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teacher, but now must educate secretively away from the suspicious
eyes outside.
I see numbers scrawled across papers and ink mingles with the
creamy coloured paper. Fazela is adept and does her best to
empower us by teaching biology, chemistry, English and cooking.
‘Girls, grab those able minds and let’s put them to good use’ she
announces as she sits on the floor next to us. ‘We know how to solve
for one unknown, now let’s try solving for two. They call these
problems quadratic equations. Relating a problem with real life and
linking the two together are key in this process. We’ll attempt
question 2 together…’ and we get lost into the problem in a world
where we cannot be lost.
‘Arezu, what does this question mean?’ A young girl asks me, eyes
wide but lacking the innocence that should be present.
‘Pretend you have buckets of washing. If you had one bucket and
then another bucket, how many buckets would you have in total?’ I
propose.
‘Why of course two,’ she responds, skin gathering at her forehead.
‘So what if you needed to wash 4 clothes in each bucket. How
many would need to be washed?’ I ask the girl.
‘Eight,’ she quickly replies.
‘Good! So think in terms of the number of buckets and the
number of clothes in each bucket to help you multiply,’ I suggest.
She nods slowly whilst her eyes narrow and her head returns back
to the problem. Fazela beams at me across the room.
A knock echoes through the house and our words are suspended
in the air. Our pens ache to be used again, our fingers twitch. Fazela
is the first to move, motioning with her hands that we must go to
the farthest room–her husband’s bedroom. A light flickers. Hastily,
we detach ourselves off the floor as Fazela nears the door. All it
takes is one misplaced sound before shots will fire. We tiptoe to the
bedroom and wait. If it’s the Taliban, Fazela will sneeze. From day
one she had made this clear because she knows teaching girls will
mean death. Muffled and indistinguishable words travel down the
hallway. I scan the bedroom, for any means of cover. There is only a
bed and an overstuffed wardrobe which would never fit us all. We
surrender to the ground to kneel and pray to Allah that they won’t
find us.
The padding of feet becomes louder as they near us. They’re
A Star To Keep
11