The Breadwinner

Under her breath, Parvana whispers that she can read the letter almost as well as Father can. She says it quietly because no one in the Kabul market wants to hear her say something like this; she’s just in the market to help Father walk there and back. Really, she shouldn’t be outside at all. The Taliban order all girls and women to stay in their homes, and girls can’t even attend school. Mother was fired from her job as a writer for a radio station. The family has been stuck in a one-room apartment for over a year now. Because Parvana is a small girl, though, she can get away with being outside. This is why she helps Father walk. If a Talib ever asks, Father points to his missing lower leg while Parvana tries to make herself look small and invisible. She’s seen the way the Taliban beats women.

The customer asks Father to read his letter one more time. Parvana muses that she’d love to receive a letter. There’s mail service in Afghanistan again, but most of her friends left the country to Pakistan or elsewhere. Parvana’s family has moved so often to escape bombing that none of Parvana’s friends know where she lives. The customer thanks Father and walks away. Parvana is lucky. Most people in Afghanistan can’t read or write, but both her parents have college degrees and believe that everyone, even girls, should be educated. Throughout the afternoon, Parvana listens to Father and customers speak Dari (her first language) and Pashtu, Afghanistan’s other official language, which she doesn’t know as well. Her parents also speak English.

In the market, men shop and vendors sell their wares and services. Parvana pays special attention to the tea shop. It employs boys to run through the marketplace taking cups of tea to customers who can’t leave their own shops. Parvana whispers that she could perform that job, and she’d love to get to know the market. Father hears her and grouses that he’d rather Parvana run around at school, which makes Parvana frown. She’d also rather be at school. She misses her uniform, her friends, and her favorite subject, Afghan history. Seemingly everyone has come to Afghanistan over the years—the Persians, Alexander the Great, the British, the Greeks, the Turks—and the Afghans expelled all of them. Now, the Taliban rules. They’re Afghans, but they have very specific ideas about how life should be lived.

When the Taliban first took Kabul, they shut down the schools. Parvana wasn’t sad then, because she didn’t want to take a math test she hadn’t prepared for, and she didn’t want her teacher to send a note home scolding her for talking. Nooria, however, sobbed and called Parvana stupid when Parvana suggested that the Taliban would let them go back soon. Parvana and Nooria’s relationship is difficult anyway—and living in a single room, they can’t escape each other. It didn’t used to be this way. Parvana’s parents had high-paying jobs and the family lived in a big house with servants, a fridge, and a car. Parvana shared a room with Maryam, but there was enough space. A bomb destroyed that house, and several of their increasingly smaller houses after that. Every time a bomb hit, the family got poorer.

Afghanistan has been in wars for over 20 years. The Soviets came first to drop bombs. Parvana was born a month before the Soviets withdrew; according to Nooria, they couldn’t stand to be in the same country as such an ugly baby. Following the Soviets’ departure, groups in Afghanistan began to fight each other and drop more bombs on Kabul. Parvana has spent her whole life listening to bombs and running from them. Now, the Taliban controls most of the country. Though the Taliban’s name means that they’re religious scholars, Father insists that religion is about teaching kindness and how to be a better person—and the Taliban isn’t doing that. These days, Kabul doesn’t suffer as many bombs. The bombs are in the northern part of the country.

When Father suggests they end their day, Parvana gathers up the small household items and ornaments they’re trying to sell. Mother and Nooria regularly go through the family’s belongings to come up with more things to send with Father. Father slowly stands, takes Parvana’s arm, and they begin to hobble for home. He used to have a prosthetic leg, but he sold it when a customer made a lucrative offer that Father simply couldn’t turn down. Since the Taliban ordered women to stay inside, there are now lots of prosthetic legs for sale. Many husbands decided that if their wives couldn’t go anywhere, they didn’t need their prosthetics.

Parvana and Father wander through Kabul. Many buildings have been bombed, though the city was once beautiful. Nooria is old enough to remember restaurants, cinemas, and traffic lights. Parvana remembers none of this, so hearing about the old Kabul hurts her and makes her sad. They turn down the side street to their building and Parvana asks how women in burqas manage to navigate the streets. Father notes that they fall often. Parvana looks up to her favorite mountain, which she can see at the end of her street. Right after the family first moved to this building, Father insisted that since people name mountains, he’s going to call the mountain Mount Parvana.