The Favored Daughter by Fawzia Koofi Page A

lie rather than accept the terrible truth.
    Perhaps it was the uncertainty of whether Muqim really was dead or not, but I found life in the village very difficult after that. I was really beginning to miss my family, especially my mother. I was having trouble adjusting to life in the country, too, and I found myself longing to be back among the bustle and energy of a city, preferably Kabul. Everything was just so unfamiliar. I even found the basic village food of boiled meat and naan inedible. I began losing weight. Most of all I was missing my classes.
    There was no television or radio, so once the evening meal had been eaten and tidied away, the family simply went to bed—normally by seven o’clock each night. It was far too early for me. To occupy myself on those quiet evenings, as I lay in bed I would go over different math problems, formulas for chemistry and physics. It kept my mind occupied and helped me feel at least some connection with the lessons I missed so much. And as I remembered the numbers and symbols, part of me hoped I could soon return to Kabul and find it like it was when I left more than a year ago.
    Not long after, I asked Nadir to let me return to Faizabad. I missed my mother so much and really needed to be near her. I started discussing this with my family, but it was decided that instead of returning to Faizabad, my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and I would all move back to Kabul together. Mirshakay, my mother’s second son, was by now a police general in the capital, and he had decreed Kabul to be safe enough.
    I took a flight to the city of Kunduz, where I met up with the others. I was so happy to be back with my family, and especially my mother. I did not tell her what I had been told about Muqim’s death, because I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it was true. When I felt the nagging sickening waves of unease wash over me, I simply shut it out of my mind. My mother was very pleased to have me back, too, and although neither of us knew what to expect in Kabul, we were all very excited to be returning.
    From Kunduz we had to take a 186-mile bus journey. That July was very hot, even by the usual summer temperatures of Afghanistan. The sun scorched the mountains, and the rocks became so hot around midday that you could not touch them for fear of burning your hand. The wind whipped up the dust so that it swirled around in little tornados, getting everywhere—in houses, inside cars and machinery, constantly in your eyes.
    I was becoming used to my burqa, but of course I still resented it. The dust did not respect women’s modesty, and it would find its way inside the blue cloth and stick to my sweating skin, making me itch and wriggle even more than usual. At least on the horse ride to my brother’s house I was in the open air, but when I was crammed into a stifling bus with my family and dozens of other people trying to get to Kabul, the temperature inside my burqa was unbearable.
    The road from Kunduz to Kabul is one of the most dangerous in Afghanistan. It has improved over the years, but even now it can be a nerve-wracking journey. The road’s narrow, rutted surface winds around the jagged mountains in spirals that on one side pierce the turquoise sky, while on the other plunge hundreds of feet down to the jagged rocks of the gorge below. Many unfortunate people have met their deaths down there. There aren’t any safety barriers, and when trucks and larger vehicles like our bus met while going in opposite directions, they would squeeze past each other a few inches at a time while the wheels teetered along the crumbling lip of the cliff.
    I have always been nervous in cars. I sat in my bouncing, swaying seat listening to the roar of the bus’s engine as the driver worked his way furiously up and down the gears, occasionally tooting his horn to remonstrate passing motorists. Fortunately I had my physics calculations and formulas to distract me, and