Shakira and other women from the valley to reflect on Taliban rule, they were unwilling to judge the movement against some universal standard—only against what had come before.

当我要求夏奇拉和山谷里的其他妇女反思塔利班的统治时，她们不愿意根据某种普遍标准来评判这场运动——只是根据以前发生过的事情。

“They were softer,” Pazaro, the woman who lived in a neighboring village, said.

“他们更温柔，”住在邻近村庄的妇女帕扎罗说。

“They were dealing with us respectfully.” The women described their lives under the Taliban as identical to their lives under Dado and the mujahideen—minus the strangers barging through the doors at night, the deadly checkpoints.

“他们很尊重我们。”这些妇女形容她们在塔利班统治下的生活与在达多和圣战者统治下的生活一模一样——除了夜间闯入大门的陌生人和致命的检查站。

Shakira recounted to me a newfound serenity: quiet mornings with steaming green tea and naan bread, summer evenings on the rooftop.

夏奇拉向我讲述了一种新发现的宁静：安静的早晨，有热气腾腾的绿茶和印度烤饼，夏天的夜晚在屋顶上。

Mothers and aunts and grandmothers began to discreetly inquire about her eligibility; in the village, marriage was a bond uniting two families.

母亲们、阿姨们和祖母们开始小心翼翼地询问她的资格。在村子里，婚姻是将两个家庭联系在一起的纽带。

She was soon betrothed to a distant relative whose father had vanished, presumably at the hands of the Soviets.

她很快就与一位远亲订婚，他的父亲失踪了，大概是在苏联人手中。

The first time she laid eyes on her fiancé was on their wedding day: he was sitting sheepishly, surrounded by women of the village, who were ribbing him about his plans for the wedding night.

她第一次见到她的未婚夫是在他们结婚那天：他羞涩地坐着，周围都是村里的妇女，她们正在嘲笑他新婚之夜的计划。

“Oh, he was a fool!” Shakira recalled, laughing.

“噢，他真是个傻瓜！”夏奇拉笑着回忆道。

“He was so embarrassed, he tried to run away.

“他非常尴尬，试图逃跑。

People had to catch him and bring him back.”

人们必须抓住他并将他带回来。”

Like many enterprising young men in the valley, he was employed in opium trafficking, and Shakira liked the glint of determination in his eyes.

和山谷中许多有进取心的年轻人一样，他受雇从事鸦片贩运，夏奇拉喜欢他眼中闪烁的坚定光芒。

Yet she started to worry that grit alone might not be enough.

然而她开始担心仅靠毅力可能还不够。

As Taliban rule established itself, a conscription campaign was launched.

随着塔利班统治的建立，征兵运动开始了。

Young men were taken to northern Afghanistan, to help fight against a gang of mujahideen warlords known as the Northern Alliance.

年轻人被带到阿富汗北部，帮助对抗被称为北方联盟的圣战者军阀团伙。

One day, Shakira watched a helicopter alight in a field and unload the bodies of fallen conscripts.

有一天，夏奇拉看到一架直升机在田野上降落，卸下阵亡士兵的尸体。

Men in the valley began hiding in friends’ houses, moving from village to village, terrified of being called up.

山谷里的人们开始躲在朋友的家里，从一个村庄搬到另一个村庄，害怕被征召。

Impoverished tenant farmers were the most at risk—the rich could buy their way out of service.

贫困的佃农面临的风险最大——富人可以通过花钱来摆脱服务。

“This was the true injustice of the Taliban,” Shakira told me.

“这是塔利班真正的不公正，”夏奇拉告诉我。

She grew to loathe the sight of roving Taliban patrols.

她越来越讨厌塔利班巡逻队的景象。

In 2000, Helmand Province experienced punishing drought.

2000年，赫尔曼德省经历了严重的干旱。

The watermelon fields lay ruined, and the bloated corpses of draft animals littered the roads.

西瓜田一片狼藉，道路上散落着臃肿的役畜尸体。

In a flash of cruelty, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar, chose that moment to ban opium cultivation.

塔利班最高领导人奥马尔毛拉突然残忍地选择在这个时刻禁止鸦片种植。

The valley’s economy collapsed.

山谷的经济崩溃了。

Pazaro recalled, “We had nothing to eat, the land gave us nothing, and our men couldn’t provide for our children.

帕扎罗回忆道：“我们没有东西吃，土地没有给我们任何东西，我们的男人也无法养活我们的孩子。

The children were crying, they were screaming, and we felt like we’d failed.” Shakira, who was pregnant, dipped squares of stale naan into green tea to feed her nieces and nephews.

孩子们在哭泣、尖叫，我们感觉自己失败了。”怀孕的夏奇拉将一块块不新鲜的馕饼浸入绿茶中喂她的侄女和侄子。

Her husband left for Pakistan, to try his luck in the fields there.

她的丈夫前往巴基斯坦，在那里的田里碰碰运气。

Shakira was stricken by the thought that her baby would emerge lifeless, that her husband would never return, that she would be alone.

夏奇拉一想到她的孩子将毫无生气、她的丈夫永远不会回来、她将孤身一人，就感到震惊。

Every morning, she prayed for rain, for deliverance.

每天早上，她都会祈求下雨，祈求拯救。

One day, an announcer on the radio said that there had been an attack in America.

有一天，电台播音员说美国发生了一起袭击事件。

Suddenly, there was talk that soldiers from the richest country on earth were coming to overthrow the Taliban.

突然间，有传言称，来自地球上最富有国家的士兵将前来推翻塔利班。

For the first time in years, Shakira’s heart stirred with hope.

多年来，夏奇拉的心中第一次充满了希望。

One night in 2003, Shakira was jolted awake by the voices of strange men.

2003 年的一个晚上，夏奇拉被陌生人的声音惊醒。

She rushed to cover herself.

她赶紧掩护自己。

When she ran to the living room, she saw, with panic, the muzzles of rifles being pointed at her.

当她跑到客厅时，她惊慌地看到步枪枪口正对着她。

The men were larger than she’d ever seen, and they were in uniform.

这些男人比她见过的都要大，而且都穿着制服。

These are the Americans, she realized, in awe.

她敬畏地意识到，这些都是美国人。

Some Afghans were with them, scrawny men with Kalashnikovs and checkered scarves.

一些阿富汗人和他们在一起，这些人骨瘦如柴，戴着卡拉什尼科夫冲锋枪，戴着格子围巾。

A man with an enormous beard was barking orders: Amir Dado.

一个留着大胡子的男人大声发出命令：阿米尔·达多。

The U.S. had swiftly toppled the Taliban following its invasion, installing in Kabul the government of Hamid Karzai.

美国在塔利班入侵后迅速推翻了塔利班，并在喀布尔建立了哈米德·卡尔扎伊政府。

Dado, who had befriended American Special Forces, became the chief of intelligence for Helmand Province.

达多曾与美国特种部队交好，后来成为赫尔曼德省情报局长。

One of his brothers was the governor of the Sangin district, and another brother became Sangin’s chief of police.

他的一个兄弟是桑金地区的州长，另一个兄弟成为桑金的警察局长。

In Helmand, the first year of the American occupation had been peaceful, and the fields once again burst with poppies.

在赫尔曼德，美国占领的第一年很平静，田野里再次开满了罂粟花。

Shakira now had two small children, Nilofar and Ahmed.

夏奇拉现在有两个小孩，尼洛法尔和艾哈迈德。

Her husband had returned from Pakistan and found work ferrying bags of opium resin to the Sangin market.

她的丈夫从巴基斯坦回来，找到了一份将袋装鸦片树脂运送到桑金市场的工作。

But now, with Dado back in charge—rescued from exile by the Americans—life regressed to the days of civil war.

但现在，随着达多重新掌权——被美国人从流亡中解救出来——生活又回到了内战时期。

Nearly every person Shakira knew had a story about Dado.

夏奇拉认识的几乎每个人都有一个关于 Dado 的故事。

Once, his fighters demanded that two young men either pay a tax or join his private militia, which he maintained despite holding his official post.

有一次，他的战士要求两名年轻人要么缴税，要么加入他的私人民兵，尽管他担任官方职务，但他仍然坚持这样做。

When they refused, his fighters beat them to death, stringing their bodies up from a tree.

当他们拒绝时，他的战士们将他们殴打致死，并将他们的尸体吊在树上。

A villager recalled, “We went to cut them down, and they had been sliced open, their stomachs coming out.” In another village, Dado’s forces went from house to house, executing people suspected of being Taliban; an elderly scholar who’d never belonged to the movement was shot dead.

一位村民回忆说：“我们去砍它们，它们被剖开，肚子都出来了。”在另一个村庄，达多的部队挨家挨户处决涉嫌塔利班的人；一位从未参与过该运动的老年学者被枪杀。

Shakira was bewildered by the Americans’ choice of allies.

夏奇拉对美国人选择的盟友感到困惑。

“Was this their plan?” she asked me.

“这就是他们的计划吗？”她问我。

“Did they come to bring peace, or did they have other aims?” She insisted that her husband stop taking resin to the Sangin market, so he shifted his trade south, to Gereshk.

“他们是来带来和平的，还是有其他目的？”她坚持要求她的丈夫停止将树脂运往桑金市场，因此他将贸易转移到南方的格雷什克。

But he returned one afternoon with the news that this, too, had become impossible.

但有一天下午，他回来时带来的消息是，这也变得不可能了。

Astonishingly, the United States had resuscitated the Ninety-third Division—and made it its closest partner in the province.

令人惊讶的是，美国复兴了第九十三师，并使其成为该省最亲密的合作伙伴。

The Division’s gunmen again began stopping travellers on the bridge and plundering what they could.

该师的枪手再次开始在桥上拦截旅客并尽可能地抢劫。

Now, however, their most profitable endeavor was collecting bounties offered by the U.S.; according to Mike Martin, a former British officer who wrote a history of Helmand, they earned up to two thousand dollars per Taliban commander captured.

然而现在，他们最赚钱的努力是收集美国提供的赏金；根据撰写赫尔曼德历史的前英国军官迈克·马丁的说法，每俘获一名塔利班指挥官，他们的收入高达两千美元。

This posed a challenge, though, because there were hardly any active Taliban to catch.

但这也构成了挑战，因为几乎没有任何活跃的塔利班分子可供抓捕。

“We knew who were the Taliban in our village,” Shakira said, and they weren’t engaged in guerrilla warfare: “They were all sitting at home, doing nothing.” A lieutenant colonel with U.S. Special Forces, Stuart Farris, who was deployed to the area at that time, told a U.S. Army historian, “There was virtually no resistance on this rotation.” So militias like the Ninety-third Division began accusing innocent people.

“我们知道我们村里的塔利班是谁，”夏奇拉说，他们没有参与游击战：“他们都坐在家里，什么也不做。”当时部署到该地区的美国特种部队中校斯图尔特·法里斯告诉美国陆军历史学家，“这次轮换几乎没有遇到阻力。”于是像九十三师这样的民兵开始指责无辜的人。

In February, 2003, they branded Hajji Bismillah—the Karzai government’s transportation director for Gereshk, responsible for collecting tolls in the city—a terrorist, prompting the Americans to ship him to Guantánamo.

2003 年 2 月，他们将哈吉·比斯米拉（Hajji Bismillah）——卡尔扎伊政府的格里什克交通主管，负责该市的过路费收费——列为恐怖分子，促使美国人将他送往关塔那摩。

With Bismillah eliminated, the Ninety-third Division monopolized the toll revenue.

比斯米拉被消灭后，第九十三师垄断了通行费收入。

Dado went even further.

达多走得更远。

In March, 2003, U.S. soldiers visited Sangin’s governor—Dado’s brother—to discuss refurbishing a school and a health clinic.

2003 年 3 月，美国士兵拜访了桑金的州长（达多的兄弟），讨论翻新学校和诊所的事宜。

Upon leaving, their convoy came under fire, and Staff Sergeant Jacob Frazier and Sergeant Orlando Morales became the first American combat fatalities in Helmand.

离开后，他们的车队遭到攻击，雅各布·弗雷泽上士和奥兰多·莫拉莱斯中士成为赫尔曼德省第一批阵亡的美军。

U.S. personnel suspected that the culprit was not the Taliban but Dado—a suspicion confirmed to me by one of the warlord’s former commanders, who said that his boss had engineered the attack to keep the Americans reliant on him.

美国人员怀疑罪魁祸首不是塔利班，而是达多——军阀的一位前指挥官向我证实了这一怀疑，他说他的老板策划了这次袭击，让美国人继续依赖他。

Nonetheless, when Dado’s forces claimed to have nabbed the true assassin—an ex-Taliban conscript named Mullah Jalil—the Americans dispatched Jalil to Guantánamo.

尽管如此，当达多的部队声称抓获了真正的刺客——一位名叫毛拉·贾利勒的前塔利班新兵——美国人将贾利勒送往关塔那摩。

Unaccountably, this happened despite the fact that, according to Jalil’s classified Guantánamo file, U.S. officials knew that Jalil had been fingered merely to “cover for” the fact that Dado’s forces had been “involved with the ambush.”

令人难以置信的是，尽管根据贾利勒在关塔那摩的机密档案，美国官员知道贾利勒被指控只是为了“掩盖”达多的部队“参与伏击”的事实，但这种情况还是发生了。

The incident didn’t affect Dado’s relationship with U.S. Special Forces, who deemed him too valuable in serving up “terrorists.” They were now patrolling together, and soon after the attack the joint operation searched Shakira’s village for suspected terrorists.

这一事件并没有影响达多与美国特种部队的关系，美国特种部队认为他在为“恐怖分子”服务方面太有价值了。他们现在一起巡逻，袭击发生后不久，联合行动就搜查了夏奇拉的村庄，寻找恐怖分子嫌疑人。

The soldiers did not stay at her home long, but she could not get the sight of the rifle muzzles out of her mind.

士兵们在她家呆的时间不长，但步枪枪口的景象却一直萦绕在她的脑海里。

The next morning, she removed the rugs and scrubbed the boot marks away.

第二天早上，她把地毯拿掉，擦掉靴子的痕迹。

Shakira’s friends and neighbors were too terrified to speak out, but the United Nations began agitating for Dado’s removal.

夏奇拉的朋友和邻居吓得不敢说话，但联合国开始鼓动将达多赶下台。

The U.S. repeatedly blocked the effort, and a guide for the U.S. Marine Corps argued that although Dado was “far from being a Jeffersonian Democrat” his form of rough justice was “the time-tested solution for controlling rebellious Pashtuns.”

美国一再阻止这一努力，美国海军陆战队的一份指南辩称，尽管达多“远非杰斐逊式的民主党人”，但他的粗暴正义形式是“控制叛逆的普什图人的经过时间考验的解决方案”。

Shakira’s husband stopped leaving the house as Helmandis continued to be taken away on flimsy pretexts.

夏奇拉的丈夫不再离开家，赫尔曼迪斯继续以站不住脚的借口被带走。

A farmer in a nearby village, Mohammed Nasim, was arrested by U.S. forces and sent to Guantánamo because, according to a classified assessment, his name was similar to that of a Taliban commander.

附近村庄的一名农民穆罕默德·纳西姆被美军逮捕并送往关塔那摩，因为根据机密评估，他的名字与塔利班指挥官的名字相似。

A Karzai government official named Ehsanullah visited an American base to inform on two Taliban members; no translator was present, and, in the confusion, he was arrested himself and shipped to Guantánamo.

卡尔扎伊政府官员埃萨努拉 (Ehsanullah) 访问美国基地，通报两名塔利班成员的情况；没有翻译在场，在混乱中，他本人被捕并被送往关塔那摩。

Nasrullah, a government tax collector, was sent to Guantánamo after being randomly pulled off a bus following a skirmish between U.S. Special Forces and local tribesmen.

纳斯鲁拉是一名政府税务员，在美国特种部队与当地部落成员发生小规模冲突后，他被随机从一辆公共汽车上拉下来，随后被送往关塔那摩。

“We were so happy with the Americans,” he said later, at a military tribunal.

“我们对美国人感到非常满意，”他后来在军事法庭上说道。

“I didn’t know eventually I would come to Cuba.”

“我不知道我最终会来到古巴。”

Nasrullah ultimately returned home, but some detainees never made it back.

纳斯鲁拉最终返回家园，但一些被拘留者再也没有回来。

Abdul Wahid, of Gereshk, was arrested by the Ninety-third Division and beaten severely; he was delivered to U.S. custody and left in a cage, where he died.

盖雷什克的阿卜杜勒·瓦希德 (Abdul Wahid) 被第九十三师逮捕并遭到毒打；他被送往美国拘留并关在笼子里，并在那里死亡。

U.S. military personnel noted burns on his chest and stomach, and bruising to his hips and groin.

美国军事人员注意到他的胸部和腹部有烧伤，臀部和腹股沟有瘀伤。

According to a declassified investigation, Special Forces soldiers reported that Wahid’s wounds were consistent with “a normal interview/interrogation method” used by the Ninety-third Division.

据解密调查，特种部队士兵报告称，瓦希德的伤口与第九十三师使用的“正常采访/审讯方法”一致。

A sergeant stated that he “could provide photographs of prior detainees with similar injuries.” Nonetheless, the U.S. continued to support the Ninety-third Division—a violation of the Leahy Law, which bars American personnel from knowingly backing units that commit flagrant human-rights abuses.

一名警官表示，他“可以提供先前被拘留者受类似伤害的照片”。尽管如此，美国继续支持第九十三师，这违反了《莱希法》，该法禁止美国人员故意支持公然侵犯人权的部队。

In 2004, the U.N.

2004 年，联合国

launched a program to disarm pro-government militias.

启动了一项解除亲政府民兵武装的计划。

A Ninety-third commander learned of the plan and rebranded a segment of the militia as a “private-security company” under contract with the Americans, enabling roughly a third of the Division’s fighters to remain armed.

一名九十三指挥官得知了该计划，并根据与美国人的合同将一部分民兵重新命名为“私人保安公司”，使该师大约三分之一的战士能够保持武装。

Another third kept their weapons by signing a contract with a Texas-based firm to protect road-paving crews.

另外三分之一的人通过与德克萨斯州一家公司签署合同来保留武器，以保护铺路人员。

(When the Karzai government replaced these private guards with police, the Ninety-third’s leader engineered a hit that killed fifteen policemen, and then recovered the contract.) The remaining third of the Division, finding themselves subjected to extortion threats from their former colleagues, absconded with their weapons and joined the Taliban.

（当卡尔扎伊政府用警察取代这些私人警卫时，九十三的领导人策划了一场袭击，杀死了十五名警察，然后收回了合同。）该师剩下的三分之一发现自己受到了前同事的勒索威胁，于是带着武器潜逃并加入了塔利班。

Messaging by the U.S.-led coalition tended to portray the growing rebellion as a matter of extremists battling freedom, but nato documents I obtained conceded that Ishaqzais had “no good reason” to trust the coalition forces, having suffered “oppression at the hands of Dad Mohammad Khan,” or Amir Dado.

以美国为首的联军发出的信息倾向于将日益严重的叛乱描述为极端分子与自由作斗争的问题，但我获得的北约文件承认，伊沙克扎伊“没有充分的理由”信任联军，因为他遭受了“父亲穆罕默德·汗”或阿米尔·达多的压迫。

In Pan Killay, elders encouraged their sons to take up arms to protect the village, and some reached out to former Taliban members.

在潘基莱，长老们鼓励儿子们拿起武器保护村庄，有些人还向前塔利班成员伸出援手。

Shakira wished that her husband would do something—help guard the village, or move them to Pakistan—but he demurred.

夏奇拉希望她的丈夫能做点什么——帮助看守村庄，或者把他们转移到巴基斯坦——但他表示反对。

In a nearby village, when U.S. forces raided the home of a beloved tribal elder, killing him and leaving his son with paraplegia, women shouted at their menfolk, “You people have big turbans on your heads, but what have you done?

在附近的一个村庄，当美军袭击了一位深受爱戴的部落老人的家，杀死了他，并让他的儿子截瘫时，妇女们对她们的男人喊道：“你们头上戴着大头巾，但你们做了什么？

You can’t even protect us.

你甚至无法保护我们。

You call yourselves men?”

你还自称男人？”

It was now 2005, four years after the American invasion, and Shakira had a third child on the way.

现在是 2005 年，美国入侵四年后，夏奇拉即将迎来第三个孩子。

Her domestic duties consumed her—“morning to night, I was working and sweating”—but when she paused from stoking the tandoor or pruning the peach trees she realized that she’d lost the sense of promise she’d once felt.

她的家务劳动耗尽了她的精力——“从早到晚，我都在工作，流着汗”——但当她停下来给泥炉加柴或修剪桃树时，她意识到自己已经失去了曾经感受到的承诺感。

Nearly every week, she heard of another young man being spirited away by the Americans or the militias.

几乎每周，她都会听说又有一名年轻人被美国人或民兵偷走。

Her husband was unemployed, and recently he’d begun smoking opium.

她的丈夫失业了，最近开始吸鸦片。

Their marriage soured.

他们的婚姻恶化了。

An air of mistrust settled onto the house, matching the village’s grim mood.

房子里笼罩着一种不信任的气氛，与村子里严峻的气氛相呼应。

So when a Taliban convoy rolled into Pan Killay, with black-turbanned men hoisting tall white flags, she considered the visitors with interest, even forgiveness.

因此，当塔利班车队驶入潘基莱，戴着黑头巾的男子高举高高的白旗时，她对来访者充满兴趣，甚至表示宽恕。

This time, she thought, things might be different.

这一次，她想，情况可能会有所不同。

In 2006, the U.K. joined a growing contingent of U.S. Special Operations Forces working to quell the rebellion in Sangin.

2006年，英国加入了越来越多的美国特种作战部队，致力于平息桑金的叛乱。

Soon, Shakira recalled, “hell began.” The Taliban attacked patrols, launched raids on combat outposts, and set up roadblocks.

夏奇拉回忆道，很快，“地狱就开始了。”塔利班袭击巡逻队，袭击战斗前哨，并设置路障。

On a hilltop in Pan Killay, the Americans commandeered a drug lord’s house, transforming it into a compound of sandbags and watchtowers and concertina wire.

在潘基莱的一个山顶上，美国人征用了一个毒枭的房子，把它改造成一个由沙袋、瞭望塔和铁丝网组成的建筑群。

Before most battles, young Talibs visited houses, warning residents to leave immediately.

在大多数战斗之前，年轻的塔利班分子会拜访房屋，警告居民立即离开。

Then the Taliban would launch their assault, the coalition would respond, and the earth would shudder.

然后塔利班就会发动进攻，联军就会做出反应，地球就会颤抖。

Sometimes, even fleeing did not guarantee safety.

有时，即使逃跑也不能保证安全。

During one battle, Abdul Salam, an uncle of Shakira’s husband, took refuge in a friend’s home.

在一次战斗中，夏奇拉丈夫的叔叔阿卜杜勒·萨拉姆 (Abdul Salam) 在朋友家避难。

After the fighting ended, he visited a mosque to offer prayers.

战斗结束后，他前往清真寺祈祷。

A few Taliban were there, too.

那里也有一些塔利班分子。

A coalition air strike killed almost everyone inside.

联军空袭几乎杀死了里面的所有人。

The next day, mourners gathered for funerals; a second strike killed a dozen more people.

第二天，哀悼者聚集在一起参加葬礼。第二次袭击又造成十几人死亡。

Among the bodies returned to Pan Killay were those of Abdul Salam, his cousin, and his three nephews, aged six to fifteen.

返回潘基莱的尸体包括他的表弟阿卜杜勒萨拉姆和他的三个六岁至十五岁的侄子的尸体。

Not since childhood had Shakira known anyone who’d died by air strike.

夏奇拉从小就不认识任何死于空袭的人。

She was now twenty-seven, and she slept fitfully, as if at any moment she’d need to run for cover.

她现在二十七岁了，睡得断断续续，好像随时都需要逃跑一样。

One night, she awoke to a screeching noise so loud that she wondered if the house was being torn apart.

一天晚上，她被一阵刺耳的声音吵醒，声音如此之大，她怀疑房子是不是被撕裂了。

Her husband was still snoring away, and she cursed him under her breath.

她的丈夫还在打呼噜，她低声咒骂着他。

She tiptoed to the front yard.

她蹑手蹑脚地走到前院。

Coalition military vehicles were passing by, trundling over scrap metal strewn out front.

联军军车驶过，碾过散落在前方的废金属。

She roused the family.

她叫醒了全家人。

It was too late to evacuate, and Shakira prayed that the Taliban would not attack.

撤离已经来不及了，夏奇拉祈祷塔利班不要发动袭击。

She thrust the children into recessed windows—a desperate attempt to protect them in case a strike caused the roof to collapse—and covered them with heavy blankets.

她把孩子们塞进凹进的窗户里——这是为了保护他们，以防罢工导致屋顶倒塌——并用厚厚的毯子盖住他们。

Returning to the front yard, Shakira spotted one of the foreigners’ vehicles sitting motionless.

回到前院，夏奇拉发现一辆外国人的车一动不动。

A pair of antennas projected skyward.

一对天线伸向天空。

They’re going to kill us, she thought.

他们会杀了我们，她想。

She climbed onto the roof, and saw that the vehicle was empty: the soldiers had parked it and left on foot.

她爬上车顶，看到车上空无一人，士兵们已经把车停好，步行离开。

She watched them march over the footbridge and disappear into the reeds.

她看着他们走过人行桥，消失在芦苇丛中。

A few fields away, the Taliban and the foreigners began firing.

几块田野之外，塔利班和外国人开始开火。

For hours, the family huddled indoors.

几个小时以来，一家人挤在室内。

The walls shook, and the children cried.

墙壁摇晃，孩子们哭了。

Shakira brought out her cloth dolls, rocked Ahmed against her chest, and whispered stories.

夏奇拉拿出她的布娃娃，把艾哈迈德靠在胸前摇晃，低声讲故事。

When the guns fell silent, around dawn, Shakira went out for another look.

黎明时分，枪声平息后，夏奇拉又出去看了一眼。

The vehicle remained there, unattended.

车辆仍在那里，无人看管。

She was shaking in anger.

她气得浑身发抖。

All year, roughly once a month, she had been subjected to this terror.

一年到头，大约每个月，她都会遭受这种恐惧。

The Taliban had launched the attack, but most of her rage was directed at the interlopers.

塔利班发动了袭击，但她的大部分愤怒都集中在闯入者身上。

Why did she, and her children, have to suffer?

为什么她和她的孩子要受苦？

A wild thought flashed through her head.

她的脑海中闪过一个疯狂的念头。

She rushed into the house and spoke with her mother-in-law.

她冲进屋去和婆婆说话。

The soldiers were still on the far side of the canal.

士兵们还在运河的另一边。

Shakira found some matches and her mother-in-law grabbed a jerrican of diesel fuel.

夏奇拉找到了一些火柴，她的婆婆抓起一罐柴油。

On the street, a neighbor glanced at the jerrican and understood, hurrying back with a second jug.

街上，一位邻居看了一眼罐子，明白了，赶紧拿着第二罐回来。

Shakira’s mother-in-law doused a tire, then popped the hood and soaked the engine.

夏奇拉的婆婆浇了轮胎，然后打开引擎盖，浸泡了发动机。

Shakira struck a match, and dropped it onto the tire.

夏奇拉划了一根火柴，把它扔到了轮胎上。

“All these stars but none of the ones I want to watch.” Cartoon by Joseph Dottino and Alex Pearson Link copied

“所有这些明星，但没有一个是我想看的。”约瑟夫·多蒂诺 (Joseph Dottino) 和亚历克斯·皮尔森 (Alex Pearson) 创作的漫画 链接已复制

From the house, they watched the sky turn ashen from the blaze.

从房子里，他们看到天空被大火变成灰白色。

Before long, they heard the whirring of a helicopter, approaching from the south.

不久，他们听到一架直升机呼呼地从南方飞来。

“It’s coming for us!” her mother-in-law shouted.

“它是冲着我们来的！”她的婆婆喊道。

Shakira’s brother-in-law, who was staying with them, frantically gathered the children, but Shakira knew that it was too late.

夏奇拉的姐夫和他们住在一起，疯狂地聚集了孩子们，但夏奇拉知道已经太晚了。

If we’re going to die, let’s die at home, she thought.

如果我们要死的话，就死在家里吧，她想。

They threw themselves into a shallow trench in the back yard, the adults on top of the children.

他们跳进后院的一条浅沟里，大人压在孩子们身上。

The earth shook violently, then the helicopter flew off.

大地剧烈震动，然后直升机飞走了。

When they emerged, Shakira saw that the foreigners had targeted the burning vehicle, so that none of its parts would fall into enemy hands.

当他们出来时，夏奇拉看到外国人已经瞄准了燃烧的车辆，这样它的任何部件就不会落入敌人手中。

The women of Pan Killay came to congratulate Shakira; she was, as one woman put it, “a hero.” But she had difficulty mustering any pride, only relief.

潘基莱的妇女们前来祝贺夏奇拉；正如一位女士所说，她是“英雄”。但她很难积聚起任何自豪感，只有如释重负的感觉。

“I was thinking that they would not come here anymore,” she said.

“我以为他们不会再来这里了，”她说。

“And we would have peace.”

“我们就会有和平。”

In 2008, the U.S. Marines deployed to Sangin, reinforcing American Special Forces and U.K. soldiers.

2008年，美国海军陆战队部署到桑金，增援美国特种部队和英国士兵。

Britain’s forces were beleaguered—a third of its casualties in Afghanistan would occur in Sangin, leading some soldiers to dub the mission “Sangingrad.” Nilofar, now eight, could intuit the rhythms of wartime.

英国军队陷入困境——其在阿富汗的伤亡三分之一发生在桑金，导致一些士兵将这次任务称为“桑金格勒”。尼洛法现在八岁了，他能凭直觉了解战时的节奏。

She would ask Shakira, “When are we going to Auntie Farzana’s house?” Farzana lived in the desert.

她会问夏奇拉：“我们什么时候去法扎娜阿姨家？”法扎娜住在沙漠里。

But the chaos wasn’t always predictable: one afternoon, the foreigners again appeared before anyone could flee, and the family rushed into the back-yard trench.

但混乱的情况并不总是可以预见的：一天下午，外国人在大家逃跑之前再次出现，一家人冲进了后院的沟渠。

A few doors down, the wife and children of the late Abdul Salam did the same, but a mortar killed his fifteen-year-old daughter, Bor Jana.

几扇门外，已故的阿卜杜勒·萨拉姆的妻子和孩子也做了同样的事，但一枚迫击炮杀死了他 15 岁的女儿博尔·贾娜。

Both sides of the war did make efforts to avoid civilian deaths.

战争双方确实都在努力避免平民死亡。

In addition to issuing warnings to evacuate, the Taliban kept villagers informed about which areas were seeded with improvised explosive devices, and closed roads to civilian traffic when targeting convoys.

除了发出撤离警告外，塔利班还让村民了解哪些地区布有简易爆炸装置，并在针对车队时关闭了民用交通道路。

The coalition deployed laser-guided bombs, used loudspeakers to warn villagers of fighting, and dispatched helicopters ahead of battle.

联军部署了激光制导炸弹，使用扩音器警告村民战斗，并在战斗前出动直升机。

“They would drop leaflets saying, ‘Stay in your homes!

“他们会散发传单，上面写着：‘呆在家里！

Save yourselves!’ ” Shakira recalled.

救救自己吧！’”夏奇拉回忆道。

In a war waged in mud-walled warrens teeming with life, however, nowhere was truly safe, and an extraordinary number of civilians died.

然而，在充满生机的泥墙沼泽中爆发的战争中，没有任何地方是真正安全的，大量平民死亡。

Sometimes, such casualties sparked widespread condemnation, as when a nato rocket struck a crowd of villagers in Sangin in 2010, killing fifty-two.

有时，此类伤亡会引发广泛谴责，例如 2010 年，一枚北约火箭袭击了桑金的一群村民，造成 52 人死亡。

But the vast majority of incidents involved one or two deaths—anonymous lives that were never reported on, never recorded by official organizations, and therefore never counted as part of the war’s civilian toll.

但绝大多数事件都涉及一到两人死亡——这些匿名生命从未被报道过，也从未被官方组织记录过，因此从未被计入战争平民死亡人数的一部分。

In this way, Shakira’s tragedies mounted.

就这样，夏奇拉的悲剧不断上演。

There was Muhammad, a fifteen-year-old cousin: he was killed by a buzzbuzzak , a drone, while riding his motorcycle through the village with a friend.

穆罕默德是一位 15 岁的表弟：他和一位朋友骑着摩托车穿过村庄时被一架无人机杀死了。

“That sound was everywhere,” Shakira recalled.

“那种声音无处不在，”夏奇拉回忆道。

“When we heard it, the children would start to cry, and I could not console them.”

“当我们听到这个消息时，孩子们就会开始哭泣，我无法安慰他们。”

Muhammad Wali, an adult cousin: Villagers were instructed by coalition forces to stay indoors for three days as they conducted an operation, but after the second day drinking water had been depleted and Wali was forced to venture out.

穆罕默德·瓦利 (Muhammad Wali)，他的成年表弟：联军指示村民在进行行动时呆在室内三天，但第二天饮用水耗尽，瓦利被迫冒险外出。

He was shot.

他被枪杀了。

Khan Muhammad, a seven-year-old cousin: His family was fleeing a clash by car when it mistakenly neared a coalition position; the car was strafed, killing him.

汗·穆罕默德（Khan Muhammad），一位七岁的表弟：他的家人开车逃离一场冲突，当时车错误地接近了联军阵地；汽车被扫射，他被炸死。

Bor Agha, a twelve-year-old cousin: He was taking an evening walk when he was killed by fire from an Afghan National Police base.

博尔·阿加 (Bor Agha) 是一名 12 岁的表弟：他在傍晚散步时被阿富汗国家警察基地的大火炸死。

The next morning, his father visited the base, in shock and looking for answers, and was told that the boy had been warned before not to stray near the installation.

第二天早上，他的父亲震惊地参观了基地并寻找答案，并被告知男孩之前已被警告不要在设施附近徘徊。

“Their commander gave the order to target him,” his father recalled.

“他们的指挥官下令瞄准他，”他的父亲回忆道。

Amanullah, a sixteen-year-old cousin: He was working the land when he was targeted by an Afghan Army sniper.

阿马努拉 (Amanullah)，一位 16 岁的表弟：他正在田里干活，遭到阿富汗军队狙击手的袭击。

No one provided an explanation, and the family was too afraid to approach the Army base and ask.

没有人提供解释，家人也不敢前往陆军基地询问。

Ahmed, an adult cousin: After a long day in the fields, he was headed home, carrying a hot plate, when he was struck down by coalition forces.

艾哈迈德，一个成年堂兄：在田野里度过了漫长的一天后，他拿着一个电炉回家，却被联军击倒了。

The family believes that the foreigners mistook the hot plate for an I.E.D.

家人认为外国人将电炉误认为是简易爆炸装置。

Niamatullah, Ahmed’s brother: He was harvesting opium when a firefight broke out nearby; as he tried to flee, he was gunned down by a buzzbuzzak .

尼亚马图拉，艾哈迈德的兄弟：当附近爆发交火时，他正在收割鸦片；当他试图逃跑时，他被嗡嗡声枪杀了。

Gul Ahmed, an uncle of Shakira’s husband: He wanted to get a head start on his day, so he asked his sons to bring his breakfast to the fields.

古尔·艾哈迈德 (Gul Ahmed)，夏奇拉丈夫的叔叔：他想让自己的一天有一个良好的开端，所以他让儿子们把他的早餐带到田里。

When they arrived, they found his body.

当他们到达时，他们发现了他的尸体。

Witnesses said that he’d encountered a coalition patrol.

目击者称他遇到了联军巡逻队。

The soldiers “left him here, like an animal,” Shakira said.

夏奇拉说，士兵们“把他像动物一样留在这里”。

Entire branches of Shakira’s family tree, from the uncles who used to tell her stories to the cousins who played with her in the caves, vanished.

夏奇拉家谱的整个分支，从曾经给她讲故事的叔叔到和她在山洞里玩耍的表兄弟，都消失了。

In all, she lost sixteen family members.

她总共失去了十六名家庭成员。

I wondered if it was the same for other families in Pan Killay.

我想知道潘基莱的其他家庭是否也有同样的情况。

I sampled a dozen households at random in the village, and made similar inquiries in other villages, to insure that Pan Killay was no outlier.

我在村里随机抽取了十几户人家，并在其他村子进行了类似的调查，以确保潘基莱不是异常者。

For each family, I documented the names of the dead, cross-checking cases with death certificates and eyewitness testimony.

对于每个家庭，我记录了死者的姓名，并与死亡证明和目击者证词进行交叉核对。

On average, I found, each family lost ten to twelve civilians in what locals call the American War.

我发现，平均每个家庭在当地人所说的美国战争中失去了十到十二名平民。

This scale of suffering was unknown in a bustling metropolis like Kabul, where citizens enjoyed relative security.

在喀布尔这样繁华的大都市，这种程度的苦难是闻所未闻的，那里的公民享有相对的安全。

But in countryside enclaves like Sangin the ceaseless killings of civilians led many Afghans to gravitate toward the Taliban.

但在桑金这样的乡村飞地，对平民的不断杀戮导致许多阿富汗人倒向塔利班。

By 2010, many households in Ishaqzai villages had sons in the Taliban, most of whom had joined simply to protect themselves or to take revenge; the movement was more thoroughly integrated into Sangin life than it had been in the nineties.

到2010年，Ishaqzai村的许多家庭都有儿子加入塔利班，其中大多数人加入塔利班只是为了保护自己或报仇；与九十年代相比，这场运动更彻底地融入了桑金的生活。

Now, when Shakira and her friends discussed the Taliban, they were discussing their own friends, neighbors, and loved ones.

现在，当夏奇拉和她的朋友们讨论塔利班时，他们正在讨论自己的朋友、邻居和亲人。

Some British officers on the ground grew concerned that the U.S. was killing too many civilians, and unsuccessfully lobbied to have American Special Forces removed from the area.

一些当地的英国军官越来越担心美国杀害了太多平民，并游说美国特种部队撤出该地区，但没有成功。

Instead, troops from around the world poured into Helmand, including Australians, Canadians, and Danes.

相反，来自世界各地的军队涌入赫尔曼德省，其中包括澳大利亚人、加拿大人和丹麦人。

But villagers couldn’t tell the difference—to them, the occupiers were simply “Americans.” Pazaro, the woman from a nearby village, recalled, “There were two types of people—one with black faces and one with pink faces.

但村民们无法区分——对他们来说，占领者只是“美国人”。附近村庄的妇女帕扎罗回忆道：“那里有两种人，一种是黑脸，一种是粉红脸。

When we see them, we get terrified.” The coalition portrayed locals as hungering for liberation from the Taliban, but a classified intelligence report from 2011 described community perceptions of coalition forces as “unfavorable,” with villagers warning that, if the coalition “did not leave the area, the local nationals would be forced to evacuate.”

当我们看到他们时，我们会感到害怕。”联军将当地人描绘成渴望从塔利班手中解放出来的人，但 2011 年的一份机密情报报告将社区对联军的看法描述为“不利”，村民警告说，如果联军“不离开该地区，当地国民将被迫撤离”。

In response, the coalition shifted to the hearts-and-minds strategy of counter-insurgency.

作为回应，联军转向了民心相通的反叛乱战略。

But the foreigners’ efforts to embed among the population could be crude: they often occupied houses, only further exposing villagers to crossfire.

但外国人融入民众的努力可能很粗鲁：他们经常占据房屋，只会进一步让村民面临交火。

“They were coming by force, without getting permission from us,” Pashtana, a woman from another Sangin village, told me.

“他们是强行过来的，没有得到我们的许可，”来自桑金另一个村庄的妇女帕什塔纳告诉我。

“They sometimes broke into our house, broke all the windows, and stayed the whole night.

“他们有时闯入我们的房子，打破所有窗户，并待上一整晚。

We would have to flee, in case the Taliban fired on them.” Marzia, a woman from Pan Killay, recalled, “The Taliban would fire a few shots, but the Americans would respond with mortars.” One mortar slammed into her mother-in-law’s house.

我们必须逃离，以防塔利班向他们开火。”来自潘基莱的妇女马尔齐亚回忆道，“塔利班会开几枪，但美国人会用迫击炮还击。”一枚迫击炮击中了她婆婆的房子。

She survived, Marzia said, but had since “lost control of herself”—always “shouting at things we can’t see, at ghosts.”

玛齐亚说，她活了下来，但此后“失去了对自己的控制”——总是“对着我们看不见的东西、鬼魂大喊大叫”。

With the hearts-and-minds approach floundering, some nato officials tried to persuade Taliban commanders to flip.

随着人心的接近陷入困境，一些北约官员试图说服塔利班指挥官改变立场。

In 2010, a group of Sangin Taliban commanders, liaising with the British, promised to switch sides in return for assistance to local communities.

2010年，一群桑金塔利班指挥官与英国联络，承诺倒戈以换取对当地社区的援助。

But, when the Taliban leaders met to hammer out their end of the deal, U.S. Special Operations Forces—acting independently—bombed the gathering, killing the top Taliban figure behind the peace overture.

但是，当塔利班领导人开会敲定协议时，美国特种作战部队独立行动，对集会进行了轰炸，杀死了和平提议背后的塔利班高层人物。

“I’m launching a formal investigation into what jeans best fit my body type.” Cartoon by Sophie Lucido Johnson and Sammi Skolmoski Link copied

“我正在发起一项正式调查，看看什么牛仔裤最适合我的体型。”卡通作者：Sophie Lucido Johnson 和 Sammi Skolmoski 链接已复制

The Marines finally quit Sangin in 2014; the Afghan Army held its ground for three years, until the Taliban had brought most of the valley under its control.

2014年，海军陆战队最终退出桑金；阿富汗军队坚守了三年，直到塔利班控制了大部分山谷。

The U.S. airlifted Afghan Army troops out and razed many government compounds—leaving, as a nato statement described approvingly, only “rubble and dirt.” The Sangin market had been obliterated in this way.

美国空运了阿富汗军队，并将许多政府驻地夷为平地——正如北约声明中赞许地描述的那样，只剩下“瓦砾和泥土”。桑金市场就这样被消灭了。

When Shakira first saw the ruined shops, she told her husband, “They left nothing for us.”

当夏奇拉第一次看到这些被毁坏的商店时，她告诉她的丈夫：“他们没有给我们留下任何东西。”

Still, a sense of optimism took hold in Pan Killay.

尽管如此，潘·基莱仍保持着乐观情绪。

Shakira’s husband slaughtered a sheep to celebrate the end of the war, and the family discussed renovating the garden.

夏奇拉的丈夫宰杀了一只羊来庆祝战争结束，一家人讨论了翻新花园的问题。

Her mother-in-law spoke of the days before the Russians and the Americans, when families picnicked along the canal, men stretched out in the shade of peach trees, and women dozed on rooftops under the stars.

她的婆婆谈到了俄罗斯人和美国人之前的日子，当时一家人在运河边野餐，男人们在桃树荫下伸懒腰，女人们在星空下的屋顶上打瞌睡。

But in 2019, as the U.S. was holding talks with Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, the Afghan government and American forces moved jointly on Sangin one last time.

但2019年，当美国在卡塔尔多哈与塔利班领导人举行会谈时，阿富汗政府和美军最后一次联合进攻桑金。

That January, they launched perhaps the most devastating assault that the valley witnessed in the entire war.

那年一月，他们发动了也许是整个战争期间山谷中最具破坏性的袭击。

Shakira and other villagers fled for the desert, but not everyone could escape.

夏奇拉和其他村民逃往沙漠，但并不是每个人都能逃脱。

Ahmed Noor Mohammad, who owned a pay-phone business, decided to wait to evacuate, because his twin sons were ill.

艾哈迈德·努尔·穆罕默德是一家投币电话公司的老板，他决定等待撤离，因为他的双胞胎儿子生病了。

His family went to bed to the sound of distant artillery.

他的家人在远处的炮声中上床睡觉。

That night, an American bomb slammed into the room where the twin boys were sleeping, killing them.

那天晚上，一枚美国炸弹击中了双胞胎男孩正在睡觉的房间，杀死了他们。

A second bomb hit an adjacent room, killing Mohammad’s father and many others, eight of them children.

第二枚炸弹击中了相邻的房间，炸死了穆罕默德的父亲和其他许多人，其中包括八名儿童。

The next day, at the funeral, another air strike killed six mourners.

第二天，在葬礼上，另一次空袭造成六名哀悼者死亡。

In a nearby village, a gunship struck down three children.

在附近的一个村庄，一架武装直升机击中了三名儿童。

The following day, four more children were shot dead.

第二天，又有四名儿童被枪杀。

Elsewhere in Sangin, an air strike hit an Islamic school, killing a child.

在桑金的其他地方，一所伊斯兰学校遭到空袭，造成一名儿童死亡。

A week later, twelve guests at a wedding were killed in an air raid.

一周后，一场婚礼上的 12 位宾客在空袭中丧生。

After the bombing, Mohammad’s brother travelled to Kandahar to report the massacres to the United Nations and to the Afghan government.

爆炸事件发生后，穆罕默德的兄弟前往坎大哈，向联合国和阿富汗政府报告大屠杀事件。

When no justice was forthcoming, he joined the Taliban.

当正义得不到伸张时，他加入了塔利班。

On the strength of a seemingly endless supply of recruits, the Taliban had no difficulty outlasting the coalition.

凭借看似源源不断的新兵供应，塔利班毫不费力地战胜了联军。

But, though the insurgency has finally brought peace to the Afghan countryside, it is a peace of desolation: many villages are in ruins.

然而，尽管叛乱最终给阿富汗乡村带来了和平，但这是一种荒凉的和平：许多村庄已成为废墟。

Reconstruction will be a challenge, but a bigger trial will be to exorcise memories of the past two decades.

重建将是一个挑战，但更大的考验将是驱除过去二十年的记忆。

“My daughter wakes up screaming that the Americans are coming,” Pazaro said.

“我的女儿醒来时尖叫着美国人来了，”帕扎罗说。

“We have to keep talking to her softly, and tell her, ‘No, no, they won’t come back.’ ”

“我们必须继续轻声地和她说话，告诉她，‘不，不，他们不会回来了。’”

The Taliban call their domain the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and claim that, once the foreigners are gone, they will preside over an era of tranquil stability.

塔利班将他们的领地称为阿富汗伊斯兰酋长国，并声称一旦外国人离开，他们将迎来一个平静稳定的时代。

As the Afghan government crumbled this summer, I travelled through Helmand Province—the Emirate’s de-facto capital—to see what a post-American Afghanistan might look like.

今年夏天，随着阿富汗政府的崩溃，我走遍了赫尔曼德省——这个酋长国事实上的首都——去看看后美国时代的阿富汗会是什么样子。

I departed from Lashkar Gah, which remained under government control.

我离开了仍处于政府控制之下的拉什卡尔加 (Lashkar Gah)。

At the outskirts stood a squat cement building with an Afghan-government flag—beyond this checkpoint, Kabul’s authority vanished.

郊区矗立着一座低矮的水泥建筑，上面挂着阿富汗政府旗帜——过了这个检查站，喀布尔的权威就消失了。

A pickup idled nearby; piled into the cargo bed were half a dozen members of the sangorian , a feared militia in the pay of the Afghan intelligence agency, which was backed by the C.I.A.

一辆皮卡在附近闲置；货床上堆满了六名“桑戈里安”成员，这是一支令人畏惧的民兵组织，接受阿富汗情报机构的资助，并得到中央情报局的支持。

Two of the fighters appeared no older than twelve.

其中两名战士看上去年龄不超过十二岁。

I was with two locals in a beat-up Corolla, and we slipped past the checkpoint without notice.

我和两个当地人一起开着一辆破旧的卡罗拉，我们在没有通知的情况下溜过了检查站。

Soon, we were in a treeless horizon of baked earth, with virtually no road beneath us.

很快，我们就进入了一片没有树木的烤土地平线，脚下几乎没有道路。

We passed abandoned outposts of the Afghan Army and Police that had been built by the Americans and the Brits.

我们经过了由美国人和英国人建造的阿富汗军队和警察废弃的前哨基地。

Beyond them loomed a series of circular mud fortifications, with a lone Taliban sniper splayed on his stomach.

在他们身后，隐约可见一连串的圆形泥土防御工事，一名孤独的塔利班狙击手趴在他的肚子上。

White flags fluttered behind him, announcing the gateway to the Islamic Emirate.

白旗在他身后飘扬，宣告着通往伊斯兰酋长国的大门。

The most striking difference between Taliban country and the world we’d left behind was the dearth of gunmen.

塔利班国家和我们留下的世界之间最显着的区别是枪手的缺乏。

In Afghanistan, I’d grown accustomed to kohl-eyed policemen in baggy trousers, militiamen in balaclavas, intelligence agents inspecting cars.

在阿富汗，我已经习惯了穿着宽松裤子、眼睛里有眼影的警察、戴着头套的民兵、检查汽车的情报人员。

Yet we rarely crossed a Taliban checkpoint, and when we did the fighters desultorily examined the car.

然而，我们很少穿过塔利班检查站，当我们穿过时，武装分子会漫不经心地检查汽车。

“Everyone is afraid of the Taliban,” my driver said, laughing.

“每个人都害怕塔利班，”我的司机笑着说。

“The checkpoints are in our hearts.”

“检查站就在我们心中。”

If people feared their new rulers, they also fraternized with them.

如果人们害怕他们的新统治者，他们也会与他们称兄道弟。

Here and there, groups of villagers sat under roadside trellises, sipping tea with Talibs.

到处都有成群结队的村民坐在路边的棚架下，和塔利班一起喝茶。

The country opened up as we jounced along a dirt road in rural Sangin.

当我们沿着桑金乡村的一条土路颠簸行驶时，乡村的大门敞开了。

In the canal, boys were having swimming races; village men and Taliban were dipping their feet into the turquoise water.

运河里，男孩们正在进行游泳比赛；村民和塔利班正在把脚浸入碧绿的水中。

We passed green cropland and canopies of fruit trees.

我们经过绿色的农田和果树的树冠。

Groups of women walked along a market road, and two girls skipped in rumpled frocks.

一群群妇女沿着市场道路行走，两个女孩穿着皱巴巴的连衣裙蹦蹦跳跳。

We approached Gereshk, then under government authority.

我们联系了当时在政府授权下的格雷什克。

Because the town was the most lucrative toll-collection point in the region, it was said that whoever held it controlled all of Helmand.

由于该镇是该地区最赚钱的收费点，据说谁占领了它，就控制了整个赫尔曼德省。

The Taliban had launched an assault, and the thuds of artillery resounded across the plain.

塔利班发起了进攻，炮火的轰鸣声响彻平原。

A stream of families, their donkeys laboring under the weight of giant bundles, were escaping what they said were air strikes.

一群家庭，他们的驴子在巨大的包裹的重压下劳作，正在躲避他们所说的空袭。

By the roadside, a woman in a powder-blue burqa stood with a wheelbarrow; inside was a wrapped body.

路边站着一个身穿粉蓝色罩袍的女人，推着一辆独轮车。里面是一具被包裹着的尸体。

Some Taliban were gathered on a hilltop, lowering a fallen comrade into a grave.

一些塔利班分子聚集在山顶上，将倒下的战友埋进坟墓。

I met Wakil, a bespectacled Taliban commander.

我遇到了瓦基勒，一位戴眼镜的塔利班指挥官。

Like many fighters I’d encountered, he came from a line of farmers, had studied a few years in seminary, and had lost dozens of relatives to Amir Dado, the Ninety-third Division, and the Americans.

和我遇到的许多战士一样，他出身农民，在神学院学习了几年，并在阿米尔·达多、第九十三师和美国人手中失去了数十名亲戚。

He discussed the calamities visited on his family without rancor, as if the American War were the natural order of things.

他毫无怨恨地谈论了他家人遭受的灾难，就好像美国战争是事情的自然规律一样。

Thirty years old, he’d attained his rank after an older brother, a Taliban commander, died in battle.

30 岁时，他的哥哥（一名塔利班指挥官）在战斗中阵亡，他获得了这一军衔。

He’d hardly ever left Helmand, and his face lit up with wonder at the thought of capturing Gereshk, a town that he’d lived within miles of, but had not been able to visit for twenty years.

他几乎从未离开过赫尔曼德，一想到要占领格雷什克，他的脸上就充满了惊奇，他住在距他几英里的地方，但已经二十年没有去过了。

“Forget your writing,” he laughed as I scribbled notes.

“忘了你的写作吧，”当我潦草地写笔记时，他笑着说。

“Come watch me take the city!” Tracking a helicopter gliding across the horizon, I declined.

“看我攻下这座城市！”当我看到一架直升飞机在地平线上滑翔时，我拒绝了。

He raced off.

他跑开了。

An hour later, an image popped up on my phone of Wakil pulling down a poster of a government figure linked to the Ninety-third Division.

一小时后，我的手机上出现了一张瓦基尔拉下一张与九十三师有联系的政府人物海报的图片。

Gereshk had fallen.

格列什克倒下了。

At the house of the Taliban district governor, a group of Talibs sat eating okra and naan, donated by the village.

在塔利班地区长官的家里，一群塔利班人坐在一起吃着村里捐赠的秋葵和馕饼。

I asked them about their plans for when the war was over.

我问他们战争结束后的计划。

Most said that they’d return to farming, or pursue religious education.

大多数人表示他们会重返农业，或接受宗教教育。

I’d flown to Afghanistan from Iraq, a fact that impressed Hamid, a young commander.

我从伊拉克飞往阿富汗，这一事实给年轻指挥官哈米德留下了深刻的印象。

He said that he dreamed of seeing the Babylonian ruins, and asked, “Do you think, when this is over, they’ll give me a visa?”

他说他梦见看到巴比伦遗址，并问道：“你认为，当这一切结束后，他们会给我签证吗？”

It was clear that the Taliban are divided about what happens next.

显然，塔利班对于接下来发生的事情存在分歧。

During my visit, dozens of members from different parts of Afghanistan offered strikingly contrasting visions for their Emirate.

在我访问期间，来自阿富汗不同地区的数十名成员对他们的酋长国提出了截然不同的愿景。

Politically minded Talibs who have lived abroad and maintain homes in Doha or Pakistan told me—perhaps with calculation—that they had a more cosmopolitan outlook than before.

曾在国外生活并在多哈或巴基斯坦拥有家园的有政治头脑的塔利班告诉我——也许是经过深思熟虑的——他们比以前有了更加国际化的视野。

A scholar who’d spent much of the past two decades shuttling between Helmand and Pakistan said, “There were many mistakes we made in the nineties.

一位在过去二十年的大部分时间里穿梭于赫尔曼德省和巴基斯坦之间的学者说：“我们在九十年代犯了很多错误。

Back then, we didn’t know about human rights, education, politics—we just took everything by power.

那时，我们不知道人权、教育、政治——我们只是靠权力夺取一切。

But now we understand.” In the scholar’s rosy scenario, the Taliban will share ministries with former enemies, girls will attend school, and women will work “shoulder to shoulder” with men.

但现在我们明白了。”在这位学者乐观的设想中，塔利班将与以前的敌人共同担任部委，女孩将上学，女性将与男性“并肩”工作。

Yet in Helmand it was hard to find this kind of Talib.

然而在赫尔曼德省很难找到这样的塔利班。

More typical was Hamdullah, a narrow-faced commander who lost a dozen family members in the American War, and has measured his life by weddings, funerals, and battles.

更典型的是哈姆杜拉，一位窄脸指挥官，在美国战争中失去了十几名家人，他用婚礼、葬礼和战斗来衡量自己的人生。

He said that his community had suffered too grievously to ever share power, and that the maelstrom of the previous twenty years offered only one solution: the status quo ante.

他说，他的社区遭受了太多痛苦，无法分享权力，而过去二十年的漩涡只提供了一个解决方案：维持原状。

He told me, with pride, that he planned to join the Taliban’s march to Kabul, a city he’d never seen.

他自豪地告诉我，他计划加入塔利班行军，前往喀布尔，一座他从未见过的城市。

He guessed that he’d arrive there in mid-August.

他估计他会在八月中旬到达那里。

On the most sensitive question in village life—women’s rights—men like him have not budged.

在乡村生活中最敏感的问题——妇女权利上，像他这样的男人没有让步。

In many parts of rural Helmand, women are barred from visiting the market.

在赫尔曼德省农村的许多地方，妇女被禁止前往市场。

When a Sangin woman recently bought cookies for her children at the bazaar, the Taliban beat her, her husband, and the shopkeeper.

最近，一名桑金妇女在集市上为她的孩子们买饼干时，塔利班殴打了她、她的丈夫和店主。

Taliban members told me that they planned to allow girls to attend madrassas, but only until puberty.

塔利班成员告诉我，他们计划允许女孩进入宗教学校，但仅限到青春期。

As before, women would be prohibited from employment, except for midwifery.

和以前一样，除助产士外，妇女将被禁止就业。

Pazaro said, ruefully, “They haven’t changed at all.”

帕扎罗遗憾地说：“他们一点也没变。”

Travelling through Helmand, I could hardly see any signs of the Taliban as a state.

穿越赫尔曼德省时，我几乎看不到任何塔利班作为一个国家的迹象。

Unlike other rebel movements, the Taliban had provided practically no reconstruction, no social services beyond its harsh tribunals.

与其他反叛运动不同的是，塔利班几乎没有提供任何重建工作，除了严酷的法庭之外，没有提供任何社会服务。

It brooks no opposition: in Pan Killay, the Taliban executed a villager named Shaista Gul after learning that he’d offered bread to members of the Afghan Army.

它不容反对：在潘基莱，塔利班在得知一名名叫谢斯塔·古尔的村民向阿富汗军队成员提供面包后，处决了他。

Nevertheless, many Helmandis seemed to prefer Taliban rule—including the women I interviewed.

尽管如此，许多赫尔曼迪人似乎更喜欢塔利班的统治——包括我采访的女性。

It was as if the movement had won only by default, through the abject failures of its opponents.

这场运动似乎只是通过其对手的惨败而默认获胜。

To locals, life under the coalition forces and their Afghan allies was pure hazard; even drinking tea in a sunlit field, or driving to your sister’s wedding, was a potentially deadly gamble.

对于当地人来说，联军及其阿富汗盟友的生活纯粹是危险的。即使是在阳光明媚的田野里喝茶，或者开车去参加姐姐的婚礼，都是一场可能致命的赌博。

What the Taliban offered over their rivals was a simple bargain: Obey us, and we will not kill you.

塔利班向他们的对手提出的条件是一个简单的交易：服从我们，我们不会杀你。

This grim calculus hovered over every conversation I had with villagers.

我与村民的每一次谈话中都充斥着这种严峻的计算。

In the hamlet of Yakh Chal, I came upon the ruins of an Afghan Army outpost that had recently been overrun by the Taliban.

在亚赫恰尔 (Yakh Chal) 村庄，我看到了最近被塔利班占领的阿富汗军队哨所的废墟。

All that remained were mounds of scrap metal, cords, hot plates, gravel.

剩下的只有成堆的废金属、绳索、电热板、砾石。

The next morning, villagers descended on the outpost, scavenging for something to sell.

第二天早上，村民们来到前哨基地，寻找可以出售的东西。

Abdul Rahman, a farmer, was rooting through the refuse with his young son when an Afghan Army gunship appeared on the horizon.

农民阿卜杜勒·拉赫曼 (Abdul Rahman) 正在和年幼的儿子一起翻找垃圾，这时一架阿富汗陆军武装直升机出现在地平线上。

It was flying so low, he recalled, that “even Kalashnikovs could fire on it.” But there were no Taliban around, only civilians.

他回忆说，它飞得如此之低，“甚至连卡拉什尼科夫冲锋枪都可以向它开火”。但周围没有塔利班，只有平民。

The gunship fired, and villagers began falling right and left.

武装直升机开火，村民们开始左右倒下。

It then looped back, continuing to attack.

随后它又返回，继续攻击。

“There were many bodies on the ground, bleeding and moaning,” another witness said.

另一位目击者说：“地上有很多尸体，流着血，呻吟着。”

“Many small children.” According to villagers, at least fifty civilians were killed.

“很多小孩子。”据村民称，至少有五十名平民被杀。

Later, I spoke on the phone with an Afghan Army helicopter pilot who had just relieved the one who attacked the outpost.

后来，我与一名阿富汗陆军直升机飞行员通了电话，他刚刚接替了袭击前哨基地的人。

He told me, “I asked the crew why they did this, and they said, ‘We knew they were civilians, but Camp Bastion’ ”—a former British base that had been handed over to the Afghans—“ ‘gave orders to kill them all.’ ” As we spoke, Afghan Army helicopters were firing upon the crowded central market in Gereshk, killing scores of civilians.

他告诉我，“我问机组人员为什么要这样做，他们说，‘我们知道他们是平民，但堡垒营’——一个已移交给阿富汗人的前英国基地——‘下令把他们全部杀掉。’”就在我们讲话时，阿富汗陆军直升机正在向盖雷什克拥挤的中央市场开火，造成数十名平民死亡。

An official with an international organization based in Helmand said, “When the government forces lose an area, they are taking revenge on the civilians.” The helicopter pilot acknowledged this, adding, “We are doing it on the order of Sami Sadat.”

驻赫尔曼德省国际组织的一名官员表示，“当政府军失去一个地区时，他们就是在对平民进行报复。”直升机飞行员承认了这一点，并补充说：“我们是按照萨米·萨达特的命令这样做的。”

General Sami Sadat headed one of the seven corps of the Afghan Army.

萨米·萨达特将军领导阿富汗陆军七个军团之一。

Unlike the Amir Dado generation of strongmen, who were provincial and illiterate, Sadat obtained a master’s degree in strategic management and leadership from a school in the U.K. and studied at the nato Military Academy, in Munich.

与阿米尔·达多一代强人的地方性和文盲不同，萨达特在英国一所学校获得了战略管理和领导力硕士学位，并在慕尼黑的北约军事学院学习。

He held his military position while also being the C.E.O.

他在担任首席执行官的同时，还担任过军事职务。

of Blue Sea Logistics, a Kabul-based corporation that supplied anti-Taliban forces with everything from helicopter parts to armored tactical vehicles.

蓝海物流公司是一家总部位于喀布尔的公司，为反塔利班部队提供从直升机零件到装甲战术车辆等各种物资。

During my visit to Helmand, Blackhawks under his command were committing massacres almost daily: twelve Afghans were killed while scavenging scrap metal at a former base outside Sangin; forty were killed in an almost identical incident at the Army’s abandoned Camp Walid; twenty people, most of them women and children, were killed by air strikes on the Gereshk bazaar; Afghan soldiers who were being held prisoner by the Taliban at a power station were targeted and killed by their own comrades in an air strike.

在我访问赫尔曼德期间，他麾下的黑鹰几乎每天都在进行屠杀：12 名阿富汗人在桑金郊外的一个前基地捡拾废金属时被杀；在陆军废弃的瓦利德营地发生的几乎相同的事件中，有 40 人丧生； Gereshk 集市的空袭造成 20 人死亡，其中大多数是妇女和儿童；被塔利班关押在发电站的阿富汗士兵在一次空袭中被自己的战友瞄准并杀害。

(Sadat declined repeated requests for comment.)

（萨达特多次拒绝置评请求。）

The day before the massacre at the Yakh Chal outpost, CNN aired an interview with General Sadat.

在雅克查尔前哨基地发生大屠杀的前一天，美国有线电视新闻网 (CNN) 播出了对萨达特将军的采访。

“Helmand is beautiful—if it’s peaceful, tourism can come,” he said.

“赫尔曼德省很美丽，如果环境安静，旅游业就会到来，”他说。

His soldiers had high morale, he explained, and were confident of defeating the Taliban.

他解释说，他的士兵士气高昂，并且有信心击败塔利班。

The anchor appeared relieved.

锚似乎松了口气。

“You seem very optimistic,” she said.

“你看起来很乐观，”她说。

“That’s reassuring to hear.”

“听你这么说真让人安心。”

I showed the interview to Mohammed Wali, a pushcart vender in a village near Lashkar Gah.

我把采访内容拿给穆罕默德·瓦利看，他是拉什卡尔加附近村庄的一名手推车小贩。

A few days after the Yakh Chal massacre, government militias in his area surrendered to the Taliban.

雅克查尔大屠杀几天后，他所在地区的政府民兵向塔利班投降。

General Sadat’s Blackhawks began attacking houses, seemingly at random.

萨达特将军的黑鹰开始袭击房屋，看似随机。

They fired on Wali’s house, and his daughter was struck in the head by shrapnel and died.

他们向瓦利的房子开枪，他的女儿被弹片击中头部死亡。

His brother rushed into the yard, holding the girl’s limp body up at the helicopters, shouting, “We’re civilians!” The choppers killed him and Wali’s son.

他的哥哥冲进院子，把女孩瘫软的身体抱到直升机上，喊道：“我们是平民！”直升机杀死了他和瓦利的儿子。

His wife lost her leg, and another daughter is in a coma.

他的妻子失去了双腿，另一个女儿也处于昏迷状态。

As Wali watched the CNN clip, he sobbed.

当瓦利观看 CNN 的剪辑时，他抽泣起来。

“Why are they doing this?” he asked.

“他们为什么要这么做？”他问道。

“Are they mocking us?”

“他们在嘲笑我们吗？”

In the course of a few hours in 2006, the Taliban killed thirty-two friends and relatives of Amir Dado, including his son.

2006 年，塔利班在几个小时内杀害了阿米尔·达多 (Amir Dado) 的 32 名朋友和亲戚，其中包括他的儿子。

Three years later, they killed the warlord himself—who by then had joined parliament—in a roadside blast.

三年后，他们在路边爆炸中杀死了当时已加入议会的军阀本人。

The orchestrator of the assassination hailed from Pan Killay.

这次暗杀的策划者是潘·基莱。

In one light, the attack is the mark of a fundamentalist insurgency battling an internationally recognized government; in another, a campaign of revenge by impoverished villagers against their former tormentor; or a salvo in a long-simmering tribal war; or a hit by a drug cartel against a rival enterprise.

一方面，这次袭击是原教旨主义叛乱分子与国际公认的政府作战的标志；在另一个例子中，贫困村民对他们以前的折磨者进行了报复；或是一场酝酿已久的部落战争的齐射；或者贩毒集团对竞争对手企业的打击。

All these readings are probably true, simultaneously.

所有这些读数可能同时都是正确的。

What’s clear is that the U.S. did not attempt to settle such divides and build durable, inclusive institutions; instead, it intervened in a civil war, supporting one side against the other.

显而易见的是，美国并没有试图解决此类分歧并建立持久的、包容性的机构；而是试图解决这种分歧。相反，它介入了一场内战，支持一方对抗另一方。

As a result, like the Soviets, the Americans effectively created two Afghanistans: one mired in endless conflict, the other prosperous and hopeful.

结果，像苏联人一样，美国人实际上创造了两个阿富汗：一个陷入无休止的冲突，另一个繁荣而充满希望。

It is the hopeful Afghanistan that’s now under threat, after Taliban fighters marched into Kabul in mid-August—just as Hamdullah predicted.

正如哈姆杜拉所预测的那样，塔利班武装分子于八月中旬进军喀布尔后，充满希望的阿富汗现在正面临威胁。

Thousands of Afghans have spent the past few weeks desperately trying to reach the Kabul airport, sensing that the Americans’ frenzied evacuation may be their last chance at a better life.

过去几周，成千上万的阿富汗人拼命试图到达喀布尔机场，他们意识到美国人的疯狂撤离可能是他们过上更好生活的最后机会。

“Bro, you’ve got to help me,” the helicopter pilot I’d spoken with earlier pleaded over the phone.

“兄弟，你必须帮助我，”我之前交谈过的直升机飞行员在电话中恳求道。

At the time, he was fighting crowds to get within sight of the airport gate; when the wheels of the last U.S. aircraft pulled off the runway, he was left behind.

当时，他正与人群挤在一起，才能到达机场登机口。当最后一架美国飞机的轮子离开跑道时，他被抛在了后面。

His boss, Sami Sadat, reportedly escaped to the U.K.

据报道，他的老板萨米·萨达特逃往英国。

Until recently, the Kabul that Sadat fled often felt like a different country, even a different century, from Sangin.

直到最近，萨达特逃离的喀布尔常常给人一种与桑金不同的国家、甚至不同世纪的感觉。

The capital had become a city of hillside lights, shimmering wedding halls, and neon billboards that was joyously crowded with women: mothers browsed markets, girls walked in pairs from school, police officers patrolled in hijabs, office workers carried designer handbags.

首都已经成为一座山坡灯火辉煌、婚礼大厅闪闪发光、霓虹灯广告牌上挤满了女人的城市：母亲们逛着市场，女孩们成双成对地放学，警察戴着头巾巡逻，上班族拎着名牌手袋。

The gains these women experienced during the American War—and have now lost—are staggering, and hard to fathom when considered against the austere hamlets of Helmand: the Afghan parliament had a proportion of women similar to that of the U.S. Congress, and about a quarter of university students were female.

这些女性在美国战争期间所取得的成就（以及现在所失去的）是惊人的，与赫尔曼德省的简朴小村庄相比，很难想象：阿富汗议会中女性的比例与美国国会相似，大约四分之一的大学生是女性。

Thousands of women in Kabul are understandably terrified that the Taliban have not evolved.

喀布尔数以千计的妇女对塔利班尚未进化感到恐惧，这是可以理解的。

In late August, I spoke by phone to a dermatologist who was bunkered in her home.

八月下旬，我通过电话与一位躲在家里的皮肤科医生交谈。

She has studied in multiple countries, and runs a large clinic employing a dozen women.

她曾在多个国家学习，并经营一家雇用十几名女性的大型诊所。

“I’ve worked too hard to get here,” she told me.

“我为了来到这里付出了太多的努力，”她告诉我。

“I studied too long, I made my own business, I created my own clinic.

“我学习了太久，我开创了自己的事业，我创建了自己的诊所。

This was my life’s dream.” She had not stepped outdoors in two weeks.

这是我一生的梦想。”她已经两周没有出门了。

The Taliban takeover has restored order to the conservative countryside while plunging the comparatively liberal streets of Kabul into fear and hopelessness.

塔利班的接管让保守的乡村恢复了秩序，同时也让相对自由的喀布尔街道陷入了恐惧和绝望。

This reversal of fates brings to light the unspoken premise of the past two decades: if U.S. troops kept battling the Taliban in the countryside, then life in the cities could blossom.

这种命运的逆转揭示了过去二十年里不言而喻的前提：如果美国军队继续在农村与塔利班作战，那么城市的生活就会蓬勃发展。

This may have been a sustainable project—the Taliban were unable to capture cities in the face of U.S. airpower.

这可能是一个可持续的项目——塔利班在美国空中力量面前无法占领城市。

But was it just?

但这只是吗？

Can the rights of one community depend, in perpetuity, on the deprivation of rights in another?

一个社区的权利是否可以永远依赖于另一个社区权利的剥夺？

In Sangin, whenever I brought up the question of gender, village women reacted with derision.

在桑金，每当我提出性别问题时，村里的妇女都会做出嘲笑的反应。

“They are giving rights to Kabul women, and they are killing women here,” Pazaro said.

“他们赋予喀布尔妇女权利，却在这里杀害妇女，”帕扎罗说。

“Is this justice?” Marzia, from Pan Killay, told me, “This is not ‘women’s rights’ when you are killing us, killing our brothers, killing our fathers.” Khalida, from a nearby village, said, “The Americans did not bring us any rights.

“这就是正义吗？”来自潘基莱的马尔齐亚告诉我，“当你杀害我们、杀害我们的兄弟、杀害我们的父亲时，这不是‘妇女权利’。”来自附近村庄的卡里达说：“美国人没有给我们带来任何权利。

They just came, fought, killed, and left.”

他们只是来了、战斗、杀戮，然后离开。”

The women in Helmand disagree among themselves about what rights they should have.

赫尔曼德省的妇女对于她们应该拥有哪些权利存在分歧。

Some yearn for the old village rules to crumble—they wish to visit the market or to picnic by the canal without sparking innuendo or worse.

有些人渴望旧的村规矩被打破——他们希望去市场或在运河边野餐，而不会引发影射或更糟的情况。

Others cling to more traditional interpretations.

其他人则坚持更传统的解释。

“Women and men aren’t equal,” Shakira told me.

“女人和男人不平等，”夏奇拉告诉我。

“They are each made by God, and they each have their own role, their own strengths that the other doesn’t have.” More than once, as her husband lay in an opium stupor, she fantasized about leaving him.

“他们每个人都是上帝创造的，他们每个人都有自己的角色，都有自己的长处，而对方没有。”不止一次，当她的丈夫吸食鸦片而昏迷不醒时，她幻想着离开他。

Yet Nilofar is coming of age, and a divorce could cast shame on the family, harming her prospects.

然而尼洛法已经成年，离婚可能会给家庭带来耻辱，损害她的前途。

Through friends, Shakira hears stories of dissolute cities filled with broken marriages and prostitution.

通过朋友，夏奇拉听到了充斥着破裂婚姻和卖淫的放荡城市的故事。

“Too much freedom is dangerous, because people won’t know the limits,” she said.

“太多的自由是危险的，因为人们不会知道限制，”她说。

All the women I met in Sangin, though, seemed to agree that their rights, whatever they might entail, cannot flow from the barrel of a gun—and that Afghan communities themselves must improve the conditions of women.

不过，我在桑金遇到的所有妇女似乎都同意，她们的权利，无论可能带来什么，都不能从枪杆子里流出来——阿富汗社区本身必须改善妇女的状况。

Some villagers believe that they possess a powerful cultural resource to wage that struggle: Islam itself.

一些村民认为，他们拥有强大的文化资源来进行这场斗争：伊斯兰教本身。

“The Taliban are saying women cannot go outside, but there is actually no Islamic rule like this,” Pazaro told me.

“塔利班说妇女不能外出，但实际上没有这样的伊斯兰规则，”帕扎罗告诉我。

“As long as we are covered, we should be allowed.” I asked a leading Helmandi Taliban scholar where in Islam was it stipulated that women cannot go to the market or attend school.

“只要我们受到保护，我们就应该被允许。”我问赫尔曼迪塔利班的一位著名学者，伊斯兰教中哪里规定妇女不能去市场或上学。

He admitted, somewhat chagrined, that this was not an actual Islamic injunction.

他有些懊恼地承认，这并不是真正的伊斯兰教禁令。

“It’s the culture in the village, not Islam,” he said.

“这是村里的文化，而不是伊斯兰教，”他说。

“The people there have these beliefs about women, and we follow them.” Just as Islam offers fairer templates for marriage, divorce, and inheritance than many tribal and village norms, these women hope to marshal their faith—the shared language across their country’s many divides—to carve out greater freedoms.

“那里的人们对女性有这些信念，我们也遵循它们。”正如伊斯兰教为婚姻、离婚和继承提供了比许多部落和村庄规范更公平的模板一样，这些妇女希望整合她们的信仰——跨越国家许多分歧的共同语言——以开拓更大的自由。

Though Shakira hardly talks about it, she harbors such dreams herself.

尽管夏奇拉很少谈论此事，但她自己也怀有这样的梦想。

Through the decades of war, she continued to teach herself to read, and she is now working her way through a Pashto translation of the Quran, one sura at a time.

在数十年的战争中，她继续自学阅读，现在正在努力翻译《古兰经》的普什图语，一次一本。

“It gives me great comfort,” she said.

“这给了我很大的安慰，”她说。

She is teaching her youngest daughter the alphabet, and has a bold ambition: to gather her friends and demand that the men erect a girls’ school.

她正在教她最小的女儿字母表，并有一个大胆的抱负：聚集她的朋友并要求男人们建立一所女子学校。

Even as Shakira contemplates moving Pan Killay forward, she is determined to remember its past.

即使夏奇拉考虑推动潘基莱前进，她也决心记住它的过去。

The village, she told me, has a cemetery that spreads across a few hilltops.

她告诉我，这个村庄有一个墓地，分布在几个山顶上。

There are no plaques, no flags, just piles of stones that glow red and pink in the evening sun.

没有牌匾，没有旗帜，只有成堆的石头，在傍晚的阳光下发出红色和粉红色的光芒。

A pair of blank flagstones project from each grave, one marking the head, one the feet.

每个坟墓都有一对空白石板突出，一块标志着头部，一块标志着脚。

Shakira’s family visits every week, and she points to the mounds where her grandfather lies, where her cousins lie, because she doesn’t want her children to forget.

夏奇拉的家人每周都会来看望她，她会指着她祖父和表兄弟长眠的土堆，因为她不想让孩子们忘记。

They tie scarves on tree branches to attract blessings, and pray to those departed.

他们在树枝上系上围巾以祈求祝福，并向逝去的人祈祷。

They spend hours amid a sacred geography of stones, shrubs, and streams, and Shakira feels renewed.

他们在石头、灌木和溪流组成的神圣地理环境中度过了几个小时，夏奇拉感觉焕然一新。

Shortly before the Americans left, they dynamited her house, apparently in response to the Taliban’s firing a grenade nearby.

美国人离开前不久，他们炸毁了她的房子，显然是对塔利班在附近发射手榴弹的回应。

With two rooms still standing, the house is half inhabitable, half destroyed, much like Afghanistan itself.

房子里还有两个房间，一半可供居住，一半被毁，就像阿富汗本身一样。

She told me that she won’t mind the missing kitchen, or the gaping hole where the pantry once stood.

她告诉我，她不会介意厨房不见了，或者食品储藏室曾经所在的地方有一个大洞。

Instead, she chooses to see a village in rebirth.

相反，她选择看到一个村庄的重生。

Shakira is sure that a freshly paved road will soon run past the house, the macadam sizzling hot on summer days.

夏奇拉确信，一条新铺好的道路很快就会经过房子，碎石路在夏天会变得热热的。

The only birds in the sky will be the kind with feathers.

天空中唯一的鸟将是有羽毛的鸟。

Nilofar will be married, and her children will walk along the canal to school.

尼洛法尔将结婚，她的孩子们将沿着运河步行去学校。

The girls will have plastic dolls, with hair that they can brush.

女孩们将拥有可以梳理头发的塑料娃娃。

Shakira will own a machine that can wash clothes.

夏奇拉将拥有一台可以洗衣服的机器。

Her husband will get clean, he will acknowledge his failings, he will tell his family that he loves them more than anything.

她的丈夫会变得干净，他会承认自己的缺点，他会告诉他的家人，他爱他们胜过一切。

They will visit Kabul, and stand in the shadow of giant glass buildings.

他们将访问喀布尔，站在巨型玻璃建筑的阴影下。

“I have to believe,” she said.

“我必须相信，”她说。

“Otherwise, what was it all for?” ♦

“不然的话，这一切又是为了什么？” ❖

Anand Gopal is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of “ No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes .” More: Afghanistan Women Afghanistan War Taliban Women’s Rights Violence Killings Your guide to the latest magazine and our biggest stories of the week, plus highlights from podcasts, humor, and more.

阿南德·戈帕尔是《纽约客》的特约撰稿人，也是《活着的人中没有好人：阿富汗眼中的美国、塔利班和战争》一书的作者。更多内容：阿富汗妇女 阿富汗战争 塔利班妇女权利 暴力杀戮 您最新杂志和本周最大故事的指南，以及播客、幽默等内容的亮点。

The Weekend Essay The Last Gun I Shot As a Texan, as an American, I believed that I wouldn’t be able to understand where I lived unless I wrapped my head around the guns themselves.

周末随笔我开枪的最后一把枪 作为一名德克萨斯人，作为一名美国人，我相信，除非我把头放在枪本身上，否则我无法理解我住在哪里。

By Rachel Monroe

雷切尔·梦露

Comment Biden’s Israel Policy Gets Put to the Test The President’s attempt to get food and medicine into Gaza will reveal whether his support for Israel can also protect Palestinian civilians.

评论 拜登的以色列政策受到考验 总统试图将食品和药品运入加沙，这将揭示他对以色列的支持是否也能保护巴勒斯坦平民。

By Steve Coll

史蒂夫·科尔

Letter from Washington Jake Sullivan’s Trial by Combat Inside the White House’s battle to keep Ukraine in the fight.

来自华盛顿的信杰克·沙利文在白宫内部进行战斗审判，以确保乌克兰继续参与战斗。

By Susan B.

苏珊·B.

Glasser

格拉瑟

Daily Comment Israel May Decimate Hamas, but Can It “Win” This War?

每日评论 以色列可能会摧毁哈马斯，但它能“赢得”这场战争吗？

The scale of the violence, death, and destruction has triggered alarm about a wider regional conflict.

暴力、死亡和破坏的规模引发了人们对更广泛的地区冲突的担忧。

By Robin Wright

罗宾·赖特