Being fast appealed to me because it was the quickest way to the women’s hearts. They used to race to be the first to finish housework, despite there not being anything important awaiting them for the remainder of the day. I wanted them to talk about me, so I would stop being insignificant as I was in the eyes of my sisters and Aisha and the teachers at the “Girls’ School” and all the girls, too, including Salam who eventually became my companion though not my friend.
I never made a new friend a single day in my life. Not because I was the oldest girl in my class and sat at the back of the row in the last desk, and not because I was poor, but because I had cracked and chapped hands and feet. They were repulsed by the thought of touching me.
They would mock me, relentlessly. “Do you have
