The Favored Daughter by Fawzia Koofi Page B

to the ground, their desperate search for food, water, or medicine brought to a premature end. Machine gunners set up in the damaged homes around key intersections, their positions carefully chosen to both conceal themselves and give the maximum field of fire—all the better to catch your enemy in the open. They were often little more than the tops of heads among the gloom of their cover, but it was understood that from among the rubble they were peering over their steel gun sights for any sign of movement. Vehicles often drew the deadliest attention, but they were still the fastest and safest way to travel. On more than one occasion my car was targeted by rocket artillery. Some roads were pre-targeted by the artillery commanders. When their spotters signaled an approaching car, all they needed to do was open fire and chances were the car, or truck, or possibly even a tank would be blown off the road. I remember once the rockets came rushing down toward me. But over our heads, the boughs of trees struck upward like fingers waiting to catch the projectiles. The rockets hit the branches and exploded, filling the street with shrapnel and shards of splintered wood as we sped along the road and out of range. If it were not for the trees, the rockets would have ripped the flimsy car apart, and both me and the driver with it.
    Few taxi drivers would risk going out in the fighting for the meager price of a fare. Those who were brave enough to do so were motivated by the threat of starvation. No fares meant no food, for them or their families, and that would spell a death even more certain than the bullets that hummed through the air. Often it was impossible to find a taxi to take me to class.
    So on those days I would have to walk, darting from cover to cover, avoiding the areas where I knew the gunmen were and praying I didn’t unknowingly stumble into others. And after class I would have to walk back, too, sneaking along alone in the dark. Sometimes it took me as long as two hours. It was very dangerous for anybody to be on the streets at night, but especially a young girl by herself. Aside from bullets, I ran the risk of being raped. When night fell the shooting became more unpredictable. Nervous in the dark, the gunmen’s fingers would curl a little tighter around their triggers, and even a loud footstep or the tumble of rubble could attract a burst of bullets.
    Often my mother would be waiting nervously outside our apartment, keeping watch for me. She would be standing at the bottom of our apartment building dressed in her burqa, peering out into the night and scanning the shadows. The occasional clatter of gunfire echoing across the sky would send her heart jumping into her mouth. Her imagination must have tormented her as she waited for her daughter to reappear from her journey through the war zone. Her relief at my return was obvious, but she never showed it by hugging me. Instead, she would be quick to scold me, saying: “Even if this course makes you president, I don’t care. I don’t want you to be president. I want you to be alive.”
    My brothers and sisters didn’t like me taking such great risks either, but they would never tell me directly. Instead they would nag my mother and ask her to stop me from going.
    But my mother would probably have thrown herself headfirst into machine gun fire if it meant I could still go to school. She was illiterate but fiercely intelligent. By watching me become educated she was somehow educating herself, too. She took genuine delight in talking to me about my classes and her commitment to me never wavered. She just ignored my siblings’ pleas and nagging, placating them with her winning smile. But I am sure she felt a wave of fear every time I disappeared into the night. A fear that must have been made more acute by the recent loss of her son, my brother Muqim. His death affected the whole family, but none more so than my mother. Every morning she would