Love movements, Act I
Sulaman and Arzo Akbarzada fought February’s piercing predawn chill and trudged through ankle-deep snow to take a Monday morning bus, then another bus and then an Uber, all to get to a warehouse bakery to make bagels.
Navigating still-yet-to-be-cleared sidewalks, Arzo leaned into Sulaman for support. They huddled coat to coat, guided by fluorescent street lamps and the glow of his phone’s map.
It’s only the third week of their new jobs, and they can’t be late.
“Don’t worry, we can make it,” Sulaman assured Arzo.
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Their journey is just beginning.
The couple was supposed to get married in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan in August, in front of hundreds of family members and friends. Sulaman wore his suit and Arzo wore her dress, but hours before the wedding, the Taliban arrived in town. An auspicious date — hopes of married life and its promise — now tainted by the insurgent group they feared for most of their lives.
Sulaman and Arzo fled the country Aug. 31, just after U.S. troops left and effectively ended America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. Along with their families and a suitcase each, they joined 85,000 other people who escaped Taliban rule to find homes in the U.S.
Seven months later, Sulaman and Arzo are settling in Indianapolis, figuring out life as a new couple in a new country.
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In their west-side neighborhood, they hold hands and steal glances while practicing English. He’s learning that she likes dogs, and she’s learning that he likes apple pie, all while navigating the Green Card application process. They hang family pictures in their first home together while mourning the homeland left behind.
This is love in the aftermath of tragedy. Strong because it survived. Pure because it’s so fresh.
“I’m always trying to make her happy,” Sulaman said. “I don’t want her to be alone and travel somewhere alone and (I’m) trying to protect her. This is the new feeling (for me).”
Their love story was arranged with photographs five months before their proposed wedding date. Arzo saw a picture of Sulaman. Sulaman, though he was offered a picture of Arzo, said he didn’t need to see it. He trusted his mother when she said, “I found a beautiful girl for you.”
His mother’s instincts were right.
“‘Oh my God,’” Sulaman’s jaw dropped the first time he saw Arzo, the day of their engagement party.
She looked like a fairy, Sulaman said, angelic in a lavish pink dress that felt much too bold and big for the tiny beauty parlor.
“She says, ‘Oh, please help me with the dress … Would you please take my hand?’” Sulaman remembered. “ I was not believing (it) … ‘I say, OK mom, thank you.’”
They got engaged, then began their courtship. Sulaman, a lifelong fan of American movies and music, introduced Arzo to pizza, burgers and wings on their dates. They were supposed to get married two years later, but that spring, the Taliban was making serious territorial gains across the country.
“I (was) really scared,” Sulaman said. “So I told her … ‘I cannot wait.’”
They decided to get married immediately, but then came another wave of COVID-19 and a lockdown to go with it.
“We don’t have luck,” Sulaman remembered thinking back then. They set a date for mid-August.
The Taliban came to Mazar-i-Sharif that day, Sulaman found out through a phone call from the wedding venue. Come get your food, they said. He didn’t believe it. Arzo called him crying from the beauty parlor, “‘What should I do?’”
He rushed over to the beauty parlor to find her, running and crying, too, panicked when he didn’t see her inside.
He screamed, “Arzo! Arzo!” He passed out for a moment, waking up, dizzied.
“Oh my God, where’s Arzo?”
“I thought, ‘It was my fault. The Taliban maybe got her somehow,’” Sulaman said. “It was (a) really bad day. So I wish no one ever … to be on this place and that situation.”
He finally…
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