EACH NIGHT MY BROTHER AND MY SISTERS WORKED ON THEIR school lessons, pencils in their right hands, erasers in their left. They sat with elbows propped up on the table, chins in their palms while they read, memorized, added and subtracted. At first, they stumbled over the letters, learning how each character was connected to its neighbor with curved strokes. The dots, the dashes carefully placed, bringing words to life. Then came phrases, short simple sentences describing the daily activities of obedient boys and girls. When they started to learn the complex Arabic of the Qur’an, I grew even more envious. I’d learned to recite these prayers under my grandfather’s tutelage, but I hadn’t been taught to read the text itself.
They played with numbers. In singsong chants, they learned multiplication tables. I listened. On paper, they manipulated numbers and symbols. They learned to calculate, to make sense of digits.
They learned stories. The history of our country. The rise of kings and their sons. How our country was carved from the mountains. My brother was first to learn the national anthem and would sing it, a hand up in salute. My sisters learned play songs from their classmates, the rhythm and lyrics putting a hop in their carefree gait as they walked hand in hand.
Coo coo coo, leaf of a plane tree
Girls seated in a row neatly
Plucking pomegranate seeds
If only a pidgeon I could be
In the skies my wings soaring free
Sifting through river sand slowly
And drinking of waters so holy
In the mornings, I watched my sisters put on their uniforms, steel gray and modest. They would hike their socks up and hastily buckle their shoes, afraid of being late but even more afraid of appearing unkempt. The teachers took both issues very seriously. Every day I resented seeing them rush off while I stayed home. I envied their bags full of papers, pencils, and stories. I knew I was just as smart as my sisters—maybe even smarter.
My brother had always done well, maybe not top of his class, but well enough that my father and grandfather did not complain. I’m sure he could have excelled if he’d tried, but he rushed through homework assignments to get on with other business—soccer with the neighborhood boys, climbing the orchard trees, and bicycling down the streets near our house. As a teenager, he endured his most awkward phase, with his spotty skin and unpredictable voice. Once on the other side of puberty, his voice was that of a confident man who wanted to be out in the world.
I had broached the topic of school with my father in the past. His tired answer was always that KokoGul needed my help at home with the younger children but now this excuse was wearing thin. Mariam, my youngest sister, was seven years old and in primary school herself. There were no babies in the house.
We’d cleared the dinner dishes when I approached my father again. I was thirteen years old and determined. I knew girls who hadn’t gone to school usually married earlier, and I did not want to be married. Every year put me further away from a chance at schooling and one step closer to becoming a wife.
“Padar-jan?” He looked up at me and smiled gently. He turned a dial and shut off the radio, his evening news program over. I placed a cup of hot green tea next to him, two sugar cubes quickly dissolving. He always took his evening tea sweet.
“Thank you, my dear. Just what I needed after such a good dinner,” he said, patting his stomach and exhaling deeply.
“Noosh-e-jan,” I replied, a wish his appetite be satisfied. “Padar-jan, I wanted to ask you something.” My father raised an eyebrow as he took a cautious sip of his tea.
“Padar-jan, I want to go to school like my sisters.”