Free The Favored Daughter by Fawzia Koofi Page B

my friends’ houses. But I was pleased to be back at school, even though the school in Faizabad, which had once so felt so large and overwhelming to me, now seemed tiny and parochial.
    And I was stuck with the burqa. I began to get used to the feeling of being enclosed, but I couldn’t get used to the heat. There was no bus service in Faizabad, and so I would walk to school in the sun while the sweat ran down my body. I found I sweated so badly that my skin developed black spots from the perspiration and lack of air.
    Despite my discomfort I found myself making lots of friends. I was enjoying being back in the classroom and the opportunities that came with it. My teachers invited me to take part in some gardening classes after school, where we could learn about plants, propagation, and soil care. This was Badakhshan, where even today the understanding of biology and farming science is very basic, so it seemed like an interesting way to spend time with my new friends.
    Unfortunately, my mother wouldn’t let me continue my gardening classes. Even with my burqa she was scared her teenage daughter might attract the roaming eye of a mujahideen fighter. Every minute I was outside the house was another minute that might lead to an unwelcome marriage proposal; and a mujahideen marriage proposal is not one you turn down without serious consequences. To do so would almost certainly invite the mujahideen to take what they wanted by force. As far as my mother was concerned, going to school was an essential risk; learning about plants was a luxury her beautiful daughter could live without.
    The arrival of the mujahideen had changed so much about my world outside the house. But it changed my home life in unexpected ways, too.
    I had been back at school for a month when my half-brother Nadir appeared at our door one day. He was the eldest son of the wife my father had divorced. I hadn’t seen him for 15 years, when he disappeared as a boy to fight the Russians. The man who stood in our living room was now a mujahideen commander. He and his men were responsible for the supply routes into Koof, to ensure the fighters there had enough arms and ammunition. It was a very important role and not a position the generals handed out lightly. My mother was glad to see her stepson, of course, but she wasn’t shy about venting her displeasure at his job. If this had angered my brother he would have been, at least as far as the mujahideen were concerned, within his rights to beat her or maybe even kill her for such insolence. But he didn’t. Such was my mother’s way and the respect she commanded within our family that he apologized to her. He was a man now, he said, and he knew right from wrong. His priority now lay with doing what was best for the family.
    He wanted to take me to his village, where he could protect me from the other mujahideen. His rank within the fighters would be enough to guarantee my security there. But he was clear that while I remained with my mother in Faizabad, not even his influence was sufficient to prevent local gunmen from forcibly marrying me should it occur to them.
    This was my mother’s greatest fear, and so it was decided I should go with Nadir to the village where he lived in the Yaftal district.
    The only way there was on horseback. And later that day he arrived at the door with two white horses wearing tasseled bridles. I hadn’t ridden a horse since I was a little girl. And as ever, my burqa conspired to make my life difficult. Trying to even sit on a horse while wearing a burqa is a challenge, let alone riding an animal through busy traffic. It startled at every blaring horn and strange noise. In the end my brother had to take the reins and lead the horse through the city, while I did my best just to stay on. Every time it kicked or bucked he would rein it in, controlling it just as I thought I was about to fall onto the road. I had never felt more backward than I did that day.