Part ONE Chapter 1
Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the wordharami.
It happened on a Thursday. It must have, because Mariamremembered that she had been restless and preoccupied thatday, the way she was only on Thursdays, the day when Jalilvisited her at thekolba. To pass the time until the moment thatshe would see him at last, crossing the knee-high grass in theclearing and waving, Mariam had climbed a chair and takendown her mother's Chinese tea set. The tea set was the solerelic that Mariam's mother, Nana, had of her own mother, whohad died when Nana was two. Nana cherished eachblue-and-white porcelain piece, the graceful curve of the pot'sspout, the hand-painted finches and chrysanthemums, thedragon on the sugar bowl, meant to ward off evil.
It was this last piece that slipped from Mariam's fingers, thatfell to the wooden floorboards of thekolba and shattered.
When Nana saw the bowl, her face flushed red and herupper lip shivered, and her eyes, both the lazy one and thegood, settled on Mariam in a flat, unblinking way. Nana lookedso mad that Mariam feared the jinn would enter her mother'sbody again. But the jinn didn't come, not that time. Instead,Nana grabbed Mariam by the wrists, pulled her close, and,through gritted teeth, said, "You are a clumsy little harami Thisis my reward for everything I've endured An heirloom-breaking,clumsy little harami."At the time, Mariam did not understand. She did not knowwhat this word harami-bastard -meant Nor was she oldenough to appreciate the injustice, to see that it is the creatorsof theharami who are culpable, not theharami, whose only sinis being born. Mariam did surmise, by the way Nana said theword, that it was an ugly, loath-some thing to be harami, likean insect, like the scurrying cockroaches Nana was alwayscursing and sweeping out of thekolba.
Later, when she was older, Mariam did understand. It wasthe way Nana uttered the word-not so much saying it asspitting it at her-that made Mariam feel the full sting of it. Sheunderstood then what Nana meant, that aharami was anunwanted thing; that she, Mariam, was an illegitimate personwho would never have legitimate claim to the things otherpeople had, things such as love, family, home, acceptance.
Jalil never called Mariam this name. Jalil said she was his littleflower. He was fond of sitting her on his lap and telling herstories, like the time he told her that Herat, the city whereMariam was bom, in 1959, had once been the cradle ofPersian culture, the home of writers, painters, and Sufis.
"You couldn't stretch a leg here without poking a poet in theass," he laughed.
Jalil told her the story of Queen Gauhar Shad, who hadraised the famous minarets as her loving ode to Herat back inthe fifteenth century. He described to her the green wheatfields of Herat, the orchards, the vines pregnant with plumpgrapes, the city's crowded, vaulted bazaars.
"There is a pistachio tree," Jalil said one day, "and beneath it,Mariam jo, is buried none other than the great poet Jami." Heleaned in and whispered, "Jami lived over five hundred yearsago. He did. I took you there once, to the tree. You were little.
You wouldn't remember."It was true. Mariam didn't remember. And though she wouldlive the first fifteen years of her life within walking distance ofHerat, Mariam would never see this storied tree. She wouldnever see the famous minarets up close, and she would neverpick fruit from Herat's orchards or stroll in its fields of wheat.
But whenever Jalil talked like this, Mariam would listen withenchantment. She would admire Jalil for his vast and worldlyknowledge. She would quiver with pride to have a father whoknew such things.
"What rich lies!" Nana said after Jalil left. "Rich man tellingrich lies. He never took you to any tree. And don't let himcharm you. He betrayed us, your beloved father. He cast usout. He cast us out of his big fancy house like we werenothing to him. He did it happily."Mariam would listen dutifully to this. She never dared say toNana how much she disliked her talking this way about Jalil.
The truth was that around Jalil, Mariam did not feel at all likeaharami. For an hour or two every Thursday, when Jalil cameto see her, all smiles and gifts and endearments, Mariam feltdeserving of all the beauty and bounty that life had to give.
And, for this, Mariam loved Jalil.
* * *Even if she had to share him.
Jalil had three wives and nine children, nine legitimatechildren, all of whom were strangers to Mariam. He was oneof Herat's wealthiest men. He owned a cinema, which Mariamhad never seen, but at her insistence Jalil had described it toher, and so she knew that the fa9ade was made ofblue-and-tan terra-cotta tiles, that it had private balcony seatsand a trellised ceiling. Double swinging doors opened into atiled lobby, where posters of Hindi films were encased in glassdisplays. On Tuesdays, Jalil said one day, kids got free icecream at the concession standNana smiled demurely when he said this. She waited until hehad left thekolba, before snickering and saying, "The children ofstrangers get ice cream. What do you get, Mariam? Stories ofice cream."In addition to the cinema, Jalil owned land in Karokh, land inFarah, three carpet stores, a clothing shop, and a black 1956Buick Roadmaster. He was one of Herat's best-connected men,friend of the mayor and the provincial governor. He had acook, a driver, and three housekeepers.
Nana had been one of the housekeepers. Until her bellybegan to swell.
When that happened, Nana said, the collective gasp of Jalil'sfamily sucked the air out of Herat. His in-laws swore bloodwould flow. The wives demanded that he throw her out.
Nana's own father, who was a lowly stone carver in thenearby village of Gul Daman, disowned her. Disgraced, hepacked his things and boarded a bus to Bran, never to beseen or heard from again.
"Sometimes," Nana said early one morning, as she wasfeeding the chickens outside thekolba, "I wish my father hadhad the stomach to sharpen one of his knives and do thehonorable thing. It might have been better for me." She tossedanother handful of seeds into the coop, paused, and looked atMariam. "Better for you too, maybe. It would have spared youthe grief of knowing that you are what you are. But he was acoward, my father. He didn't have thedil, the heart, for it."Jalil didn't have thedil either, Nana said, to do the honorablething. To stand up to his family, to his wives and inlaws, andaccept responsibility for what he had done. Instead, behindclosed doors, a face-saving deal had quickly been struck. Thenext day, he had made her gather her few things from theservants' quarters, where she'd been living, and sent her off.
"You know what he told his wives by way of defense? ThatIforced myself on him. That it was my fault.Didi? You see? Thisis what it means to be a woman in this world."Nana put down the bowl of chicken feed. She lifted Mariam'schin with a finger.
"Look at me, Mariam."Reluctantly, Mariam did.
Nana said, "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter:
Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusingfinger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that,Mariam."
Chapter 2.
To Jalil and his wives, I was a pokeroot. A mugwort. You too.
And you weren't even born yet.""What's a mugwort?" Mariam asked"A weed," Nana said. "Something you rip out and toss aside."Mariam frowned internally. Jalil didn't treat her as a weed. Henever had. But Mariam thought it wise to suppress this protest.
"Unlike weeds, I had to be replanted, you see, given food andwater. On account of you. That was the deal Jalil made withhis family."Nana said she had refused to live in Herat.
"For what? To watch him drive hiskinchini wives around townall day?"She said she wouldn't live in her father's empty house either,in the village of Gul Daman, which sat on a steep hill twokilometers north of Herat. She said she wanted to livesomewhere removed, detached, where neighbors wouldn't stareat her belly, point at her, snicker, or, worse yet, assault herwith insincere kindnesses.
"And, believe me," Nana said, "it was a relief to your fatherhaving me out of sight. It suited him just fine."It was Muhsin, Jalil's eldest son by his first wife, Khadija, whosuggested the clearing- It was on the outskirts of Gul Daman.
To get to it, one took a rutted, uphill dirt track that branchedoff the main road between Herat and Gul Daman. The trackwas flanked on either side by knee-high grass and speckles ofwhite and bright yellow flowers. The track snaked uphill andled to a flat field where poplars and cottonwoods soared andwild bushes grew in clusters. From up there, one could makeout the tips of the rusted blades of Gul Daman's windmill, onthe left, and, on the right, all of Herat spread below. The pathended perpendicular to a wide, trout-filled stream, which rolleddown from the Safid-koh mountains surrounding Gul Daman.
Two hundred yards upstream, toward the mountains, there wasa circular grove of weeping willow trees. In the center, in theshade of the willows, was the clearing.
Jalil went there to have a look. When he came back, Nanasaid, he sounded like a warden bragging about the clean wallsand shiny floors of his prison.
"And so, your father built us this rathole."* * *Nana had almost married once, when she was fifteen. Thesuitor had been a boy from Shindand, a young parakeet seller.
Mariam knew the story from Nana herself, and, though Nanadismissed the episode, Mariam could tell by the wistful light inher eyes that she had been happy. Perhaps for the only timein her life, during those days leading up to her wedding, Nanahad been genuinely happy.
As Nana told the story, Mariam sat on her lap and picturedher mother being fitted for a wedding dress. She imagined heron horseback, smiling shyly behind a veiled green gown, herpalms painted red with henna, her hair parted with silver dust,the braids held together by tree sap. She saw musiciansblowing theshahnai flute and banging ondohol drums, streetchildren hooting and giving chase.
Then, a week before the wedding date,ajinn had enteredNana's body. This required no description to Mariam. She hadwitnessed it enough times with her own eyes: Nana collapsingsuddenly, her body tightening, becoming rigid, her eyes rollingback, her arms and legs shaking as if something were throttlingher from the inside, the froth at the corners of her mouth,white, sometimes pink with blood. Then the drowsiness, thefrightening disorientation, the incoherent mumbling.
When the news reached Shindand, the parakeet seller's familycalled off the wedding.
"They got spooked" was how Nana put it.
The wedding dress was stashed away. After that, there wereno more suitors.
* * *In the clearing, Jalil and two of his sons, Farhad and Muhsin,built the smallkolba where Mariam would live the first fifteenyears of her life. They raised it with sun-dried bricks andplastered it with mud and handfuls of straw. It had twosleeping cots, a wooden table, two straight-backed chairs, awindow, and shelves nailed to the walls where Nana placed claypots and her beloved Chinese tea set. Jalil put in a newcast-iron stove for the winter and stacked logs of choppedwood behind thekolba He added a tandoor outside for makingbread and a chicken coop with a fence around it. He broughta few sheep, built them a feeding trough. He had Farhad andMuhsin dig a deep hole a hundred yards outside the circle ofwillows and built an outhouse over it.
Jalil could have hired laborers to build thekolba. Nana said,but he didn't.
"His idea of penance."* * *LstNana'S account of the day that she gave birth to Mariam,no one came to help. It happened on a damp, overcast day inthe spring of 1959, she said, the twenty-sixth year of KingZahir Shah's mostly uneventful forty-year reign. She said thatJalil hadn't bothered to summon a doctor, or even a midwife,even though he knew thatthejinn might enter her body andcause her to have one of her fits in the act of delivering. Shelay all alone on thekolba's floor, a knife by her side, sweatdrenching her body.
"When the pain got bad, I'd bite on a pillow and scream intoit until I was hoarse. And still no one came to wipe my faceor give me a drink of water. And you, Mariam jo, you were inno rush. Almost two days you made me lay on that cold, hardfloor. I didn't eat or sleep, all I did was push and pray thatyou would come out.""I'm sorry, Nana.""I cut the cord between us myself. That's why I had a knife.""I'm sorry."Nana always gave a slow, burdened smile here, one oflingering recrimination or reluctant forgiveness, Mariam couldnever tell It did not occur to young Mariam to ponder theunfairness of apologizing for the manner of her own birth.
By the time itdid occur to her, around the time she turnedten, Mariam no longer believed this story of her birth. Shebelieved JaliPs version, that though he'd been away he'darranged for Nana to be taken to a hospital in Herat whereshe had been tended to by a doctor. She had lain on a clean,proper bed in a well-lit room. Jalil shook his head with sadnesswhen Mariam told him about the knife.
Mariam also came to doubt that she had made her mothersuffer for two full days.
"They told me it was all over within under an hour," Jalilsaid. "You were a good daughter, Mariam jo. Even in birthyou were a good daughter.""He wasn't even there!" Nana spat. "He was in Takht-e-Safar,horseback riding with his precious friends."When they informed him that he had a new daughter, Nanasaid, Jalil had shrugged, kept brushing his horse's mane, andstayed in Takht-e-Safar another two weeks.
"The truth is, he didn't even hold you until you were amonth old. And then only to look down once, comment onyour longish face, and hand you back to me."Mariam came to disbelieve this part of the story as well. Yes,Jalil admitted, he had been horseback riding in Takht-e-Safar,but, when they gave him the news, he had not shrugged. Hehad hopped on the saddle and ridden back to Herat. He hadbounced her in his arms, run his thumb over her flakyeyebrows, and hummed a lullaby. Mariam did not picture Jalilsaying that her face was long, though it was true that it waslong.
Nana said she was the one who'd picked the name Mariambecause it had been the name of her mother. Jalil said hechose the name because Mariam, the tuberose, was a lovelyflower.
"Your favorite?" Mariam asked.
"Well, one of," he said and smiled.
Chapter 3.
One of Mariam's earliest memories was the sound of awheelbarrow's squeaky iron wheels bouncing over rocks. Thewheelbarrow came once a month, filled with rice, flour, tea,sugar, cooking oil, soap, toothpaste. It was pushed by two ofMariam's half brothers, usually Muhsin and Ramin, sometimesRamin and Farhad. Up the dirt track, over rocks and pebbles,around holes and bushes, the boys took turns pushing untilthey reached the stream. There, the wheelbarrow had to beemptied and the items hand-carried across the water. Then theboys would transfer the wheelbarrow across the stream andload it up again. Another two hundred yards of pushingfollowed, this time through tall, dense grass and around thicketsof shrubs. Frogs leaped out of their way. The brothers wavedmosquitoes from their sweaty faces.
"He has servants," Mariam said. "He could send a servant.""His idea of penance," Nana said.
The sound of the wheelbarrow drew Mariam and Nanaoutside. Mariam would always remember Nana the way shelooked on Ration Day: a tall, bony, barefoot woman leaning inthe doorway, her lazy eye narrowed to a slit, arms crossed ina defiant and mocking way. Her short-cropped, sunlit hairwould be uncovered and uncombed. She would wear anill-fitting gray shirt buttoned to the throat. The pockets werefilled with walnut-sized rocks.
The boys sat by the stream and waited as Mariam and Nanatransferred the rations to thekolba They knew better than toget any closer than thirty yards, even though Nana's aim waspoor and most of the rocks landed well short of their targets.
Nana yelled at the boys as she carried bags of rice inside, andcalled them names Mariam didn't understand. She cursed theirmothers, made hateful faces at them. The boys never returnedthe insults.
Mariam felt sorry for the boys. How tired their arms and legsmust be, she thought pityingly, pushing that heavy load. Shewished she were allowed to offer them water. But she saidnothing, and if they waved at her she didn't wave back. Once,to please Nana, Mariam even yelled at Muhsin, told him hehad a mouth shaped like a lizard's ass-and was consumed laterwith guilt, shame, and fear that they would tell Jalil. Nana,though, laughed so hard, her rotting front tooth in full display,that Mariam thought she would lapse into one of her fits. Shelooked at Mariam when she was done and said, "You're agood daughter."When the barrow was empty, the boys scuffled back andpushed it away. Mariam would wait and watch them disappearinto the tall grass and flowering weeds.
"Are you coming?""Yes, Nana.""They laugh at you. They do. I hear them.""I'm coming.""You don't believe me?""Here I am.""You know I love you, Mariam jo."* * *In the mornings, they awoke to the distant bleating of sheepand the high-pitched toot of a flute as Gul Daman's shepherdsled their flock to graze on the grassy hillside. Mariam andNana milked the goats, fed the hens, and collected eggs. Theymade bread together. Nana showed her how to knead dough,how to kindle the tandoor and slap the flattened dough ontoits inner walls. Nana taught her to sew too, and to cook riceand all the different toppings:shalqam stew with turnip,spinachsabzi, cauliflower with ginger.
Nana made no secret of her dislike for visitors-and, in fact,people in general-but she made exceptions for a select few.
And so there was Gul Daman's leader, the villagearbab, HabibKhan, a small-headed, bearded man with a large belly whocame by once a month or so, tailed by a servant, who carrieda chicken, sometimes a pot ofkichiri rice, or a basket of dyedeggs, for Mariam.
Then there was a rotund, old woman that Nana called Bibi jo,whose late husband had been a stone carver and friends withNana's father. Bibi jo was invariably accompanied by one ofher six brides and a grandchild or two. She limped and huffedher way across the clearing and made a great show of rubbingher hip and lowering herself, with a pained sigh, onto the chairthat Nana pulled up for her. Bibi jo too always broughtMariam something, a box ofdishlemeh candy, a basket ofquinces. For Nana, she first brought complaints about herfailing health, and then gossip from Herat and Gul Daman,delivered at length and with gusto, as her daughter-in-lawsatlistening quietly and dutifully behind her.
But Mariam's favorite, other than Jalil of course, was MullahFaizullah, the elderly village Koran tutor, itsakhund He came byonce or twice a week from Gul Daman to teach Mariam thefive dailynamaz prayers and tutor her in Koran recitation, justas he had taught Nana when she'd been a little girl It wasMullah Faizullah who had taught Mariam to read, who hadpatiently looked over her shoulder as her lips worked thewords soundlessly, her index finger lingering beneath eachword, pressing until the nail bed went white, as though shecould squeeze the meaning out of the symbols. It was MullahFaizullah who had held her hand, guided the pencil in it alongthe rise of eachalef, the curve of eachbeh, the three dots ofeachseh.
He was a gaunt, stooping old man with a toothless smile anda white beard that dropped to his navel. Usually, he camealone to thekolba, though sometimes with his russet-haired sonHamza, who was a few years older than Mariam. When heshowed up at thekolba, Mariam kissed Mullah Faizullah'shand-which felt like kissing a set of twigs covered with a thinlayer of skin-and he kissed the top of her brow before theysat inside for the day's lesson. After, the two of them satoutside thekolba, ate pine nuts and sipped green tea, watchedthe bulbul birds darting from tree to tree. Sometimes they wentfor walks among the bronze fallen leaves and alder bushes,along the stream and toward the mountains. Mullah Faizullahtwirled the beads of histasbeh rosary as they strolled, and, inhis quivering voice, told Mariam stories of all the things he'dseen in his youth, like the two-headed snake he'd found inIran, on Isfahan's Thirty-three Arch Bridge, or the watermelonhe had split once outside the Blue Mosque in Mazar, to findthe seeds forming the wordsAllah on one half,Akbar on theother.
Mullah Faizullah admitted to Mariam that, at times, he did notunderstand the meaning of the Koran's words. But he said heliked the enchanting sounds the Arabic words made as theyrolled off his tongue. He said they comforted him, eased hisheart.
"They'll comfort you too, Mariam jo," he said. "You cansummon them in your time of need, and they won't fail you.
God's words will never betray you, my girl"Mullah Faizullah listened to stories as well as he told them.
When Mariam spoke, his attention never wavered He noddedslowly and smiled with a look of gratitude, as if he had beengranted a coveted privilege. It was easy to tell Mullah Faizullahthings that Mariam didn't dare tell Nana.
One day, as they were walking, Mariam told him that shewished she would be allowed to go to school.
"I mean a real school,akhund sahib. Like in a classroom. Likemy father's other kids."Mullah Faizullah stopped.
The week before, Bibi jo had brought news that Jalil'sdaughters Saideh and Naheed were going to the Mehri Schoolfor girls in Herat. Since then, thoughts of classrooms andteachers had rattled around Mariam's head, images ofnotebooks with lined pages, columns of numbers, and pens thatmade dark, heavy marks. She pictured herself in a classroomwith other girls her age. Mariam longed to place a ruler on apage and draw important-looking lines.
"Is that what you want?" Mullah Faizullah said, looking at herwith his soft, watery eyes, his hands behind his stooping back,the shadow of his turban falling on a patch of bristlingbuttercups.
'Yes.
"And you want me to ask your mother for permission."Mariam smiled. Other than Jalil, she thought there was noone in the world who understood her better than her oldtutor.
"Then what can I do? God, in His wisdom, has given us eachweaknesses, and foremost among my many is that I ampowerless to refuse you, Mariam jo," he said, tapping hercheek with one arthritic finger.
But later, when he broached Nana, she dropped the knifewith which she was slicing onions. "What for?""If the girl wants to learn, let her, my dear. Let the girl havean education.""Learn? Learn what, Mullah sahib?" Nana said sharply. "Whatis there to learn?"She snapped her eyes toward Mariam.
Mariam looked down at her hands.
"What's the sense schooling a girl like you? It's like shining aspittoon. And you'll learn nothing of value in those schools.
There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and meneeds in life, and they don't teach it in school. Look at me.""You should not speak like this to her, my child," MullahFaizullah said.
"Look at me."Mariam did.
"Only one skill And it's this:iahamuL Endure.""Endure what, Nana?""Oh, don't you fret aboutthat, " Nana said. "There won't beany shortage of things."She went on to say how Mil's wives had called her an ugly,lowly stone carver's daughter. How they'd made her washlaundry outside in the cold until her face went numb and herfingertips burned.
"It's our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It'sall we have. Do you understand? Besides, they'll laugh at youin school. They will. They'll call youharaml They'll say the mostterrible things about you. I won't have it."Mariam nodded.
"And no more talk about school. You're all I have. I won'tlose you to them. Lookat me. No more talk about school.""Be reasonable- Come now. If the girl wants-" Mullah Faizullahbegan.
"And you,akhund sahib, with all due respect, you should knowbetter than to encourage these foolish ideas of hers. Ifyou reallycare about her, then you make her see that she belongs hereat home with her mother. Thereis nothing out there for her.
Nothing but rejection and heartache. I know,akhund sahib.
Iknow. "
Chapter 4.
Mariam loved having visitors at thekolba. The villagearbab andhis gifts, Bibi jo and her aching hip and endless gossiping, and,of course, Mullah Faizullah. But there was no one, no one, thatMariam longed to see more than Jalil.
The anxiety set in on Tuesday nights. Mariam would sleeppoorly, fretting that some business entanglement would preventJalil from coming on Thursday, that she would have to wait awhole other week to see him. On Wednesdays, she pacedoutside, around thekolba, tossed chicken feed absentmindedlyinto the coop. She went for aimless walks, picking petals fromflowers and batting at the mosquitoes nibbling on her arms.
Finally, on Thursdays, all she could do was sit against a wall,eyes glued to the stream, and wait. If Jalil was running late, aterrible dread filled her bit by bit. Her knees would weaken,and she would have to go somewhere and lie down.
Then Nana would call, "And there he is, your father. In allhis glory."Mariam would leap to her feet when she spotted him hoppingstones across the stream, all smiles and hearty waves. Mariamknew that Nana was watching her, gauging her reaction, and italways took effort to stay in the doorway, to wait, to watchhim slowly make his way to her, to not run to him. Sherestrained herself, patiently watched him walk through the tallgrass, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, the breeze liftinghis red necktie.
When Jalil entered the clearing, he would throw his jacket onthe tandoor and open his arms. Mariam would walk, thenfinally run, to him, and he would catch her under the armsand toss her up high. Mariam would squeal.
Suspended in the air, Mariam would see Jalil's upturned facebelow her, his wide, crooked smile, his widow's peak, his cleftchin-a perfect pocket for the tip of her pinkie-his teeth, thewhitest in a town of rotting molars. She liked his trimmedmustache, and she liked that no matter the weather he alwayswore a suit on his visits-dark brown, his favorite color, with thewhite triangle of a handkerchief in the breast pocket-and cufflinks too, and a tie, usually red, which he left loosened Mariamcould see herself too, reflected in the brown of Jalil's eyes: herhair billowing, her face blazing with excitement, the sky behindher.
Nana said that one of these days he would miss, that she,Mariam, would slip through his fingers, hit the ground, andbreak a bone. But Mariam did not believe that Jalil would dropher. She believed that she would always land safely into herfather's clean, well-manicured hands.
They sat outside thekolba, in the shade, and Nana servedthem tea. Jalil and she acknowledged each other with anuneasy smile and a nod. Jalil never brought up Nana's rockthrowing or her cursing.
Despite her rants against him when he wasn't around, Nanawas subdued and mannerly when Jalil visited. Her hair wasalways washed. She brushed her teeth, wore her besthijab forhim. She sat quietly on a chair across from him, hands foldedon her lap. She did not look at him directly and never usedcoarse language around him. When she laughed, she coveredher mouth with a fist to hide the bad tooth.
Nana asked about his businesses. And his wives too. Whenshe told him that she had heard, through Bibi jo, that hisyoungest wife, Nargis, was expecting her third child, Jalil smiledcourteously and nodded.
"Well. You must be happy," Nana said. "How many is thatfor you, now? Ten, is it,mashallah1? Ten?"Jalil said yes, ten.
"Eleven, if you count Mariam, of course."Later, after Jalil went home, Mariam and Nana had a smallfight about this. Mariam said she had tricked him.
After tea with Nana, Mariam and Jalil always went fishing inthe stream. He showed her how to cast her line, how to reelin the trout. He taught her the proper way to gut a trout, toclean it, to lift the meat off the bone in one motion. He drewpictures for her as they waited for a strike, showed her howto draw an elephant in one stroke without ever lifting the penoff the paper. He taught her rhymes. Together they sang:
Lili Mi birdbath, Sitting on a dirt path, Minnow sat on the rimand drank, Slipped, and in the water she sankJalil brought clippings from Herat's newspaper,Iiiifaq-i Islam,and read from them to her. He was Mariam's link, her proofthat there existed a world at large, beyond thekolba, beyondGul Daman and Herat too, a world of presidents withunpronounceable names, and trains and museums and soccer,and rockets that orbited the earth and landed on the moon,and, every Thursday, Jalil brought a piece of that world withhim to thekolba.
He was the one who told her in the summer of 1973, whenMariam was fourteen, that King Zahir Shah, who had ruledfrom Kabul for forty years, had been overthrown in a bloodlesscoup.
"His cousin Daoud Khan did it while the king was in Italygetting medical treatment- You remember Daoud Khan, right? Itold you about him. He was prime minister in Kabul when youwere bom. Anyway, Afghanistan is no longer a monarchy,Mariam. You see, it's a republic now, and Daoud Khan is thepresident. There are rumors that the socialists in Kabul helpedhim take power. Not that he's a socialist himself, mind you, butthat they helped him. That's the rumor anyway."Mariam asked him what a socialist was and Jalil begantoexplain, but Mariam barely heard him.
"Are you listening?""I am."He saw her looking at the bulge in his coat's side pocket.
"Ah. Of course. Well. Here, then. Without further ado…"He fished a small box from his pocket and gave it to her. Hedid this from time to time, bring her small presents. Acarnelian bracelet cuff one time, a choker with lapis lazuli beadsanother. That day, Mariam opened the box and found aleaf-shaped pendant, tiny coins etched with moons and starshanging from it.
"Try it on, Mariam jo."She did. "What do you think?"Jalil beamed "I think you look like a queen."After he left, Nana saw the pendant around Mariam's neck.
"Nomad jewelry," she said. "I've seen them make it. Theymelt the coins people throw at them and make jewelry. Let'ssee him bring you gold next time, your precious father. Let'ssee him."When it was time for Jalil to leave, Mariam always stood inthe doorway and watched him exit the clearing, deflated at thethought of the week that stood, like an immense, immovableobject, between her and his next visit. Mariam always held herbreath as she watched him go. She held her breath and, inher head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each secondthat she didn't breathe, God would grant her another day withJalil.
At night, Mariam lay in her cot and wondered what his housein Herat was like. She wondered what it would be like to livewith him, to see him every day. She pictured herself handinghim a towel as he shaved, telling him when he nicked himself.
She would brew tea for him. She would sew on his missingbuttons. They would take walks in Herat together, in thevaulted bazaar where Jalil said you could find anything youwanted. They would ride in his car, and people would pointand say, "There goes Jalil Khan with his daughter." He wouldshow her the famed tree that had a poet buried beneath it.
One day soon, Mariam decided, she would tell Jalil thesethings. And when he heard, when he saw how much shemissed him when he was gone, he would surely take her withhim. He would bring her to Herat, to live in his house, justlike his other children.
Chapter 5.
I know what I want," Mariam said to Jalil.
It was the spring of 1974, the year Mariam turned fifteen.
The three of them were sitting outside thekolba, in a patch ofshade thrown by the willows, on folding chairs arranged in atriangle.
"For my birthday…I know what I want.""You do?" said Jalil, smiling encouragingly.
Two weeks before, at Mariam's prodding, Jalil had let on thatan American film was playing at his cinema. It wasa specialkind of film, what he'd called a cartoon. The entire film was aseries of drawings, he said, thousands of them, so that whenthey were made into a film and projected onto a screen youhad the illusion that the drawings were moving. Jalil said thefilm told the story of an old, childless toymaker who is lonelyand desperately wants a son. So he carves a puppet, a boy,who magically comes to life. Mariam had asked him to tell hermore, and Jalil said that the old man and his puppet had allsorts of adventures, that there was a place called PleasureIsland, and bad boys who turned into donkeys. They even gotswallowed by a whale at the end, the puppet and his father.
Mariam had told Mullah Faizullah all about this film.
"I want you to take me to your cinema," Mariam said now. "Iwant to see the cartoon. I want to see the puppet boy."With this, Mariam sensed a shift in the atmosphere. Herparents stirred in their seats. Mariam could feel themexchanging looks.
"That's not a good idea," said Nana. Her voice was calm, hadthe controlled, polite tone she used around Jalil, but Mariamcould feel her hard, accusing glare.
Jalil shifted on his chair. He coughed, cleared his throat.
"You know," he said, "the picture quality isn't that good.
Neither is the sound. And the projector's been malfunctioningrecently. Maybe your mother is right. Maybe you can think ofanother present, Mariam jo.""Aneh,"Nana said. "You see? Your father agrees."* * *But later, at the stream, Mariam said, "Take me.""I'll tell you what," Jalil said. "I'll send someone to pick youup and take you. I'll make sure they get you a good seat andall the candy you want.""Nay.Iwant you to take me.""Mariam jo-""And I want you to invite my brothers and sisters too. I wantto meet them. I want us all to go, together. It's what I want."Jalil sighed. He was looking away, toward the mountains.
Mariam remembered him telling her that on the screen ahuman face looked as big as a house, that when a carcrashed up there you felt the metal twisting in your bones. Shepictured herself sitting in the private balcony seats, lapping atice cream, alongside her siblings and Jalil. "It's what I want,"she said.
Jalil looked at her with a forlorn expression.
"Tomorrow. At noon. I'll meet you at this very spot. All right?
Tomorrow?""Come here," he said. He hunkered down, pulled her to him,and held her for a long, long time.
* * *At first. Nana paced around thekolba, clenching andunclenching her fists.
"Of all the daughters I could have had, why did God give mean ungrateful one like you? Everything I endured for you! Howdare you! How dare you abandon me like this, youtreacherous littleharamil"Then she mocked.
"What a stupid girl you are! You think you matter to him,that you're wanted in his house? You think you're a daughterto him? That he's going to take you in? Let me tell yousomething- A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing,Mariam. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed, it won'tstretch to make room for you. I'm the only one who lovesyou. I'm all you have in this world, Mariam, and when I'mgone you'll have nothing. You'll have nothing. Youare nothing!"Then she tried guilt.
"I'll die if you go.The jinn will come, and I'll have one of myfits. You'll see, I'll swallow my tongue and die. Don't leave me,Mariam jo. Please stay. I'll die if you go."Mariam said nothing.
"You know I love you, Mariam jo."Mariam said she was going for a walk.
She feared she might say hurtful things if she stayed: that sheknewthe jinn was a lie, that Jalil had told her that what Nanahad was a disease with a name and that pills could make itbetter. She might have asked Nana why she refused to seeJalil's doctors, as he had insisted she do, why she wouldn'ttake the pills he'd bought for her. If she could articulate it, shemight have said to Nana that she was tired of being aninstrument, of being lied to, laid claim to, used. That she wassick of Nana twisting the truths of their life and making her,Mariam, another of her grievances against the world.
You 're afraid, Nana,she might have said.You 're afraid that 1might find the happiness you never had. And you don 'i wantme to be happy. You don't want a good life for me. You 'rethe one with the wretched heart* * *There was A lookout, on the edge of the clearing, whereMariam liked to go. She sat there now, on dry, warm grass.
Herat was visible from here, spread below her like a child'sboard game: the Women's Garden to the north of the city,Char-suq Bazaar and the ruins of Alexander the Great's oldcitadel to the south. She could make out the minarets in thedistance, like the dusty fingers of giants, and the streets thatshe imagined were milling with people, carts, mules. She sawswallows swooping and circling overhead. She was envious ofthese birds. They had been to Herat. They had flown over itsmosques, its bazaars. Maybe they had landed on the walls ofJalil's home, on the front steps of his cinema.
She picked up ten pebbles and arranged them vertically, inthree columns. This was a game that she played privately fromtime to time when Nana wasn't looking. She put four pebblesin the first column, for Khadija's children, three for Afsoon's,and three in the third column for Nargis's children. Then sheadded a fourth column. A solitary, eleventh pebble.
* * *The next morning, Mariam wore a cream-colored dress thatfell to her knees, cotton trousers, and a greenhijab over herhair. She agonized a bit over thehijab, its being green and notmatching the dress, but it would have to do-moths had eatenholes into her white one.
She checked the clock. It was an old hand-wound clock withblack numbers on a mint green face, a present from MullahFaizullah. It was nine o'clock. She wondered where Nana was.
She thought about going outside and looking for her, but shedreaded the confrontation, the aggrieved looks. Nana wouldaccuse her of betrayal. She would mock her for her mistakenambitions.
Mariam sat down. She tried to make time pass by drawing anelephant in one stroke, the way Jalil had shown her, over andover. She became stiff from all the sitting but wouldn't lie downfor fear that her dress would wrinkle.
When the hands finally showed eleven-thirty, Mariam pocketedthe eleven pebbles and went outside. On her way to thestream, she saw Nana sitting on a chair, in the shade, beneaththe domed roof of a weeping willow. Mariam couldn't tellwhether Nana saw her or not.
At the stream, Mariam waited by the spot they had agreed onthe day before. In the sky, a few gray, cauliflower-shapedclouds drifted by. Jalil had taught her that gray clouds got theircolor by being so dense that their top parts absorbed thesunlight and cast their own shadow along the base.That's whatyou see, Mariam jo, he had said,the dark in their underbelly.
Some time passed.
Mariam went back to thekolba This time, she walked aroundthe west-facing periphery of the clearing so she wouldn't haveto pass by Nana. She checked the clock. It was almost oneo'clock.
He's a businessman,Mariam thought.Something has come up.
She went back to the stream and waited awhile longer.
Blackbirds circled overhead, dipped into the grass somewhere.
She watched a caterpillar inching along the foot of an immaturethistle.
She waited until her legs were stiff. This time, she did not goback to thekolba She rolled up the legs of her trousers to theknees, crossed the stream, and, for the first time in her life,headed down the hill for Herat.
* * *Nana was "wrong about Herat too. No one pointed. No onelaughed. Mariam walked along noisy, crowded, cypress-linedboulevards, amid a steady stream of pedestrians, bicycle riders,and mule-drawngaris, and no one threw a rock at her. No onecalled her aharami. Hardly anyone even looked at her. Shewas, unexpectedly, marvelously, an ordinary person here.
For a while, Mariam stood by an oval-shaped pool in thecenter of a big park where pebble paths crisscrossed. Withwonder, she ran her fingers over the beautiful marble horsesthat stood along the edge of the pool and gazed down at thewater with opaque eyes. She spied on a cluster of boys whowere setting sail to paper ships. Mariam saw flowerseverywhere, tulips, lilies, petunias, their petals awash in sunlight.
People walked along the paths, sat on benches and sipped tea.
Mariam could hardly believe that she was here. Her heart wasbattering with excitement. She wished Mullah Faizullah could seeher now. How daring he would find her. How brave! She gaveherself over to the new life that awaited her in this city, a lifewith a father, with sisters and brothers, a life in which shewould love and be loved back, without reservation or agenda,without shame.
Sprightly, she walked back to the wide thoroughfare near thepark. She passed old vendors with leathery faces sitting underthe shade of plane trees, gazing at her impassively behindpyramids of cherries and mounds of grapes. Barefoot boysgave chase to cars and buses, waving bags of quinces. Mariamstood at a street corner and watched the passersby, unable tounderstand how they could be so indifferent to the marvelsaround them.
After a while, she worked up the nerve to ask the elderlyowner of a horse-drawngari if he knew where Jalil, thecinema's owner, lived. The old man had plump cheeks andwore a rainbow-stripedchapan. "You're not from Herat, areyou?" he said companionably. "Everyone knows where JalilKhan lives.""Can you point me?"He opened a foil-wrapped toffee and said, "Are you alone?""Yes.""Climb on. I'll take you.""I can't pay you. I don't have any money."He gave her the toffee. He said he hadn't had a ride in twohours and he was planning on going home anyway. Jalil'shouse was on the way.
Mariam climbed onto thegari. They rode in silence, side byside. On the way there, Mariam saw herb shops, andopen-fronted cubbyholes where shoppers bought oranges andpears, books, shawls, even falcons. Children played marbles incircles drawn in dust. Outside teahouses, on carpet-coveredwooden platforms, men drank tea and smoked tobacco fromhookahs.
The old man turned onto a wide, conifer-lined street. Hebrought his horse to a stop at the midway point.
"There. Looks like you're in luck,dokhiarjo. That's his car."Mariam hopped down. He smiled and rode on.
* * *Mariam had never before touched a car. She ran her fingersalong the hood of Jalil's car, which was black, shiny, withglittering wheels in which Mariam saw a flattened, widenedversion of herself. The seats were made of white leather.
Behind the steering wheel, Mariam saw round glass panels withneedles behind them.
For a moment, Mariam heard Nana's voice in her head,mocking, dousing the deep-seated glow of her hopes. Withshaky legs, Mariam approached the front door of the house.
She put her hands on the walls. They were so tall, soforeboding, Jalil's walls. She had to crane her neck to seewhere the tops of cypress trees protruded over them from theother side. The treetops swayed in the breeze, and sheimagined they were nodding their welcome to her. Mariamsteadied herself against the waves of dismay passing throughher.
A barefoot young woman opened the door. She had a tattoounder her lower lip.
"I'm here to see Jalil Khan. I'm Mariam. His daughter."A look of confusion crossed the girl's face. Then, a flash ofrecognition. There was a faint smile on her lips now, and anair of eagerness about her, of anticipation. "Wait here," the girlsaid quickly.
She closed the door.
A few minutes passed. Then a man opened the door. He wastall and square-shouldered, with sleepy-looking eyes and a calmface.
"I'm Jalil Khan's chauffeur," he said, not unkindly.
"His what?""His driver. Jalil Khan is not here.""I see his car," Mariam said.
"He's away on urgent business.""When will he be back?""He didn't say."Mariam said she would wait-He closed the gates. Mariam sat,and drew her knees to her chest. It was early evening already,and she was getting hungry. She ate thegaridriver's toffee. Awhile later, the driver came out again.
"You need to go home now," he said. "It'll be dark in lessthan an hour.""I'm used to the dark.""It'll get cold too. Why don't you let me drive you home? I'lltell him you were here."Mariam only looked at him.
"I'll take you to a hotel, then. You can sleep comfortablythere. We'll see what we can do in the morning.""Let me in the house.""I've been instructed not to. Look, no one knows when he'scoming back. It could be days."Mariam crossed her arms.
The driver sighed and looked at her with gentle reproach.
Over the years, Mariam would have ample occasion to thinkabout how things might have turned out if she had let thedriver take her back to thekolba But she didn't. She spent thenight outside Jalil's house. She watched the sky darken, theshadows engulf the neighboring housefronts. The tattooed girlbrought her some bread and a plate of rice, which Mariamsaid she didn't want. The girl left it near Mariam. From time totime, Mariam heard footsteps down the street, doors swingingopen, muffled greetings. Electric lights came on, and windowsglowed dimly. Dogs barked. When she could no longer resistthe hunger, Mariam ate the plate of rice and the bread. Thenshe listened to the crickets chirping from gardens. Overhead,clouds slid past a pale moon.
In the morning, she was shaken awake. Mariam saw thatduring the night someone had covered her with a blanket.
It was the driver shaking her shoulder.
"This is enough. You've made a scene.Bos. It's time to go."Mariam sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her back and neckwere sore. "I'm going to wait for him.""Look at me," he said. "Jalil Khan says that I need to takeyou back now. Right now. Do you understand? Jalil Khan saysso."He opened the rear passenger door to the car."Bia Come on,"he said softly.
"I want to see him," Mariam said. Her eyes were tearing over.
The driver sighed. "Let me take you home. Comeon,dokhtarjo. "Mariam stood up and walked toward him. But then, at thelast moment, she changed direction and ran to the front gates.
She felt the driver's fingers fumbling for a grip at her shoulder.
She shed him and burst through the open gates.
In the handful of seconds that she was in Jalil's garden,Mariam's eyes registered seeing a gleaming glass structure withplants inside it, grape vines clinging to wooden trellises, afishpond built with gray blocks of stone, fruittrees, and bushes of brightly colored flowers everywhere. Hergaze skimmed over all of these things before they found a face,across the garden, in an upstairs window. The face was therefor only an instant, a flash, but long enough. Long enough forMariam to see the eyes widen, the mouth open. Then itsnapped away from view. A hand appeared and franticallypulled at a cord. The curtains fell shut.
Then a pair of hands buried into her armpits and she waslifted off the ground. Mariam kicked. The pebbles spilled fromher pocket. Mariam kept kicking and crying as she was carriedto the car and lowered onto the cold leather of the backseat.
* * *The driver talked in a muted, consoling tone as he drove.
Mariam did not hear him. All during the ride, as she bouncedin the backseat, she cried. They were tears of grief, of anger,of disillusionment. But mainly tears of a deep, deep shame athow foolishly she had given herself over to Jalil, how she hadfretted over what dress to wear, over the mismatchinghijab,walking all the way here, refusing to leave, sleeping on thestreet like a stray dog. Andshe was ashamed of how she had dismissed her mother'sstricken looks, her puffy eyes. Nana, who had warned her, whohad been right all along.
Mariam kept thinking of his face in the upstairs window. Helet her sleep on the street.On the street Mariam cried lyingdown. She didn't sit up, didn't want to be seen. She imaginedall of Herat knew this morning how she'd disgraced herself.
She wished Mullah Faizullah were here so she could put herhead on his lap and let him comfort her.
After a while, the road became bumpier and the nose of thecar pointed up. They were on the uphill road between Heratand Gul Daman.
What would she say to Nana, Mariam wondered. How wouldshe apologize? How could she even face Nana now?
The car stopped and the driver helped her out. "I'll walkyou," he said.
She let him guide her across the road and up the track.
There was honeysuckle growing along the path, and milkweedtoo. Bees were buzzing over twinkling wildflowers. The drivertook her hand and helped her cross the stream. Then he letgo, and he was talking about how Herat's famous one hundredand twenty days' winds would start blowing soon, frommidmorning to dusk, and how the sand flies would go on afeeding frenzy, and then suddenly he was standing in front ofher, trying to cover her eyes, pushing her back the way theyhad come and saying, "Go back! No. Don't look now. Turnaround! Go back!"But he wasn't fast enough. Mariam saw. A gust of wind blewand parted the drooping branches of the weeping willow like acurtain, and Mariam caught a glimpse of what was beneath thetree: the straight-backed chair, overturned. The rope droppingfrom a high branch. Nana dangling at the end of it.
Chapter 6.
1 hey buried Nana in a corner of the cemetery in GulDaman. Mariam stood beside Bibi jo, with the women, asMullah Faizullah recited prayers at the graveside and the menlowered Nana's shrouded body into the ground-Afterward, Jalilwalked Mariam to thekolba, where, in front of the villagers whoaccompanied them, he made a great show of tending toMariam. He collected a few of her things, put them in asuitcase. He sat beside her cot, where she lay down, andfanned her face. He stroked her forehead, and, with awoebegone expression on his face, asked if sheneededanything? anything? - he said it like that, twice.
"I want Mullah Faizullah," Mariam said.
"Of course. He's outside. I'll get him for you."It was when Mullah Faizullah's slight, stooping figure appearedin thekolba's doorway that Mariam cried for the first time thatday.
"Oh, Mariam jo."He sat next to her and cupped her face in his hands. "Yougo on and cry, Mariam jo. Go on. There is no shame in it.
But remember, my girl, what the Koran says, 'Blessed is He inWhose hand is the kingdom, and He Who has power over allthings, Who created death and life that He may try you.' TheKoran speaks the truth, my girl.
Behind every trial and every sorrow that He makes usshoulder, God has a reason."But Mariam could not hear comfort in God's words. Not thatday. Not then. All she could hear was Nana saying,I'll die ifyou go. I'll just die. All she could do was cry and cry and lether tears fall on the spotted, paper-thin skin of MullahFaizullah's hands.
* * *On the ride to his house, Jalil sat in the backseat of his carwith Mariam, his arm draped over her shoulder.
"You can stay with me, Mariam jo," he said. "I've asked themalready to clean a room for you. It's upstairs. You'll like it, Ithink. You'll have a view of the garden."For the first time, Mariam could hear him with Nana's ears.
She could hear so clearly now the insincerity that had alwayslurked beneath, the hollow, false assurances. She could notbring herself to look at him.
When the car stopped before Jalil's house, the driver openedthe door for them and carried Mariam's suitcase. Jalil guidedher, one palm cupped around each of her shoulders, throughthe same gates outside of which, two days before, Mariam hadslept on the sidewalk waiting for him. Two days before-whenMariam could think of nothing in the world she wanted morethan to walk in this garden with Jalil-felt like another lifetime.
How could her life have turned upside down so quickly,Mariam asked herself. She kept her gaze to the ground, onher feet, stepping on the gray stone path. She was aware ofthe presence of people in the garden, murmuring, steppingaside, as she and Jalil walked past. She sensed the weight ofeyes on her, looking down from the windows upstairs.
Inside the house too, Mariam kept her head down. Shewalked on a maroon carpet with a repeating blue-and-yellowoctagonal pattern, saw out of the corner of her eye the marblebases of statues, the lower halves of vases, the frayed ends ofrichly colored tapestries hanging from walls. The stairs she andJalil took were wide and covered with asimilar carpet, naileddown at the base of each step. At the top of the stairs, Jalilled her to the left, down another long, carpeted hallway. Hestopped by one of the doors, opened it, and let her in.
"Your sisters Niloufar and Atieh play here sometimes," Jalilsaid, "but mostly we use this as a guest room. You'll becomfortable here, I think. It's nice, isn't it?"The room had a bed with a green-flowered blanket knit in atightly woven, honeycomb design. The curtains, pulled back toreveal the garden below, matched the blanket. Beside the bedwas a three-drawer chest with a flower vase on it. There wereshelves along the walls, with framed pictures of people Mariamdid not recognize. On one of the shelves, Mariam saw acollection of identical wooden dolls, arranged in a line in orderof decreasing size.
Jalil saw her looking."Matryoshka dolls. I got them in Moscow.
You can play with them, if you want. No one will mind."Mariam sat down on the bed.
"Is there anything you want?" Jalil said.
Mariam lay down. Closed her eyes. After a while, she heardhim softly shut the door.
* * *Except for "when she had to use the bathroom down thehall, Mariam stayed in the room. The girl with the tattoo, theone who had opened the gates to her, brought her meals ona tray: lamb kebab,sabzi, aush soup. Most of it went uneaten.
Jalil came by several times a day, sat on the bed beside her,asked her if she was all right.
"You could eat downstairs with the rest of us," he said, butwithout much conviction. He understood a little too readilywhen Mariam said she preferred to eat alone.
From the window, Mariam watched impassively what she hadwondered about and longed to see for most of her life: thecomings and goings of Jalil's daily life. Servants rushed in andout of the front gates. A gardener was always trimming bushes,watering plants in the greenhouse. Cars with long, sleek hoodspulled up on the street. From them emerged men in suits,inchapcms and caracul hats, women inhijabs, children withneatly combed hair. And as Mariam watched Jalil shake thesestrangers' hands, as she saw him cross his palms on his chestand nod to their wives, she knew that Nana had spoken thetruth. She did not belong here.
But where do I belong? What am I going to do now?
I'm all you have in this world, Mariam, and when I'm goneyou'll have nothing. You'll have nothing. Youarenothing!
Like the wind through the willows around thekolba, gusts ofan inexpressible blackness kept passing through Mariam.
On Mariam's second full day at Jalil's house, a little girl cameinto the room.
"I have to get something," she said.
Mariam sat up on the bed and crossed her legs, pulled theblanket on her lap.
The girl hurried across the room and opened the closet door.
She fetched a square-shaped gray box.
"You know what this is?" she said. She opened the box. "It'scalled a gramophone.Gramo. Phone. It plays records. You know,music. A gramophone.""You're Niloufar. You're eight."The little girl smiled. She had Jalil's smile and his dimpledchin. "How did you know?"Mariam shrugged. She didn't say to this girl that she'd oncenamed a pebble after her.
"Do you want to hear a song?"Mariam shrugged again.
Niloufar plugged in the gramophone. She fished a small recordfrom a pouch beneath the box's lid. She put it on, lowered theneedle. Music began to play.
1 will use a flower petal for paper, And write you the sweetestletter, You are the sultan of my heart, the sultan of my heart"Do you know it?""No.""It's from an Iranian film. I saw it at my father's cinema. Hey,do you want to see something?"Before Mariam could answer, Niloufar had put her palms andforehead to the ground She pushed with her soles and thenshe was standing upside down, on her head, in a three-pointstance.
"Can you do that?" she said thickly.
"No."Niloufar dropped her legs and pulled her blouse back down.
"I could teach you," she said, pushing hair from her flushedbrow. "So how long will you stay here?""I don't know.""My mother says you're not really my sister like you say youare.""I never said I was," Mariam lied.
"She says you did. I don't care. What I mean is, I don't mindif you did say it, or if you are my sister. I don't mind."Mariam lay down. "I'm tired now.""My mother saysa jinn made your mother hang herself.""You can stop that now," Mariam said, turning to her side.
"The music, I mean."Bibi jo came to see her that day too. It was raining by thetime she came. She lowered her large body onto the chairbeside the bed, grimacing.
"This rain, Mariam jo, it's murder on my hips. Just murder, Itell you. I hope…Oh, now, come here, child. Come here to Bibijo. Don't cry. There, now. You poor thing.Ask You poor, poorthing."That night, Mariam couldn't sleep for a long time. She lay inbed looking at the sky, listening to the footsteps below, thevoices muffled by walls and the sheets of rain punishing thewindow. When she did doze off, she was startled awake byshouting. Voices downstairs, sharp and angry. Mariam couldn'tmake out the words. Someone slammed a door.
The next morning, Mullah Faizullah came to visit her. Whenshe saw her friend at the door, his white beard and hisamiable, toothless smile, Mariam felt tears stinging the cornersof her eyes again. She swung her feet over the side of the bedand hurried over. She kissed his hand as always and he herbrow. She pulled him up a chair-He showed her the Koran hehad brought with him and opened it. "I figured no sense inskipping our routine, eh?""You know I don't need lessons anymore, Mullah sahib. Youtaught me everysurrah andayat in the Koran years ago."He smiled, and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Iconfess, then. I've been found out. But I can think of worseexcuses to visit you.""You don't need excuses. Not you.""You're kind to say that, Mariam jo."He passed her his Koran. As he'd taught her, she kissed itthree times-touching it to her brow between each kiss-and gaveit back to him.
"How are you, my girl?""I keep," Mariam began. She had to stop, feeling like a rockhad lodged itself in her throat. "I keep thinking of what shesaid to me before I left. She-""Nay, nay, nay."Mullah Faizullah put his hand on her knee.
"Your mother, may Allah forgive her, was a troubled andunhappy woman, Mariam jo. She did a terrible thing to herself.
To herself, to you, and also to Allah. He will forgive her, forHe is all-forgiving, but Allah is saddened by what she did. Hedoes not approve of the taking of life, be it another's or one'sown, for He says that life is sacred You see-" He pulled hischair closer, took Mariam's hand in both of his own. "You see,I knew your mother before you were born, when she was alittle girl, and I tell you that she was unhappy then. The seedfor what she did was planted long ago, I'm afraid. What Imean to say is that this was not your fault. It wasn't yourfault, my girl.""I shouldn't have left her. I should have-""You stop that. These thoughts are no good, Mariam jo. Youhear me, child? No good. They will destroy you. It wasn't yourfault. It wasn't your fault. No."Mariam nodded, but as desperately as she wanted to shecould not bring herself to believe him.
* * *One apternoon, a week later, there was a knock on the door,and a tall woman walked in. She was fair-skinned, had reddishhair and long fingers.
"I'm Afsoon," she said. "Niloufar's mother. Why don't youwash up, Mariam, and come downstairs?"Mariam said she would rather stay in her room.
"No,nafahmidi, you don't understand. Youmedio come down.
We have to talk to you. It's important."
Chapter 7.
They sat across from her, Jalil and his wives, at a long, darkbrown table. Between them, in the center of the table, was acrystal vase of fresh marigolds and a sweating pitcher of water.
The red-haired woman who had introduced herself as Niloufar'smother, Afsoon, was sitting on Jalil's right. The other two,Khadija and Nargis, were on his left. The wives each had on aflimsy black scarf, which they wore not on their heads but tiedloosely around the neck like an afterthought. Mariam, whocould not imagine that they would wear black for Nana,pictured one of them suggesting it, or maybe Jalil, just beforeshe'd been summoned.
Afsoon poured water from the pitcher and put the glassbefore Mariam on a checkered cloth coaster. "Only spring andit's warm already," she said. She made a fanning motion withher hand.
"Have you been comfortable?" Nargis, who had a small chinand curly black hair, asked. "We hope you've been comfortable.
This… ordeal…must be very hard for you. So difficult."The other two nodded. Mariam took in their pluckedeyebrows, the thin, tolerant smiles they were giving her. Therewas an unpleasant hum in Mariam's head. Her throat burned.
She drank some of the water.
Through the wide window behind Jalil, Mariam could see arow of flowering apple trees. On the wall beside the windowstood a dark wooden cabinet. In it was a clock, and a framedphotograph of Jalil and three young boys holding a fish. Thesun caught the sparkle in the fish's scales. Jalil and the boyswere grinning.
"Well," Afsoon began. "I-that is, we-have brought you herebecause we have some very good news to give you."Mariam looked up.
She caught a quick exchange of glances between the womenover Jalil, who slouched in his chair looking unseeingly at thepitcher on the table. It was Khadija, the oldest-looking of thethree, who turned her gaze to Mariam, and Mariam had theimpression that this duty too had been discussed, agreed upon,before they had called for her.
"You have a suitor," Khadija said.
Mariam's stomach fell. "A what?" she said through suddenlynumb lips.
"Akhasiegar. A suitor. His name is Rasheed," Khadija went on.
"He is a friend of a business acquaintance of your father's.
He's a Pashtun, from Kandahar originally, but he lives in Kabul,in the Deh-Mazang district, in a two-story house that he owns."Afsoon was nodding. "And he does speak Farsi, like us, likeyou. So you won't have to learn Pashto."Mariam's chest was tightening. The room was reeling up anddown, the ground shifting beneath her feet.
"He's a shoemaker," Khadija was saying now. "But not somekind of ordinary street-sidemoochi, no, no. He has his ownshop, and he is one of the most sought-after shoemakers inKabul He makes them for diplomats, members of thepresidential family-that class of people. So you see, he will haveno trouble providing for you."Mariam fixed her eyes on Jalil, her heart somersaulting in herchest. "Is this true? What she's saying, is it true?"But Jalil wouldn't look at her. He went on chewing the cornerof his lower lip and staring at the pitcher.
"Now heis a little older than you," Afsoon chimed in. "But hecan't be more than…forty. Forty-five at the most. Wouldn't yousay,Nargis?""Yes. But I've seen nine-year-old girls given to men twentyyears older than your suitor, Mariam. We all have. What areyou, fifteen? That's a good, solid marrying age for a girl."There was enthusiastic nodding at this. It did not escapeMariam that no mention was made of her half sisters Saidehor Naheed, both her own age, both students in the MehriSchool in Herat, both with plans to enroll in Kabul University.
Fifteen, evidently, was not a good, solid marrying age for them.
"What's more," Nargis went on, "he too has had a great lossin his life. His wife, we hear, died during childbirth ten yearsago. And then, three years ago, his son drowned in a lake.""It's very sad, yes. He's been looking for a bride the last fewyears but hasn't found anyone suitable.""I don't want to," Mariam said. She looked at Jalil. "I don'twant this. Don't make me." She hated the sniffling, pleadingtone of her voice but could not help it.
"Now, be reasonable, Mariam," one of the wives said.
Mariam was no longer keeping track of who was saying what.
She went on staring at Jalil, waiting for him to speak up, tosay that none of this was true.
"You can't spend the rest of your life here.""Don't you want a family of your own?""Yes. A home, children of your own?""You have to move on.""True that it would be preferable that you marry a local, aTajik, but Rasheed is healthy, and interested in you. He has ahome and a job. That's all that really matters, isn't it? AndKabul is a beautiful and exciting city. You may not get anotheropportunity this good."Mariam turned her attention to the wives.
"I'll live with Mullah Faizullah," she said. "He'll take me in. Iknow he will.""That's no good," Khadija said. "He's old and so…" Shesearched for the right word, and Mariam knew then that whatshe really wanted to say wasHef s so close. She understoodwhat they meant to do.You may not get another opportunitythis good And neither would they. They had been disgraced byher birth, and this was their chance to erase, once and for all,the last trace of their husband's scandalous mistake. She wasbeing sent away because she was the walking, breathingembodiment of their shame.
"He's so old and weak," Khadija eventually said. "And whatwill you do when he's gone? You'd be a burden to his family."As you are now to us.Mariam almostsaw the unspoken wordsexit Khadija's mouth, like foggy breath on a cold day.
Mariam pictured herself in Kabul, a big, strange, crowded citythat, Jalil had once told her, was some six hundred and fiftykilometers to the east of Herat.Six hundred and fifty kilometers.
The farthest she'd ever been from thekolba was thetwo-kilometer walk she'd made to Jalil's house. She picturedherself living there, in Kabul, at the other end of thatunimaginable distance, living in a stranger's house where shewould have to concede to his moods and his issued demands.
She would have to clean after this man, Rasheed, cook forhim, wash his clothes. And there would be other chores aswell-Nana had told her what husbands did to their wives. Itwas the thought of these intimacies in particular, which sheimagined as painful acts of perversity, that filled her with dreadand made her break out in a sweat.
She turned to Jalil again. "Tell them. Tell them you won't letthem do this.""Actually, your father has already given Rasheed his answer,"Afsoon said. "Rasheed is here, in Herat; he has come all theway from Kabul. Thenikka will be tomorrow morning, and thenthere is a bus leaving for Kabul at noon.""Tell them!" Mariam criedThe women grew quiet now. Mariam sensed that they werewatching him too. Waiting. A silence fell over the room. Jalilkept twirling his wedding band, with a bruised, helpless look onhis face. From inside the cabinet, the clock ticked on and on.
"Jalil jo?" one of the women said at last.
Mil's eyes lifted slowly, met Mariam's, lingered for a moment,then dropped. He opened his mouth, but all that came forthwas a single, pained groan.
"Say something," Mariam said.
Then Jalil did, in a thin, threadbare voice. "Goddamn it,Mariam, don't do this to me," he said as though he was theone to whom something was being done.
And, with that, Mariam felt the tension vanish from the room.
As JaliPs wives began a new-and more sprightly-round ofreassuring, Mariam looked down at the table. Her eyes tracedthe sleek shape of the table's legs, the sinuous curves of itscorners, the gleam of its reflective, dark brown surface. Shenoticed that every time she breathed out, the surface fogged,and she disappeared from her father's table.
Afsoon escorted her back to the room upstairs. When Afsoonclosed the door, Mariam heard the rattling of a key as itturned in the lock.
Chapter 8.
In the morning, Mariam was given a long-sleeved, dark greendress to wear over white cotton trousers. Afsoon gave her agreen hijab and a pair of matching sandals.
She was taken to the room with the long, brown table, exceptnow there was a bowl of sugar-coated almond candy in themiddle of the table, a Koran, a green veil, and a mirror. Twomen Mariam had never seen before- witnesses, shepresumed-and a mullah she did not recognize were alreadyseated at the table.
Jalil showed her to a chair. He was wearing a light brownsuit and a red tie. His hair was washed. When he pulled outthe chair for her, he tried to smile encouragingly. Khadija andAfsoon sat on Mariam's side of the table this time.
The mullah motioned toward the veil, and Nargis arranged iton Mariam's head before taking a seat. Mariam looked downat her hands.
"You can call him in now," Jalil said to someone.
Mariam smelled him before she saw him. Cigarette smoke andthick, sweet cologne, not faint like Jalil's. The scent of it floodedMariam's nostrils. Through the veil, from the corner of her eye,Mariam saw a tall man, thick-bellied and broad-shouldered,stooping in the doorway. The size of him almost made hergasp, and she had to drop her gaze, her heart hammeringaway. She sensed him lingering in the doorway. Then his slow,heavy-footed movement across the room. The candy bowl onthe table clinked in tune with his steps. With a thick grunt, hedropped on a chair beside her. He breathed noisily.
The mullah welcomed them. He said this would not be atraditional nikka"I understand that Rasheedagha has tickets for the bus toKabul that leaves shortly. So, in the interest of time, we willbypass some of the traditional steps to speed up theproceedings."The mullah gave a few blessings, said a few words about theimportance of marriage. He asked Jalil if he had any objectionsto this union, and Jalil shook his head. Then the mullah askedRasheed if he indeed wished to enter into a marriage contractwith Mariam. Rasheed said, "Yes." His harsh, raspy voicereminded Mariam of the sound of dry autumn leaves crushedunderfoot.
"And do you, Mariam jan, accept this man as your husband?"Mariam stayed quiet. Throats were cleared.
"She does," a female voice said from down the table.
"Actually," the mullah said, "she herself has to answer. Andshe should wait until I ask three times. The point is, he'sseeking her, not the other way around."He asked the question two more times. When Mariam didn'tanswer, he asked it once more, this time moreforcefully- Mariam could feel Jalil beside her shifting on hisseat, could sense feet crossing and uncrossing beneath thetable. There was more throat clearing. A small, white handreached out and flicked a bit of dust off the table.
"Mariam," Jalil whispered.
"Yes," she said shakily.
A mirror was passed beneath the veil. In it, Mariam saw herown face first, the archless, unshapely eyebrows, the flat hair,the eyes, mirthless green and set so closely together that onemight mistake her for being cross-eyed. Her skin was coarseand had a dull, spotty appearance. She thought her brow toowide, the chin too narrow, the lips too thin. The overallimpression was of a long face, a triangular face, a bithoundlike. And yet Mariam saw that, oddly enough, the wholeof these unmemorable parts made for a face that was notpretty but, somehow, not unpleasant to look at either.
In the mirror, Mariam had her first glimpse of Rasheed: thebig, square, ruddy face; the hooked nose; the flushed cheeksthat gave the impression of sly cheerfulness; the watery,bloodshot eyes; the crowded teeth, the front two pushedtogether like a gabled roof; the impossibly low hairline, barelytwo finger widths above the bushy eyebrows; the wall of thick,coarse, salt-and-pepper hair.
Their gazes met briefly in the glass and slid away.
This is the face of my husband,Mariam thought.
They exchanged the thin gold bands that Rasheed fished fromhis coat pocket. His nails were yellow-brown, like the inside ofa rotting apple, and some of the tips were curling, lifting.
Mariam's hands shook when she tried to slip the band ontohis finger, and Rasheed had to help her. Her own band was alittle tight, but Rasheed had no trouble forcing it over herknuckles.
"There," he said.
"It's a pretty ring," one of the wives said. "It's lovely, Mariam.""All that remains now is the signing of the contract," themullah said.
Mariam signed her name-themeem, thereh, the 3^ andthemeem again-conscious of all the eyes on her hand. The nexttime Mariam signed her name to a document, twenty-sevenyears later, a mullah would again be present.
"You are now husband and wife," the mullah said."Tabreek.
Congratulations."* * *Rasheed waited in the multicolored bus. Mariam could not seehim from where she stood with Jalil, by the rear bumper, onlythe smoke of his cigarette curling up from the open window.
Around them, hands shook and farewells were said. Koranswere kissed, passed under. Barefoot boys bounced betweentravelers, their faces invisible behind their trays of chewing gumand cigarettes.
Jalil was busy telling her that Kabul was so beautiful, theMoghul emperor Babur had asked that he be buried there.
Next, Mariam knew, he'd go on about Kabul's gardens, and itsshops, its trees, and its air, and, before long, she would be onthe bus and he would walk alongside it, waving cheerfully,unscathed, spared.
Mariam could not bring herself to allow it.
"I used to worship you," she said.
Jalil stopped in midsentence. He crossed and uncrossed hisarms. A young Hindi couple, the wife cradling a boy, thehusband dragging a suitcase, passed between them. Jalilseemed grateful for the interruption. They excused themselves,and he smiled back politely.
"On Thursdays, I sat for hours waiting for you. I worriedmyself sick that you wouldn't show up.""It's a long trip. You should eat something." He said he couldbuy her some bread and goat cheese.
"I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you'dlive to be a hundred years old. I didn't know. I didn't knowthat you were ashamed of me."Jalil looked down, and, like an overgrown child, dug atsomething with the toe of his shoe.
"You were ashamed of me.""I'll visit you," he muttered "I'll come to Kabul and see you.
We'll-""No. No," she said. "Don't come. I won't see you. Don't youcome. I don't want to hear from you. Ever.Ever. "He gave her a wounded look.
"It ends here for you and me. Say your good-byes.""Don't leave like this," he said in a thin voice.
"You didn't even have the decency to give me the time to saygood-bye to Mullah Faizullah."She turned and walked around to the side of the bus. Shecould hear him following her. When she reached the hydraulicdoors, she heard him behind her.
"Mariamjo."She climbed the stairs, and though she could spot Jalil out ofthe corner of her eye walking parallel to her she did not lookout the window. She made her way down the aisle to theback, where Rasheed sat with her suitcase between his feet.
She did not turn to look when Jalil's palms pressed on theglass, when his knuckles rapped and rapped on it. When thebus jerked forward, she did not turn to see him trottingalongside it. And when the bus pulled away, she did not lookback to see him receding, to see him disappear in the cloud ofexhaust and dust.
Rasheed, who took up the window and middle seat, put histhick hand on hers.
"There now, girl There. There," he said. He was squinting outthe window as he said this, as though something moreinteresting had caught his eye.
Chapter 9.
It was early evening the following day by the time theyarrived at Rasheed's house.
"We're in Deh-Mazang," he said. They were outside, on thesidewalk. He had her suitcase in one hand and was unlockingthe wooden front gate with the other. "In the south and westpart of the city. The zoo is nearby, and the university too."Mariam nodded. Already she had learned that, though shecould understand him, she had to pay close attention when hespoke. She was unaccustomed to the Kabuli dialect of his Farsi,and to the underlying layer of Pashto accent, the language ofhis native Kandahar. He, on the other hand, seemed to haveno trouble understanding her Herati Farsi.
Mariam quickly surveyed the narrow, unpaved road alongwhich Rasheed's house was situated. The houses on this roadwere crowded together and shared common walls, with small,walled yards in front buffering them from the street. Most ofthe homes had flat roofs and were made of burned brick,some of mud the same dusty color as the mountains thatringed the city. Gutters separated the sidewalk from the roadon both sides and flowed with muddy water. Mariam saw smallmounds of flyblown garbage littering the street here and there.
Rasheed's house had two stories. Mariam could see that it hadonce been blue.
When Rasheed opened the front gate, Mariam found herselfin a small, unkempt yard where yellow grass struggled up inthin patches. Mariam saw an outhouse on the right, in a sideyard, and, on the left, a well with a hand pump, a row ofdying saplings. Near the well was a toolshed, and a bicycleleaning against the wall.
"Your father told me you like to fish," Rasheed said as theywere crossing the yard to the house. There was no backyard,Mariam saw. "There are valleys north of here. Rivers with lotsoffish. Maybe I'll take you someday."He unlocked the front door and let her into the house.
Rasheed's house was much smaller than Jalil's, but, comparedto Mariam and Nana'skolba, it was a mansion. There was ahallway, a living room downstairs, and a kitchen in which heshowed her pots and pans and a pressure cooker and akeroseneLshiop. The living room had a pistachio green leathercouch. It had a rip down its side that had been clumsily sewntogether. The walls were bare. There was a table, two cane-seatchairs, two folding chairs, and, in the corner, a black, cast-ironstove.
Mariam stood in the middle of the living room, lookingaround. At thekolba, she could touch the ceiling with herfingertips. She could lie in her cot and tell the time of day bythe angle of sunlight pouring through the window. She knewhow far her door would open before its hinges creaked. Sheknew every splinter and crack in each of the thirty woodenfloorboards. Now all those familiar things were gone. Nana wasdead, and she was here, in a strange city, separated from thelife she'd known by valleys and chains of snow-cappedmountains and entire deserts. She was in a stranger's house,with all its different rooms and its smell of cigarette smoke,with its unfamiliar cupboards full of unfamiliar utensils, itsheavy, dark green curtains, and a ceiling she knew she couldnot reach. The space of it suffocated Mariam. Pangs of longingbore into her, for Nana, for Mullah Faizullah, for her old life.
Then she was crying.
"What's this crying about?" Rasheed said crossly. He reachedinto the pocket of his pants, uncurled Mariam's fingers, andpushed a handkerchief into her palm. He lit himself a cigaretteand leaned against the wall. He watched as Mariam pressedthe handkerchief to her eyes.
"Done?"Mariam nodded.
"Sure?""Yes."He took her by the elbow then and led her to the living-roomwindow.
"This window looks north," he said, tapping the glass with thecrooked nail of his index finger. "That's the Asmai mountaindirectly in front of us-see?-and, to the left, is the Ali Abadmountain. The university is at the foot of it. Behind us, east,you can't see from here, is the Shir Darwaza mountain. Everyday, at noon, they shoot a cannon from it. Stop your crying,now. I mean it."Mariam dabbed at her eyes.
"That's one thing I can't stand," he said, scowling, "the soundof a woman crying. I'm sorry. I have no patience for it.""I want to go home," Mariam said.
Rasheed sighed irritably. A puff of his smoky breath hitMariam's face. "I won't take that personally. This time."Again, he took her by the elbow, and led her upstairs.
There was a narrow, dimly lit hallway there and twobedrooms. The door to the bigger one was ajar. Through itMariam could see that it, like the rest of the house, wassparsely furnished: bed in the corner, with a brown blanketand a pillow, a closet, a dresser. The walls were bare exceptfor a small mirror. Rasheed closed the door.
"This is my room."He said she could take the guest room. "I hope you don'tmind. I'm accustomed to sleeping alone."Mariam didn't tell him how relieved she was, at least aboutthis.
The room that was to be Mariam's was much smaller thanthe room she'd stayed in at Jalil's house. It had a bed, an old,gray-brown dresser, a small closet. The window looked into theyard and, beyond that, the street below. Rasheed put hersuitcase in a corner.
Mariam sat on the bed.
"You didn't notice," he said He was standing in the doorway,stooping a little to fit.
"Look on the windowsill. You know what kind they are? I putthem there before leaving for Herat."Only now Mariam saw a basket on the sill. White tuberosesspilled from its sides.
"You like them? They please you?""Yes.""You can thank me then.""Thank you. I'm sorry.Tashakor -""You're shaking. Maybe I scare you. Do I scare you? Are youfrightened of me?"Mariam was not looking at him, but she could hear somethingslyly playful in these questions, like a needling. She quicklyshook her head in what she recognized as her first lie in theirmarriage.
"No? That's good, then. Good for you. Well, this is your homenow. You're going to like it here. You'll see. Did I tell you wehave electricity? Most days and every night?"He made as if to leave. At the door, he paused, took a longdrag, crinkled his eyes against the smoke. Mariam thought hewas going to say something. But he didn't. He closed the door,left her alone with her suitcase and her flowers.
Chapter 10.
The first few days, Mariam hardly left her room. She wasawakened every dawn for prayer by the distant cry ofazan,after which she crawled back into bed. She was still in bedwhen she heard Rasheed in the bathroom, washing up, whenhe came into her room to check on her before he went to hisshop. From her window, she watched him in the yard, securinghis lunch in the rear carrier pack of his bicycle, then walkinghis bicycle across the yard and into the street. She watchedhim pedal away, saw his broad, thick-shouldered figuredisappear around the turn at the end of the street.
For most of the days, Mariam stayed in bed, feeling adrift andforlorn. Sometimes she went downstairs to the kitchen, ran herhands over the sticky, grease-stained counter, the vinyl, floweredcurtains that smelled like burned meals. She looked through theill-fitting drawers, at the mismatched spoons and knives, thecolander and chipped, wooden spatulas, these would-beinstruments of her new daily life, all of it reminding her of thehavoc that had struck her life, making her feel uprooted,displaced, like an intruder on someone else's life.
At thekolba, her appetite had been predictable. Here, herstomach rarely growled for food. Sometimes she took a plate ofleftover white rice and a scrap of bread to the living room, bythe window. From there, she could see the roofs of theone-story houses on their street. She could see into their yardstoo, the women working laundry lines and shooing theirchildren, chickens pecking at dirt, the shovels and spades, thecows tethered to trees.
She thought longingly of all the summer nights that she andNana had slept on the flat roof of thekolba, looking at themoon glowing over Gul Daman, the night so hot their shirtswould cling to their chests like a wet leaf to a window. Shemissed the winter afternoons of reading in thekolba with MullahFaizullah, the clink of icicles falling on her roof from the trees,the crows cawing outside from snow-burdened branches.
Alone in the house, Mariam paced restlessly, from the kitchento the living room, up the steps to her room and down again.
She ended up back in her room, doing her prayers or sittingon the bed, missing her mother, feeling nauseated andhomesick.
It was with the sun's westward crawl that Mariam's anxietyreally ratcheted up. Her teeth rattled when she thought of thenight, the time when Rasheed might at last decide to do to herwhat husbands did to their wives. She lay in bed, wracked withnerves, as he ate alone downstairs.
He always stopped by her room and poked his head in.
"You can't be sleeping already. It's only seven. Are youawake? Answer me. Come, now."He pressed on until, from the dark, Mariam said, "I'm here."He slid down and sat in her doorway. From her bed, shecould see his large-framed body, his long legs, the smokeswirling around his hook-nosed profile, the amber tip of hiscigarette brightening and dimming.
He told her about his day. A pair of loafers he hadcustom-made for the deputy foreign minister-who, Rasheed said,bought shoes only from him. An order for sandals from aPolish diplomat and his wife. He told her of the superstitionspeople had about shoes: that putting them on a bed inviteddeath into the family, that a quarrel would follow if one put onthe left shoe first.
"Unless it was done unintentionally on a Friday," he said.
"And did you know it's supposed to be a bad omen to tieshoes together and hang them from a nail?"Rasheed himself believed none of this. In his opinion,superstitions were largely a female preoccupation.
He passed on to her things he had heard on the streets, likehow the American president Richard Nixon had resigned overa scandal.
Mariam, who had never heard of Nixon, or the scandal thathad forced him to resign, did not say anything back. Shewaited anxiously for Rasheed to finish talking, to crush hiscigarette, and take his leave. Only when she'd heard him crossthe hallway, heard his door open and close, only then wouldthe metal fist gripping her belly let go-Then one night hecrushed his cigarette and instead of saying good night leanedagainst the doorway.
"Are you ever going to unpack that thing?" he said, motioningwith his head toward her suitcase. He crossed his arms. "Ifigured you might need some time. But this is absurd. Aweek's gone and…Well, then, as of tomorrow morning I expectyou to start behaving like a wife.Fahmidi? Is that understood?"Mariam's teeth began to chatter.
"I need an answer.""Yes.""Good," he said. "What did you think? That this is a hotel?
That I'm some kind of hotelkeeper? Well, it…Oh. Oh.
La illah u ilillah.What did I say about the crying? Mariam.
What did I say to you about the crying?"* * *The next morning, after Rasheed left for work, Mariamunpacked her clothes and put them in the dresser. She drew apail of water from the well and, with a rag, washed thewindows of her room and the windows to the living roomdownstairs- She swept the floors, beat the cobwebs fluttering inthe corners of the ceiling. She opened the windows to air thehouse.
She set three cups of lentils to soak in a pot, found a knifeand cut some carrots and a pair of potatoes, left them too tosoak. She searched for flour, found it in the back of one ofthe cabinets behind a row of dirty spice jars, and made freshdough, kneading it the way Nana had shown her, pushing thedough with the heel of her hand, folding the outer edge,turning it, and pushing it away again. Once she had flouredthe dough, she wrapped it in a moist cloth, put on ahijab, andset out for the communal tandoor.
Rasheed had told her where it was, down the street, a leftthen a quick right, but all Mariam had to do was follow theflock of women and children who were headed the same way.
The children Mariam saw, chasing after their mothers orrunning ahead of them, wore shirts patched and patched again.
They wore trousers that looked too bigor too small, sandals with ragged straps that flapped back andforth. They rolled discarded old bicycle tires with sticks.
Their mothers walked in groups of three or four, some inburqas, others not. Mariam could hear their high-pitchedchatter, their spiraling laughs. As she walked with her headdown, she caught bits of their banter, which seemingly alwayshad to do with sick children or lazy, ungrateful husbands.
As if the meals cook themselves.
Wallah o billah,never a moment's rest!
And he says to me, I swear it, it's true, he actually saystome…This endless conversation, the tone plaintive but oddly cheerful,flew around and around in a circle. On it went, down thestreet, around the corner, in line at the tandoor. Husbandswho gambled. Husbands who doted on their mothers andwouldn't spend a rupiah on them, the wives. Mariam wonderedhow so many women could suffer the same miserable luck, tohave married, all of them, such dreadful men. Or was this awifely game that she did not know about, a daily ritual, likesoaking rice or making dough? Would they expect her soon tojoin in?
In the tandoor line, Mariam caught sideways glances shot ather, heard whispers. Her hands began to sweat. She imaginedthey all knew that she'd been born aharami, a source ofshame to her father and his family. They all knew that she'dbetrayed her mother and disgraced herself.
With a corner of herhijab, she dabbed at the moisture aboveher upper lip and tried to gather her nerves. For a fewminutes, everything went well-Then someone tapped her on theshoulder. Mariam turned around and found a light-skinned,plump woman wearing ahijab, like her. She had short, wiryblack hair and a good-humored, almost perfectly round face.
Her lips were much fuller than Mariam's, the lower one slightlydroopy, as though dragged down by the big, dark mole justbelow the lip line. She had big greenish eyes that shone atMariam with an inviting glint.
"You're Rasheed jan's new wife, aren't you?" the woman said,smiling widely.
"The one from Herat. You're so young! Mariam jan, isn't it?
My name is Fariba. I live on your street, five houses to yourleft, the one with the green door. This is my sonNoor."The boy at her side had a smooth, happy face and wiry hairlike his mother's. There was a patch of black hairs on the lobeof his left ear. His eyes had a mischievous, reckless light inthem. He raised his hand."Salaam, Khala Jan.""Noor is ten. I have an older boy too, Ahmad.""He's thirteen," Noor said.
"Thirteen going on forty." The woman Fariba laughed. "Myhusband's name is Hakim," she said. "He's a teacher here inDeh-Mazang. You should come by sometime, we'll have a cup-"And then suddenly, as if emboldened, the other womenpushed past Fariba and swarmed Mariam, forming a circlearound her with alarming speed"So you're Rasheed jan's young bride-""How do you like Kabul?""I've been to Herat. I have a cousin there""Do you want a boy or a girl first?""The minarets! Oh, what beauty! What a gorgeous city!""Boy is better, Mariam jan, they carry the family name-""Bah! Boys get married and run off. Girls stay behind andtake care of you when you're old""We heard you were coming.""Have twins. One of each! Then everyone's happy."Mariam backed away. She was hyperventilating. Her earsbuzzed, her pulse fluttered, her eyes darted from one face toanother. She backed away again, but there was nowhere to goto-she was in the center of a circle. She spotted Fariba, whowas frowning, who saw that she was in distress.
"Let her be!" Fariba was saying. "Move aside, let her be!
You're frightening her!"Mariam clutched the dough close to her chest and pushedthrough the crowd around her.
"Where are you going,hamshira?”
She pushed until somehow she was in the clear and then sheran up the street. It wasn't until she'd reached the intersectionthat she realized she'd run the wrong way. She turned aroundand ran back in the other direction, head down, tripping onceand scraping her knee badly, then up again and running,bolting past the women.
"What's the matter with you?""You're bleeding,hamshiral"Mariam turned one corner, then the other. She found thecorrect street but suddenly could not remember which wasRasheed's house. She ran up then down the street, panting,near tears now, began trying doors blindly. Some were locked,others opened only to reveal unfamiliar yards, barking dogs,and startled chickens. She pictured Rasheed coming home tofind her still searching this way, her knee bleeding, lost on herown street. Now she did start crying. She pushed on doors,muttering panicked prayers, her face moist with tears, until oneopened, and she saw, with relief, the outhouse, the well, thetoolshed. She slammed the door behind her and turned thebolt. Then she was on all fours, next to the wall, retching.
When she was done, she crawled away, sat against the wall,with her legs splayed before her. She had never in her life feltso alone.
* * *When Rasheed came home that night, he brought with him abrown paper bag. Mariam was disappointed that he did notnotice the clean windows, the swept floors, the missingcobwebs. But he did look pleased that she had already set hisdinner plate, on a cleansofrah spread on the living-room floor.
"I madedaal" Mariam said.
"Good. I'm starving."She poured water for him from theafiawa to wash his handswith. As he dried with a towel, she put before him a steamingbowlof daal and a plate of fluffy white rice. This was the firstmeal she had cooked for him, and Mariam wished she hadbeen in a better state when she made it. She'd still beenshaken from the incident at the tandoor as she'd cooked, andall day she had fretted about thedaal'% consistency, its color,worried that he would think she'd stirred in too much gingeror not enough turmeric.
He dipped his spoon into the gold-coloreddaal.
Mariam swayed a bit. What if he was disappointed or angry?
What if he pushed his plate away in displeasure?
"Careful," she managed to say. "It's hot."Rasheed pursed his lips and blew, then put the spoon into hismouth.
"It's good," he said. "A little undersalted but good. Maybebetter than good, even."Relieved, Mariam looked on as he ate. A flare of pride caughther off guard. She had done well -maybe better than good,even- and it surprised her, this thrill she felt over his smallcompliment- The day's earlier unpleasantness receded a bit.
"Tomorrow is Friday," Rasheed said. "What do you say Ishow you around?""Around Kabul?""No. Calcutta."Mariam blinked.
"It's a joke. Of course Kabul. Where else?" He reached intothe brown paper bag. "But first, something I have to tell you."He fished a sky blue burqa from the bag. The yards ofpleated cloth spilled over his knees when he lifted it. He rolledup the burqa, looked at Mariam.
"I have customers, Mariam, men, who bring their wives to myshop. The women come uncovered, they talk to me directly,look me in the eye without shame. They wear makeup andskirts that show their knees. Sometimes they even put their feetin front of me, the women do, for measurements, and theirhusbands stand there and watch. They allow it. They thinknothing of a stranger touching their wives' bare feet! Theythink they're being modern men, intellectuals, on account oftheir education, I suppose. They don't see that they're spoilingtheir ownnang andnamoos, their honor and pride."He shook his head.
"Mostly, they live in the richer parts of Kabul. I'll take youthere. You'll see. But they're here too, Mariam, in this veryneighborhood, these soft men. There's a teacher living downthe street, Hakim is his name, and I see his wife Fariba all thetime walking the streets alone with nothing on her head but ascarf. It embarrasses me, frankly, to see a man who's lostcontrol of his wife."He fixed Mariam with a hard glare.
"But I'm a different breed of man, Mariam. Where I comefrom, one wrong look, one improper word, and blood is spilled.
Where I come from, a woman's face is her husband's businessonly. I want you to remember that. Do you understand?"Mariam nodded. When he extended the bag to her, she tookit.
The earlier pleasure over his approval of her cooking hadevaporated. In its stead, a sensation of shrinking. This man'swill felt to Mariam as imposing and immovable as the Safid-kohmountains looming over Gul Daman.
Rasheed passed the paper bag to her. "We have anunderstanding, then. Now, let me have some more of thatdaal."
Chapter 11.
Mariam had never before worn a burqa. Rasheed had to helpher put it on. The padded headpiece felt tight and heavy onher skull, and it was strange seeing the world through a meshscreen. She practiced walking around her room in it and keptstepping on the hem and stumbling. The loss of peripheralvision was unnerving, and she did not like the suffocating waythe pleated cloth kept pressing against her mouth.
"You'll get used to it," Rasheed said. "With time, I bet you'lleven like it."They took a bus to a place Rasheed called the Shar-e-NauPark, where children pushed each other on swings and slappedvolleyballs over ragged nets tied to tree trunks. They strolledtogether and watched boys fly kites, Mariam walking besideRasheed, tripping now and then on the burqa's hem. Forlunch, Rasheed took her to eat in a small kebab house near amosque he called the Haji Yaghoub. The floor was sticky andthe air smoky. The walls smelled faintly of raw meat and themusic, which Rasheed described to her aslogari, was loud. Thecooks were thin boys who fanned skewers with one hand andswatted gnats with the other. Mariam, who had never beeninside a restaurant, found it odd at first to sit in a crowdedroom with so many strangers, to lift her burqa to put morselsof food into her mouth. A hint of the same anxiety as the dayat the tandoor stirred in her stomach, but Rasheed's presencewas of some comfort, and, after a while, she did not mind somuch the music, the smoke, even the people. And the burqa,she learned to her surprise, was also comforting. It was like aone-way window. Inside it, she was an observer, buffered fromthe scrutinizing eyes of strangers. She no longer worried thatpeople knew, with a single glance, all the shameful secrets ofher past.
On the streets, Rasheed named various buildings withauthority; this is the American Embassy, he said, that theForeign Ministry. He pointed to cars, said their names andwhere they were made: Soviet Volgas, American Chevrolets,German Opels.
"Which is your favorite?" he askedMariam hesitated, pointed to a Volga, and Rasheed laughedKabul was far more crowded than the little that Mariam hadseen of Herat. There were fewer trees and fewergaris pulled byhorses, but more cars, taller buildings, more traffic lights andmore paved roads. And everywhere Mariam heard the city'speculiar dialect: "Dear" wasjon insteadof jo, "sister"becamehamshira instead ofhamshireh, and so on.
From a street vendor, Rasheed bought her ice cream. It wasthe first time she'd eaten ice cream and Mariam had neverimagined that such tricks could be played on a palate. Shedevoured the entire bowl, the crushed-pistachio topping, the tinyrice noodles at the bottom. She marveled at the bewitchingtexture, the lapping sweetness of it.
They walked on to a place called Kocheh-Morgha, ChickenStreet. It was a narrow, crowded bazaar in a neighborhoodthat Rasheed said was one of Kabul's wealthier ones.
"Around here is where foreign diplomats live, richbusinessmen, members of the royal family-that sort of people.
Not like you and me.""I don't see any chickens," Mariam said.
"That's the one thing you can't find on Chicken Street."Rasheed laughedThe street was lined with shops and little stalls that soldlambskin hats and rainbow-coloredchapans. Rasheed stopped tolook at an engraved silver dagger in one shop, and, in another,at an old rifle that the shopkeeper assured Rasheed was a relicfrom the first war against the British.
"And I'm Moshe Dayan," Rasheed muttered. He half smiled,and it seemed to Mariam that this was a smile meant only forher. A private, married smile.
They strolled past carpet shops, handicraft shops, pastryshops, flower shops, and shops that sold suits for men anddresses for women, and, in them, behind lace curtains, Mariamsaw young girls sewing buttons and ironing collars. From timeto time, Rasheed greeted a shopkeeper he knew, sometimes inFarsi, other times in Pashto. As they shook hands and kissedon the cheek, Mariam stood a few feet away. Rasheed did notwave her over, did not introduce her.
He asked her to wait outside an embroidery shop. "I knowthe owner," he said. "I'll just go in for a minute, saymysalaam. "Mariam waited outside on the crowded sidewalk. She watchedthe cars crawling up Chicken Street, threading through thehorde of hawkers and pedestrians, honking at children anddonkeys who wouldn't move. She watched the bored-lookingmerchants inside their tiny stalls, smoking, or spitting into brassspittoons, their faces emerging from the shadows now and thento peddle textiles and fur-collaredpoosiincoats to passersby.
But it was the women who drew Mariam's eyes the most.
The women in this part of Kabul were a different breed fromthe women in the poorer neighborhoods-like the one where sheand Rasheed lived, where so many of the women covered fully.
These women were-what was the word Rasheed hadused?-"modern." Yes, modern Afghan women married tomodern Afghan men who did not mind that their wives walkedamong strangers with makeup on their faces and nothing ontheir heads. Mariam watched them cantering uninhibited downthe street, sometimes with a man, sometimes alone, sometimeswith rosy-cheeked children who wore shiny shoes and watcheswith leather bands, who walked bicycles with high-risehandlebars and gold-colored spokes-unlike the children inDeh-Mazang, who bore sand-fly scars on their cheeks androlled old bicycle tires with sticks.
These women were all swinging handbags and rustling skirts.
Mariam even spotted one smoking behind the wheel of a car.
Their nails were long, polished pink or orange, their lips red astulips. They walked in high heels, and quickly, as if onperpetually urgent business. They wore dark sunglasses, and,when they breezed by, Mariam caught a whiff of their perfume.
She imagined that they all had university degrees, that theyworked in office buildings, behind desks of their own, wherethey typed and smoked and made important telephone calls toimportant people. These women mystified Mariam. They madeher aware of her own lowliness, her plain looks, her lack ofaspirations, her ignorance of so many things.
Then Rasheed was tapping her on the shoulder and handingher something here.
It was a dark maroon silk shawl with beaded fringes andedges embroidered with gold thread"Do you like it?"Mariam looked up. Rasheed did a touching thing then. Heblinked and averted her gaze.
Mariam thought of Jalil, of the emphatic, jovial way in whichhe'd pushed his jewelry at her, the overpowering cheerfulnessthat left room for no response but meek gratitude. Nana hadbeen right about Mil's gifts. They had been halfhearted tokensof penance, insincere, corrupt gestures meant more for his ownappeasement than hers. This shawl, Mariam saw, was a truegift.
"It's beautiful," she said.
* * *That night, Rasheed visited her room again. But instead ofsmoking in the doorway, he crossed the room and sat besideher where she lay on the bed. The springs creaked as the bedtilted to his side.
There was a moment of hesitation, and then his hand was onher neck, his thick fingers slowly pressing the knobs in theback of it. His thumb slid down, and now it was stroking thehollow above her collarbone, then the flesh beneath it. Mariambegan shivering. His hand crept lower still, lower, his fingernailscatching in the cotton of her blouse.
"I can't," she croaked, looking at his moonlit profile, his thickshoulders and broad chest, the tufts of gray hair protrudingfrom his open collar.
His hand was on her right breast now, squeezing it hardthrough the blouse, and she could hear him breathing deeplythrough the nose.
He slid under the blanket beside her. She could feel his handworking at his belt, at the drawstring of her trousers. Her ownhands clenched the sheets in fistfuls. He rolled on top of her,wriggled and shifted, and she let out a whimper. Mariam closedher eyes, gritted her teeth.
The pain was sudden and astonishing. Her eyes sprang open.
She sucked air through her teeth and bit on the knuckle ofher thumb. She slung her free arm over Rasheed's back andher fingers dug at his shirt.
Rasheed buried his face into her pillow, and Mariam stared,wide-eyed, at the ceiling above his shoulder, shivering, lipspursed, feeling the heat of his quick breaths on her shoulder.
The air between them smelled of tobacco, of the onions andgrilled lamb they had eaten earlier. Now and then, his earrubbed against her cheek, and she knew from the scratchy feelthat he had shaved it.
When it was done, he rolled off her, panting. He dropped hisforearm over his brow. In the dark, she could see the bluehands of his watch. They lay that way for a while, on theirbacks, not looking at each other.
"There is no shame in this, Mariam," he said, slurring a little.
"It's what married people do. It's what the Prophet himself andhis wives did There is no shame."A few moments later, he pushed back the blanket and left theroom, leaving her with the impression of his head on herpillow, leaving her to wait out the pain down below, to look atthe frozen stars in the sky and a cloud that draped the face ofthe moon like a wedding veil.
Chapter 12
Jtvamadan came in the fall that year, 1974. For the first timein her life, Mariam saw how the sighting of the new crescentmoon could transform an entire city, alter its rhythm andmood. She noticed a drowsy hush overtaking Kabul Trafficbecame languid, scant, even quiet. Shops emptied. Restaurantsturned off their lights, closed their doors. Mariam saw nosmokers on the streets, no cups of tea steaming from windowledges. And atifiar, when the sun dipped in the west and thecannon fired from the Shir Darwaza mountain, the city brokeits fast, and so did Mariam, with bread and a date, tasting forthe first time in her fifteen years the sweetness of sharing in acommunal experience.
Except for a handful of days, Rasheed didn't observe the fast.
The few times he did, he came home in a sour mood. Hungermade him curt, irritable, impatient. One night, Mariam was afew minutes late with dinner, and he started eating bread withradishes. Even after Mariam put the rice and the lamb andokraqurma in front of him, he wouldn't touch it. He saidnothing, and went on chewing the bread, his temples working,the vein on his forehead, full and angry. He went on chewingand staring ahead, and when Mariam spoke to him he lookedat her without seeing her face and put another piece of breadinto his mouth.
Mariam was relieved when Ramadan ended.
Back at thekolba, on the first of three days of Eid-ul-Fitrcelebration that followed Ramadan, Jalil would visit Mariam andNana. Dressed in suit and tie, he would come bearing Eidpresents. One year, he gave Mariam a wool scarf. The three ofthem would sit for tea and then Jalil would excuse himself "Offto celebrate Eid with his real family," Nana would say as hecrossed the stream and waved-Mullah Faizullah would cometoo. He would bring Mariam chocolate candy wrapped in foil, abasketful of dyed boiled eggs, cookies. After he was gone,Mariam would climb one of the willows with her treats. Perchedon a high branch, she would eat Mullah Faizullah's chocolatesand drop the foil wrappers until they lay scattered about thetrunk of the tree like silver blossoms. When the chocolate wasgone, she would start in on the cookies, and, with a pencil, shewould draw faces on the eggs he had brought her now. Butthere was little pleasure in this for her. Mariam dreaded Eid,this time of hospitality and ceremony, when families dressed intheir best and visited each other. She would imagine the air inHerat crackling with merriness, and high-spirited, bright-eyedpeople showering each other with endearments and goodwill. Aforlornness would descend on her like a shroud then andwould lift only when Eid had passed.
This year, for the first time, Mariam saw with her eyes theEid of her childhood imaginings.
Rasheed and she took to the streets. Mariam had neverwalked amid such liveliness. Undaunted by the chilly weather,families had flooded the city on their frenetic rounds to visitrelatives. On their own street, Mariam saw Fariba and her sonNoor, who was dressed in a suit. Fariba, wearing a white scarf,walked beside a small-boned, shy-looking man with eyeglasses.
Her older son was there too-Mariam somehow rememberedFariba saying his name, Ahmad, at the tandoor that first time.
He had deep-set, brooding eyes, and his face was morethoughtful, more solemn, than his younger brother's, a face assuggestive of early maturity as his brother's was of lingeringboyishness. Around Ahmad's neck was a glittering allahpendant.
Fariba must have recognized her, walking in burqa besideRasheed. She waved, and called out,"Eidmubarak!"From inside the burqa, Mariam gave her a ghost of a nod.
"So you know that woman, the teacher's wife?" Rasheed saidMariam said she didn't.
"Best you stay away. She's a nosy gossiper, that one. And thehusband fancies himself some kind of educated intellectual Buthe's a mouse. Look at him. Doesn't he look like a mouse?"They went to Shar-e-Nau, where kids romped about in newshirts and beaded, brightly colored vests and compared Eidgifts. Women brandished platters of sweets. Mariam saw festivelanterns hanging from shopwindows, heard music blaring fromloudspeakers. Strangers called out"Eidmubarak" to her as theypassed.
That night they went toChaman, and, standing behindRasheed, Mariam watched fireworks light up the sky, in flashesof green, pink, and yellow. She missed sitting with MullahFaizullah outside thekolba, watching the fireworks explode overHerat in the distance, the sudden bursts of color reflected inher tutor's soft, cataract-riddled eyes. But, mostly, she missedNana. Mariam wished her mother were alive to see this. Toseeher, amid all of it. To see at last that contentment andbeauty were not unattainable things. Even for the likes of them.
* * *They had Eid visitors at the house. They were all men, friendsof Rasheed's. When a knock came, Mariam knew to goupstairs to her room and close the door. She stayed there, asthe men sipped tea downstairs with Rasheed, smoked, chatted.
Rasheed had told Mariam that she was not to come downuntil the visitors had leftMariam didn't mind. In truth, she was even flattered. Rasheedsaw sanctity in what they had together. Her honor, hernamoos,was something worth guarding to him. She felt prized by hisprotectiveness. Treasured and significant.
On the third and last day of Eid, Rasheed went to visit somefriends. Mariam, who'd had a queasy stomach all night, boiledsome water and made herself a cup of green tea sprinkledwith crushed cardamom. In the living room, she took in theaftermath of the previous night's Eid visits: the overturnedcups, the half-chewed pumpkin seeds stashed betweenmattresses, the plates crusted with the outline of last night'smeal. Mariam set about cleaning up the mess, marveling athow energetically lazy men could be.
She didn't mean to go into Rasheed's room. But the cleaningtook her from the living room to the stairs, and then to thehallway upstairs and to his door, and, the next thing she knew,she was in his room for the first time, sitting on his bed,feeling like a trespasser.
She took in the heavy, green drapes, the pairs of polishedshoes lined up neatly along the wall, the closet door, where thegray paint had chipped and showed the wood beneath. Shespotted a pack of cigarettes atop the dresser beside his bed.
She put one between her lips and stood before the small ovalmirror on the wall. She puffed air into the mirror and madeash-tapping motions. She put it back. She could never managethe seamless grace with which Kabuli women smoked. On her,it looked coarse, ridiculous.
Guiltily, she slid open the top drawer of his dresser.
She saw the gun first. It was black, with a wooden grip anda short muzzle. Mariam made sure to memorize which way itwas facing before she picked it up. She turned it over in herhands. It was much heavier than it looked. The grip feltsmooth in her hand, and the muzzle was cold. It wasdisquieting to her that Rasheed owned something whose solepurpose was to kill another person. But surely he kept it fortheir safety. Her safety.
Beneath the gun were several magazines with curling corners.
Mariam opened one. Something inside her dropped. Her mouthgaped of its own will.
On every page were women, beautiful women, who wore noshirts, no trousers, no socks or underpants. They wore nothingat all. They lay in beds amid tumbled sheets and gazed backat Mariam with half-lidded eyes. In most of the pictures, theirlegs were apart, and Mariam had a full view of the dark placebetween. In some, the women were prostrated as if-God forbidthis thought-insujda for prayer. They looked back over theirshoulders with a look of bored contempt.
Mariam quickly put the magazine back where she'd found it.
She felt drugged. Who were these women? How could theyallow themselves to be photographed this way? Her stomachrevolted with distaste. Was this what he did then, those nightsthat he did not visit her room? Had she been adisappointment to him in this particular regard? And whatabout all his talk of honor and propriety, his disapproval of thefemale customers, who, after all, were only showing him theirfeet to get fitted for shoes?A woman's face, he'd said,is herhusband's business only. Surely the women on these pages hadhusbands, some of them must. At the least, they had brothers.
If so, why did Rasheed insist thatshe cover when he thoughtnothing of looking at the private areas of other men's wivesand sisters?
Mariam sat on his bed, embarrassed and confused Shecupped her face with her hands and closed her eyes. Shebreathed and breathed until she felt calmer.
Slowly, an explanation presented itself He was a man, after all,living alone for years before she had moved in. His needsdiffered from hers. For her, all these months later, theircoupling was still an exercise in tolerating pain. His appetite, onthe other hand, was fierce, sometimes bordering on the violent.
The way he pinned her down, his hard squeezes at herbreasts, how furiously his hips worked. He was a man. Allthose years without a woman. Could she fault him for beingthe way God had created him?
Mariam knew that she could never talk to him about this. Itwas unmentionable. But was it unforgivable? She only had tothink of the other man in her life. Jalil, a husband of threeand father of nine at the time, having relations with Nana outof wedlock. Which was worse, Rasheed's magazine or what Jalilhad done? And what entitled her anyway, a villager, aharami,to pass judgment?
Mariam tried the bottom drawer of the dresser.
It was there that she found a picture of the boy, Yunus. Itwas black-and-white. He looked four, maybe five. He waswearing a striped shirt and a bow tie. He was a handsomelittle boy, with a slender nose, brown hair, and dark, slightlysunken eyes. He looked distracted, as though something hadcaught his eye just as the camera had flashed.
Beneath that, Mariam found another photo, alsoblack-and-white, this one slightly more grainy. It was of aseated woman and, behind her, a thinner, younger Rasheed,with black hair. The woman was beautiful. Not as beautiful asthe women in the magazine, perhaps, but beautiful. Certainlymore beautiful than her, Mariam. She had a delicate chin andlong, black hair parted in the center. High cheekbones and agentle forehead. Mariam pictured her own face, her thin lipsand long chin, and felt a flicker of jealousy.
She looked at this photo for a long time. There wassomething vaguely unsettling about the way Rasheed seemed toloom over the woman. His hands on her shoulders. Hissavoring, tight-lipped smile and her unsmiling, sullen face. Theway her body tilted forward subtly, as though she were tryingto wriggle free of his hands.
Mariam put everything back where she'd found it.
Later, as she was doing laundry, she regretted that she hadsneaked around in his room. For what? What thing ofsubstance had she learned about him? That he owned a gun,that he was a man with the needs of a man? And sheshouldn't have stared at the photo of him and his wife for aslong as she had. Her eyes had read meaning into what wasrandom body posture captured in a single moment of time.
What Mariam felt now, as the loaded clotheslines bouncedheavily before her, was sorrow for Rasheed. He too had had ahard life, a life marked by loss and sad turns of fate. Herthoughts returned to his boy Yunus, who had once builtsnowmen in this yard, whose feet had pounded these samestairs. The lake had snatched him from Rasheed, swallowed himup, just as a whale had swallowed the boy's namesake prophetin the Koran. It pained Mariam-it pained her considerably-topicture Rasheed panic-stricken and helpless, pacing the banks ofthe lake and pleading with it to spit his son back onto dryland. And she felt for the first time a kinship with herhusband. She told herself that they would make goodcompanions after all.
Chapter 13.
On the bus ride home from the doctor, the strangest thingwas happening to Mariam. Everywhere she looked, she sawbright colors: on the drab, gray concrete apartments, on thetin-roofed, open-fronted stores, in the muddy water flowing inthe gutters. It was as though a rainbow had melted into hereyes.
Rasheed was drumming his gloved fingers and humming asong. Every time the bus bucked over a pothole and jerkedforward, his hand shot protectively over her belly.
"What about Zalmai?" he said. "It's a good Pashtun name.""What if it's a girl?" Mariam said.
"I think it's a boy. Yes. A boy."A murmur was passing through the bus. Some passengerswere pointing at something and other passengers were leaningacross seats to see.
"Look," said Rasheed, tapping a knuckle on the glass. He wassmiling. "There. See?"On the streets, Mariam saw people stopping in their tracks. Attraffic lights, faces emerged from the windows of cars, turnedupward toward the falling softness. What was it about aseason's first snowfall, Mariam wondered, that was soentrancing? Was it the chance to see something as yetunsoiled, untrodden? To catch the fleeting grace of a newseason, a lovely beginning, before it was trampled andcorrupted?
"If it's a girl," Rasheed said, "and it isn't, but, if itis a girl,then you can choose whatever name you want."* * *Mahiam awoke the next morning to the sound of sawing andhammering- She wrapped a shawl around her and went outinto the snowblown yard. The heavy snowfall of the previousnight had stopped. Now only a scattering of light, swirling flakestickled her cheeks. The air was windless and smelled likeburning coal. Kabul was eerily silent, quilted in white, tendrils ofsmoke snaking up here and there.
She found Rasheed in the toolshed, pounding nails into aplank of wood. When he saw her, he removed a nail from thecorner of his mouth.
"It was going to be a surprise. He'll need a crib. You weren'tsupposed to see until it was done."Mariam wished he wouldn't do that, hitch his hopes to itsbeing a boy. As happy as she was about this pregnancy, hisexpectation weighed on her. Yesterday, Rasheed had gone outand come home with a suede winter coat for a boy, linedinside with soft sheepskin, the sleeves embroidered with fine redand yellow silk thread.
Rasheed lifted a long, narrow board. As he began to saw it inhalf, he said the stairs worried him. "Something will have to bedone about them later, when he's old enough to climb." Thestove worried him too, he said. The knives and forks wouldhave to be stowed somewhere out of reach. "You can't be toocareful Boys are reckless creatures."Mariam pulled the shawl around her against the chill.
* * *The next morning, Rasheed said he wanted to invite hisfriends for dinner to celebrate. All morning, Mariam cleanedlentils and moistened rice. She sliced eggplants forborani, andcooked leeks and ground beef foraushak. She swept the floor,beat the curtains, aired the house, despite the snow that hadstarted up again. She arranged mattresses and cushions alongthe walls of the living room, placed bowls of candy and roastedalmonds on the table.
She was in her room by early evening before the first of themen arrived. She lay in bed as the hoots and laughter andbantering voices downstairs began to mushroom. She couldn'tkeep her hands from drifting to her belly. She thought of whatwas growing there, and happiness rushed in like a gust ofwind blowing a door wide open. Her eyes watered.
Mariam thought of her six-hundred-and-fifty-kilometer bus tripwith Rasheed, from Herat in the west, near the border withIran, to Kabul in the east. They had passed small towns andbig towns, and knots of little villages that kept springing up oneafter another. They had gone over mountains and acrossraw-burned deserts, from one province to the next. And hereshe was now, over those boulders and parched hills, with ahome of her own, a husband of her own, heading toward onefinal, cherished province: Motherhood. How delectable it was tothink ofthis baby,her baby,their baby. How glorious it was to knowthat her love for it already dwarfed anything she had ever feltas a human being, to know that there was no need anylonger for pebble games.
Downstairs, someone was tuning a harmonium. Then theclanging of a hammer tuning a tabla. Someone cleared histhroat. And then there was whistling and clapping and yippingand singing.
Mariam stroked the softness of her belly.No bigger thanafingernail, the doctor had said.
I'm going to be a mother,she thought.
"I'm going to be a mother," she said. Then she was laughingto herself, and saying it over and over, relishing the words.
When Mariam thought of this baby, her heart swelled insideof her. It swelled and swelled until all the loss, all the grief, allthe loneliness and self-abasement of her life washed away. Thiswas why God had brought her here, all the way across thecountry. She knew this now. She remembered a verse fromthe Koran that Mullah Faizullah had taught her:And Allah isthe East and the West, therefore wherever you turn there isAllah's purpose … She laid down her prayer rug anddidnamaz. When she was done, she cupped her hands beforeher face and asked God not to let all this good fortune slipaway from her.
* * *It was Rasheed'S idea to go to thehamam. Mariam had neverbeen to a bathhouse, but he said there was nothing finer thanstepping out and taking that first breath of cold air, to feel theheat rising from the skin.
In the women'shamam, shapes moved about in the steamaround Mariam, a glimpse of a hip here, the contour of ashoulder there. The squeals of young girls, the grunts of oldwomen, and the trickling of bathwater echoed between thewalls as backs were scrubbed and hair soaped. Mariam sat inthe far corner by herself, working on her heels with a pumicestone, insulated by a wall of steam from the passing shapes.
Then there was blood and she was screaming.
The sound of feet now, slapping against the wet cobblestones.
Faces peering at her through the steam. Tongues clucking.
Later that night, in bed, Fariba told her husband that whenshe'd heard the cry and rushed over she'd found Rasheed'swife shriveled into a corner, hugging her knees, a pool of bloodat her feet.
"You could hear the poor girl's teeth rattling, Hakim, she wasshivering so hard."When Mariam had seen her, Fariba said, she had asked in ahigh, supplicating voice,It's normal, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn 'i itnormal?
* * *Another bus ride with Rasheed. Snowing again. Falling thickthis time. It was piling in heaps on sidewalks, on roofs,gathering in patches on the bark of straggly trees. Mariamwatched the merchants plowing snow from their storefronts- Agroup of boys was chasing a black dog. They waved sportivelyat the bus. Mariam looked over to Rasheed. His eyes wereclosed He wasn't humming. Mariam reclined her head andclosed her eyes too. She wanted out of her cold socks, out ofthe damp wool sweater that was prickly against her skin. Shewanted away from this bus.
At the house, Rasheed covered her with a quilt when she layon the couch, but there was a stiff, perfunctory air about thisgesture.
"What kind of answer is that?" he said again. "That's what amullah is supposed to say. You pay a doctor his fee, you wanta better answer than 'God's will.'"Mariam curled up her knees beneath the quilt and said heought to get some rest.
"God's will," he simmered.
He sat in his room smoking cigarettes all day.
Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees,watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside thewindow. She remembered Nana saying once that eachsnowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved womansomewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky,gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silentlyon the people below.
As a reminder of how women like us suffer,she'd said.Howquietly we endure all that falls upon us.
Chapter 14.
The grief kept surprising Mariam. All it took to unleash it washer thinking of the unfinished crib in the toolshed or the suedecoat in Rasheed's closet. The baby came to life then and shecould hear it, could hear its hungry grunts, its gurgles andjabbering- She felt it sniffing at her breasts. The grief washedover her, swept her up, tossed her upside down. Mariam wasdumbfounded that she could miss in such a crippling manner abeing she had never even seen.
Then there were days when the dreariness didn't seem quiteas unrelenting to Mariam. Days when the mere thought ofresuming the old patterns of her life did not seem soexhausting, when it did not take enormous efforts of will to getout of bed, to do her prayers, to do the wash, to make mealsfor Rasheed.
Mariam dreaded going outside. She was envious, suddenly, ofthe neighborhood women and their wealth of children. Somehad seven or eight and didn't understand how fortunate theywere, how blessed that their children had flourished in theirwombs, lived to squirm in their arms and take the milk fromtheir breasts. Children that they had not bled away with soapywater and the bodily filth of strangers down some bathhousedrain. Mariam resented them when she overheard themcomplaining about misbehaving sons and lazy daughters.
A voice inside her head tried to soothe her with well-intendedbut misguided consolation.
You 'll have others,Inshallah.You 're young. Surely you‘ll havemany other chances.
But Mariam's grief wasn't aimless or unspecific. Mariamgrieved forthis baby, this particular child, who had made her sohappy for a while-Some days, she believed that the baby hadbeen an undeserved blessing, that she was being punished forwhat she had done to Nana. Wasn't it true that she might aswell have slipped that noose around her mother's neck herself?
Treacherous daughters did not deserve to be mothers, and thiswas just punishment- She had fitful dreams, ofNma'sjinnsneaking into her room at night, burrowing its claws into herwomb, and stealing her baby. In these dreams, Nana cackledwith delight and vindication.
Other days, Mariam was besieged with anger. It wasRasheed's fault for his premature celebration. For his foolhardyfaith that she was carrying a boy. Naming the baby as he had.
Taking God's will for granted. His fault, for making her go tothe bathhouse. Something there, the steam, the dirty water, thesoap, something there had caused this to happen. No. NotRasheed.She was to blame. She became furious with herself forsleeping in the wrong position, for eating meals that were toospicy, for not eating enough fruit, for drinking too much tea.
It was God's fault, for taunting her as He had. For notgranting her what He had granted so many other women. Fordangling before her, tantalizingly, what He knew would give herthe greatest happiness, then pulling it away.
But it did no good, all this fault laying, all these harangues ofaccusations bouncing in her head. It waskojr, sacrilege, to thinkthese thoughts. Allah was not spiteful. He was not a petty God.
Mullah Faizullah's words whispered in her head:
Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom, and He Whohas power over all things, Who created death and life that Hemay try you.
Ransacked with guilt, Mariam would kneel and pray forforgiveness for these thoughts.
* * *Meanwhile, a change had come over Rasheed ever since theday at the bathhouse. Most nights when he came home, hehardly talked anymore. He ate, smoked, went to bed,sometimes came back in the middle of the night for a briefand, of late, quite rough session of coupling. He was more aptto sulk these days, to fault her cooking, to complain aboutclutter around the yard or point out even minor uncleanlinessin the house. Occasionally, he took her around town onFridays, like he used to, but on the sidewalks he walkedquickly and always a few steps ahead of her, without speaking,unmindful of Mariam who almost had to run to keep up withhim. He wasn't so ready with a laugh on these outingsanymore. He didn't buy her sweets or gifts, didn't stop andname places to her as he used to. Her questions seemed toirritate him.
One night, they were sitting in the living room listening to theradio. Winter was passing. The stiff winds that plastered snowonto the face and made the eyes water had calmed. Silveryfluffs of snow were melting off the branches of tall elms andwould be replaced in a few weeks with stubby, pale greenbuds. Rasheed was shaking his foot absently to the tabla beatof a Hamahang song, his eyes crinkled against cigarette smoke.
"Are you angry with me?" Mariam asked.
Rasheed said nothing. The song ended and the news cameon. A woman's voice reported that President Daoud Khan hadsent yet another group of Soviet consultants back to Moscow,to the expected displeasure of the Kremlin.
"I worry that you are angry with me."Rasheed sighed"Are you?"His eyes shifted to her. "Why would I be angry?""I don't know, but ever since the baby-""Is that the kind of man you take me for, after everythingI've done for you?""No. Of course not.""Then stop pestering me!""I'm sorry.Bebakhsh, Rasheed. I'm sorry."He crushed out his cigarette and lit another. He turned upthe volume on the radio.
"I've been thinking, though," Mariam said, raisingher voice soas to be heard over the music.
Rasheedsighed again, more irritably this time, turned down thevolume once more. He rubbed hisforehead wearily. "Whatnow?""I've been thinking, that maybe we should have a properburial For the baby, I mean. Just us, a few prayers,nothing more."Mariam had been thinking about it for a while. She didn'twant to forget this baby. It didn't seem right, not to mark thisloss in some way that was permanent.
"What for? It's idiotic.""It would make me feel better, I think.""Thm youdo it," he said sharply. "I've already buried one son.
I won't bury another.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm trying to listen."He turned up the volume again, leaned his head back andclosed his eyes.
One sunny morning that week, Mariam picked a spot in theyard and dug a hole.
"In the name of Allah and with Allah, and in the name of themessenger of Allah upon whom be the blessings and peace ofAllah," she said under her breath as her shovel bit into theground. She placed the suede coat that Rasheed had boughtfor the baby in the hole and shoveled dirt over it.
"You make the night to pass into the day and You make theday to pass into the night, and You bring forth the living fromthe dead and You bring forth the dead from the living, andYou give sustenance to whom You please without measure."She patted the dirt with the back of the shovel.She squattedby the mound, closed her eyes.
Give sustenance, Allah.
Give sustenance to me.
Chapter 15.
April1978On April 17,1978, the year Mariam turned nineteen, a mannamed Mir Akbar Khyber was found murdered Two days later,there was a large demonstration in Kabul. Everyone in theneighborhood was in the streets talking about it. Through thewindow, Mariam saw neighbors milling about, chatting excitedly,transistor radios pressed to their ears. She saw Fariba leaningagainst the wall of her house, talking with a woman who wasnew to Deh-Mazang. Fariba was smiling, and her palms werepressed against the swell of her pregnant belly. The otherwoman, whose name escaped Mariam, looked older thanFariba, and her hair had an odd purple tint to it. She washolding a little boy's hand. Mariam knew the boy's name wasTariq, because she had heard this woman on the street callafter him by that name.
Mariam and Rasheed didn't join the neighbors. They listenedin on the radio as some ten thousand people poured into thestreets and marched up and down Kabul's government district.
Rasheed said that Mir Akbar Khyber had been a prominentcommunist, and that his supporters were blaming the murderon President Daoud Khan's government. He didn't look at herwhen he said this. These days, he never did anymore, andMariam wasn't ever sure if she was being spoken to.
"What's a communist?" she asked.
Rasheed snorted, and raised both eyebrows. "You don't knowwhat a communist is? Such a simple thing.
Everyone knows. It's common knowledge. You don't…Bah. Idon't know why I'm surprised." Then he crossed his ankles onthe table and mumbled that it was someone who believed inKarl Marxist.
"Who's Karl Marxist?"Rasheed sighed.
On the radio, a woman's voice was saying that Taraki, theleader of the Khalq branch of the PDPA, the Afghancommunist party, was in the streets giving rousing speeches todemonstrators.
"What I meant was, what do they want?" Mariam asked.
"These communists, what is it that they believe?"Rasheed chortled and shook his head, but Mariam thoughtshe saw uncertainty in the way he crossed his arms, the wayhis eyes shifted. "You know nothing, do you? You're like achild. Your brain is empty. There is no information in it.""I ask because-""Chupko.Shut up."Mariam did.
It wasn't easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bearhis scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like shewas nothing but a house cat. But after four years of marriage,Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate whenshe was afraid And Mariamwas afraid She lived in fear of hisshifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence onsteering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational paththat, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks,and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologiesand sometimes not.
In the four years since the day at the bathhouse, there hadbeen six more cycles of hopes raised then dashed, each loss,each collapse, each trip to the doctor more crushing forMariam than the last. With each disappointment, Rasheed hadgrown more remote and resentful Now nothing she did pleasedhim. She cleaned the house, made sure he always had asupply of clean shirts, cooked him his favorite dishes. Once,disastrously, she even bought makeup and put it on for him.
But when he came home, he took one look at her and wincedwith such distaste that she rushed to the bathroom andwashed it all off, tears of shame mixing with soapy water,rouge, and mascara.
Now Mariam dreaded the sound of him coming home in theevening. The key rattling, the creak of the door- these weresounds that set her heart racing. From her bed, she listened totheclick-clack of his heels, to the muffled shuffling of his feetafter he'd shed his shoes. With her ears, she took inventory ofhis doings: chair legs dragged across the floor, the plaintivesqueak of the cane seat when he sat, the clinking of spoonagainst plate, the flutter of newspaper pages flipped, theslurping of water. And as her heart pounded, her mindwondered what excuse he would use that night to pounce onher. There was always something, some minor thing that wouldinfuriate him, because no matter what she did to please him,no matter how thoroughly she submitted to his wants anddemands, it wasn't enough. She could not give him his sonback. In this most essential way, she had failed him-seven timesshe had failed him-and now she was nothing but a burden tohim. She could see it in the way he looked at her,when helooked at her. She was a burden to him.
"What's going to happen?" she asked him now.
Rasheed shot her a sidelong glance. He made a soundbetween a sigh and a groan, dropped his legs from the table,and turned off the radio. He took it upstairs to his room. Heclosed the door.
* * *On April 27, Mariam's question was answered with cracklingsounds and intense, sudden roars. She ran barefoot down tothe living room and found Rasheed already by the window, inhis undershirt, his hair disheveled, palms pressed to the glass.
Mariam made her way to the window next to him. Overhead,she could see military planes zooming past, heading north andeast. Their deafening shrieks hurt her ears. In the distance,loud booms resonated and sudden plumes of smoke rose tothe sky.
"What's going on, Rasheed?" she said. "What is all this?""God knows," he muttered. He tried the radio and got onlystatic.
"What do we do?"Impatiently, Rasheed said, "We wait."* * *Later in the day, Rasheed was still trying the radio as Mariammade rice with spinach sauce in the kitchen. Mariamremembered a time when she had enjoyed, even lookedforward to, cooking for Rasheed. Now cooking was an exercisein heightened anxiety. Thequrma% were always too salty or toobland for his taste. The rice was judged either too greasy ortoo dry, the bread declared too doughy or too crispy.
Rasheed's faultfinding left her stricken in the kitchen withself-doubt.
When she brought him his plate, the national anthem wasplaying on the radio.
"I madesabzi, " she said.
"Put it down and be quiet."After the music faded, a man's voice came on the radio. Heannounced himself as Air Force Colonel Abdul Qader. Hereported that earlier in the day the rebel Fourth ArmoredDivision had seized the airport and key intersections in the city.
Kabul Radio, the ministries of Communication and the Interior,and the Foreign Ministry building had also been captured.
Kabul was in the hands of the people now, he said proudly.
Rebel MiGs had attacked the Presidential Palace. Tanks hadbroken into the premises, and a fierce battle was under waythere. Daoud's loyalist forces were all but defeated, Abdul Qadersaid in a reassuring tone.
Days later, when the communists began the summaryexecutions of those connected with Daoud Khan's regime, whenrumors began floating about Kabul of eyes gouged and genitalselectrocuted in the Pol-e-Charkhi Prison, Mariam would hear ofthe slaughter that had taken place at the Presidential Palace.
Daoud Khanhadbten killed, but not before the communist rebelshad killed some twenty members of his family, including womenand grandchildren. There would be rumors that he had takenhis own life, that he'd been gunned down in the heat of battle;rumors that he'd been saved for last, made to watch themassacre of his family, then shot.
Rasheed turned up the volume and leaned in closer.
"A revolutionary council of the armed forces has beenestablished, and ourwatan will now be known as theDemocratic Republic of Afghanistan," Abdul Qader said. "Theera of aristocracy, nepotism, and inequality is over,fellowhamwaians. We have ended decades of tyranny. Power isnow in the hands of the masses and freedom-loving people. Aglorious new era in the history of our country is afoot. A newAfghanistan is born. We assure you that you have nothing tofear, fellow Afghans. The new regime will maintain the utmostrespect for principles, both Islamic and democratic. This is atime of rejoicing and celebration."Rasheed turned off the radio.
"So is this good or bad?" Mariam asked.
"Bad for the rich, by the sound of it," Rasheed said. "Maybenot so bad for us."Mariam's thoughts drifted to Jalil. She wondered if thecommunists would go after him, then. Would they jail him? Jailhis sons? Take his businesses and properties from him?
"Is this warm?" Rasheed said, eyeing the rice.
"I just served it from the pot."He grunted, and told her to hand him a plate.
* * *Do"WN the street, as the night lit up in sudden flashes of redand yellow, an exhausted Fariba had propped herself up onher elbows. Her hair was matted with sweat, and droplets ofmoisture teetered on the edge of her upper lip. At her bedside,the elderly midwife, Wajma, watched as Fariba's husband andsons passed around the infant. They were marveling at thebaby's light hair, at her pink cheeks and puckered, rosebudlips, at the slits of jade green eyes moving behind her puffylids. They smiled at each other when they heard her voice forthe first time, a cry that started like the mewl of a cat andexploded into a healthy, full-throated yowl. Noor said her eyeswere like gemstones. Ahmad, who was the most religiousmember of the family, sang theazan in his baby sister's earand blew in her face three times.
"Laila it is, then?" Hakim asked, bouncing his daughter.
"Laila it is," Fariba said, smiling tiredly. "Night Beauty. It'sperfect."* * *Rasheed made a ball of rice with his fingers. He put it in hismouth, chewed once, then twice, before grimacing and spittingit out on thesofrah.
"What's the matter?" Mariam asked, hating the apologetic toneof her voice. She could feel her pulse quickening, her skinshrinking.
"What's the matter?" he mewled, mimicking her. "What's thematter is that you've done it again.""But I boiled it five minutes more than usual.""That's a bold lie.""I swear-"He shook the rice angrily from his fingers and pushed theplate away, spilling sauce and rice on thesojrah. Mariamwatched as he stormed out of the living room, then out of thehouse, slamming the door on his way out.
Mariam kneeled to the ground and tried to pick up the grainsof rice and put them back on the plate, but her hands wereshaking badly, and she had to wait for them to stop. Dreadpressed down on her chest. She tried taking a few deepbreaths. She caught her pale reflection in the darkenedliving-room window and looked away.
Then she heard the front door opening, and Rasheed wasback in the living room.
"Get up," he said. "Come here. Get up."He snatched her hand, opened it, and dropped a handful ofpebbles into it.
"Put these in your mouth." "What?""Put. These. In your mouth.""Stop it, Rasheed, I'm-"His powerful hands clasped her jaw. He shoved two fingersinto her mouth and pried it open, then forced the cold, hardpebbles into it. Mariam struggled against him, mumbling, but hekept pushing the pebbles in, his upper lip curled in a sneer.
"Now chew," he said.
Through the mouthful of grit and pebbles, Mariam mumbled aplea. Tears were leaking out of the corners of her eyes.
"CHEW!" he bellowed. A gust of his smoky breath slammedagainst her face.
Mariam chewed. Something in the back of her mouth cracked.
"Good," Rasheed said. His cheeks were quivering. "Now youknow what your rice tastes like. Now you know what you'vegiven me in this marriage. Bad food, and nothing else."Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood,and the fragments of two broken molars.
Part Two Chapter 16.
Kabul, Spring1987JN ine-year-old Laila rose from bed, as she did mostmornings, hungry for the sight of her friend Tariq. Thismorning, however, she knew there would be no Tariq sighting.
"How long will you be gone?" she'd asked when Tariq hadtold her that his parents were taking him south, to the city ofGhazni, to visit his paternal uncle.
"Thirteen days.""Thirteen days?""It's not so long. You're making a face, Laila.""I am not.""You're not going to cry, are you?""I am not going to cry! Not over you. Not in a thousandyears."She'd kicked at his shin, not his artificial but his real one, andhe'd playfully whacked the back of her head.
Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, Lailahad learned a fundamental truth about time: Like the accordionon which Tariq's father sometimes played old Pashto songs,time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq's absence orpresence-Downstairs, her parents were fighting. Again. Lailaknew the routine: Mammy, ferocious, indomitable, pacing andranting; Babi, sitting, looking sheepish and dazed, noddingobediently, waiting for the storm to pass. Laila closed her doorand changed. But she could still hear them. She could stillhearher Finally, a door slammed. Pounding footsteps. Mammy'sbed creaked loudly. Babi, it seemed, would survive to seeanother day.
"Laila!" he called now. "I'm going to be late for work!""One minute!"Laila put on her shoes and quickly brushed hershoulder-length, blond curls in the mirror. Mammy always toldLaila that she had inherited her hair color-as well as herthick-lashed, turquoise green eyes, her dimpled cheeks, her highcheekbones, and the pout of her lower lip, which Mammyshared-from her great-grandmother, Mammy's grandmother.Shewas a pari,a stunner, Mammy said.Her beauty was the talk ofthe valley. It skipped two generations of women in our family,but it sure didn't bypass you, Laila The valley Mammy referredto was the Panjshir, the Farsi-speaking Tajik region onehundred kilometers northeast of Kabul. Both Mammy and Babi,who were first cousins, had been born and raised in Panjshir;they had moved to Kabul back in 1960 as hopeful, bright-eyednewlyweds when Babi had been admitted to Kabul University.
Laila scrambled downstairs, hoping Mammy wouldn't come outof her room for another round. She found Babi kneeling bythe screen door.
"Did you see this, Laila?"The rip in the screen had been there for weeks. Lailahunkered down beside him. "No. Must be new.""That's what I told Fariba." He looked shaken, reduced, as healways did after Mammy was through with him. "She says it'sbeen letting in bees."Laila's heart went out to him. Babi was a small man, withnarrow shoulders and slim, delicate hands, almost like awoman's. At night, when Laila walked into Babi's room, shealways found the downward profile of his face burrowing into abook, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Sometimes hedidn't even notice that she was there. When he did, hemarked his page, smiled a close-lipped, companionable smile.
Babi knew most of Rumi's and Hafez'sghazals by heart. Hecould speak at length about the struggle between Britain andczarist Russia over Afghanistan. He knew the differencebetween a stalactite and a stalagmite, and could tell you thatthe distance between the earth and the sun was the same asgoing from Kabul to Ghazni one and a half million times. But ifLaila needed the lid of a candy jar forced open, she had to goto Mammy, which felt like a betrayal. Ordinary tools befuddledBabi. On his watch, squeaky door hinges never got oiled.
Ceilings went on leaking after he plugged them. Mold thriveddefiantly in kitchen cabinets. Mammy said that before he leftwith Noor to join the jihad against the Soviets, back in 1980, itwas Ahmad who had dutifully and competently minded thesethings.
"But if you have a book that needs urgent reading," she said,"then Hakim is your man."Still, Laila could not shake the feeling that at one time, beforeAhmad and Noor had gone to war against the Soviets-beforeBabi hadlet them go to war-Mammy too had thought Babi'sbookishness endearing, that, once upon a time, she too hadfound his forgetfulness and ineptitude charming.
"So what is today?" he said now, smiling coyly. "Day five? Oris it six?""What do I care? I don't keep count," Laila lied, shrugging,loving him for remembering- Mammy had no idea that Tariqhad left.
"Well, his flashlight will be going off before you know it," Babisaid, referring to Laila and Tariq's nightly signaling game. Theyhad played it for so long it had become a bedtime ritual, likebrushing teeth.
Babi ran his finger through the rip. "I'll patch this as soon asI get a chance. We'd better go." He raised his voice and calledover his shoulder, "We're going now, Fariba! I'm taking Laila toschool. Don't forget to pick her up!"Outside, as she was climbing on the carrier pack of Babi'sbicycle, Laila spotted a car parked up the street, across fromthe house where the shoemaker, Rasheed, lived with hisreclusive wife. It was a Benz, an unusual car in thisneighborhood, blue with a thick white stripe bisecting the hood,the roof, and the trunk. Laila could make out two men sittinginside, one behind the wheel, the other in the back.
"Who are they?" she said.
"It's not our business," Babi said. "Climb on, you'll be late forclass."Laila remembered another fight, and, that time, Mammy hadstood over Babi and said in a mincing way,That's yourbusiness, isn't it, cousin? To make nothing your business. Evenyour own sons going to war. Howl pleaded with you. Bui youburied your nose in those cursed books and let our sons golike they were a pair of haramis.
Babi pedaled up the street, Laila on the back, her armswrapped around his belly. As they passed the blue Benz, Lailacaught a fleeting glimpse of the man in the backseat: thin,white-haired, dressed in a dark brown suit, with a whitehandkerchief triangle in the breast pocket. The only other thingshe had time to notice was that the car had Herat licenseplates.
They rode the rest of the way in silence, except at the turns,where Babi braked cautiously and said, "Hold on, Laila. Slowingdown. Slowing down. There."* * *In class that day, Laila found it hard to pay attention,between Tariq's absence and her parents' fight. So when theteacher called on her to name the capitals of Romania andCuba, Laila was caught off guard.
The teacher's name was Shanzai, but, behind her back, thestudents called her Khala Rangmaal, Auntie Painter, referring tothe motion she favored when she slapped students-palm, thenback of the hand, back and forth, like a painter working abrush. Khala Rangmaal was a sharp-faced young woman withheavy eyebrows. On the first day of school, she had proudlytold the class that she was the daughter of a poor peasantfrom Khost. She stood straight, and wore her jet-black hairpulled tightly back and tied in a bun so that, when KhalaRangmaal turned around, Laila could see the dark bristles onher neck. Khala Rangmaal did not wear makeup or jewelry.
She did not cover and forbade the female students from doingit. She said women and men were equal in every way andthere was no reason women should cover if men didn't.
She said that the Soviet union was the best nation in theworld, along with Afghanistan. It was kind to its workers, andits people were all equal. Everyone in the Soviet union washappy and friendly, unlike America, where crime made peopleafraid to leave their homes. And everyone in Afghanistan wouldbe happy too, she said, once the antiprogressives, the backwardbandits, were defeated.
"That's why our Soviet comrades came here in 1979. To lendtheir neighbor a hand. To help us defeat these brutes whowant our country to be a backward, primitive nation. And youmust lend your own hand, children. You must report anyonewho might know about these rebels. It's your duty. You mustlisten, then report. Even if it's your parents, your uncles oraunts. Because none of them loves you as much as yourcountry does. Your country comes first, remember! I will beproud of you, and so will your country."On the wall behind Khala Rangmaal's desk was a map of theSoviet union, a map of Afghanistan, and a framed photo ofthe latest communist president, Najibullah, who, Babi said, hadonce been the head of the dreaded KHAD, the Afghan secretpolice. There were other photos too, mainly of young Sovietsoldiers shaking hands with peasants, planting apple saplings,building homes, always smiling genially.
"Well," Khala Rangmaal said now, "have I disturbed yourdaydreaming,Inqilabi Girl?"This was her nickname for Laila, Revolutionary Girl, becauseshe'd been born the night of the April coup of 1978-exceptKhala Rangmaal became angry if anyone in her class used thewordcoup. What had happened, she insisted, was aninqilab, arevolution, an uprising of the working people againstinequality.Jihad was another forbidden word. According to her,there wasn't even a war out there in the provinces, justskirmishes against troublemakers stirred by people she calledforeign provocateurs. And certainly no one,no one, dared repeatin her presence the rising rumors that, after eight years offighting, the Soviets were losing this war. Particularly now thatthe American president, Reagan, had started shipping theMujahideen Stinger Missiles to down the Soviet helicopters, nowthat Muslims from all over the world were joining the cause:
Egyptians, Pakistanis, even wealthy Saudis, who left their millionsbehind and came to Afghanistan to fight the jihad.
"Bucharest. Havana," Laila managed.
"And are those countries our friends or not?""They are,moolim sahib. They are friendly countries."Khala Rangmaal gave a curt nod.
* * *When school let out. Mammy again didn't show up like shewas supposed to. Laila ended up walking home with two ofher classmates, Giti and Hasina.
Giti was a tightly wound, bony little girl who wore her hair intwin ponytails held by elastic bands. She was always scowling,and walking with her books pressed to her chest, like a shield.
Hasina was twelve, three years older than Laila and Giti, buthad failed third grade once and fourth grade twice. What shelacked in smarts Hasina made up for in mischief and a mouththat, Giti said, ran like a sewing machine. It was Hasina whohad come up with the Khala Rangmaal nickname-Today, Hasinawas dispensing advice on how to fend off unattractive suitors.
"Foolproof method, guaranteed to work. I give you my word.""This is stupid. I'm too young to have a suitor!" Giti said.
"You're not too young.""Well, no one's come to ask formy hand.""That's because you have a beard, my dear."Giti's hand shot up to her chin, and she looked with alarm toLaila, who smiled pityingly-Giti was the most humorless personLaila had ever met-and shook her head with reassurance.
"Anyway, you want to know what to do or not, ladies?""Go ahead," Laila said.
"Beans. No less than four cans. On the evening the toothlesslizard comes to ask for your hand. But the timing, ladies, thetiming is everything- You have to suppress the fireworks 'til it'stime to serve him his tea.""I'll remember that," Laila said.
"So will he."Laila could have said then that she didn't need this advicebecause Babi had no intention of giving her away anytimesoon. Though Babi worked at Silo, Kabul's gigantic breadfactory, where he labored amid the heat and the hummingmachinery stoking the massive ovens and mill grains all day, hewas a university-educated man. He'd been a high schoolteacher before the communists fired him-this was shortly afterthe coup of 1978, about a year and a half before the Sovietshad invaded. Babi had made it clear to Laila from ayoung agethat the most important thing in his life, after her safety, washer schooling.
I know you're still young, bull waniyou to understand andlearn this now,he said.Marriage can wait, education cannotYou're a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You can beanything you want, Laila I know this about you. And I alsoknow that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to needyou as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a societyhas no chance of success if its women are uneducated, LailaNo chance.
But Laila didn't tell Hasina that Babi had said these things, orhow glad she was to have a father like him, or how proudshe was of his regard for her, or how determined she was topursue her education just as he had his. For the last twoyears, Laila had received theawal numra certificate, given yearlyto the top-ranked student in each grade.
She said nothing of these things to Hasina, though, whoseown father was an ill-tempered taxi driver who in two or threeyears would almost certainly give her away. Hasina had toldLaila, in one of her infrequent serious moments, that it hadalready been decided that she would marry a first cousin whowas twenty years older than her and owned an auto shop inLahore.I've seen him twice, Hasina had said.Both times he atewith his mouth open.
"Beans, girls," Hasina said. "You remember that. Unless, ofcourse"-here she flashed an impish grin and nudged Laila withan elbow-"it's your young handsome, one-legged prince whocomes knocking- Then…"Laila slapped the elbow away. She would have taken offense ifanyone else had said that about Tariq. But she knew thatHasina wasn't malicious. She mocked-it was what she did-andher mocking spared no one, least of all herself.
"You shouldn't talk that way about people!" Giti said.
"What people is that?""People who've been injured because of war," Giti saidearnestly, oblivious to Hasina's toying.
"I think Mullah Giti here has a crush on Tariq. I knew it! Ha!
But he's already spoken for, don't you know? Isn't he, Laila?""I do not have a crush. On anyone!"They broke off from Laila, and, still arguing this way, turnedin to their street.
Laila walked alone the last three blocks. When she was onher street, she noticed that the blue Benz was still parkedthere, outside Rasheed and Mariam's house. The elderly man inthe brown suit was standing by the hood now, leaning on acane, looking up at the house.
That was when a voice behind Laila said, "Hey. Yellow Hair.
Look here."Laila turned around and was greeted by the barrel of a gun.
Chapter 17.
The gun was red, the trigger guard bright green. Behind thegun loomed Khadim's grinning face. Khadim was eleven, likeTariq. He was thick, tall, and had a severe underbite. Hisfather was a butcher in Deh-Mazang, and, from time to time,Khadim was known to fling bits of calf intestine at passersby.
Sometimes, if Tariq wasn't nearby, Khadim shadowed Laila inthe schoolyard at recess, leering, making little whining noises.
One time, he'd tapped her on the shoulder and said,You 're sovery pretty, Yellow Hair. I want to marry you.
Now he waved the gun. "Don't worry," he said. "This won'tshow. Noton your hair.""Don't you do it! I'm warning you.""What are you going to do?" he said. "Sic your cripple onme? 'Oh, Tariq jan. Oh, won't you come home and save mefrom thebadmashl'"Laila began to backpedal, but Khadim was already pumpingthe trigger. One after another, thin jets of warm water struckLaila's hair, then her palm when she raised it to shield herface.
Now the other boys came out of their hiding, laughing,cackling.
An insult Laila had heard on the street rose to her lips. Shedidn't really understand it-couldn't quite picture the logistics ofit-but the words packed a fierce potency, and she unleashedthem now.
"Your mother eats cock!""At least she's not a loony like yours," Khadim shot back,unruffled "At least my father's not a sissy! And, by the way,why don't you smell your hands?"The other boys took up the chant. "Smell your hands! Smellyour hands!"Laila did, but she knew even before she did, what he'd meantabout it not showing in her hair. She let out a high-pitchedyelp. At this, the boys hooted even harder.
Laila turned around and, howling, ran home.
* * *She drew water from the well, and, in the bathroom, filled abasin, tore off her clothes. She soaped her hair, franticallydigging fingers into her scalp, whimpering with disgust. Sherinsed with a bowl and soaped her hair again. Several times,she thought she might throw up. She kept mewling andshivering, as she rubbed and rubbed the soapy washclothagainst her face and neck until they reddened.
This would have never happened if Tariq had been with her,she thought as she put on a clean shirt and fresh trousers.
Khadim wouldn't have dared. Of course, it wouldn't havehappened if Mammy had shown up like she was supposed toeither. Sometimes Laila wondered why Mammy had evenbothered having her. People, she believed now, shouldn't beallowed to have new children if they'd already given away alltheir love to their old ones. It wasn't fair. A fit of angerclaimed her. Laila went to her room, collapsed on her bed.
When the worst of it had passed, she went across the hallwayto Mammy's door and knocked. When she was younger, Lailaused to sit for hours outside this door. She would tap on itand whisper Mammy's name over and over, like a magic chantmeant to break a spell:Mammy, Mammy, Mammy, Mammy…But Mammy never opened the door. She didn't open it now.
Laila turned the knob and walked in.
* * *Sometimes Mammy had good days. She sprang out of bedbright-eyed and playful. The droopy lower lip stretched upwardin a smile. She bathed. She put on fresh clothes and woremascara. She let Laila brush her hair, which Laila loved doing,and pin earrings through her earlobes. They went shoppingtogether to Mandaii Bazaar. Laila got her to play snakes andladders, and they ate shavings from blocks of dark chocolate,one of the few things they shared a common taste for. Laila'sfavorite part of Mammy's good days was when Babi camehome, when she and Mammy looked up from the board andgrinned at him with brown teeth. A gust of contentment puffedthrough the room then, and Laila caught a momentary glimpseof the tenderness, the romance, that had once bound herparents back when this house had been crowded and noisyand cheerful.
Mammy sometimes baked on her good days and invitedneighborhood women over for tea and pastries. Laila got to lickthe bowls clean, as Mammy set the table with cups andnapkins and the good plates. Later, Laila would take her placeat the living-room table and try to break into the conversation,as the women talked boisterously and drank tea andcomplimented Mammy on her baking. Though there was nevermuch for her to say, Laila liked to sit and listen in because atthese gatherings she was treated to a rare pleasure: She got tohear Mammy speaking affectionately about Babi.
"What a first-rate teacher he was," Mammy said. "Hisstudents loved him. And not only because he wouldn't beatthem with rulers, like other teachers did. They respected him,you see, because he respectedthem. He was marvelous."Mammy loved to tell the story of how she'd proposed to him.
"I was sixteen, he was nineteen. Our families lived next doorto each other in Panjshir. Oh, I had the crush onhim,hamshirasl I used to climb the wall between our houses,and we'd play in his father's orchard. Hakim was always scaredthat we'd get caught and that my father would give him aslapping. 'Your father's going to give me a slapping,' he'dalways say. He was so cautious, so serious, even then. Andthen one day I said to him, I said, 'Cousin, what will it be?
Are you going to ask for my hand or are you going to makeme comekhasiegari to you?' I said it just like that. You shouldhave seen the face on him!"Mammy would slap her palms together as the women, andLaila, laughed.
Listening to Mammy tell these stories, Laila knew that therehad been a time when Mammy always spoke this way aboutBabi. A time when her parents did not sleep in separaterooms. Laila wished she hadn't missed out on those times.
Inevitably, Mammy's proposal story led to matchmakingschemes. When Afghanistan was free from the Soviets and theboys returned home, they would need brides, and so, one byone, the women paraded the neighborhood girls who might ormight not be suitable for Ahmad and Noon Laila always feltexcluded when the talk turned to her brothers, as though thewomen were discussing a beloved film that only she hadn'tseen. She'd been two years old when Ahmad and Noor hadleft Kabul for Panjshir up north, to join Commander AhmadShah Massoud's forces and fight the jihad Laila hardlyremembered anything at all about them. A shiny allah pendantaround Ahmad's neck. A patch of black hairs on one of Noor'sears. And that was it.
"What about Azita?""The rugmaker's daughter?" Mammy said, slapping her cheekwith mock outrage.
"She has a thicker mustache than Hakim!""There's Anahita. We hear she's top in her class atZarghoona.""Have you seen the teeth on that girl? Tombstones. She'shiding a graveyard behind those lips.""How about the Wahidi sisters?""Those two dwarfs? No, no, no. Oh, no. Not for my sons.
Not for my sultans. They deserve better."As the chatter went on, Laila let her mind drift, and, asalways, it found Tariq.
* * *Mammy had pulled the yellowish curtains. In the darkness, theroom had a layered smell about it: sleep, unwashed linen,sweat, dirty socks, perfume, the previous night's leftoverqurma.
Laila waited for her eyes to adjust before she crossed theroom. Even so, her feet became entangled with items ofclothing that littered the floor.
Laila pulled the curtains open. At the foot of the bed was anold metallic folding chair. Laila sat on it and watched theunmoving blanketed mound that was her mother.
The walls of Mammy's room were covered with pictures ofAhmad and Noor. Everywhere Laila looked, two strangerssmiled back. Here was Noor mounting a tricycle. Here wasAhmad doing his prayers, posing beside a sundial Babi and hehad built when he was twelve. And there they were, herbrothers, sitting back to back beneath the old pear tree in theyard.
Beneath Mammy's bed, Laila could see the corner of Ahmad'sshoe box protruding. From time to time, Mammy showed herthe old, crumpled newspaper clippings in it, and pamphlets thatAhmad had managed to collect from insurgent groups andresistance organizations headquartered in Pakistan. One photo,Laila remembered, showed a man in a long white coat handinga lollipop to a legless little boy. The caption below the photoread:Children are the intended victims of Soviet land minecampaign. The article went on to say that the Soviets also likedto hide explosives inside brightly colored toys. If a child pickedit up, the toy exploded, tore off fingers or an entire hand. Thefather could not join the jihad then; he'd have to stay homeand care for his child. In another article in Ahmad's box, ayoung Mujahid was saying that the Soviets had dropped gason his village that burned people's skin and blinded them. Hesaid he had seen his mother and sister running for the stream,coughing up blood.
"Mammy."The mound stirred slightly. It emitted a groan.
"Get up, Mammy. It's three o'clock."Another groan. A hand emerged, like a submarine periscopebreaking surface, and dropped. The mound moved morediscernibly this time. Then the rustle of blankets as layers ofthem shifted over each other. Slowly, in stages, Mammymaterialized: first the slovenly hair, then the white, grimacingface, eyes pinched shut against the light, a hand groping forthe headboard, the sheets sliding down as she pulled herselfup, grunting. Mammy made an effort to look up, flinchedagainst the light, and her head drooped over her chest.
"How was school?" she muttered.
So it would begin. The obligatory questions, the perfunctoryanswers. Both pretending. Unenthusiastic partners, the two ofthem, in this tired old dance.
"School was fine," Laila said.
"Did you learn anything?""The usual.""Did you eat?""I did.""Good."Mammy raised her head again, toward the window. Shewinced and her eyelids fluttered The right side of her face wasred, and the hair on that side had flattened.
"I have a headache.""Should I fetch you some aspirin?"Mammy massaged her temples. "Maybe later. Is your fatherhome?""It's only three.""Oh. Right. You said that already." Mammy yawned. "I wasdreaming just now," she said, her voice only a bit louder thanthe rustle of her nightgown against the sheets. "Just now,before you came in. But I can't remember it now. Does thathappen to you?""It happens to everybody, Mammy.""Strangest thing.""I should tell you that while you were dreaming, a boy shotpiss out of a water gun on my hair.""Shot what? What was that? I'm sony.""Piss. Urine.""That's…that's terrible. God I'm sorry. Poor you. I'll have atalk with him first thing in the morning. Or maybe with hismother. Yes, that would be better, I think.""I haven't told you who it was.""Oh. Well, who was it?""Nevermind.""You're angry.""You were supposed to pick me up.""I was," Mammy croaked. Laila could not tell whether thiswas a question. Mammy began picking at her hair. This wasone of life's great mysteries to Laila, that Mammy's picking hadnot made her bald as an egg. "What about…What's his name,your friend, Tariq? Yes, what about him?""He's been gone for a week.""Oh." Mammy sighed through her nose. "Did you wash?""Yes.""So you're clean, then." Mammy turned her tired gaze to thewindow. "You're clean, and everything is fine."Laila stood up. "I have homework now.""Of course you do. Shut the curtains before you go, my love,"Mammy said, her voice fading. She was already sinking beneaththe sheets.
As Laila reached for the curtains, she saw a car pass by onthe street tailed by a cloud of dust. It was the blue Benz withthe Herat license plate finally leaving. She followed it with hereyes until it vanished around a turn, its back window twinklingin the sun.
"I won't forget tomorrow," Mammy was saying behind her. "Ipromise.""You said that yesterday.""You don't know, Laila.""Know what?" Laila wheeled around to face her mother.
"What don't I know?"Mammy's hand floated up to her chest, tapped there. "Inhere.
What's inhere. " Then it fell flaccid. "You just don't know."
Chapter 18.
A week passed, but there was still no sign of Tariq. Thenanother week came and went.
To fill the time, Laila fixed the screen door that Babi stillhadn't got around to. She took down Babi's books, dusted andalphabetized them. She went to Chicken Street with Hasina,Giti,and Giti's mother, Nila, who was a seamstress and sometimesewing partner of Mammy's. In that week, Laila came tobelieve that of all the hardships a person had to face nonewas more punishing than the simple act of waiting.
Another week passed.
Laila found herself caught in a net of terrible thoughts.
He would never come back. His parents had moved away forgood; the trip to Ghazni had been a ruse. An adult scheme tospare the two of them an upsetting farewell.
A land minehad gotten to him again. The way it did in 1981,when he was five, the last time his parents took him south toGhazni. That was shortly after Laila's third birthday. He'd beenlucky that time, losing only a leg; lucky that he'd survived atall.
Her head rang and rang with these thoughts.
Then one night Laila saw a tiny flashing light from down thestreet. A sound, something between a squeak and a gasp,escaped herlips. She quickly fished her own flashlight fromunder the bed, but it wouldn't work. Laila banged it againsther palm, cursed the dead batteries. But it didn't matter. Hewas back. Laila sat on the edge of her bed, giddy with relief,and watched that beautiful, yellow eye winking on and off.
* * *On her way to Tariq's house the next day, Laila saw Khadimand a group of his friends across the street. Khadim wassquatting, drawing something in the dirt with a stick. When hesaw her, he dropped the stick and wiggled his fingers. He saidsomething and there was a round of chuckles. Laila droppedher head and hurried past.
"What did youdo1?" she exclaimed when Tariq opened thedoor. Only then did she remember that his uncle was abarber.
Tariq ran his hand over his newly shaved scalp and smiled,showing white, slightly uneven teeth.
"Like it?""You look like you're enlisting in the army.""You want to feel?" He lowered his head.
The tiny bristles scratched Laila's palm pleasantly. Tariq wasn'tlike some of the other boys, whose hair concealedcone-shaped skulls and unsightly lumps. Tariq's head wasperfectly curved and lump-free.
When he looked up, Laila saw that his cheeks and brow hadsunburned"What took you so long?" she said"My uncle was sick. Come on. Come inside."He led her down the hallway to the family room. Laila lovedeverything about this house. The shabby old rug in the familyroom, the patchwork quilt on the couch, the ordinary clutter ofTariq's life: his mother's bolts of fabric, her sewing needlesembedded in spools, the old magazines, the accordion case inthe corner waiting to be cracked open.
"Who is it?"It was his mother calling from the kitchen.
"Laila," he answeredHe pulled her a chair. The family room was brightly lit andhad double windows that opened into the yard. On the sillwere empty jars in which Tariq's mother pickled eggplant andmade carrot marmalade.
"You mean ouraroos,our daughter-in-law,"his father announced,entering the room. He was a carpenter, a lean, white-hairedman in his early sixties. He had gaps between his front teeth,and the squinty eyes of someone who had spent most of hislife outdoors. He opened his arms and Laila went into them,greeted by his pleasant and familiar smell of sawdust. Theykissed on the cheek three times.
"You keep calling her that and she'll stop coming here,"Tariq's mother said, passing by them. She was carrying a traywith a large bowl, a serving spoon, and four smaller bowls onit. She set the tray on the table. "Don't mind the old man."She cupped Laila's face. "It's good to see you, my dear. Come,sit down. I brought back some water-soaked fruit with me."The table was bulky and made of a light, unfinishedwood-Tariq's father had built it, as well as the chairs. It wascovered with a moss green vinyl tablecloth with little magentacrescents and stars on it. Most of the living-room wall wastaken up with pictures of Tariq at various ages. In some of thevery early ones, he had two legs.
"I heard your brother was sick," Laila said to Tariq's father,dipping a spoon into her bowl of soaked raisins, pistachios, andapricots.
He was lighting a cigarette. "Yes, but he's fine now,shokr eKhoda, thanks to God.""Heart attack. His second," Tariq's mother said, giving herhusband an admonishing look.
Tariq's father blew smoke and winked at Laila. It struck heragain that Tariq's parents could easily pass for hisgrandparents. His mother hadn't had him until she'd been wellinto her forties.
"How is your father, my dear?" Tariq's mother said, lookingon over her bowl-As long as Laila had known her, Tariq'smother had worn a wig. It was turning a dull purple with age.
It was pulled low on her brow today, and Laila could see thegray hairs of her sideburns.Some days,it rode high on herforehead. But, to Laila, Tariq's mother never looked pitiable init- What Laila saw was the calm, self-assured face beneath thewig, the clever eyes, the pleasant, unhurried manners.
"He's fine," Laila said. "Still at Silo, of course. He's fine.""And your mother?""Good days. Bad ones too. The same-""Yes," Tariq's mother said thoughtfully, lowering her spoon intothe bowl "How hard it must be, how terribly hard, for amother to be away from her sons.""You're staying for lunch?" Tariq said-"You have to," said his mother. "I'm makingshorwa""I don't want to be amozahem. ""Imposing?" Tariq's mother said. "We leave for a couple ofweeks and you turn polite on us?""All right, I'll stay," Laila said, blushing and smiling.
"It's settled, then."The truth was, Laila loved eating meals at Tariq's house asmuch as she disliked eating them at hers. At Tariq's, there wasno eating alone; they always ate as a family. Laila liked theviolet plastic drinking glasses they used and the quarter lemonthat always floated in the water pitcher. She liked how theystarted each meal with a bowl of fresh yogurt, how theysqueezed sour oranges on everything, even their yogurt, andhow they made small, harmless jokes at each other's expense.
Over meals, conversation always flowed. Though Tariq and hisparents were ethnic Pashtuns, they spoke Farsi when Laila wasaround for her benefit, even though Laila more or lessunderstood their native Pashto, having learned it in school. Babisaid that there were tensions between their people-the Tajiks,who were a minority, and Tariq's people, the Pashtuns, whowere the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.Tajiks have alwaysfelt slighted, Babi had said.Pashiun kings ruled this country foralmost two hundred and'fifty years, Laila, and Tajiks for all ofnine months, back in 1929.
And you,Laila had asked,do you feel slighted, Babi?
Babi had wiped his eyeglasses clean with the hem of hisshirt.To me, it's nonsense -and very dangerous nonsense atthat-all this talk of I'm Tajik and you 're Pashiun and he'sHazara and she's Uzbek. We 're all Afghans, and that's all thatshould matter. But when one group rules over the others forso long…Theref s contempt. Rivalry. There is. There always hasbeen.
Maybe so. But Laila never felt it in Tariq's house, where thesematters never even came up. Her time with Tariq's familyalways felt natural to Laila, effortless, uncomplicated bydifferences in tribe or language, or by the personal spites andgrudges that infected the air at her own home.
"How about a game of cards?" Tariq said.
"Yes, go upstairs," his mother said, swiping disapprovingly ather husband's cloud of smoke. "I'll getthe shorwa going."They lay on their stomachs in the middle of Tariq's room andtook turns dealing forpanjpar. Pedaling air with his foot, Tariqtold her about his trip. The peach saplings he had helped hisuncle plant. A garden snake he had captured.
This room was where Laila and Tariq did their homework,where they built playing-card towers and drew ridiculousportraits of each other. If it was raining, they leaned on thewindowsill, drinking warm, fizzy orange Fanta, and watched theswollen rain droplets trickle down the glass.
"All right, here's one," Laila said, shuffling. "What goes aroundthe world but stays in a corner?""Wait." Tariq pushed himself up and swung his artificial leftleg around. Wincing, he lay on his side, leaning on his elbow.
"Hand me that pillow." He placed it under his leg. "There.
That's better."Laila remembered the first time he'd shown her his stump.
She'd been six. With one finger, she had poked the taut.
shiny skin just below his left knee. Her finger had found littlehard lumps there, and Tariq had told her they were spurs ofbone that sometimes grew after an amputation. She'd askedhim if his stump hurt, and he said it got sore at the end ofthe day, when it swelled and didn't fit the prosthesis like it wassupposed to, like a finger in a thimble.And sometimes it getsrubbed Especially when it's hot. Then I get rashes and blisters,but my mother has creams that help. It's not so bad.
Laila had burst into tears.
What are you crying for?He'd strapped his leg back on.Youasked to see it, you giryanok,you crybaby! If I'd known youwere going to bawl, I wouldn 'i have shown you.
"A stamp," he said.
"What?""The riddle. The answer is a stamp. We should go to the zooafter lunch." "You knew that one. Did you?" "Absolutely not.""You're a cheat.""And you're envious." "Of what?""My masculine smarts.""Yourmasculine smarts? Really? Tell me, who always wins atchess?""I let you win." He laughed. They both knew that wasn't true.
"And who failed math? Who do you come to for help withyour math homework even though you're a grade ahead?""I'd be two grades ahead if math didn't bore me.""I suppose geography bores you too.""How did you know? Now, shut up. So are we going to thezoo or not?"Laila smiled. "We're going.""Good.""I missed you."There was a pause. Then Tariq turned to her with ahalf-grinning, half-grimacing look of distaste. "What's thematterwith you?"How many times had she, Hasina, and Giti said those samethree words to each other, Laila wondered, said it withouthesitation, after only two or three days of not seeing eachother? /missed you, Hasina Oh, I missed you too. In Tariq'sgrimace, Laila learned that boys differed from girls in thisregard. They didn't make a show of friendship. They felt nourge, no need, for this sort of talk. Laila imagined it had beenthis way for her brothers too. Boys, Laila came to see, treatedfriendship the way they treated the sun: its existenceundisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.
"I was trying to annoy you," she said.
He gave her a sidelong glance. "It worked."But she thought his grimace softened. And she thought thatmaybe the sunburn on his cheeks deepened momentarily.
* * *Laila didn't mean to tell him. She'd, in fact, decided that tellinghim would be a very bad idea. Someone would get hurt,because Tariq wouldn't be able to let it pass. But when theywere on the street later, heading down to thebus stop, she sawKhadim again, leaning against a wall He was surrounded by hisfriends, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. He grinned at herdefiantly.
And so she told Tariq. The story spilled out of her mouthbefore she could stop it.
"He did what?"She told him again.
He pointed to Khadim. "Him? He's the one? You're sure?""I'm sure."Tariq clenched his teeth and muttered something to himself inPashto that Laila didn't catch. "You wait here," he said, in Farsinow.
"No, Tariq-"He was already crossing the street.
Khadim was the first to see him. His grin faded, and hepushed himself off the wall. He unhooked his thumbs from thebelt loops and made himself more upright, taking on aself-conscious air of menace. The others followed his gaze.
Laila wished she hadn't said anything. What if they bandedtogether? How many of them were there-ten? eleven? twelve?
What if they hurt him?
Then Tariq stopped a few feet from Khadim and his band.
There was a moment of consideration, Laila thought, maybe achange of heart, and, when he bent down, she imagined hewould pretend his shoelace had come undone and walk backto her. Then his hands went to work, and she understood.
The others understood too when Tariq straightened up,standing on one leg. When he began hopping toward Khadim,then charging him, his unstrapped leg raised high over hisshoulder like a sword.
The boys stepped aside in a hurry. They gave him a clearpath to Khadim.
Then it was all dust and fists and kicks and yelps.
Khadim never bothered Laila again.
* * *That night, as most nights, Laila set the dinner table for twoonly. Mammy said she wasn't hungry. On those nights that shewas, she made a point of taking a plate to her room beforeBabi even came home. She was usually asleep or lying awakein bed by the time Laila and Babi sat down to eat.
Babi came out of the bathroom, his hair-peppered white withflour when he'd come home-washed clean now and combedback.
"What are we having, Laila?""Leftoveraush soup.""Sounds good," he said, folding the towel with which he'ddried his hair. "So what are we working on tonight? Addingfractions?""Actually, converting fractions to mixed numbers.""Ah. Right."Every night after dinner, Babi helped Laila with her homeworkand gave her some of his own. This was only to keep Laila astep or two ahead of her class, not because he disapproved ofthe work assigned by the school-the propaganda teachingnotwithstanding. In fact, Babi thought that the one thing thecommunists had done right-or at least intended to-ironically,was in the field of education, the vocation from which they hadfired him. More specifically, the education of women. Thegovernment had sponsored literacy classes for all women.
Almost two-thirds of the students at Kabul University werewomen now, Babi said, women who were studying law,medicine, engineering.
Women have always had it hard in this country, Laila, butthey're probably more free now, under the communists, andhave more rights than they've ever had before,Babi said, alwayslowering his voice, aware of how intolerant Mammy was ofeven remotely positive talk of the communists.But it's true, Babisaid,it'sagood time to be a woman in Afghanistan. And you cantake advantage of that, Laila Of course, women's freedom -here, he shook his head ruefully-is also one of the reasonspeople out there took up arms in the first place.
By "out there," he didn't mean Kabul, which had always beenrelatively liberal and progressive. Here in Kabul, women taughtat the university, ran schools, held office in the government-No, Babi meant the tribal areas, especially the Pashtun regionsin the south or in the east near the Pakistani border, wherewomen were rarely seen on the streets and only then in burqaand accompanied by men. He meant those regions where menwho lived by ancient tribal laws had rebelled against thecommunists and their decrees to liberate women, to abolishforced marriage, to raise the minimum marriage age to sixteenfor girls. There, men saw it as an insult to their centuries-oldtradition, Babi said, to be told by the government-and a godlessone at that-that their daughters had to leave home, attendschool, and work alongside men.
God forbid that should happen!Babi liked to say sarcastically.
Then he would sigh, and say,Laila, my love, the only enemy anAfghan cannot defeat is himselfBabi took his seat at the table, dipped bread into his bowlofaush.
Laila decided that she would tell him about what Tariq haddone to Khadim, over the meal, before they started in onfractions. But she never got the chance. Because, right then,there was a knock at the door, and, on the other side of thedoor, a stranger with news.
Chapter 19.
I need to speak to your parents,dokhiarjan" he said whenLaila opened the door. He was a stocky man, with a sharp,weather-roughened face. He wore a potato-colored coat, and abrown woolpakol on his head"Can I tell them who's here?"Then Babi's hand was on Laila's shoulder, and he gentlypulled her from the door.
"Why don't you go upstairs, Laila. Go on."As she moved toward the steps, Laila heard the visitor say toBabi that he had news from Panjshir. Mammy was in theroom now too. She had one hand clamped over her mouth,and her eyes were skipping from Babi to the man in thepakolLaila peeked from the top of the stairs. She watched thestranger sit down with her parents. He leaned toward them.
Said a few muted words. Then Babi's face was white, andgetting whiter, and he was looking at his hands, and Mammywas screaming, screaming, and tearing at her hair.
* * *The next morning, the day ofthefaiiha, a flock of neighborhoodwomen descended on the house and took charge ofpreparations for thekhatm dinner that would take place afterthe funeral Mammy sat on the couch the whole morning, herfingers working a handkerchief, her face bloated. She wastended to by a pair of sniffling women who took turns pattingMammy's hand gingerly, like she was the rarest and mostfragile doll in the world. Mammy did not seem aware of theirpresence.
Laila kneeled before her mother and took her hands.
"Mammy."Mammy's eyes drifted down. She blinked.
"We'll take care of her, Laila jan," one of the women saidwith an air of self-importance. Laila had been to funerals beforewhere she had seen women like this, women who relished allthings that had to do with death, official consolers who let noone trespass on their self-appointed duties.
"It's under control. You go on now, girl, and do somethingelse. Leave your mother be."Shooed away, Laila felt useless. She bounced from one roomto the next. She puttered around the kitchen for a while. Anuncharacteristically subdued Hasina and her mother came. Sodid Giti and her mother. When Giti saw Laila, she hurriedover, threw her bony arms around her, and gave Laila a verylong, and surprisingly strong, embrace. When she pulled back,tears had pooled in her eyes. "I am so sorry, Laila," she said.
Laila thanked her. The three girls sat outside in the yard untilone of the women assigned them the task of washing glassesand stacking plates on the table.
Babi too kept walking in and out of the house aimlessly,looking, it seemed, for something to do.
"Keep him away from me." That was the only time Mammysaid anything all morning.
Babi ended up sitting alone on a folding chair in the hallway,looking desolate and small Then one of the women told him hewas in the way there. He apologized and disappeared into hisstudy.
* * *That apternoon, the men went to a hall in Karteh-Seh thatBabi had rented for thefatiha. The women came to the house.
Laila took her spot beside Mammy, next to the living-roomentrance where it was customary for the family of the deceasedto sit. Mourners removed their shoes at the door, nodded atacquaintances as they crossed the room, and sat on foldingchairs arranged along the walls. Laila saw Wajma, the elderlymidwife who had delivered her. She saw Tariq's mother too,wearing a black scarf over the wig. She gave Laila a nod anda slow, sad, close-lipped smile.
From a cassette player, a man's nasal voice chanted versesfrom the Koran. In between, the women sighed and shiftedand sniffled. There were muted coughs, murmurs, and,periodically, someone let out a theatrical, sorrow-drenched sob.
Rasheed's wife, Mariam, came in. She was wearing ablackhijab. Strands of her hair strayed from it onto her brow.
She took a seat along the wall across from Laila.
Next to Laila, Mammy kept rocking back and forth. Lailadrew Mammy's hand into her lap and cradled it with both ofhers, but Mammy did not seem to notice.
"Do you want some water, Mammy?" Laila said in her ear.
"Are you thirsty?"But Mammy said nothing. She did nothing but sway back andforth and stare at the rug with a remote, spiritless look.
Now and then, sitting next to Mammy, seeing the drooping,woebegone looks around the room, the magnitude of thedisaster that had struck her family would register with Laila.
The possibilities denied. The hopes dashed.
But the feeling didn't last. It was hard to feel,really feel,Mammy's loss. Hard to summon sorrow, to grieve the deathsof people Laila had never really thought of as alive in the firstplace. Ahmad and Noor had always been like lore to her. Likecharacters in a fable. Kings in a history book.
It was Tariq who was real, flesh and blood. Tariq, who taughther cusswords in Pashto, who liked salted clover leaves, whofrowned and made a low, moaning sound when he chewed,who had a light pink birthmark just beneath his left collarboneshaped like an upside-down mandolin.
So she sat beside Mammy and dutifully mourned Ahmad andNoor, but, in Laila's heart, her true brother was alive and well.
Chapter 20.
The ailments that would hound Mammy for the rest of herdays began. Chest pains and headaches, joint aches and nightsweats, paralyzing pains in her ears, lumps no one else couldfeel. Babi took her to a doctor, who took blood and urine, shotX-rays of Mammy's body, but found no physical illness.
Mammy lay in bed most days. She wore black. She picked ather hair and gnawed on the mole below her lip. WhenMammy was awake, Laila found her staggering through thehouse. She always ended up in Laila's room, as though shewould run into the boys sooner or later if she just keptwalking into the room where they had once slept and fartedand fought with pillows. But all she ran into was their absence.
And Laila. Which, Laila believed, had become one and thesame to Mammy.
The only task Mammy never neglected was her fivedailynamaz prayers. She ended eachnamaz with her head hunglow, hands held before her face, palms up, muttering a prayerfor God to bring victory to the Mujahideen. Laila had toshoulder more and more of the chores. If she didn't tend tothe house, she was apt to find clothes, shoes, open rice bags,cans of beans, and dirty dishes strewn about everywhere. Lailawashed Mammy's dresses and changed her sheets. She coaxedher out of bed for baths and meals. She was the one whoironed Babi's shirts and folded his pants. Increasingly, she wasthe cook.
Sometimes, after she was done with her chores, Laila crawledinto bed next to Mammy. She wrapped her arms around her,laced her fingers with her mother's, buried her face in her hair.
Mammy would stir, murmur something. Inevitably, she wouldstart in on a story about the boys.
One day, as they were lying this way, Mammy said, "Ahmadwas going to be a leader. He had the charisma for it-Peoplethree times his age listened to him with respect, Laila. It wassomething to see. And Noon Oh, my Noor. He was alwaysmaking sketches of buildingsand bridges. He was going to bean architect, you know. He was going to transform Kabul withhis designs. And now they're bothshaheed, my boys, bothmartyrs."Laila lay there and listened, wishing Mammy would noticethatshe, Laila, hadn't becomeshaheed, that she was alive, here,in bed with her, that she had hopes and a future. But Lailaknew that her future was no match for her brothers' past.
They had overshadowed her in life. They would obliterate herin death. Mammy was now the curator of their lives' museumand she, Laila, a mere visitor. A receptacle for their myths.
Theparchment on which Mammy meant to ink their legends.
"The messenger who came with the news, he said that whenthey brought the boys back to camp, Ahmad Shah Massoudpersonally oversaw the burial. He said a prayer for them at thegravesite. That's the kind of brave young men your brotherswere, Laila, that Commander Massoud himself, the Lion ofPanjshir, God bless him, would oversee their burial."Mammy rolled onto her back. Laila shifted, rested her headon Mammy's chest.
"Some days," Mammy said in a hoarse voice, "I listen to thatclock ticking in the hallway. Then I think of all the ticks, all theminutes, all the hours and days and weeks and months andyears waiting for me. All of it without them. And I can'tbreathe then, like someone's stepping on my heart, Laila. I getso weak. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.""I wish there was something I could do," Laila said, meaningit. But it came out sounding broad, perfunctory, like the tokenconsolation of a kind stranger.
"You're a good daughter," Mammy said, after a deep sigh.
"And I haven't been much of a mother to you.""Don't say that.""Oh, it's true. I know it and I'm sorry for it, my love.""Mammy?""Mm."Laila sat up, looking down at Mammy. There were graystrands in Mammy's hair now. And it startled Laila howmuchweight Mammy, who'd always been plump, had lost. Hercheeks had a sallow, drawn look. The blouseshe was wearingdrooped over her shoulders, and there was a gaping spacebetween her neck and the collar. More than once Laila hadseen the wedding bandslide off Mammy's finger.
"I've been meaning to ask you something.""What is it?""You wouldn't…" Laila began.
She'd talked about it to Hasina. At Hasina's suggestion, thetwo of them had emptied the bottle of aspirin in the gutter,hidden the kitchen knives and the sharp kebab skewersbeneath the rug under the couch. Hasina had found a rope inthe yard. When Babi couldn't find his razors, Laila had to tellhim of her fears. He dropped on the edge of the couch, handsbetween his knees. Laila waited for some kind of reassurancefrom him. But all she got was a bewildered, hollow-eyed look.
"You wouldn't…Mammy I worry that-""I thought about it the night we got the news," Mammy said.
"I won't lie to you, I've thought about it since too. But, no.
Don't worry, Laila. I want to see my sons' dream come true. Iwant to see the day the Soviets go home disgraced, the daythe Mujahideen come to Kabul in victory. I want to be therewhen it happens, when Afghanistan is free, so the boys see ittoo. They'll see it through my eyes."Mammy was soon asleep, leaving Laila with dueling emotions:
reassured that Mammy meant to live on, stung thatshe wasnot the reason.She would never leave her mark on Mammy'sheart the way her brothers had, because Mammy's heart waslike a pallid beach where Laila's footprints would forever washaway beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed,swelled and crashed.
Chapter 21.
The driver pulled his taxi over to let pass another long convoyof Soviet jeeps and armored vehicles. Tariq leaned across thefront seat, over the driver, and yelled,"Pajalmia! Pajalmta!"A jeep honked and Tariq whistled back, beaming and wavingcheerfully. "Lovely guns!" he yelled "Fabulous jeeps! Fabulousarmy! Too bad you're losing to a bunch of peasants firingslingshots!"The convoy passed. The driver merged back onto the road"How much farther?" Laila asked"An hour at the most," the driver said. "Barring any moreconvoys or checkpoints."They were taking a day trip, Laila, Babi, and Tariq. Hasinahad wanted to come too, had begged her father, but hewouldn't allow it. The trip was Babi's idea. Though he couldhardly afford it on his salary, he'd hired a driver for the day.
He wouldn't disclose anything to Laila about their destinationexcept to say that, with it, he was contributing to hereducation.
They had been on the road since five in the morning.
Through Laila's window, the landscape shifted from snowcappedpeaks to deserts to canyons and sun-scorched outcroppings ofrocks. Along the way, they passed mud houses with thatchedroofs and fields dotted with bundles of wheat. Pitched out inthe dusty fields, here and there, Laila recognized the black tentsof Koochi nomads. And, frequently, the carcasses of burned-outSoviet tanks and wrecked helicopters. This, she thought, wasAhmad and Noor's Afghanistan. This, here in the provinces,was where the war was being fought, after all. Not in Kabul.
Kabul was largely at peace. Back in Kabul, if not for theoccasional bursts of gunfire, if not for the Soviet soldierssmoking on the sidewalks and the Soviet jeeps always bumpingthrough the streets, war might as well have been a rumor.
It was late morning, after they'd passed two more checkpoints,when they entered a valley. Babi had Laila lean across the seatand pointed to a series of ancient-looking walls of sun-dried redin the distance.
"That's called Shahr-e-Zohak. The Red City. It used to be afortress. It was built some nine hundred years ago to defendthe valley from invaders. Genghis Khan's grandson attacked itin the thirteenth century, but he was killed. It was GenghisKhan himself who then destroyed it.""And that, my young friends, is the story of our country, oneinvader after another," the driver said, flicking cigarette ash outthe window. "Macedonians. Sassanians. Arabs. Mongols. Nowthe Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, andnothing pretty to look at, but still standing. Isn't that thetruth,badar?'
"Indeed it is," said Babi.
* * *Half an hour later,the driver pulled over.
"Come on, you two," Babi said. "Come outside and have alook."They got out of the taxi. Babi pointed "There they are. Look."Tariq gasped. Laila did too. And she knew then that shecould live to be a hundred and she would never again see athing as magnificent.
The two Buddhas were enormous, soaring much higher thanshe had imagined from all the photos she'd seen of them.
Chiseled into a sun-bleached rock cliff, they peered down atthem, as they had nearly two thousand years before, Lailaimagined, at caravans crossing the valley on the Silk Road. Oneither side of them, along the overhanging niche, the cliff waspocked with myriad caves.
"I feel so small," Tariq said.
"You want to climb up?" Babi said.
"Up the statues?" Laila asked. "We can do that?"Babi smiled and held out his hand. "Come on."* * *Theclimb washard for Tariq, who had to hold on to both Lailaand Babi as they inched up a winding, narrow, dimly litstaircase. They saw shadowy caves along the way, and tunnelshoneycombing the cliff every which way.
"Careful where you step," Babi said His voice made a loudecho. "The ground is treacherous."In some parts, the staircase was open to the Buddha's cavity.
"Don't look down, children. Keep looking straight ahead."As they climbed, Babi told them that Bamiyan had once beena thriving Buddhist center until it had fallen under Islamic Arabrule in the ninth century. The sandstone cliffs were home toBuddhist monks who carved caves in them to use as livingquarters and as sanctuary for weary traveling pilgrims. Themonks, Babi said, painted beautiful frescoes along the walls androofs of their caves.
"At one point," he said, "there were five thousand monksliving as hermits in these caves."Tariq was badly out of breath when they reached the top.
Babi was panting too. But his eyes shone with excitement.
"We're standing atop its head," he said, wiping his brow witha handkerchief "There's a niche over here where we can lookout."They inched over to the craggy overhang and, standing sideby side, with Babi in the middle, gazed down on the valley.
"Look at this!" said Laila.
Babi smiled.
The Bamiyan Valley below was carpeted by lush farming fields.
Babi said they were green winter wheat and alfalfa, potatoestoo. The fields were bordered by poplars and crisscrossed bystreams and irrigation ditches, on the banks of which tinyfemale figures squatted and washed clothes. Babi pointed to ricepaddies and barley fields draping the slopes. It was autumn,and Laila could make out people in bright tunics on the roofsof mud brick dwellings laying out the harvest to dry. The mainroad going through the town was poplar-lined too. There weresmall shops and teahouses and street-side barbers on eitherside of it. Beyond the village, beyond the river and the streams,Laila saw foothills, bare and dusty brown, and, beyond those,as beyond everything else in Afghanistan, the snowcappedHindu Kush.
The sky above all of this was an immaculate, spotless blue.
"It's so quiet," Laila breathed. She could see tiny sheep andhorses but couldn't hear their bleating and whinnying.
"It's what I always remember about being up here," Babi said.
"The silence. The peace of it. I wanted you to experience it.
But I also wanted you to see your country's heritage, children,to learn of its rich past. You see, some things I can teach you.
Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well,you just have tosee andfeel.""Look," said Tariq.
They watched a hawk, gliding in circles above the village.
"Did you ever bring Mammy up here?" Laila asked"Oh, many times. Before the boys were born. After too. Yourmother, she used to be adventurous then, and…soalive. Shewas just about the liveliest, happiest person I'd ever met." Hesmiled at the memory. "She had this laugh. I swear it's why Imarried her, Laila, for that laugh. It bulldozed you. You stoodno chance against it."A wave of affection overcame Laila. From then on, she wouldalways remember Babi this way: reminiscing about Mammy,with his elbows on the rock, hands cupping his chin, his hairruffled by the wind, eyes crinkled against the sun.
"I'm going to look at some of those caves," Tariq said.
"Be careful," said Babi.
"I will,Kakajan," Tariq's voice echoed back.
Laila watched a trio of men far below, talking near a cowtethered to a fence. Around them, the trees had started toturn, ochre and orange, scarlet red.
"I miss the boys too, you know," Babi said. His eyes hadwelled up a tad. His chin was trembling. "I may not… Withyour mother, both her joy and sadness are extreme. She can'thide either. She never could. Me, I suppose I'm different. Itend to…But it broke me too, the boys dying. I miss them too.
Not a day passes that I…It's very hard, Laila. So very hard."He squeezed the inner corners of his eyes with his thumb andforefinger. When he tried to talk, his voice broke. He pulled hislips over his teeth and waited. He took a long, deep breath,looked at her. "But I'm glad I have you. Every day, I thankGod for you. Every single day. Sometimes, when your mother'shaving one of her really dark days, I feel like you're all I have,Laila."Laila drew closer to him and rested her cheek up against hischest. He seemed slightly startled-unlike Mammy, he rarelyexpressed his affection physically. He planted a brisk kiss onthe top of her head and hugged her back awkwardly. Theystood this way for a while, looking down on the BamiyanValley.
"As much as I love this land, some days I think about leavingit," Babi said.
"Whereto?""Anyplace where it's easy to forget. Pakistan first, I suppose.
For a year, maybe two. Wait for our paperwork to getprocessed.""And then?""And then, well, itis a big world. Maybe America. Somewherenear the sea. Like California."Babi said the Americans were a generous people. They wouldhelp them with money and food for a while, until they couldget on their feet.
"I would find work, and, in a few years, when we hadenough saved up, we'd open a little Afghan restaurant-Nothingfancy, mind you, just a modest little place, a few tables, somerugs. Maybe hang some pictures of Kabul. We'd give theAmericans a taste of Afghan food. And with your mother'scooking, they'd line up and down the street.
"And you, you would continue going to school, of course. Youknow how I feel about that. That would be our absolute toppriority, to get you a good education, high school then college.
But in your free time,if you wanted to, you could help out,take orders, fill water pitchers, that sort of thing."Babi said they would hold birthday parties at the restaurant,engagement ceremonies, New Year's get-togethers. It would turninto a gathering place for other Afghans who, like them, hadfled the war. And, late at night, after everyone had left and theplace was cleaned up, they would sit for tea amid the emptytables, the three of them, tired but thankful for their goodfortune.
When Babi was done speaking, he grew quiet. They both did.
They knew that Mammy wasn't going anywhere. LeavingAfghanistan had been unthinkable to her while Ahmad andNoor were still alive. Now that they wereshaheed, packing upand running was an even worse affront, a betrayal, a disavowalof the sacrifice her sons had made.
How can you think of it?Laila could hear her saying.Doestheir dying mean nothing to you, cousin? The only solace I findis in knowing that I walk the same ground that soaked uptheir blood. No. Never.
And Babi would never leave without her, Laila knew, eventhough Mammy was no more a wife to him now than shewas a mother to Laila. For Mammy, he would brush aside thisdaydream of his the way he flicked specks of flour from hiscoat when he got home from work. And so they would stay.
They would stay until the war ended And they would stay forwhatever came after war.
Laila remembered Mammy telling Babi once that she hadmarried a man who had no convictions. Mammy didn'tunderstand. She didn't understand that if she looked into amirror, she would find the one unfailing conviction of his lifelooking right back at her.
* * *Later, after they'd eaten a lunch of boiled eggs and potatoeswith bread, Tariq napped beneath a tree on the banks of agurgling stream. He slept with his coat neatly folded into apillow, his hands crossed on his chest. The driver went to thevillage to buy almonds. Babi sat at the foot of a thick-trunkedacacia tree reading a paperback. Laila knew the book; he'dread it to her once. It told the story of an old fishermannamed Santiago who catches an enormous fish. But by thetime he sails his boat to safety, there is nothing left of his prizefish; the sharks have torn it to pieces.
Laila sat on the edge of the stream, dipping her feet into thecool water. Overhead, mosquitoes hummed and cottonwoodseeds danced. A dragonfly whirred nearby. Laila watched itswings catch glints of sunlight as it buzzed from one blade ofgrass to another. They flashed purple, then green, orange.
Across the stream, a group of local Hazara boys were pickingpatties of dried cow dung from the ground and stowing theminto burlap sacks tethered to their backs. Somewhere, a donkeybrayed. A generator sputtered to life.
Laila thought again about Babi's little dream.Somewhere nearthe seaThere was something she hadn't told Babi up there atop theBuddha: that, in one important way, she was glad they couldn'tgo. She would miss Giti and her pinch-faced earnestness, yes,and Hasina too, with her wicked laugh and reckless clowningaround But, mostly, Laila remembered all too well theinescapable drudgery of those four weeks without Tariq whenhe had gone to Ghazni. She remembered all too well how timehad dragged without him, how she had shuffled about feelingwaylaid, out of balance. How could she ever cope with hispermanent absence?
Maybe it was senseless to want to be near a person so badlyhere in a country where bullets had shredded her ownbrothers to pieces. But all Laila had to do was picture Tariqgoing at Khadim with his leg and then nothing in the worldseemed more sensible to her.
* * *Six months later, in April 1988, Babi came home with bignews.
"They signed a treaty!" he said. "In Geneva. It's official!
They're leaving. Within nine months, there won't be any moreSoviets in Afghanistan!"Mammy was sitting up in bed. She shrugged.
"But the communist regime is staying," she said. "Najibullah isthe Soviets' puppet president. He's not going anywhere. No, thewar will go on. This is not the end""Najibullah won't last," said Babi.
"They're leaving, Mammy! They're actually leaving!""You two celebrate if you want to. But I won't rest until theMujahideen hold a victory parade right here in Kabul"And, with that, she lay down again and pulled up the blanket.
Chapter 22.
January1989One cold, overcast day in January 1989, three months beforeLaila turned eleven, she, her parents, and Hasina went towatch one of the last Soviet convoys exit the city. Spectatorshad gathered on both sides of the thoroughfare outside theMilitary Club near Wazir Akbar Khan. They stood in muddysnow and watched the line of tanks, armored trucks, and jeepsas light snow flew across the glare of the passing headlights.
There were heckles and jeers. Afghan soldiers kept people offthe street. Every now and then, they had to fire a warningshot.
Mammy hoisted a photo of Ahmad and Noor high over herhead. It was the one of them sitting back-to-back under thepear tree. There were others like her, women with pictures oftheirshaheed husbands, sons, brothers held high.
Someone tapped Laila and Hasina on the shoulder. It wasTariq.
"Where did you get that thing?" Hasina exclaimed.
"I thought I'd come dressed for the occasion." Tariq said. Hewas wearing an enormous Russian fur hat, complete withearflaps, which he had pulled down.
"How do I look?""Ridiculous," Laila laughed.
"That's the idea.""Your parents came here with you dressed like this?""They're home, actually," he said.
The previous fall, Tariq's uncle in Ghazni had died of a heartattack, and, a few weeks later, Tariq's father had suffered aheart attack of his own, leaving him frail and tired, prone toanxiety and bouts of depression that overtook him for weeks ata time. Laila was glad to see Tariq like this, like his old selfagain. For weeks after his father's illness, Laila had watchedhim moping around, heavy-faced and sullen.
The three of them stole away while Mammy and Babi stoodwatching the Soviets. From a street vendor, Tariq bought themeach a plate of boiled beans topped with thick cilantro chutney.
They ate beneath the awning of a closed rug shop, thenHasina went to find her family.
On the bus ride home, Tariq and Laila sat behind herparents. Mammy was by the window, staring out, clutching thepicture against her chest. Beside her, Babi was impassivelylistening to a man who was arguing that the Soviets might beleaving but that they would send weapons to Najibullah inKabul.
"He's their puppet. They'll keep the war going through him,you can bet on that."Someone in the next aisle voiced his agreement.
Mammy was muttering to herself, long-winded prayers thatrolled on and on until she had no breath left and had to ekeout the last few words in a tiny, high-pitched squeak.
* * *They "went to Cinema Park later that day, Laila and Tariq,and had to settle for a Soviet film that was dubbed, tounintentionally comic effect, in Farsi. There was a merchantship, and a first mate in love with the captain's daughter. Hername was Alyona. Then came a fierce storm, lightning, rain,the heaving sea tossing the ship. One of the frantic sailorsyelled something. An absurdly calm Afghan voice translated:
"My dear sir, would you kindly pass the rope?"At this, Tariq burst out cackling. And, soon, they both were inthe grips of a hopeless attack of laughter. Just when onebecame fatigued, the other would snort, and off they would goon another round. A man sitting two rows up turned aroundand shushed them.
There was a wedding scene near the end. The captain hadrelented and let Alyona marry the first mate. The newlywedswere smiling at each other. Everyone was drinking vodka.
"I'm never getting married," Tariq whispered.
"Me neither," said Laila, but not before a moment of nervoushesitation. She worried that her voice had betrayed herdisappointment at what he had said. Her heart galloping, sheadded, more forcefully this time, "Never.""Weddings are stupid." "All the fuss.""All the money spent." "For what?""For clothes you'll never wear again.""Ha!""If I everdo get married," Tariq said, "they'll have to makeroom for three on the wedding stage. Me, the bride, and theguy holding the gun to my head."The man in the front row gave them another admonishinglook.
On the screen, Alyona and her new husband locked lips.
Watching the kiss, Laila felt strangely conspicuous all at once.
She became intensely aware of her heart thumping, of theblood thudding in her ears, of the shape of Tariq beside her,tightening up, becoming still. The kiss dragged on. It seemed ofutmost urgency to Laila, suddenly, that she not stir or make anoise. She sensed that Tariq was observing her-one eye on thekiss, the other on her-as she was observinghim. Was helistening to the air whooshing in and out of her nose, shewondered, waiting for a subtle faltering, a revealing irregularity,that would betray her thoughts?
And what would it be like to kiss him, to feel the fuzzy hairabove his lip tickling her own lips?
Then Tariq shifted uncomfortably in his seat. In a strainedvoice, he said, "Did you know that if you fling snot in Siberia,it's a green icicle before it hits the ground?"They both laughed, but briefly, nervously, this time. And whenthe film ended and they stepped outside, Laila was relieved tosee that the sky had dimmed, that she wouldn't have to meetTariq's eyes in the bright daylight.

Chapter 23.
April1992Three years passed.
In that time, Tariq's father had a series of strokes. They lefthim with a clumsy left hand and a slight slur to his speech.
When he was agitated, which happened frequently, the slurringgot worse.
Tariq outgrew his leg again and was issued a new leg by theRed Cross, though he had to wait six months for it.
As Hasina had feared, her family took her to Lahore, whereshe was made to marry the cousin who owned the auto shop.
The morning that they took her, Laila and Giti went toHasina's house to say good-bye. Hasina told them that thecousin, her husband-to-be, had already started the process tomove them to Germany, where his brothers lived. Within theyear, she thought, they would be in Frankfurt. They cried thenin a three-way embrace. Giti was inconsolable. The last timeLaila ever saw Hasina, she was being helped by her father intothe crowded backseat of a taxi.
The Soviet union crumbled with astonishing swiftness. Everyfew weeks, it seemed to Laila, Babi was coming home withnews of the latest republic to declare independence. Lithuania.
Estonia. Ukraine. The Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin.
The Republic of Russia was born.
In Kabul, Najibullah changed tactics and tried to portrayhimself as a devout Muslim. "Too little and far too late," saidBabi. "You can't be the chief of KHAD one day and the nextday pray in a mosque with people whose relatives you torturedand killed" Feeling the noose tightening around Kabul,Najibullah tried to reach a settlement with the Mujahideen butthe Mujahideen balked.
From her bed, Mammy said, "Good for them." She kept hervigils for the Mujahideen and waited for her parade. Waited forher sons' enemies to fall.
* * *And, eventually, they did. In April 1992, the year Laila turnedfourteen.
Najibullah surrendered at last and was given sanctuary in theUN compound near Darulaman Palace, south of the city.
The jihad was over. The various communist regimes that hadheld power since the night Laila was born were all defeated.
Mammy's heroes, Ahmad's and Noor's brothers-in-war, hadwon. And now, after more than a decade of sacrificingeverything, of leaving behind their families to live in mountainsand fight for Afghanistan's sovereignty, the Mujahideen werecoming to Kabul, in flesh, blood, and battle-weary bone.
Mammy knew all of their names.
There was Dostum, the flamboyant Uzbek commander, leaderof the Junbish-i-Milli faction, who had a reputation for shiftingallegiances. The intense, surly Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader ofthe Hezb-e-Islami faction, a Pashtun who had studiedengineering and once killed a Maoist student. Rabbani, Tajikleader of the Jamiat-e-Islami faction, who had taught Islam atKabul University in the days of the monarchy. Sayyaf, aPashtun from Paghman with Arab connections, a stout Muslimand leader of the Ittehad-i-Islami faction. Abdul Ali Mazari,leader of the Hizb-e-Wahdat faction, known as Baba Mazariamong his fellow Hazaras, with strong Shi'a ties to Iran.
And, of course, there was Mammy's hero, Rabbani's ally, thebrooding, charismatic Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud,the Lion of Panjshir. Mammy had nailed up a poster of him inher room. Massoud's handsome, thoughtful face, eyebrowcocked and trademarkpakoltilted, would become ubiquitous inKabul. His soulful black eyes would gaze back from billboards,walls, storefront windows, from little flags mounted on theantennas of taxicabs.
For Mammy, this was the day she had longed for. Thisbrought to fruition all those years of waiting.
At last, she could end her vigils, and her sons could rest inpeace.
* * *The day after Najibullah surrendered, Mammy rose from beda new woman. For the first time in the five years since Ahmadand Noor had becomeshaheed,she didn't wear black. She puton a cobalt blue linen dress with white polka dots. She washedthe windows, swept the floor, aired the house, took a longbath. Her voice was shrill with merriment.
"A party is in order," she declared-She sent Laila to inviteneighbors. "Tell them we're having a big lunch tomorrow!"In the kitchen, Mammy stood looking around, hands on herhips, and said, with friendly reproach, "What have you done tomy kitchen, Laila?Wboy. Everything is in a different place."She began moving pots and pans around, theatrically, asthough she were laying claim to them anew, restaking herterritory, now that she was back. Laila stayed out of her way.
It was best. Mammy could be as indomitable in her fits ofeuphoria as in her attacks of rage. With unsettling energy,Mammy set about cooking:aush soup with kidney beans anddried dill,kofia, steaming hotmaniu drenched with fresh yogurtand topped with mint.
"You're plucking your eyebrows," Mammy said, as she wasopening a large burlap sack of rice by the kitchen counter.
"Only a little."Mammy poured rice from the sack into a large black pot ofwater. She rolled up her sleeves and began stirring.
"How is Tariq?""His father's been ill," Laila said "How old is he nowanyway?""I don't know. Sixties, I guess.""I meant Tariq.""Oh. Sixteen.""He's a nice boy. Don't you think?"Laila shrugged.
"Not really a boy anymore, though, is he? Sixteen. Almost aman. Don't you think?""What are you getting at, Mammy?""Nothing," Mammy said, smiling innocently. "Nothing. It's justthat you…Ah, nothing. I'd better not say anyway.""I see you want to," Laila said, irritated by this circuitous,playful accusation.
"Well." Mammy folded her hands on the rim of the pot. Lailaspotted an unnatural, almost rehearsed, quality to the way shesaid "Well" and to this folding of hands. She feared a speechwas coming.
"It was one thing when you were little kids running around.
No harm in that. It was charming- But now. Now. I noticeyou're wearing a bra, Laila."Laila was caught off guard.
"And you could have told me, by the way, about the bra. Ididn't know. I'm disappointed you didn't tell me." Sensing heradvantage, Mammy pressed on.
"Anyway, this isn't about me or the bra. It's about you andTariq. He's a boy, you see, and, as such, what does he careabout reputation? But you? The reputation of a girl, especiallyone as pretty as you, is a delicate thing, Laila. Like a mynahbird in your hands. Slacken your grip and away it flies.""And what about all your wall climbing, the sneaking aroundwith Babi in the orchards?" Laila said, pleased with her quickrecovery.
"We were cousins. And we married. Has this boy asked foryour hand?""He's a friend. Arqfiq. It's not like that between us," Laila said,sounding defensive, and not very convincing. "He's like abrother to me," she added, misguidedly. And she knew, evenbefore a cloud passed over Mammy's face and her featuresdarkened, that she'd made a mistake.
"Thathe is not," Mammy said flatly. "You will not liken thatone-legged carpenter's boy to your brothers. There isno onelike your brothers.""I didn't say he…That's not how I meant it."Mammy sighed through the nose and clenched her teeth.
"Anyway," she resumed, but without the coy lightheadednessof a few moments ago, "what I'm trying to say is that if you'renot careful, people will talk."Laila opened her mouth to say something. It wasn't thatMammy didn't have a point. Laila knew that the days ofinnocent, unhindered frolicking in the streets with Tariq hadpassed. For some time now, Laila had begun to sense a newstrangeness when the two of them were out in public. Anawareness of being looked at, scrutinized, whispered about, thatLaila had never felt before. Andwouldn't have felt even now butfor one fundamental fact: She had fallen for Tariq. Hopelesslyand desperately. When he was near, she couldn't help but beconsumed with the most scandalous thoughts, of his lean, barebody entangled with hers. Lying in bed at night, she picturedhim kissing her belly, wondered at the softness of his lips, atthe feel of his hands on her neck, her chest, her back, andlower still. When she thought of him this way, she wasovertaken with guilt, but also with a peculiar, warm sensationthat spread upward from her belly until it felt as if her facewere glowing pink.
No. Mammy had a point. More than she knew, in fact. Lailasuspected that some, if not most, of the neighbors were alreadygossiping about her and Tariq. Laila had noticed the sly grins,was aware of the whispers in the neighborhood that the two ofthem were a couple. The other day, for instance, she andTariq were walking up the street together when they'd passedRasheed, the shoemaker, with his burqa-clad wife, Mariam, intow. As he'd passed by them, Rasheed had playfully said, "If itisn't Laili and Majnoon," referring to the star-crossed lovers ofNezami's popular twelfth-century romantic poem-a Farsi versionofRomeo and Juliet,Babi said, though he added thatNezami hadwritten his tale of ill-fated lovers four centuries beforeShakespeare.
Mammy had a point.
What rankled Laila was that Mammy hadn't earned the rightto make it. It would have been one thing if Babi had raisedthis issue. But Mammy? All those years of aloofness, of coopingherself up and not caring where Laila went and whom shesaw and what she thought…It was unfair. Laila felt like shewas no better than these pots and pans, something that couldgo neglected, then laid claim to, at will, whenever the moodstruck.
But this was a big day, an important day, for all of them. Itwould be petty to spoil it over this. In the spirit of things, Lailalet it pass.
"I get your point," she said.
"Good!" Mammy said. "That's resolved, then. Now, where isHakim? Where, oh where, is that sweet little husband ofmine?"* * *It was a dazzling, cloudless day, perfect for a party. The mensat on rickety folding chairs in the yard. They drank tea andsmoked and talked in loud bantering voices about theMujahideen's plan. From Babi, Laila had learned the outline ofit: Afghanistan was now called the Islamic State of Afghanistan.
An Islamic Jihad Council, formed in Peshawar by several of theMujahideen factions, would oversee things for two months, ledby Sibghatullah Mojadidi. This would be followed then by aleadership council led by Rabbani, who would take over forfour months. During those six months, aloyajirga would be held,a grand council of leaders and elders, who would form aninterim government to hold power for two years, leading up todemocratic elections.
One of the men was fanning skewers of lamb sizzling over amakeshift grill Babi and Tariq's father were playing a game ofchess in the shade of the old pear tree. Their faces werescrunched up in concentration. Tariq was sitting at the boardtoo, in turns watching the match, then listening in on thepolitical chat at the adjacent table.
The women gathered in the living room, the hallway, and thekitchen. They chatted as they hoisted their babies and expertlydodged, with minute shifts of their hips, the children tearingafter each other around the house. An Ustad Sarahangghazalblared from a cassette player.
Laila was in the kitchen, making carafes ofdogh with Giti. Gitiwas no longer as shy, or as serious, as before. For severalmonths now, the perpetual severe scowl had cleared from herbrow. She laughed openly these days, more frequently, and-itstruck Laila-a bit flirtatiously. She had done away with the drabponytails, let her hair grow, and streaked it with red highlights.
Laila learned eventually that the impetus for this transformationwas an eighteen-year-old boy whose attention Giti had caught.
His name was Sabir, and he was a goalkeeper on Giti's olderbrother's soccer team.
"Oh, he has the most handsome smile, and this thick, thickblack hair!" Giti had told Laila. No one knew about theirattraction, of course. Giti had secretly met him twice for tea,fifteen minutes each time, at a small teahouse on the other sideof town, in Taimani.
"He's going to ask for my hand, Laila! Maybe as early as thissummer. Can you believe it? I swear I can't stop thinkingabout him.""What about school?" Laila had asked. Giti had tilted her headand given her aWe both know better look.
By the time we're twenty,Hasina used to say,Giti and I, we'llhave pushed out four, five kids each Bui you, Laila, you'1Imake m two dummies proud. You 're going to be somebody.
I know one day I'll pick up a newspaper and find your pictureon the frontpage.
Giti was beside Laila now, chopping cucumbers, with adreamy, far-off look on her face.
Mammy was nearby, in her brilliant summer dress, peelingboiled eggs with Wajma, the midwife, and Tariq's mother.
"I'm going to present Commander Massoud with a picture ofAhmad and Noor," Mammy was saying to Wajma as Wajmanodded and tried to look interested and sincere.
"He personally oversaw the burial. He said a prayer at theirgrave. It'll be a token of thanks for his decency." Mammycracked another boiled egg. "I hear he's a reflective, honorableman. I think he would appreciate it."All around them, women bolted in and out of the kitchen,carried out bowls ofqurma, platters ofmasiawa, loaves of bread,and arranged it all onthesofrah spread on the living-room floor.
Every once in a while, Tariq sauntered in. He picked at this,nibbled on that.
"No men allowed," said Giti.
"Out, out, out," cried Wajma.
Tariq smiled at the women's good-humored shooing. Heseemed to take pleasure in not being welcome here, in infectingthis female atmosphere with his half-grinning, masculineirreverence.
Laila did her best not to look at him, not to give thesewomen any more gossip fodder than they already had So shekept her eyes down and said nothing to him, but sheremembered a dream she'd had a few nights before, of hisface and hers, together in a mirror, beneath a soft, green veil.
And grains of rice, dropping from his hair, bouncing off theglass with alink.
Tariq reached to sample a morsel of veal cooked withpotatoes.
"Ho bacha!"Giti slapped the back of his hand. Tariq stole itanyway and laughed.
He stood almost a foot taller than Laila now. He shaved. Hisface was leaner, more angular. His shoulders had broadened.
Tariq liked to wear pleated trousers, black shiny loafers, andshort-sleeve shirts that showed off his newly musculararms-compliments of an old, rusty set of barbells that he lifteddaily in his yard. His face had lately adopted an expression ofplayful contentiousness. He had taken to a self-consciouscocking of his head when he spoke, slightly to the side, and toarching one eyebrow when he laughed. He let his hair growand had fallen into the habit of tossing the floppy locks oftenand unnecessarily. The corrupt half grin was a new thing too.
The last time Tariq was shooed out of the kitchen, his mothercaught Laila stealing a glance at him. Laila's heart jumped, andher eyes fluttered guiltily. She quickly occupied herself withtossing the chopped cucumber into the pitcher of salted,watered-down yogurt. But she could sense Tariq's motherwatching, her knowing, approving half smile.
The men filled their plates and glasses and took their meals tothe yard. Once they had taken their share, the women andchildren settled on the floor around thesofrah and ate.
It was afterfat sofrah was cleared and the plates were stackedin the kitchen, when the frenzy of tea making andremembering who took green and who black started, that Tariqmotioned with his head and slipped out the door.
Laila waited five minutes, then followed.
She found him three houses down the street, leaning againstthe wall at the entrance of a narrow-mouthed alley betweentwo adjacent houses. He was humming an old Pashto song, byUstad Awal Mir:
Da ze ma ziba waian, da ze ma dada waian. This is ourbeautiful land, this is our beloved land.
And he was smoking, another new habit, which he'd pickedup from the guys Laila spotted him hanging around with thesedays. Laila couldn't stand them, these new friends of Tariq's.
They all dressed the same way, pleated trousers, and tightshirts that accentuated their arms and chest. They all wore toomuch cologne, and they all smoked. They strutted around theneighborhood in groups, joking, laughing loudly, sometimes evencalling after girls, with identical stupid, self-satisfied grins ontheir faces. One of Tariq's friends, on the basis of the mostpassing of resemblances to Sylvester Stallone, insisted he becalled Rambo.
"Your mother would kill you if she knew about yoursmoking," Laila said, looking one way, then the other, beforeslipping into the alley.
"But she doesn't," he said. He moved aside to make room.
"That could change.""Who is going to tell? You?"Laila tapped her foot. "Tell your secret to the wind, but don'tblame it for telling the trees."Tariq smiled, the one eyebrow arched. "Who said that?""Khalil Gibran.""You're a show-off.""Give me a cigarette."He shook his head no and crossed his arms. This was a newentry in his repertoire of poses: back to the wall, arms crossed,cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his good legcasually bent.
"Why not?""Bad for you," he said.
"And it's not bad for you?""I do it for the girls.""What girls?"He smirked. "They think it's sexy.""It's not.""No?""I assure you.""Not sexy?""You lookkhila, like a half-wit.""That hurts," he said"What girls anyway?""You're jealous.""I'm indifferently curious.""You can't be both." He took another drag and squintedthrough the smoke. "I'll bet they're talking about us now."In Laila's head, Mammy's voice rang out.Like a mynah bird inyour hands. Slacken your grip and away it flies. Guilt bore itsteeth into her. Then Laila shut off Mammy's voice. Instead, shesavored the way Tariq had saidus. How thrilling, howconspiratorial, it sounded coming from him. And how reassuringto hear him say it like that-casually, naturally.Us. Itacknowledged their connection, crystallized it.
"And what are they saying?""That we're canoeing down the River of Sin," he said. "Eatinga slice of Impiety Cake.""Riding the Rickshaw of Wickedness?" Laila chimed in.
"Making SacrilegeQurma."They both laughed. Then Tariq remarked that her hair wasgetting longer. "It's nice," he said Laila hoped she wasn'tblushing- "You changed the subject.""From what?""The empty-headed girls who think you're sexy.""You know.""Know what?""That I only have eyes for you."Laila swooned inside. She tried to read his face but was metby a look that was indecipherable: the cheerful, cretinous grinat odds with the narrow, half-desperate look in his eyes. Aclever look, calculated to fall precisely at the midpoint betweenmockery and sincerity.
Tariq crushed his cigarette with the heel of his good foot. "Sowhat do you think about all this?""The party?""Who's the half-wit now?I meant the Mujahideen, Laila. Theircoming to Kabul."Oh.
She started to tell him something Babi had said, about thetroublesome marriage of guns and ego, when she heard acommotion coming from the house. Loud voices. Screaming.
Laila took off running. Tariq hobbled behind her.
There was a melee in the yard. In the middle of it were twosnarling men, rolling on the ground, a knife between them.
Laila recognized one of them as a man from the table whohad been discussing politics earlier. The other was the manwho had been fanning the kebab skewers. Several men weretrying to pull them apart. Babi wasn't among them. He stoodby the wall, at a safe distance from the fight, with Tariq'sfather, who was crying.
From the excited voices around her, Laila caught snippets thatshe put together: The fellow at the politics table, a Pashtun,had called Ahmad Shah Massoud a traitor for "making a deal"with the Soviets in the 1980s. The kebab man, a Tajik, hadtaken offense and demanded a retraction. The Pashtun hadrefused. The Tajik had said that if not for Massoud, the otherman's sister would still be "giving it" to Soviet soldiers. Theyhad come to blows. One of them had then brandished a knife;there was disagreement as to who.
With horror, Laila saw that Tariq had thrown himself into thescuffle. She also saw that some of the peacemakers were nowthrowing punches of their own. She thought she spotted asecond knife.
Later that evening, Laila thought of how the melee hadtoppled over, with men falling on top of one another, amidyelps and cries and shouts and flying punches, and, in themiddle of it, a grimacing Tariq, his hair disheveled, his leg comeundone, trying to crawl out.
* * *It was dizzyinghow quickly everything unraveled.
The leadership council was formed prematurely. It electedRabbani president. The other factions criednepotism. Massoudcalled for peace and patience.
Hekmatyar, who had been excluded, was incensed. TheHazaras, with their long history of being oppressed andneglected, seethed.
Insults were hurled. Fingers pointed. Accusations flew. Meetingswere angrily called off and doors slammed. The city held itsbreath. In the mountains, loaded magazines snapped intoKalashnikovs.
The Mujahideen, armed to the teeth but now lacking acommon enemy, had found the enemy in each other.
Kabul's day of reckoning had come at last.
And when the rockets began to rain down on Kabul, peopleran for cover. Mammy did too, literally. She changed into blackagain, went to her room, shut the curtains, and pulled theblanket over her head.

Chapter 24.
It's the whistling," Laila said to Tariq, "the damn whistling, Ihate more than anything" Tariq nodded knowingly.
It wasn't so much the whistling itself, Laila thought later, butthe seconds between the start of it and impact. The brief andinterminable time of feeling suspended. The not knowing. Thewaiting. Like a defendant about to hear the verdict.
Often it happened at dinner, when she and Babi were at thetable. When it started, their heads snapped up. They listened tothe whistling, forks in midair, unchewed food in their mouths.
Laila saw the reflection of their half-lit faces in the pitch-blackwindow, their shadows unmoving on the wall. The whistling.
Then the blast, blissfully elsewhere, followed by an expulsion ofbreath and the knowledge that they had been spared for nowwhile somewhere else, amid cries and choking clouds of smoke,there was a scrambling, a barehanded frenzy of digging, ofpulling from the debris, what remained of a sister, a brother, agrandchild.
But the flip side of being spared was the agony of wonderingwho hadn't. After every rocket blast, Laila raced to the street,stammering a prayer, certain that, this time, surely this time, itwas Tariq they would find buried beneath the rubble andsmoke.
At night, Laila lay in bed and watched the sudden whiteflashes reflected in her window. She listened to the rattling ofautomatic gunfire and counted the rockets whining overhead asthe house shook and flakes of plaster rained down on herfrom the ceiling. Some nights, when the light of rocket fire wasso bright a person could read a book by it, sleep never came.
And, if it did, Laila's dreams were suffused with fire anddetached limbs and the moaning of the wounded.
Morning brought no relief. The muezzin's call fornamaz rangout, and the Mujahideen set down their guns, faced west, andprayed. Then the rugs were folded, the guns loaded, and themountains fired on Kabul, and Kabul fired back at themountains, as Laila and the rest of the city watched as helplessas old Santiago watching the sharks take bites out of his prizefish.
* * *Everywhere Laila "went, she saw Massoud's men. She sawthem roam the streets and every few hundred yards stop carsfor questioning. They sat and smoked atop tanks, dressed intheir fatigues and ubiquitouspakols.They peeked at passersbyfrom behind stacked sandbags at intersections.
Not that Laila went out much anymore. And, when she did,she was always accompanied by Tariq, who seemed to relishthis chivalric duty.
"I bought a gun," he said one day. They were sitting outside,on the ground beneath the pear tree in Laila's yard. Heshowed her. He said it was a semiautomatic, a Beretta. ToLaila, it merely looked black and deadly.
"I don't like it," she said. "Guns scare me."Tariq turned the magazine over in his hand"They found three bodies in a house in Karteh-Seh last week,"he said. "Did you hear? Sisters. All three raped Their throatsslashed. Someone had bitten the rings off their fingers. Youcould tell, they had teeth marks-""I don't want to hear this.""I don't mean to upset you," Tariq said "But I just…Ifeelbetter carrying this."He was her lifeline to the streets now. He heard the word ofmouth and passed it on to her. Tariq was the one who toldher, for instance, that militiamen stationed in the mountainssharpened their marksmanship-and settled wagers over saidmarksmanship-by shooting civilians down below, men, women,children, chosen at random. He told her that they fired rocketsat cars but, for some reason, left taxis alone-which explained toLaila the recent rash of people spraying their cars yellow.
Tariq explained to her the treacherous, shifting boundarieswithin Kabul. Laila learned from him, for instance, that thisroad, up to the second acacia tree on the left, belonged to onewarlord; that the next four blocks, ending with the bakery shopnext to the demolished pharmacy, was another warlord's sector;and that if she crossed that street and walked half a mile west,she would find herself in the territory of yet another warlordand, therefore, fair game for sniper fire. And this was whatMammy's heroes were called now. Warlords. Laila heard themcallediofangdar too. Riflemen. Others still called themMujahideen, but, when they did, they made a face-a sneering,distasteful face-the word reeking of deep aversion and deepscorn. Like an insult.
Tariq snapped the magazine back into his handgun. "Doyouhave it in you?" Laila said."To what?""To use this thing. To kill with it."Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then hesaid a thing both lovely and terrible. "For you," he said. "I'dkill with it for you, Laila."He slid closer to her and their hands brushed, once, thenagain. When Tariq's fingers tentatively began to slip into hers,Laila let them. And when suddenly he leaned over and pressedhis lips to hers, she let him again.
At that moment, all of Mammy's talk of reputations andmynah birds sounded immaterial to Laila. Absurd, even. In themidst of all this killing and looting, all this ugliness, it was aharmless thing to sit here beneath a tree and kiss Tariq. Asmall thing. An easily forgivable indulgence. So she let him kissher, and when he pulled back she leaned in and kissedhim,heart pounding in her throat, her face tingling, a fire burningin the pit of her belly.
* * *In June of that yeah, 1992, there was heavy fighting in WestKabul between the Pashtun forces of the warlord Sayyaf andthe Hazaras of the Wahdat faction. The shelling knocked downpower lines, pulverized entire blocks of shops and homes. Lailaheard that Pashtun militiamen were attacking Hazarahouseholds, breaking in and shooting entire families, executionstyle, and that Hazaras were retaliating by abducting Pashtuncivilians, raping Pashtun girls, shelling Pashtun neighborhoods,and killing indiscriminately. Every day, bodies were found tiedto trees, sometimes burned beyond recognition. Often, they'dbeen shot in the head, had had their eyes gouged out, theirtongues cut out.
Babi tried again to convince Mammy to leave Kabul.
"They'll work it out," Mammy said. "This fighting is temporary.
They'll sit down and figure something out.""Fariba, all these peopleknow is war," said Babi. "They learnedto walk with a milk bottle in one hand and a gun in theother.""Whozrtyou to say?" Mammy shot back. "Did you fight jihad?
Did you abandon everything you had and risk your life? If notfor the Mujahideen, we'd still be the Soviets' servants,remember. And now you'd have us betray them!""We aren't the ones doing the betraying, Fariba.""You go, then. Take your daughter and run away. Send me apostcard. But peace is coming, and I, for one, am going towait for it."The streets became so unsafe that Babi did an unthinkablething: He had Laila drop out of school.
He took over the teaching duties himself. Laila went into hisstudy every day after sundown, and, as Hekmatyar launchedhis rockets at Massoud from the southern outskirts of the city,Babi and she discussedtheghazals of Hafez and the works ofthe beloved Afghan poet Ustad Khalilullah Khalili. Babi taughther to derive the quadratic equation, showed her how to factorpolynomials and plot parametric curves. When he was teaching,Babi was transformed. In his element, amid his books, helooked taller to Laila. His voice seemed to rise from a calmer,deeper place, and he didn't blink nearly as much. Laila picturedhim as he must have been once, erasing his blackboard withgraceful swipes, looking over a student's shoulder, fatherly andattentive.
But it wasn't easy to pay attention. Laila kept gettingdistracted.
"What is the area of a pyramid?" Babi would ask, and allLaila could think of was the fullness of Tariq's lips, the heat ofhis breath on her mouth, her own reflection in his hazel eyes.
She'd kissed him twice more since the time beneath the tree,longer, more passionately, and, she thought, less clumsily. Bothtimes, she'd met him secretly in the dim alley where he'dsmoked a cigarette the day of Mammy's lunch party. Thesecond time, she'd let him touch her breast.
"Laila?""Yes, Babi.""Pyramid. Area. Where are you?""Sorry, Babi. I was, uh…Let's see. Pyramid. Pyramid. One-thirdthe area of the base times the height."Babi nodded uncertainly, his gaze lingering on her, and Lailathought of Tariq's hands, squeezing her breast, sliding down thesmall of her back, as the two of them kissed and kissed.
* * *One daY that same month of June, Giti was walking homefrom school with two classmates. Only three blocks from Giti'shouse, a stray rocket struck the girls. Later that terrible day,Laila learned that Nila, Giti's mother, had run up and downthe street where Giti was killed, collecting pieces of herdaughter's flesh in an apron, screeching hysterically. Giti'sdecomposing right foot, still in its nylon sock and purplesneaker, would be found on a rooftop two weeks later.
AtGiti'sfaiiha, the day after the killings, Laila sat stunned in aroomful of weeping women. This was the first time thatsomeone whom Laila had known, been close to, loved, haddied. She couldn't get around the unfathomable reality that Gitiwasn't alive anymore. Giti, with whom Laila had exchangedsecret notes in class, whose fingernails she had polished, whosechin hair she had plucked with tweezers. Giti, who was goingto marry Sabir the goalkeeper. Giti was dead.Dead. Blown topieces. At last, Laila began to weep for her friend. And all thetears that she hadn't been able to shed at her brothers' funeralcame pouring down.
Chapter 25.
Laila could hardly move, as though cement had solidified inevery one of her joints. There was a conversation going on,and Laila knew that she was at one end of it, but she feltremoved from it, as though she were merely eavesdropping. AsTariq talked, Laila pictured her life as a rotted rope, snapping,unraveling, the fibers detaching, falling away.
It was a hot, muggy afternoon that August of 1992, and theywere in the living room of Laila's house. Mammy had had astomachache all day, and, minutes before, despite the rocketsthat Hekmatyar was launching from the south, Babi had takenher to see a doctor. And here was Tariq now, seated besideLaila on the couch, looking at the ground, hands between hisknees.
Saying that he was leaving.
Not the neighborhood. Not Kabul. But Afghanistan altogether.
Leaving.
Laila was struck blind.
"Where? Where will you go?""Pakistan first. Peshawar. Then I don't know. MaybeHindustan. Iran.""How long?""I don't know.""I mean, how long have you known?""A few days. I was going to tell you, Laila, I swear, but Icouldn't bring myself to. I knewhow upset you'd be.""When?""Tomorrow.""Tomorrow?""Laila, look at me.""Tomorrow.""It'smy father. His heartcan't take it anymore, all this fightingand killing."Laila buried her face in her hands, a bubble of dread fillingher chest.
She should have seen this coming, she thought. Almosteveryone she knew had packed their things and left. Theneighborhood had been all but drained of familiar faces, andnow, only four months after fighting had broken out betweenthe Mujahideen factions, Laila hardly recognized anybody onthe streets anymore. Hasina's family had fled in May, off toTehran. Wajma and her clan had gone to Islamabad that samemonth. Giti's parents and her siblings left in June, shortly afterGiti was killed. Laila didn't know where they had gone-sheheard a rumor that they had headed for Mashad, in Iran.
After people left, their homes sat unoccupied for a few days,then either militiamen took them or strangers moved in.
Everyone was leaving. And now Tariq too.
"And my mother is not a young woman anymore," he wassaying. "They're so afraid all the time. Laila, look at me.""You should have told me.""Please look at me."A groan came out of Laila. Then a wail. And then she wascrying, and when he went to wipe her cheek with the pad ofhis thumb she swiped his hand away. It was selfish andirrational, but she was furious with him for abandoning her,Tariq, who was like an extension of her, whose shadow sprungbeside hers in every memory. How could he leave her? Sheslapped him. Then she slapped him again and pulled at hishair, and he had to take her by the wrists, and he was sayingsomething she couldn't make out, he was saying it softly,reasonably, and, somehow, they ended up brow to brow, noseto nose, and she could feel the heat of his breath on her lipsagain.
And when, suddenly, he leaned in, she did too.
* * *In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble franticallyto commit it all to memory, what happened next-Like an artlover running out of a burning museum, she would grabwhatever she could-a look, a whisper, a moan-to salvage fromperishing, to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires,and she couldn't, in the end, save it all Still, she had these:
that first, tremendous pang of pain down below. The slant ofsunlight on the rug. Her heel grazing the cold hardness of hisleg, lying beside them, hastily unstrapped. Her hands cuppinghis elbows. The upside-down, mandolin-shaped birthmarkbeneath his collarbone, glowing red. His face hovering overhers. His black curls dangling, tickling her lips, her chin. Theterror that they would be discovered. The disbelief at their ownboldness, their courage. The strange and indescribable pleasure,interlaced with the pain. And the look, the myriad oflooks, onTariq: of apprehension, tenderness, apology, embarrassment, butmostly, mostly, of hunger.
* * *There was frenzy after. Shirts hurriedly buttoned, belts buckled,hair finger-combed. They sat, then, they sat beside each other,smelling of each other, faces flushed pink, both of themstunned, both of them speechless before the enormity of whathad just happened. What they had done.
Laila saw three drops of blood on the rug,her blood, andpictured her parents sitting on this couch later, oblivious to thesin that she had committed. And now the shame set in, andthe guilt, and, upstairs, the clock ticked on, impossibly loud toLaila's ears. Like a judge's gavel pounding again and again,condemning her.
Then Tariq said, "Come with me."For a moment, Laila almost believed that it could be done.
She, Tariq, and his parents, setting out together-Packing theirbags, climbing aboard a bus, leaving behind all this violence,going to find blessings, or trouble, and whichever came theywould face it together. The bleak isolation awaiting her, themurderous loneliness, it didn't have to be.
She could go. They could be together.
They would have more afternoons like this.
"I want to marry you, Laila."For the first time since they were on the floor, she raised hereyes to meet his. She searched his face. There was noplayfulness this time. His look was one of conviction, of guilelessyet ironclad earnestness.
"Tariq-""Let me marry you, Laila. Today. We could get marriedtoday."He began to say more, about going to a mosque, finding amullah, a pair of witnesses, a quicknikka. …But Laila was thinking of Mammy, as obstinate anduncompromising as the Mujahideen, the air around her chokedwith rancor and despair, and she was thinking of Babi, whohad long surrendered, who made such a sad, patheticopponent to Mammy.
Sometimes…I feel like you 're all I have, Laila.
These were the circumstances of her life, the inescapabletruths of it.
"I'll ask Kaka Hakim for your hand He'll give us his blessing,Laila, I know it."He was right. Babi would. But it would shatter him.
Tariq was still speaking, his voice hushed, then high,beseeching, then reasoning; his face hopeful, then stricken.
"I can't," Laila said.
"Don't say that. I love you.""I'm sorry-""I love you."How long had she waited to hear those words from him?
How many times had she dreamed them uttered? Therethey were, spoken at last, and the irony crushed her.
"It's my father I can't leave," Laila said "I'm all he has left.
His heart couldn't take it either."Tariq knew this. He knew she could not wipe away theobligations of her life any more than he could his, but it wenton, his pleadings and her rebuttals, his proposals and herapologies, his tears and hers.
In the end, Laila had to make him leave.
At the door, she made him promise to go without good-byes.
She closed the door on him. Laila leaned her back against it,shaking against his pounding fists, one arm gripping her bellyand a hand across her mouth, as he spoke through the doorand promised that he would come back, that he would comeback for her. She stood there until he tired, until he gave up,and then she listened to his uneven footsteps until they faded,until all was quiet, save for the gunfire cracking in the hills andher own heart thudding in her belly, her eyes, her bones.
Chapter 26.
It was, by far, the hottest day of the year. The mountainstrapped the bone-scorching heat, stifled the city like smoke.
Power had been out for days. All over Kabul, electric fans satidle, almost mockingly so.
Laila was lying still on the living-room couch, sweating throughher blouse. Every exhaled breath burned the tip of her nose.
She was aware of her parents talking in Mammy's room. Twonights ago, and again last night, she had awakened andthought she heard their voices downstairs. They were talkingevery day now, ever since the bullet, ever since the new holein the gate.
Outside, the far-offboom of artillery, then, more closely, thestammering of a long string of gunfire, followed by another.
Inside Laila too a battle was being waged: guilt on one side,partnered with shame, and, on the other, the conviction thatwhat she and Tariq had done was not sinful; that it had beennatural, good, beautiful, even inevitable, spurred by theknowledge that they might never see each other again.
Laila rolled to her side on the couch now and tried toremember something: At one point, when they were on thefloor, Tariq had lowered his forehead on hers. Then he hadpanted something, eitherAm I hurting you? orIs this hurtingyou?
Laila couldn't decide which he had said.
Am Ihurting you?
Is this hurting you?
Only two weeks since he had left, and it was alreadyhappening- Time, blunting the edges of those sharp memories.
Laila bore down mentally. What had he said? It seemed vital,suddenly, that she know.
Laila closed hereyes. Concentrated.
With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise.
She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dustoff, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There wouldcome a day, in fact, years later, when Laila would no longerbewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There wouldcome a day when the details of his face would begin to slipfrom memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the streetcall after her child by Tariq's name would no longer cut heradrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the acheof his absence was her unremitting companion-like the phantompain of an amputee.
Except every once in a long while, when Laila was a grownwoman, ironing a shirt or pushing her children on a swing set,something trivial, maybe the warmth of a carpet beneath herfeet on a hot day or the curve of a stranger's forehead, wouldset off a memory of that afternoon together. And it would allcome rushing back. The spontaneity of it. Their astonishingimprudence. Their clumsiness. The pain of the act, the pleasureof it, the sadness of it. The heat of their entangled bodies.
It would flood her, steal her breath.
But then it would pass. The moment would pass. Leave herdeflated, feeling nothing but a vague restlessness.
She decided that he had saidAmi hurting you? Yes. Thatwasit. Laila was happy that she'd rememberedThen Babi was in the hallway, calling her name from the topof the stairs, asking her to come up quickly.
"She's agreed!"he said, his voice tremulous with suppressedexcitement- "We're leaving, Laila. All three of us. We'releavingKabul."* * *InMammy's room, the three of them sat on the bed.Outside,rockets were zipping acrossthe sky as Hekmatyar's andMassoud'sforces fought and fought. Laila knew that somewherein the city someone had justdied, and that a pall of blacksmoke was hovering over some building that had collapsed in apuffing mass of dust. There would be bodies to step around inthe morning. Some would be collected. Others not. ThenKabul's dogs, who had developed a taste for human meat,would feast.
All the same, Laila had an urge to run through thosestreets.She could barely contain her own happiness. It tookeffortto sit, to not shriek withjoy. Babi said they would go toPakistan first, to apply forvisas. Pakistan, where Tariq was!
Tariq was only gone seventeen days, Laila calculated excitedly.
If only Mammy had made up her mindseventeen days earlier,they could have left together. She would have been with Tariqright now! But that didn'tmatter now. They were goingtoPeshawar-she,Mammy, and Babi-and they would find Tariq andhis parents there. Surely they would. They would process theirpaperwork together. Then, who knew? Who knew? Europe?
America? Maybe, as Babi was always saying, somewhere nearthe sea…Mammy was half lying, half sitting against the headboard. Hereyes were puffy. She was picking at her hair.
Three days before, Laila had gone outside for a breath of air.
She'd stood by the front gates, leaning against them, whenshe'd heard a loud crack and something had zipped by herright ear, sending tiny splinters of wood flying before her eyes.
After Giti's death, and the thousands of rounds fired andmyriad rockets that had fallen on Kabul, it was the sight ofthat single round hole in the gate, less than three fingers awayfrom where Laila's head had been, that shook Mammy awake.
Made her see that one war had cost her two children already;this latest could cost her her remaining one.
From the walls of the room, Ahmad and Noor smiled down.
Laila watched Mammy's eyes bouncing now, guiltily, from onephoto to the other. As if looking for their consent. Theirblessing. As if asking for forgiveness.
"There's nothing left for us here," Babi said. "Our sons aregone, but we still have Laila. We still have each other, Fariba.
We can make a new life."Babi reached across the bed. When he leaned to take herhands, Mammy let him. On her face, a look of concession. Ofresignation. They held each other's hands, lightly, and then theywere swaying quietly in an embrace. Mammy buried her facein his neck. She grabbed a handful of his shirt.
For hours that night, the excitement robbed Laila of sleep. Shelay in bed and watched the horizon light up in garish shadesof orange and yellow. At some point, though, despite theexhilaration inside and the crack ofartillery fire outside, she fell asleep.
And dreamedThey are on a ribbon of beach, sitting on aquilt. It's a chilly,overcast day,but it's warm next to Tariq under the blanketdraped over their shoulders. She can see cars parked behind alow fence of chipped white paint beneath a row of windsweptpalm trees. The wind makes her eyes water and buries theirshoes in sand, hurls knots of dead grass from the curvedridgesof one dune to another. They're watching sailboats bob inthe distance. Around them, seagulls squawk and shiver in thewind. The wind whips up another spray of sand off theshallow, windwardslopes. There is a noise then likea chant, andshe tells him something Babi had taught her years before aboutsinging sand.
He rubs at her eyebrow, wipesgrains of sand from it. Shecatches a flicker of the band on his finger. It's identicalto hers-gold with a sort of maze patternetched all the way around.
It's true,she tellshim.It's the friction, of grain against grain.
Listen. Hedoes. He frowns. They wait. They hear it again. Agroaning sound, when the wind is soft, when it blows hard, amewling, high-pitched chorus.
* * * Babi said theyshould take only what was absolutelynecessary. They would sell the rest.
"That should hold us in Peshawar until I find work."For the next two days, they gathered items to be sold. Theyput them in big piles.
In her room, Laila set aside old blouses, old shoes, books,toys. Looking under her bed, she found a tiny yellow glass cowHasina had passed to her during recess in fifth grade. Aminiature-soccer-ball key chain, a gift from Giti. A little woodenzebra on wheels. A ceramic astronaut she and Tariq had foundone day in a gutter. She'd been six and he eight. They'd hada minor row, Laila remembered, over which one of them hadfound it.
Mammy too gathered her things. There was a reluctance inher movements, and her eyes had a lethargic, faraway look inthem. She did away with her good plates, her napkins, all herjewelry-save for her wedding band-and most of her old clothes.
"You're not selling this, are you?" Laila said, lifting Mammy'swedding dress. It cascaded open onto her lap. She touched thelace and ribbon along the neckline, the hand-sewn seed pearlson the sleeves.
Mammy shrugged and took it from her. She tossed itbrusquely on a pile of clothes. Like ripping off a Band-Aid inone stroke, Laila thought.
It was Babi who had the most painful task.
Laila found him standing in his study, a rueful expression onhis face as he surveyed his shelves. He was wearing asecondhand T-shirt with a picture of San Francisco's red bridgeon it. Thick fog rose from the whitecapped waters and engulfedthe bridge's towers.
"You know the old bit," he said. "You're on a deserted island.
You can have five books. Which do you choose? I neverthought I'd actually have to.""We'll have to start you a new collection, Babi.""Mm." He smiled sadly. "I can't believe I'm leaving Kabul. Iwent to school here, got my first job here, became a father inthis town. It's strange to think that I'll be sleeping beneathanother city's skies soon.""It's strange for me too.""All day, this poem about Kabul has been bouncing around inmy head. Saib-e-Tabrizi wrote it back in the seventeenthcentury, I think. I used to know the whole poem, but all I canremember now is two lines:
"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her -walls."Laila looked up, saw he was weeping. She put an armaround his waist. "Oh, Babi. We'll come back. When this war isover. We'll come back to Kabul,inshallah. You'll see."* * *On the third morning, Laila began moving the piles of thingsto the yard and depositing them by the front door. They wouldfetch a taxi then and take it all to a pawnshop.
Laila kept shuffling between the house and the yard, back andforth, carrying stacks of clothes and dishes and box after boxof Babi's books. She should have been exhausted by noon,when the mound of belongings by the front door had grownwaist high. But, with each trip, she knew that she was thatmuch closer to seeing Tariq again, and, with each trip, her legsbecame more sprightly, her arms more tireless.
"We're going to need a big taxi."Laila looked up. It was Mammy calling down from herbedroom upstairs. She was leaning out the window, resting herelbows on the sill. The sun, bright and warm, caught in hergraying hair, shone on her drawn, thin face. Mammy waswearing the same cobalt blue dress she had worn the day ofthe lunch party four months earlier, a youthful dress meant fora young woman, but, for a moment, Mammy looked to Lailalike an old woman. An old woman with stringy arms andsunken temples and slow eyes rimmed by darkened circles ofweariness, an altogether different creature from the plump,round-faced woman beaming radiantly from those grainywedding photos.
"Two big taxis," Laila said.
She could see Babi too, in the living room stacking boxes ofbooks atop each other.
"Come up when you're done with those," Mammy said. "We'llsit down for lunch. Boiled eggs and leftover beans.""My favorite," Laila said.
She thought suddenly of her dream. She and Tariq on a quilt.
The ocean. The wind. The dunes.
What had it sounded like, she wondered now, the singingsands?
Laila stopped. She saw a gray lizard crawl out of a crack inthe ground. Its head shot side to side. It blinked. Darted undera rock.
Laila pictured the beach again. Except now the singing was allaround. And growing. Louder and louder by the moment,higher and higher. It flooded her ears. Drowned everything elseout. The gulls were feathered mimes now, opening and closingtheir beaks noiselessly, and the waves were crashing with foamand spray but no roar. The sands sang on. Screaming now. Asound like…a tinkling?
Not a tinkling. No. A whistling.
Laila dropped the books at her feet. She looked up to thesky. Shielded her eyes with one hand.
Then a giant roar.
Behind her, a flash of white.
The ground lurched beneath her feet.
Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. Itknocked her out of her sandals. Lifted her up. And now shewas flying, twisting and rotating in the air, seeing sky, thenearth, then sky, then earth. A big burning chunk of woodwhipped by. So did a thousand shards of glass, and it seemedto Laila that she could see each individual one flying all aroundher, flipping slowly end over end, the sunlight catching in each.
Tiny, beautiful rainbows.
Then Laila struck the wall. Crashed to the ground. On herface and arms, a shower of dirt and pebbles and glass. Thelast thing she was aware of was seeing something thud to theground nearby. A bloody chunk of something. On it, the tip ofa red bridge poking through thick fog.
* * *Shapes moving about. A fluorescent light shines from theceiling above. A woman's face appears, hovers over hers.
Laila fades back to the dark.
* * *Another face. This time a man's. His features seem broad anddroopy. His lips move but make no sound. All Laila hears isringing.
The man waves his hand at her. Frowns. His lips move again.
It hurts. It hurts to breathe. It hurts everywhere.
A glass of water. A pink pill.
Back to the darkness.
* * *The woman again. Long face, narrow-set eyes. She sayssomething. Laila can't hear anything but the ringing. But shecan see the words, like thick black syrup, spilling out of thewoman's mouth.
Her chest hurts. Her arms and legs hurt.
All around, shapes moving.
Where is Tariq?
Why isn't he here?
Darkness. A flock of stars.
Babi and she, perched somewhere high up. He is pointing toa field of barley. A generator comes to life.
The long-faced woman is standing over her looking down.
It hurts to breathe.
Somewhere, an accordion playing.
Mercifully, the pink pill again. Then a deep hush. A deephushfalls over everything.
Part Three Chapter 27.
MadamDo you know who I am?"The girl's eyes fluttered"Do you know what has happened?"The girl's mouth quivered. She closed her eyes. Swallowed.
Her hand grazed her left cheek. She mouthed something.
Mariam leaned in closer.
"This ear," the girl breathed. "I can't hear."* * *For the first "week, the girl did little but sleep, with help fromthe pink pills Rasheed paid for at the hospital. She murmuredin her sleep. Sometimes she spoke gibberish, cried out, calledout names Mariam did not recognize. She wept in her sleep,grew agitated, kicked the blankets off, and then Mariam had tohold her down. Sometimes she retched and retched, threw upeverything Mariam fed her.
When she wasn't agitated, the girl was a sullen pair of eyesstaring from under the blanket, breathing out short littleanswers to Mariam and Rasheed's questions. Some days shewas childlike, whipped her head side to side, when Mariam,then Rasheed, tried to feed her. She went rigid when Mariamcame at her with a spoon. But she tired easily and submittedeventually to their persistent badgering. Long bouts of weepingfollowed surrender.
Rasheed had Mariam rub antibiotic ointment on the cuts onthe girl's face and neck, and on the sutured gashes on hershoulder, across her forearms and lower legs. Mariam dressedthem with bandages, which she washed and recycled. She heldthe girl's hair back, out of her face, when she had to retch.
"How long is she staying?" she asked Rasheed.
"Until she's better. Look at her. She's in no shape to go.
Poor thing."* * *It was Rasheed who found the girl, who dug her out frombeneath the rubble.
"Lucky I was home," he said to the girl. He was sitting on afolding chair beside Mariam's bed, where the girl lay. "Luckyfor you, I mean. I dug you out with my own hands. Therewas a scrap of metal this big-" Here, he spread his thumb andindex finger apart to show her, at least doubling, in Mariam'sestimation, the actual size of it. "This big. Sticking right out ofyour shoulder. It was really embedded in there. I thought I'dhave to use a pair of pliers.
But you're all right. In no time, you'll benau socha. Good asnew."It was Rasheed who salvaged a handful of Hakim's books.
"Most of them were ash. The rest were looted, I'm afraid."He helped Mariam watch over the girl that first week. Oneday, he came home from work with a new blanket and pillow.
Another day, a bottle of pills.
"Vitamins," he said.
It was Rasheed who gave Laila the news that her friendTariq's house was occupied now.
"A gift," he said. "From one of Sayyaf s commanders to threeof his men. A gift. Ha!"The threemen were actually boys with suntanned, youthfulfaces. Mariam would see them when she passed by, alwaysdressed in their fatigues, squatting by the front door of Tariq'shouse, playing cards and smoking, their Kalashnikovs leaningagainst the wall. The brawny one, the one with the self-satisfied,scornful demeanor, was the leader. The youngest was also thequietest, the one who seemed reluctant to wholeheartedlyembrace his friends' air of impunity. He had taken to smilingand tipping his headsalaam when Mariam passed by. When hedid, some of his surface smugness dropped away, and Mariamcaught a glint of humility as yet uncorrupted.
Then one morning rockets slammed into the house. Theywere rumored later to have been fired by the Hazaras ofWahdat. For some time, neighbors kept finding bits and piecesof the boys.
"They had it coming," said Rasheed.
* * *The girl was extraordinarily lucky, Mariam thought, to escapewith relatively minor injuries, considering the rocket had turnedher house into smoking rubble. And so,slowly, the girl gotbetter. She began to eat more, began to brush her own hair.
She took baths on her own. She began taking her mealsdownstairs, with Mariam and Rasheed.
But then some memory would rise, unbidden, and therewould be stony silences or spells of churlishness. Withdrawalsand collapses. Wan looks. Nightmares and sudden attacks ofgrief. Retching.
And sometimes regrets.
"I shouldn't even be here,"she said one day.
Mariam was changing the sheets. The girl watchedfromthefloor, herbruised knees drawn up against her chest.
"My father wanted to take out the boxes. The books. He saidthey were too heavyfor me. But I wouldn't let him. I was soeager. I should have been the one inside the house when ithappened."Mariam snapped the clean sheet and let it settle on the bedShe looked at the girl, at her blond curls, her slender neckand green eyes, her high cheekbones and plump lips. Mariamremembered seeing her on the streets when she was little,tottering after her mother on the way to the tandoor, riding onthe shoulders of her brother, the younger one, with the patchof hair on his ear. Shooting marbles with the carpenter's boy.
The girl was looking back as if waiting for Mariam to pass onsome morsel of wisdom, to say something encouraging- Butwhat wisdom did Mariam have to offer? What encouragement?
Mariam remembered the day they'd buried Nana and how littlecomfort she had found when Mullah Faizullah had quoted theKoran for her.Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom,and He Who has power over all things, Who created deathand life that He may try you. Or when he'd said of her ownguilt,These thoughts are no good, Mariam jo. They will destroyyou. It wasn't your fault It wasn't your fault.
What could she say to this girl that would ease her burden?
As it turned out, Mariam didn't have to say anything. Becausethe girl's face twisted, and she was on all fours then sayingshe was going to be sick.
"Wait! Hold on. I'll get a pan. Not on the floor. I justcleaned…Oh. Oh.Khodaya. God."* * *Then one day, about a month after the blast that killed thegirl's parents, a man came knocking. Mariam opened the door.
He stated his business.
"There is a man here to see you," Mariam said.
The girl raised her head from the pillow.
"He says his name is Abdul Sharif.""I don't know any Abdul Sharif.""Well, he's here asking for you. You need to come down andtalk to him."
Chapter 28.
Laila sat across from Abdul Sharif, who was a thin,small-headed man with a bulbous nose pocked with the samecratered scars that pitted his cheeks. His hair, short andbrown, stood on his scalp like needles in a pincushion.
"You'll have to forgive me,hamshira," he said, adjusting hisloose collar and dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief "I stillhaven't quite recovered, I fear. Five more days of these, whatare they called…sulfa pills."Laila positioned herself in her seat so that her right ear, thegood one, was closest to him. "Were you a friend of myparents?""No, no," Abdul Sharif said quickly. "Forgive me." He raised afinger, took a long sip of the water that Mariam had placed infront of him.
"I should begin at the beginning, I suppose." He dabbed athis lips, again at his brow. "I am a businessman. I ownclothing stores, mostly men's clothing.Chapans, hats,iumban%,suits, ties-you name it. Two stores here in Kabul, in Taimaniand Shar-e-Nau, though I just sold those. And two in Pakistan,in Peshawar. That's where my warehouse is as well. So I travela lot, back and forth. Which, these days"-he shook his headand chuckled tiredly-"let's just say that it's an adventure.
"I was in Peshawar recently, on business, taking orders, goingover inventory, that sort of thing. Also to visit my family. Wehave three daughters,alhamdulellah. I moved them and my wifeto Peshawar after the Mujahideen began going at each other'sthroats. I won't have their names added to theshaheedlist. Normine, to be honest. I'll be joining them there verysoon,inshallah.
"Anyway, I was supposed to be back in Kabul the Wednesdaybefore last. But, as luck would have it, I came down with anillness. I won't bother you with it,hamshira, suffice it to say thatwhen I went to do my private business, the simpler of the two,it felt like passing chunks of broken glass. I wouldn't wish it onHekmatyar himself. My wife, Nadia jan, Allah bless her, shebegged me to see a doctor. But I thought I'd beat it withaspirin and a lot of water. Nadia jan insisted and I said no,back and forth we went. You know the saying^stubborn assneeds a stubborn driver. This time, I'm afraid, the ass won.
That would be me."He drank the rest of this water and extended the glass toMariam. "If it's not too muchzahmat."Mariam took the glass and went to fill it.
"Needless to say, I should have listened to her. She's alwaysbeen the more sensible one, God give her a long life. By thetime I made it to the hospital, I was burning with a fever andshaking like abeid tree in the wind. I could barely stand. Thedoctor said I had blood poisoning. She said two or three moredays and I would have made my wife a widow.
"They put me in a special unit, reserved for really sick people,I suppose. Oh,iashakor." He took the glass from Mariam andfrom his coat pocket produced a large white pill. "Thesize ofthese things."Laila watched him swallow his pill She was aware that herbreathing had quickened Her legs felt heavy, as though weightshad been tethered to them. She told herself that he wasn'tdone, that he hadn't told her anything as yet. But he would goon in a second, and she resisted an urge to get up and leave,leave before he told her things she didn't want to hear.
Abdul Sharif set his glass on the table.
"That's where I met your friend, Mohammad Tariq Walizai."Laila's heart sped up. Tariq in a hospital? A special unit?Forreally sick people?
She swallowed dry spit. Shifted on her chair. She had to steelherself. If she didn't, she feared she would come unhinged. Shediverted her thoughts from hospitals and special units andthought instead about the fact that she hadn't heard Tariqcalled by his full name since the two of them had enrolled in aFarsi winter course years back. The teacher would call roll afterthe bell and say his name like that-Mohammad Tariq Walizai. Ithad struck her as comically officious then, hearing his full nameuttered.
"What happened to him I heard from one of the nurses,"Abdul Sharif resumed, tapping his chest with a fist as if to easethe passage of the pill. "With all the time I've spent inPeshawar, I've become pretty proficient in Urdu. Anyway, whatI gathered was that your friend was in a lorry full of refugees,twenty-three of them, all headed for Peshawar. Near theborder, they were caught in cross fire. A rocket hit the lorry.
Probably a stray, but you never know with these people, younever know. There were only six survivors, all of themadmitted to the same unit. Three died within twenty-four hours.
Two of them lived-sisters, as I understood it-and had beendischarged.
Your friend Mr. Walizai was the last. He'd been there foralmost three weeks by the time I arrived."So he was alive. But how badly had they hurt him? Lailawondered frantically. How badly? Badly enough to be put in aspecial unit, evidently. Laila was aware that she had startedsweating, that her face felt hot. She tried to think of somethingelse, something pleasant, like the trip to Bamiyan to see theBuddhas with Tariq and Babi. But instead an image of Tariq'sparents presented itself: Tariq's mother trapped in the lorry,upside down, screaming for Tariq through the smoke, her armsand chest on fire, the wig melting into her scalp…Laila had to take a series of rapid breaths.
"He was in the bed next to mine. There were no walls, onlya curtain between us. So I could see him pretty well."Abdul Sharif found a sudden need to toy with his weddingband. He spoke more slowly now.
"Your friend, he was badly-very badly-injured, you understand.
He had rubber tubes coming out of him everywhere. At first-"He cleared his throat. "At first, I thought he'd lost both legs inthe attack, but a nurse said no, only the right, the left one wason account of an old injury. There were internal injuries too.
They'd operated three times already. Took out sections ofintestines, I don't remember what else. And he was burned.
Quite badly. That's all I'll say about that. I'm sure you haveyour fair share of nightmares,hamshira. No sense in me addingto them."Tariq was legless now. He was a torso with twostumps.Legless. Laila thought she might collapse. With deliberate,desperate effort, she sent the tendrils of her mind out of thisroom, out the window, away from this man, over the streetoutside, over the city now, and its flat-topped houses andbazaars, its maze of narrow streets turned to sand castles.
"He was drugged up most of the time. For the pain, youunderstand. But he had moments when the drugs werewearing off when he was clear. In pain but clear of mind Iwould talk to him from my bed. I told him who I was, whereI was from. He was glad, I think, that there was ahamwaiannext to him.
"I did most of the talking. It was hard for him to. His voicewas hoarse, and I think it hurt him to move his lips. So I toldhim about my daughters, and about our house in Peshawarand the veranda my brother-in-law and I are building out inthe back. I told him I had sold the stores in Kabul and that Iwas going back to finish up the paperwork. It wasn't much.
But it occupied him. At least, I like to think it did.
"Sometimes he talked too. Half the time, I couldn't make outwhat he was saying, but I caught enough. He described wherehe'd lived.
He talked about his uncle in Ghazni. And his mother's cookingand his father's carpentry, him playing the accordion.
"But, mostly, he talked about you,hamshira. He said youwere-how did he put it-his earliest memory. I think that's right,yes. I could tell he cared a great deal about you.Balay, thatmuch was plain to see. But he said he was glad you weren'tthere. He said he didn't want you seeing him like that."Laila's feet felt heavy again, anchored to the floor, as if all herblood had suddenly pooled down there. But her mind was faraway, free and fleet, hurtling like a speeding missile beyondKabul, over craggy brown hills and over deserts ragged withclumps of sage, past canyons of jagged red rock and oversnowcapped mountains…"When I told him I was going back to Kabul, he asked me tofind you. To tell you that he was thinking of you. That hemissed you. I promised him I would I'd taken quite a liking tohim, you see. He was a decent sort of boy, I could tell."Abdul Sharif wiped his brow with the handkerchief.
"I woke up one night," he went on, his interest in thewedding band renewed, "I think it was night anyway, it's hardto tell in those places. There aren't any windows. Sunrise,sundown, you just don't know. But I woke up, and there wassome sort of commotion around the bed next to mine. Youhave to understand that I was full of drugs myself, alwaysslipping in and out, to the point where it was hard to tell whatwas real and what you'd dreamed up. All I remember is,doctors huddled around the bed, calling for this and that,alarms bleeping, syringes all over the ground.
"In the morning, the bed was empty. I asked a nurse. Shesaid he fought valiantly."Laila was dimly aware that she was nodding. She'd known. Ofcourse she'd known. She'd known the moment she had satacross from this man why he was here, what news he wasbringing.
"At first, you see, at first I didn't think you even existed," hewas saying now. "I thought it was the morphine talking. MaybeI evenhopedyou didn't exist; I've always dreaded bearing badnews. But I promised him. And, like I said, I'd become ratherfond of him. So I came by here a few days ago. I askedaround for you, talked to some neighbors. They pointed to thishouse. They also told me what had happened to your parents.
When I heard about that, well, I turned around and left. Iwasn't going to tell you. I decided it would be too much foryou. For anybody."Abdul Sharif reached across the table and put a hand on herkneecap. "But I came back. Because, in the end, I think hewould have wanted you to know. I believe that. I'm so sorry. Iwish…"Laila wasn't listening anymore. She was remembering the daythe man from Panjshir had come to deliver the news ofAhmad's and Noor's deaths. She remembered Babi, white-faced,slumping on the couch, and Mammy, her hand flying to hermouth when she heard. Laila had watched Mammy comeundone that day and it had scared her, but she hadn't feltany true sorrow. She hadn't understood the awfulness of hermother's loss. Now another stranger bringing news of anotherdeath. Nowshe was the one sitting on the chair. Was this herpenalty, then, her punishment for being aloof to her ownmother's suffering?
Laila remembered how Mammy had dropped to the ground,how she'd screamed, torn at her hair. But Laila couldn't evenmanage that. She could hardly move. She could hardly move amuscle.
She sat on the chair instead, hands limp in her lap, eyesstaring at nothing, and let her mind fly on. She let it fly onuntil it found the place, the good and safe place, where thebarley fields were green, where the water ran clear and thecottonwood seeds danced by the thousands in the air; whereBabi was reading a book beneath an acacia and Tariq wasnapping with his hands laced across his chest, and where shecould dip her feet in the stream and dream good dreamsbeneath the watchful gaze of gods of ancient, sun-bleachedrock.
Chapter 29.
MadamI'm so sorry," Rasheed said to the girl, taking his bowlofmasiawa and meatballs from Mariam without looking at her.
"I know you were very close….friends. ..the two of you. Alwaystogether, since you were kids. It's a terrible thing, what'shappened. Too many young Afghan men are dying this way."He motioned impatiently with his hand, still looking at the girl,and Mariam passed him a napkin.
For years, Mariam had looked on as he ate, the muscles ofhis temples churning, one hand making compact little rice balls,the back of the other wiping grease, swiping stray grains, fromthe corners of his mouth. For years, he had eaten withoutlooking up, without speaking, his silence condemning, as thoughsome judgment were being passed, then broken only by anaccusatory grunt, a disapproving cluck of his tongue, aone-word command for more bread, more water.
Now he ate with a spoon. Used a napkin. Saidlot/an whenasking for water. And talked. Spiritedly and incessantly.
"If you ask me, the Americans armed the wrong man inHekmatyar. All the guns the CIA handed him in the eighties tofight the Soviets. The Soviets are gone, but he still has theguns, and now he's turning them on innocent people like yourparents. And he calls this jihad. What a farce! What does jihadhave to do with killing women and children? Better the CIAhad armed Commander Massoud."Mariam's eyebrows shot up of their own will.CommanderMassoud? In her head, she could hear Rasheed's rants againstMassoud, how he was a traitor and a communist- But, then,Massoud was a Tajik, of course. Like Laila.
"Now,there is a reasonable fellow. An honorable Afghan. Aman genuinely interested in a peaceful resolution."Rasheed shrugged and sighed.
"Not that they give a damn in America, mind you. What dothey care that Pashtuns and Hazaras and Tajiks and Uzbeksare killing each other? How many Americans can even tell onefrom the other? Don't expect help from them, I say. Now thatthe Soviets have collapsed, we're no use to them. We servedour purpose. To them, Afghanistan is akenarab, a shit hole.
Excuse my language, but it's true. What do you think, Lailajan?"The girl mumbled something unintelligible and pushed ameatball around in her bowl.
Rasheed nodded thoughtfully, as though she'd said the mostclever thing he'd ever heard. Mariam had to look away.
"You know, your father, God give him peace, your father andI used to have discussions like this. This was before you wereborn, of course. On and on we'd go about politics. Aboutbooks too. Didn't we, Mariam? You remember."Mariam busied herself taking a sip of water.
"Anyway, I hope I am not boring you with all this talk ofpolitics."Later, Mariam was in the kitchen, soaking dishes in soapywater, a tightly wound knot in her belly-It wasn't so muchwhathe said, the blatant lies, the contrived empathy, or even thefact that he had not raised a hand to her, Mariam, since hehad dug the girl out from under those bricks.
It was thestaged delivery. Like a performance. An attempt onhis part, both sly and pathetic, to impress. To charm.
And suddenly Mariam knew that her suspicions were right.
She understood with a dread that was like a blinding whack tothe side of her head that what she was witnessing was nothingless than a courtship.
* * *When shed at last worked up the nerve, Mariam went to hisroom.
Rasheed lit a cigarette, and said, "Why not?"Mariam knew right then that she was defeated. She'd halfexpected, half hoped, that he would deny everything, feignsurprise, maybe even outrage, at what she was implying. Shemight have had the upper hand then. She might havesucceeded in shaming him. But it stole her grit, his calmacknowledgment, his matter-of-fact tone.
"Sit down," he said. He was lying on his bed, back to thewall, his thick, long legs splayed on the mattress. "Sit downbefore you faint and cut your head open."Mariam felt herself drop onto the folding chair beside his bed.
"Hand me that ashtray, would you?" he said.
Obediently, she did.
Rasheed had to be sixty or more now-though Mariam, and infact Rasheed himself did not know his exact age. His hair hadgone white, but it was as thick and coarse as ever. There wasa sag now to his eyelids and the skin of his neck, which waswrinkled and leathery. His cheeks hung a bit more than theyused to. In the mornings, he stooped just a tad. But he stillhad the stout shoulders, the thick torso, the strong hands, theswollen belly that entered the room before any other part ofhim did.
On the whole, Mariam thought that he had weathered theyears considerably better than she.
"We need to legitimize this situation," he said now, balancingthe ashtray on his belly. His lips scrunched up in a playfulpucker. "People will talk. It looks dishonorable, an unmarriedyoung woman living here. It's bad for my reputation. And hers.
And yours, I might add.""Eighteen years," Mariam said. "And I never asked you for athing. Not one thing. I'm asking now."He inhaled smoke and let it out slowly. "She can't juststayhere, if that's what you're suggesting. I can't go on feeding herand clothing her and giving her a place to sleep. I'm not theRed Cross, Mariam.""But this?""What of it? What? She's too young, you think? She'sfourteen.Hardly a child. You were fifteen, remember? Mymother was fourteen when she had me. Thirteen when shemarried.""I...Idon't wantthis," Mariam said, numb with contempt andhelplessness.
"It's not your decision. It's hers andmine.""I'm too old.""She's tooyoung, you'retoo old. This is nonsense.""Iam too old. Too old for you to do this to me," Mariam said,balling up fistfuls of her dress sotightly her hands shook."Foryou, after all these years, to make me anambagh""Don't be sodramatic. It's a common thing and you knowit. Ihave friends whohave two, three, four wives. Your own fatherhad three. Besides,what I'm doing now most men I knowwould have done long ago.You know it's true.""I won't allow it."At this, Rasheed smiled sadly.
"Thereis another option," he said, scratching the sole of onefoot with the calloused heel of the other. "She can leave. Iwon't stand in her way. But I suspect she won't get far. Nofood, no water, not a rupiah in her pockets, bullets and rocketsflying everywhere. How many days do you suppose she'll lastbefore she's abducted, raped, or tossed into some roadsideditch with her throat slit? Or all three?"He coughed and adjusted the pillow behind his back.
"The roads out there are unforgiving, Mariam, believe me.
Bloodhounds and bandits at every turn. I wouldn't like herchances, not at all. But let's say that by some miracle she getsto Peshawar. What then? Do you have any idea what thosecamps are like?"He gazed at her from behind a column of smoke.
"People living under scraps of cardboard. TB, dysentery,famine, crime. And that's before winter. Then it's frostbiteseason. Pneumonia. People turning to icicles. Those campsbecome frozen graveyards.
"Of course," he made a playful, twirling motion with his hand,"she could keep warm in one of those Peshawar brothels.
Business is booming there, I hear. A beauty like her ought tobring in a small fortune, don't you think?"He set the ashtray on the nightstand and swung his legs overthe side of the bed.
"Look," hesaid, sounding more conciliatory now, asa victorcould afford to. "I knew you wouldn't take this well. I don'treally blame you. Butthis is for thebest. You'll see. Think of itthis way, Mariam. I'm givingyou help around the house andhera sanctuary. A home and a husband. These days, times beingwhat they are, a woman needs a husband. Haven't you noticedall the widows sleeping onthe streets? They would kill forthischance. In fact,this is. … Well, I'd say this is downrightcharitable of me."He smiled.
"The way I see it, I deserve amedal."* * *Later, in the dark, Mariam told the girl.
Fora long time, the girl said nothing.
"He wants an answer by this morning," Mariam said.
"He can have it now," the girl said. "My answeris yes."
Chapter 30.
Laila
The next day,Laila stayed in bed. She was under the blanket inthe morning when Rasheed poked his head in and said hewas going to the barber. She was still in bed when he camehome late in the afternoon, when he showed her his newhaircut, his new used suit, blue with cream pinstripes, and thewedding band he'd bought her.
Rasheed sat on the bed beside her, made a great show ofslowly undoing the ribbon, of opening the box and plucking outthe ring delicately. He let on that he'd traded in Mariam's oldwedding ring for it.
"She doesn't care. Believe me. She won't even notice."Laila pulled away to the far end of the bed. She could hearMariam downstairs, the hissing of her iron.
"She never wore it anyway," Rasheed said.
"I don't want it," Laila said, weakly. "Not like this. You haveto take it back.""Take it back?" An impatient look flashed across his face andwas gone. He smiled. "I had to add some cash too-quite a lot,in fact. This is a better ring, twenty-two-karat gold. Feel howheavy? Go on, feel it. No?" He closed the box. "How aboutflowers? That would be nice. You like flowers? Do you have afavorite? Daisies?
Tulips? Lilacs? No flowers? Good! I don't see the point myself.
I just thought…Now, I know a tailor here in Deh-Mazang. Iwas thinking we could take you there tomorrow, get you fittedfor a proper dress."Laila shook her head.
Rasheed raised his eyebrows.
"I'd just as soon-" Laila began.
He put a hand on her neck. Laila couldn't help wincing andrecoiling. His touch felt like wearing a prickly old wet woolsweater with no undershirt.
"Yes?""I'd just as soon we get it done."Rasheed's mouth opened, then spread in a yellow, toothy grin.
"Eager," he said.
* * *Before Abdul Sharif's visit, Laila had decided to leave forPakistan. Even after Abdul Sharif came bearing his news, Lailathought now, she might have left. Gone somewhere far fromhere. Detached herself from this city where every street cornerwas a trap, where every alley hid a ghost that sprang at herlike a jack-in-the-box. She might have taken the risk.
But, suddenly, leaving was no longer an option.
Not with this daily retching.
This new fullness in her breasts.
And the awareness, somehow, amid all of this turmoil, thatshe had missed a cycle.
Laila pictured herself in a refugee camp, a stark field withthousands of sheets of plastic strung to makeshift poles flappingin the cold, stinging wind. Beneath one of these makeshift tents,she saw her baby, Tariq's baby, its temples wasted, its jawsslack, its skin mottled, bluish gray. She pictured its tiny bodywashed by strangers, wrapped in a tawny shroud, lowered intoa hole dug in a patch of windswept land under thedisappointed gaze of vultures.
How could she run now?
Laila took grim inventory of the people in her life. Ahmad andNoor, dead. Hasina, gone. Giti, dead. Mammy, dead. Babi, dead.
Now Tariq…But, miraculously, something of her former life remained, herlast link to the person that she had been before she hadbecome so utterly alone. A part of Tariq still alive inside her,sprouting tiny arms, growing translucent hands.
How could she jeopardize the only thing she had left of him,of her old life?
She made her decision quickly. Six weeks had passed sinceher time with Tariq. Any longer and Rasheed would growsuspicious.
She knew that what she was doing was dishonorable.
Dishonorable, disingenuous, and shameful. And spectacularlyunfair to Mariam. But even though the baby inside her was nobigger than a mulberry, Laila already saw the sacrifices amother had to make. Virtue was only the first.
She put a hand on her belly. Closed her eyes.
* * *Laila would remember the muted ceremony in bits andfragments. The cream-colored stripes of Rasheed's suit. Thesharp smell of his hair spray. The small shaving nick justabove his Adam's apple. The rough pads of his tobacco-stainedfingers when he slid the ring on her. The pen. Its not working.
The search for a new pen. The contract. The signing, hissure-handed, hers quavering. The prayers. Noticing, in themirror, that Rasheed had trimmed his eyebrows.
And, somewhere in the room, Mariam watching. The airchoking with her disapproval.
Laila could not bring herself to meet the older woman's gaze.
* * *Lying beneath his cold sheets that night, she watched him pullthe curtains shut. She was shaking even before his fingersworked her shirt buttons, tugged at the drawstring of hertrousers. He was agitated. His fingers fumbled endlessly with hisown shirt, with undoing his belt. Laila had a full view of hissagging breasts, his protruding belly button, the small blue veinin the center of it, the tufts of thick white hair on his chest,his shoulders, and upper arms. She felt his eyes crawling allover her.
"God help me, I think I love you," he said-Through chatteringteeth, she asked him to turn out the lights.
Later, when she was sure that he was asleep, Laila quietlyreached beneath the mattress for the knife she had hiddenthere earlier. With it, she punctured the pad of her indexfinger. Then she lifted the blanket and let her finger bleed onthe sheets where they had lain together.
Chapter 31.
MadamIn the daytime, the girl was no more than a creakingbedspring, a patter of footsteps overhead. She was watersplashing in the bathroom, or a teaspoon clinking against glassin the bedroom upstairs. Occasionally, there were sightings: ablur of billowing dress in the periphery of Madam's vision,scurrying up the steps, arms folded across the chest, sandalsslapping the heels.
But it was inevitable that they would run into each other.
Madam passed the girl on the stairs, in the narrow hallway, inthe kitchen, or by the door as she was coming in from theyard. When they met like this, an awkward tension rushed intothe space between them. The girl gathered her skirt andbreathed out a word or two of apology, and, as she hurriedpast, Madam would chance a sidelong glance and catch ablush. Sometimes she could smell Rasheed on her. She couldsmell his sweat on the girl's skin, his tobacco, his appetite. Sex,mercifully, was a closed chapter in her own life. It had beenfor some time, and now even the thought of those laborioussessions of lying beneath Rasheed made Madam queasy in thegut.
At night, however, this mutually orchestrated dance ofavoidance between her and the girl was not possible. Rasheedsaid they were a family. He insisted they were, and familieshad to eat together, he said.
"What is this?" he said, his fingers working the meat off abone-the spoon-and-fork charade was abandoned a week afterhe married the girl. "Have I married a pair of statues? Go on,Madam,gap bezan, say something to her. Where are yourmanners?"Sucking marrow from a bone, he said to the girl, "But youmustn't blame her. She is quiet. A blessing, really,because,wallah, if a person hasn't got much to say she mightas well be stingy with words. We are city people, you and I,but she isdehati. A village girl. Not even a village girl. No. Shegrew up in akolba made of mudoutside the village. Her fatherput her there. Have you told her, Mariam, have you told herthat you are aharami1? Well, she is. But she is not withoutqualities, all things considered. You will see for yourself, Lailajan. She is sturdy, for one thing, a good worker, and withoutpretensions. I'll say it this way: If she were a car, she wouldbe a Volga."Mariam was a thirty-three-year-old woman now, but thatword,harami, still had sting. Hearing it still made her feel likeshe was a pest, a cockroach. She remembered Nana pullingher wrists.You are a clumsy Utile harami.This is my reward foreverything I've endured. An heirloom-breaking clumsy Utileharami.
"You," Rasheed said to the girl, "you, on the other hand,would be a Benz. A brand-new, first-class, shiny Benz.Wahwah. But. But." He raised one greasy index finger. "One musttake certain…cares…with a Benz. As a matter of respect for itsbeauty and craftsmanship, you see. Oh, you must be thinkingthat I am crazy,diwana, with all this talk of automobiles. I amnot saying you are cars. I am merely making a point."For what came next, Rasheed put down the ball of rice he'dmade back on the plate. His hands dangled idly over his meal,as he looked down with a sober, thoughtful expression.
"One mustn't speak ill of the dead much less the,shaheed.AndI intend no disrespect when I say this, I want you to know,but I have certain… reservations…about the way yourparents-Allah, forgive them and grant them a place inparadise-about their, well, their leniency with you. I'm sorry."The cold, hateful look the girl flashed Rasheed at this did notescape Mariam, but he was looking down and did not notice.
"No matter. The point is, I am your husband now, and it fallson me to guard not onlyyour honor butours, yes, ournangandnamoos. That is the husband's burden. You let me worryabout that. Please. As for you, you are the queen, themalika,and this house is your palace. Anything you need done youask Mariam and she will do it for you. Won't you, Mariam?
And if you fancy something, I will get itforyou. You see, that isthe sort of husband I am.
"All I ask in return, well, it is a simple thing. I ask that youavoid leaving this house without my company. That's all. Simple,no? If I am away and you need something urgently, Imeanabsolutely need it and it cannot wait for me, then youcan send Mariam and she will go out and get it for you.
You've noticed a discrepancy, surely. Well, one does not drive aVolga and a Benz in the same manner. That would be foolish,wouldn't it? Oh, I also ask that when we are out together, thatyou wear a burqa. For your own protection, naturally. It isbest. So many lewd men in this town now. Such vile intentions,so eager to dishonor even a married woman. So. That's all."He coughed.
"I should say that Mariam will be my eyes and ears when Iam away." Here, he shot Mariam a fleeting look that was ashard as a steel-toed kick to the temple. "Not that I ammistrusting. Quite the contrary. Frankly, you strike me as farwiser than your years. But you are still a young woman, Lailajan, adokhtar ejawan, and young women can make unfortunatechoices. They can be prone to mischief. Anyway, Mariam willbe accountable. And if there is a slipup…"On and on he went. Mariam sat watching the girl out of thecorner of her eye as Rasheed's demands and judgments raineddown on them like the rockets on Kabul.
* * *One day, Mariam was in the living room folding some shirtsof Rasheed's that she had plucked from the clothesline in theyard. She didn't know how long the girl had been standingthere, but, when she picked up a shirt and turned around, shefound her standing by the doorway, hands cupped around aglassful of tea.
"I didn't mean to startle you," the girl said. "I'm sorry."Mariam only looked at her.
The sun fell on the girl's face, on her large green eyes andher smooth brow, on her high cheekbones and the appealing,thick eyebrows, which were nothing like Mariam's own, thinand featureless. Her yellow hair, uncombed this morning, wasmiddle-parted.
Mariam could see in the stiff way the girl clutched the cup,the tightened shoulders, that she was nervous. She imaginedher sitting on the bed working up the nerve.
"The leaves are turning," the girl said companionably. "Haveyou seen? Autumn is my favorite. I like the smell of it, whenpeople burn leaves in their gardens. My mother, she likedspringtime the best. You knew my mother?""Not really."The girl cupped a hand behind her ear. "I'm sorry?"Mariam raised her voice. "I said no. I didn't know yourmother.""Oh.""Is there something you want?""Mariam jan, I want to…About the things he said the othernight-""I have been meaning to talk to you about it." Mariam brokein.
"Yes, please," the girl said earnestly, almost eagerly. She took astep forward. She looked relieved.
Outside, an oriole was warbling. Someone was pulling a cart;Mariam could hear the creaking of its hinges, the bouncing andrattling of its iron wheels. There was the sound of gunfire notso far away, a single shot followed by three more, thennothing.
"I won't be your servant," Mariam said. "I won't."The girl flinched "No. Of course not!""You may be the palacemalika and me adehati, but I won'ttake orders from you. You can complain to him and he canslit my throat, but I won't do it. Do you hear me? I won't beyour servant.""No! I don't expect-""And if you think you can use your looks to get rid of me,you're wrong. I was here first. I won't be thrown out. I won'thave you cast me out.""It's not what I want," the girl said weakly.
"And I see your wounds are healed up now. So you canstart doing your share of the work in this house-"The girl was nodding quickly. Some of her tea spilled, but shedidn't notice. "Yes, that's the other reason I came down, tothank you for taking care of me-""Well, I wouldn't have," Mariam snapped. "I wouldn't have fedyou and washed you and nursed you if I'd known you weregoing to turn around and steal my husband.""Steal-""I will still cook and wash the dishes. You will do the laundryand the sweeping- The rest we will alternate daily. And onemore thing. I have no use for your company. I don't want it.
What I want is to be alone. You will leave me be, and I willreturn the favor. That's how we will get on. Those are therules."When she was done speaking, her heart was hammering andher mouth felt parched. Mariam had never before spoken inthis manner, had never stated her will so forcefully. It ought tohave felt exhilarating, but the girl's eyes had teared up and herface was drooping, and what satisfaction Mariam found fromthis outburst felt meager, somehow illicit.
She extended the shirts toward the girl.
"Put them in thealmari, not the closet. He likes the whites inthe top drawer, the rest in the middle, with the socks."The girl set the cup on the floor and put her hands out forthe shirts, palms up. "I'm sorry about all of this," she croaked.
"You should be," Mariam said. "You should be sorry."

Chapter 32.
Laila remembered a gathering once, years before at thehouse, on one of Mammy's good days. The women had beensitting in the garden, eating from a platter of fresh mulberriesthat Wajma had picked from the tree in her yard. The plumpmulberries had been white and pink, and some the same darkpurple as the bursts of tiny veins on Wajma's nose.
"You heard how his son died?" Wajma had said, energeticallyshoveling another handful of mulberries into her sunken mouth.
"He drowned, didn't he?" Nila, Giti's mother, said. "AtGhargha Lake, wasn't it?""But did you know, did you know that Rasheed…" Wajmaraised a finger, made a show of nodding and chewing andmaking them wait for her to swallow. "Did you know that heused to drinksharab back then, that he was crying drunk thatday? It's true. Crying drunk, is what I heard. And that wasmidmorning. By noon, he had passed out on a lounge chair.
You could have fired the noon cannon next to his ear and hewouldn't have batted an eyelash."Laila remembered how Wajma had covered her mouth,burped; how her tongue had gone exploring between her fewremaining teeth.
"You can imagine the rest. The boy went into the waterunnoticed. They spotted him a while later, floating facedown.
People rushed to help, half trying to wake up the boy, theother half the father. Someone bent over the boy, did the…themouth-to-mouth thing you're supposed to do. It was pointless.
They could all see that. The boy was gone."Laila remembered Wajma raising a finger and her voicequivering with piety. "This is why the Holy Koran forbidssharab.
Because it always falls on the sober to pay for the sins of thedrunk. So it does."It was this story that was circling in Laila's head after shegave Rasheed the news about the baby. He had immediatelyhopped on his bicycle, ridden to a mosque, and prayed for aboy.
That night, all during the meal, Laila watched Mariam push acube of meat around her plate. Laila was there when Rasheedsprang the news on Mariam in a high, dramatic voice-Laila hadnever before witnessed such cheerful cruelty. Mariam's lashesfluttered when she heard. A flush spread across her face. Shesat sulking, looking desolate.
After, Rasheed went upstairs to listen to his radio, and Lailahelped Mariam clear thesojrah.
"I can't imagine what you are now," Mariam said, pickinggrains of rice and bread crumbs, "if you were a Benz before."Laila tried a more lightheaded tactic. "A train? Maybe a bigjumbo jet."Mariam straightened up. "I hope you don't think this excusesyou from chores."Laila opened her mouth, thought better of it. She remindedherself that Mariam was the only innocent party in thisarrangement. Mariam and the baby-Later, in bed, Laila burstinto tears.
What was the matter? Rasheed wanted to know, lifting herchin. Was she ill? Was it the baby, was something wrong withthe baby? No?
Was Mariam mistreating her?
"That's it, isn't it?""No.""Wallah o billah, I'll go down and teach her a lesson. Whodoes she think she is, thatharami, treating you-""No!"He was getting up already, and she had to grab him by theforearm, pull him back down. "Don't! No! She's been decent tome. I need a minute, that's all. I'll be fine."He sat beside her, stroking her neck, murmuring- His handslowly crept down to her back, then up again. He leaned in,flashed his crowded teeth.
"Let's see, then," he purred, "if I can't help you feel better."* * *First, the trees-those that hadn't been cut down forfirewood-shed their spotty yellow-and-copper leaves. Then camethe winds, cold and raw, ripping through the city. They tore offthe last of the clinging leaves, and left the trees looking ghostlyagainst the muted brown of the hills. The season's first snowfallwas light, the flakes no sooner fallen than melted. Then theroads froze, and snow gathered in heaps on the rooftops, piledhalfway up frost-caked windows. With snow came the kites,once the rulers of Kabul's winter skies, now timid trespassers interritory claimed by streaking rockets and fighter jets.
Rasheed kept bringing home news of the war, and Laila wasbaffled by the allegiances that Rasheed tried to explain to her.
Sayyaf was fighting the Hazaras, he said. The Hazaras werefighting Massoud.
"And he's fighting Hekmatyar, of course, who has the supportof the Pakistanis. Mortal enemies, those two, Massoud andHekmatyar. Sayyaf, he's siding with Massoud. And Hekmatyarsupports the Hazaras for now."As for the unpredictable Uzbek commander Dostum, Rasheedsaid no one knew where he would stand. Dostum had foughtthe Soviets in the 1980s alongside the Mujahideen but haddefected and joined Najibullah's communist puppet regime afterthe Soviets had left. He had even earned a medal, presentedby Najibullah himself, before defecting once again and returningto the Mujahideen's side. For the time being, Rasheed said,Dostum was supporting Massoud.
In Kabul, particularly in western Kabul, fires raged, and blackpalls of smoke mushroomed over snow-clad buildings.
Embassies closed down. Schools collapsed In hospital waitingrooms, Rasheed said, the wounded were bleeding to death. Inoperating rooms, limbs were being amputated withoutanesthesia.
"But don't worry," he said. "You're safe with me, my flower,mygul. Anyone tries to harm you, I'll rip out their liver andmake them eat it."That winter, everywhere Laila turned, walls blocked her way.
She thought longingly of the wide-open skies of her childhood,of her days of going tobuzkashi tournaments with Babi andshopping at Mandaii with Mammy, of her days of running freein the streets and gossiping about boys with Giti and Hasina.
Her days of sitting with Tariq in a bed of clover on the banksof a stream somewhere, trading riddles and candy, watchingthe sun go down.
But thinking of Tariq was treacherous because, before shecould stop, she saw him lying on a bed, far from home, tubespiercing his burned body. Like the bile that kept burning herthroat these days, a deep, paralyzing grief would come risingup Laila's chest. Her legs would turn to water. She would haveto hold on to something.
Laila passed that winter of 1992 sweeping the house,scrubbing the pumpkin-colored walls of the bedroom sheshared with Rasheed, washing clothes outside in a bigcopperlagoon. Sometimes she saw herself as if hovering aboveher own body, saw herself squatting over the rim of thelogoon,sleeves rolled up to the elbows, pink hands wringing soapywater from one of Rasheed's undershirts. She felt lost then,casting about, like a shipwreck survivor, no shore in sight, onlymiles and miles of water.
When it was too cold to go outside, Laila ambled around thehouse. She walked, dragging a fingernail along the wall, downthe hallway, then back, down the steps, then up, her faceunwashed, hair uncombed. She walked until she ran intoMariam, who shot her a cheerless glance and went back toslicing the stem off a bell pepper and trimming strips of fatfrom meat. A hurtful silence would fill the room, and Lailacould almost see the wordless hostility radiating from Mariamlike waves of heat rising from asphalt. She would retreat backto her room, sit on the bed, and watch the snow falling.
* * *Rasheed took her to his shoe shop one day.
When they were out together, he walked alongside her, onehand gripping her by the elbow. For Laila, being out in thestreets had become an exercise in avoiding injury. Her eyeswere still adjusting to the limited, gridlike visibility of the burqa,her feet still stumbling over the hem. She walked in perpetualfear of tripping and falling, of breaking an ankle stepping into apothole. Still, she found some comfort in the anonymity thatthe burqa provided. She wouldn't be recognized this way if sheran into an old acquaintance of hers. She wouldn't have towatch the surprise in their eyes, or the pity or the glee, athow far she had fallen, at how her lofty aspirations had beendashed.
Rasheed's shop was bigger and more brightly lit than Lailahad imagined. He had her sit behind his crowded workbench,the top of which was littered with old soles and scraps ofleftover leather. He showed her his hammers, demonstratedhow the sandpaper wheel worked, hisvoice ringing high andproud-He felt her belly, not through the shirt but under it, hisfingertips cold and rough like bark on her distended skin. LailarememberedTariq's hands, soft but strong, the tortuous, fullveins on the backs of them, which she had always foundsoappealingly masculine.
"Swelling so quickly," Rasheed said."It's going to be a big boy.
My sonwill beapahlawanl Like his father."Laila pulled down her shirt. It filled her with fear when hespoke likethis.
"Howare things with Mariam?"She said they were fine.
"Good. Good."She didn't tell him that they'd had their first true fight.
It had happened a few days earlier. Laila had gone to thekitchen and found Mariam yanking drawers and slammingthemshut. She was looking, Mariam said, forthe long woodenspoon she used to stir rice.
"Where did you put it?" she said, wheeling around to faceLaila.
"Me?" Laila said "I didn't take it. I hardly come in here.""I've noticed.""Is that an accusation? It's how you wanted it, remember.
You said you would make the meals. But if you want toswitch-""So you're saying it grew little legs and walked out.Teep, teep,teep, teep. Is that what happened,degeh?'
"I'm saying…" Laila said, trying to maintain control. Usually,she could will herself to absorb Mariam's derision andfinger-pointing. But her ankles had swollen, her head hurt, andthe heartburn was vicious that day. "I am saying that maybeyou've misplaced it.""Misplaced it?" Mariam pulled a drawer. The spatulas andknives inside it clanked. "How long have you been here, a fewmonths? I've lived in this house for nineteen years,dokhiarjo. Ihave keptthat spoon inthis drawer since you were shitting yourdiapers.""Still," Laila said, on the brink now, teeth clenched, "it'spossible you put it somewhere and forgot.""And it'spossible you hid it somewhere, to aggravate me.""You're a sad, miserable woman," Laila said.
Mariam flinched, then recovered, pursed her lips. "And you'rea whore. A whore and adozd. A thieving whore, that's whatyou are!"Then there was shouting- Pots raised though not hurled.
They'd called each other names, names that made Laila blushnow. They hadn't spoken since. Laila was still shocked at howeasily she'd come unhinged, but, the truth was, part of her hadliked it, had liked how it felt to scream at Mariam, to curse ather, to have a target at which to focus all her simmeringanger, her grief.
Laila wondered, with something like insight, if it wasn't thesame for Mariam.
After, she had run upstairs and thrown herself on Rasheed'sbed. Downstairs, Mariam was still yelling, "Dirt onyour head! Dirt on your head!" Laila had lain on the bed,groaning into the pillow, missing her parents suddenly and withan overpowering intensity she hadn't felt since those terribledays just after the attack. She lay there, clutching handfuls ofthe bedsheet, until, suddenly, her breath caught. She sat up,hands shooting down to her belly.
The baby had just kicked for the first time.
Chapter 33.
MadamJbarly one morning the next spring, of 1993, Mariam stood bythe living-room window and watched Rasheed escort the girlout of the house. The girl was tottering forward, bent at thewaist, one arm draped protectively across the taut drum of herbelly, the shape of which was visible through her burqa.
Rasheed, anxious and overly attentive, was holding her elbow,directing her across the yard like a traffic policeman. He madeaWait here gesture, rushed to the front gate, then motioned forthe girl to come forward, one foot propping the gate open.
When she reached him, he took her by the hand, helped herthrough the gate. Mariam could almost hear him say,"Watchyour step, now, my flower, my gul."They came back early the next evening.
Mariam saw Rasheed enter the yard first. He let the gate goprematurely, and it almost hit the girl on the face. He crossedthe yard in a few, quick steps. Mariam detected a shadow onhis face, a darkness underlying the coppery light of dusk. Inthe house, he took off his coat, threw it on the couch.
Brushing past Mariam, he said in a brusque voice, "I'm hungry.
Get supper ready."The front door to the house opened. From the hallway,Mariam saw the girl, a swaddled bundle in the hook of her leftarm. She had one foot outside, the other inside, against thedoor, to prevent it from springing shut. She was stooped overand was grunting, trying to reach for the paper bag ofbelongings that she had put down in order to open the door.
Herface was grimacing with effort. She looked up and sawMariam.
Mariam turned around and went to the kitchen to warmRasheed'smeal.
* * *"Irs like someone is ramming a screwdriver into my ear,"Rasheed said, rubbing his eyes.He was standing in Mariam'sdoor, puffy-eyed, wearing only aiumban tied with a floppyknot.His white hair was straggly, pointing every which way.
"This crying. I can't stand it."Downstairs, the girl was walking the baby across the floor,trying to sing to her.
"I haven't had adecent night's sleep in twomonths," Rasheedsaid. "And the room smells like a sewer. There'sshit cloths lyingall over the place. I stepped on onejust the other night."Mariam smirked inwardly with perverse pleasure.
"Take her outside!" Rasheed yelled over his shoulder. "Can'tyou take her outside?"The singing was suspended briefly."She'll catch pneumonia!""It's summertime!"'What?
Rasheed clenched his teeth and raised his voice. "I said, It'swarm out!""I'm not taking her outside!"The singing resumed"Sometimes, I swear, sometimes I want to put that thing in abox and let her float down Kabul River. Like baby Moses."Mariam never heard him call his daughter by the name thegirl had given her, Aziza, the Cherished One. It was alwaysthebaby, or, when he was really exasperated,thai thing.
Some nights, Mariam overheard them arguing. She tiptoed totheir door, listened to him complain about the baby-always thebaby-the insistent crying, the smells, the toys that made himtrip, the way the baby had hijacked Laila's attentions from himwith constant demands to be fed, burped, changed, walked,held. The girl, in turn, scolded him for smoking in the room,for not letting the baby sleep with them.
There were other arguments waged in voices pitched low.
"The doctor said six weeks.""Not yet, Rasheed. No. Let go. Come on. Don't do that.""It's been two months.""Sshi.There. You woke up the baby." Then moresharply,"Khosh shodi? Happy now?"Mariam would sneak back to her room.
"Can't you help?" Rasheed said now. "There must besomething you can do.""What do I know about babies?" Mariam said.
"Rasheed! Can you bring the bottle? It's sitting on thealmari.
She won't feed. I want to try the bottle again."The baby's screeching rose and fell like a cleaver on meat.
Rasheed closed his eyes. "That thing is a warlord. Hekmatyar.
I'm telling you, Laila's given birth to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar."* * *Mariam watched as the girl's days became consumed withcycles of feeding, rocking, bouncing, walking. Even when thebaby napped, there were soiled diapers to scrub and leave tosoak in a pail of the disinfectant that the girl had insistedRasheed buy for her. There were fingernails to trim withsandpaper, coveralls and pajamas to wash and hang to dry.
These clothes, like other things about the baby, became a pointof contention.
"What's the matter with them?" Rasheed said"They're boys' clothes. For abacha""You think she knows the difference? I paid good money forthose clothes. And another thing, I don't care for that tone.
Consider that a warning."Every week, without fail, the girl heated a black metal brazierover a flame, tossed a pinch of wild rue seeds in it, andwafted theespandi smoke in her baby's direction to ward offevil.
Mariam found it exhausting to watch the girl's lollopingenthusiasm-and had to admit, if only privately, to a degree ofadmiration. She marveled at how the girl's eyes shone withworship, even in the mornings when her face drooped and hercomplexion was waxy from a night's worth of walking the baby.
The girl had fits of laughter when the baby passed gas. Thetiniest changes in the baby enchanted her, and everything it didwas declared spectacular.
"Look! She's reaching for the rattle. How clever she is.""I'll call the newspapers," said Rasheed.
Every night, there were demonstrations. When the girl insistedhe witness something, Rasheed tipped his chin upward and castan impatient, sidelong glance down the blue-veined hook of hisnose.
"Watch. Watch how she laughs when I snap my fingers.
There. See? Did you see?"Rasheed would grunt, and go back to his plate. Mariamremembered how the girl's mere presence used to overwhelmhim. Everything she said used to please him, intrigue him,make him look up from his plate and nod with approval.
The strange thing was, the girl's fall from grace ought to havepleased Mariam, brought her a sense of vindication. But itdidn't. It didn't. To her own surprise, Mariam found herselfpitying the girl.
It was also over dinner that the girl let loose a steady streamof worries. Topping the list was pneumonia, which wassuspected with every minor cough. Then there was dysentery,the specter of which was raised with every loose stool. Everyrash was either chicken pox or measles.
"You should not get so attached," Rasheed said one night.
"What do you mean?""I was listening to the radio the other night. Voice of America.
I heard an interesting statistic. They said that in Afghanistanone out of four children will die before the age of five. That'swhat they said. Now, they-What? What? Where are you going?
Come back here. Get back here this instant!"He gave Mariam a bewildered look. "What's the matter withher?"That night, Mariam was lying in bed when the bickeringstarted again. It was a hot, dry summer night, typical of themonth ofSaratan in Kabul. Mariam had opened her window,then shut it when no breeze came through to temper the heat,only mosquitoes. She could feel the heat rising from the groundoutside, through the wheat brown, splintered planks of theouthouse in the yard, up through the walls and into her room.
Usually, the bickering ran its course after a few minutes, buthalf an hour passed and not only was it still going on, it wasescalating. Mariam could hear Rasheed shouting now. The girl'svoice, underneath his, was tentative and shrill. Soon the babywas wailing.
Then Mariam heard their door open violently. In the morning,she would find the doorknob's circular impression in thehallway wall. She was sitting up in bed when her own doorslammed open and Rasheed came through.
He was wearing white underpants and a matching undershirt,stained yellow in the underarms with sweat. On his feet hewore flip-flops. He held a belt in his hand, the brown leatherone he'd bought for hisnikka with the girl, and was wrappingthe perforated end around his fist.
"It's your doing. I know it is," he snarled, advancing on her.
Mariam slid out of her bed and began backpedaling. Herarms instinctively crossed over her chest, where he often struckher first.
"What are you talking about?" she stammered.
"Her denying me. You're teaching her to."Over the years, Mariam had learned to harden herself againsthis scorn and reproach, his ridiculing and reprimanding. Butthis fear she had no control over. All these years and still sheshivered with fright when he was like this, sneering, tighteningthe belt around his fist, the creaking of the leather, the glint inhis bloodshot eyes. It was the fear of the goat, released in thetiger's cage, when the tiger first looks up from its paws, beginsto growl-Now the girl was in the room, her eyes wide, her facecontorted"I should have known that you'd corrupt her," Rasheed spatat Mariam. He swung the belt, testing it against his own thigh.
The buckle jingled loudly.
"Stop it,basl" the girl said. "Rasheed, you can't do this.""Go back to the room."Mariam backpedaled again.
"No! Don't do this!"Now!
Rasheed raised the belt again and this time came at Mariam.
Then an astonishing thing happened: The girl lunged at him.
She grabbed his arm with both hands and tried to drag himdown, but she could do no more than dangle from it. She didsucceed in slowing Rasheed's progress toward Mariam.
"Let go!" Rasheed cried.
"You win. You win. Don't do this. Please, Rasheed, no beating!
Please don't do this."They struggled like this, the girl hanging on, pleading, Rasheedtrying to shake her off, keeping his eyes on Mariam, who wastoo stunned to do anything.
In the end, Mariam knew that there would be no beating, notthat night. He'd made his point. He stayed that way a fewmoments longer, arm raised, chest heaving, a fine sheen ofsweat filming his brow. Slowly, Rasheed lowered his arm. Thegirl's feet touched ground and still she wouldn't let go, as ifshe didn't trust him. He had to yank his arm free of her grip.
"I'm on to you," he said, slinging the belt over his shoulder.
"I'm on to you both. I won't be made anahmaq, a fool, in myown house."He threw Mariam one last, murderous stare, and gave the girla shove in the back on the way out.
When she heard their door close, Mariam climbed back intobed, buried her head beneath the pillow, and waited for theshaking to stop.
* * *Three times that night, Mariam was awakened from sleep. Thefirst time, it was the rumble of rockets in the west, comingfrom the direction of Karteh-Char. The second time, it was thebaby crying downstairs, the girl's shushing, the clatter of spoonagainst milk bottle. Finally, it was thirst that pulled her out ofbed.
Downstairs, the living room was dark, save for a bar ofmoonlight spilling through the window. Mariam could hear thebuzzing of a fly somewhere, could make out the outline of thecast-iron stove in the corner, its pipe jutting up, then making asharp angle just below the ceiling.
On her way to the kitchen, Mariam nearly tripped oversomething. There was a shape at her feet. When her eyesadjusted, she made out the girl and her baby lying on thefloor on top of a quilt.
The girl was sleeping on her side, snoring. The baby wasawake. Mariam lit the kerosene lamp on the table andhunkered down. In the light, she had her first real close-uplook at the baby, the tuft of dark hair, the thick-lashed hazeleyes, the pink cheeks, and lips the color of ripe pomegranate.
Mariam had the impression that the baby too was examiningher. She was lying on her back, her head tilted sideways,looking at Mariam intently with a mixture of amusement,confusion, and suspicion. Mariam wondered if her face mightfrighten her, but then the baby squealed happily and Mariamknew that a favorable judgment had been passed on herbehalf.
"Shh,"Mariam whispered "You'll wake up your mother, halfdeaf as she is."The baby's hand balled into a fist. It rose, fell, found a spasticpath to her mouth. Around a mouthful of her own hand, thebaby gave Mariam a grin, little bubbles of spittle shining on herlips.
"Look at you. What a sorry sight you are, dressed like adamn boy. And all bundled up in this heat. No wonder you'restill awake."Mariam pulled the blanket off the baby, was horrified to finda second one beneath, clucked her tongue, and pulled that oneoff too. The baby giggled with relief. She flapped her arms likea bird.
"Better,nayTAs Mariam was pulling back, the baby grabbed her pinkie.
The tiny fingers curled themselves tightly around it. They feltwarm and soft, moist with drool.
"Gunuh,"the baby said.
"All right, Ms; let go."The baby hung on, kicked her legs again.
Mariam pulled her finger free. The baby smiled and made aseries of gurgling sounds. The knuckles went back to themouth.
"What are you so happy about? Huh? What are you smilingat? You're not so clever as your mother says. You have abrute for a father and a fool for a mother. You wouldn't smileso much if you knew. No you wouldn't. Go to sleep, now. Goon."Mariam rose to her feet and walked a few steps before thebaby started making theeh, eh, eh sounds that Mariam knewsignaled the onset of a hearty cry. She retraced her steps.
"What is it? What do you want fromme?"The baby grinned toothlessly.
Mariam sighed. She sat down and let her finger be grabbed,looked on as the baby squeaked, as she flexed her plump legsat the hips and kicked air. Mariam sat there, watching, untilthe baby stopped moving and began snoring softly.
Outside, mockingbirds were singing blithely, and, once in awhile, when the songsters took flight, Mariam could see theirwings catching the phosphorescent blue of moonlight beamingthrough the clouds. And though her throat was parched withthirst and her feet burned with pins and needles, it was a longtime before Mariam gently freed her finger from the baby's gripand got up.
Chapter 34.
LailaOf all earthly pleasures, Laila's favorite was lying next to Aziza,her baby's face so close that she could watch her big pupilsdilate and shrink. Laila loved running her finger over Aziza'spleasing, soft skin, over the dimpled knuckles, the folds of fat ather elbows. Sometimes she lay Aziza down on her chest andwhispered into the soft crown of her head things about Tariq,the father who would always be a stranger to Aziza, whoseface Aziza would never know. Laila told her of his aptitude forsolving riddles, his trickery and mischief, his easy laugh.
"He had the prettiest lashes, thick like yours. A good chin, afine nose, and a round forehead. Oh, your father washandsome, Aziza. He was perfect. Perfect, like you are."But she was careful never to mention him by name.
Sometimes she caught Rasheed looking at Aziza in the mostpeculiar way. The other night, sitting on the bedroom floor,where he was shaving a corn from his foot, he said quitecasually, "So what was it like between you two?"Laila had given him a puzzled look, as though she didn'tunderstand.
"Laili and Majnoon. You and theyakknga,the cripple. What wasit you had, he and you?""He was my friend," she said, careful that her voice not shifttoo much in key.She busied herself making a bottle."You knowthat.""I don't knowwhat Iknow." Rasheed deposited the shavings onthe windowsill and dropped onto the bed. The springsprotested with a loud creak. He splayed his legs, picked at hiscrotch. "And as….friends, did the two of you ever do anythingout of order?""Out of order?"Rasheed smiled lightheartedly, but Laila could feel his gaze,cold and watchful. "Let me see, now. Well, did heever give youa kiss? Maybeput his hand where it didn't belong?"Laila winced with, she hoped, an indignant air. She could feelher heart drumming in her throat."He was like abrother tome.""So he was a friend or a brother?""Both. He^""Which was it?""He was like both.""But brothers and sisters are creatures of curiosity.Yes.
Sometimes a brother lets his sister see his pecker, and asisterwill-""You sicken me," Laila said.
"So there was nothing.""I don't want to talk about this anymore."Rasheed tilted his head, pursed his lips, nodded. "Peoplegossiped, you know. I remember. They said all sorts of thingsabout you two. But you're saying there was nothing."She willed herself to glare athim.
He held her eyesfor an excruciatingly long time in anunblinking way that made her knuckles go pale around themilkbottle, and it took all that Laila could muster to not falter.
She shuddered at what he would do if hefound out that shehad been stealing from him. Every week, since Aziza's birth,she pried his wallet open when he wasasleep or in theouthouse and took a single bill. Some weeks, if the wallet waslight, she took only a five-afghanibill, or nothing at all, for fearthat he would notice. When the wallet was plump, shehelpedherself to a ten or a twenty, once even risking twotwenties. She hid the money in a pouchshe'd sewn in the liningof her checkered winter coat.
She wondered what he would do if he knew that she wasplanning to run away next spring. Next summer at the latest.
Laila hoped to have a thousand afghanis or more stowed away,half of which would go to the bus fare from Kabul toPeshawar. She would pawn her wedding ring when the timedrew close, as well as the other jewelry that Rasheed hadgiven her the year before when she was still themalika of hispalace.
"Anyway," he said at last, fingers drumming his belly, "I can'tbe blamed. I am a husband. These are the things a husbandwonders. But he's lucky he died the way he did. Because if hewas here now, if I got my hands on him…" He suckedthrough his teeth and shook his head.
"What happened to not speaking ill of the dead?""I guess some people can't be dead enough," he said.
* * *Two days later, Laila woke up in the morning and found astack of baby clothes, neatly folded, outside her bedroom door.
There was a twirl dress with little pink fishes sewn around thebodice, a blue floral wool dress with matching socks andmittens, yellow pajamas with carrot-colored polka dots, andgreen cotton pants with a dotted ruffle on the cuff.
"There is a rumor," Rasheed said over dinner that night,smacking his lips, taking no notice of Aziza or the pajamasLaila had put on her, "that Dostum is going to change sidesand join Hekmatyar. Massoud will have his hands full then,fighting those two. And we mustn't forget the Hazaras." Hetook a pinch of the pickled eggplant Mariam had made thatsummer. "Let's hope it's just that, a rumor. Because if thathappens, this war," he waved one greasy hand, "will seem likea Friday picnic at Paghman."Later, he mounted her and relieved himself with wordlesshaste, fully dressed save for histumban, not removed but pulleddown to the ankles. When the frantic rocking was over, herolled off her and was asleep in minutes.
Laila slipped out of the bedroom and found Mariam in thekitchen squatting, cleaning a pair of trout. A pot of rice wasalready soaking beside her. The kitchen smelled like cumin andsmoke, browned onions and fish.
Laila sat in a comer and draped her knees with the hem ofher dress.
"Thank you," she said.
Mariam took no notice of her. She finished cutting up the firsttrout and picked up the second. With a serrated knife, sheclipped the fins, then turned the fish over, its underbelly facingher, and sliced it expertly from the tail to the gills. Lailawatched her put her thumb into its mouth, just over the lowerjaw, push it in, and, in one downward stroke, remove the gillsand the entrails.
"The clothes are lovely.""I had no use for them," Mariam muttered. She dropped thefish on a newspaper smudged with slimy, gray juice and slicedoff its head. "It was either your daughter or the moths.""Where did you learn to clean fish like that?""When I was a little girl, I lived by a stream. I used tocatchmy ownfish.""I've never fished""Not much toit. It's mostly waiting."Lailawatched her cut the gutted trout into thirds. "Did yousew the clothes yourself?"Mariam nodded.
"When?"Mariamrinsed sections offish in a bowl of water. "When I waspregnant the first time. Or maybe the second time. Eighteen,nineteen years ago. Long time, anyhow. Like I said, I neverhad anyuse for them.""You're a really goodkhayai. Maybe you can teach me."Mariam placed the rinsed chunks of trout into a cleanbowl.Drops of water drippingfrom her fingertips,she raised herhead and looked at Laila, looked at heras if for the first time.
"The other night, when he…Nobody's ever stood up formebefore," she said.
Laila examined Mariam's drooping cheeks, the eyelids thatsagged in tired folds, the deep lines that framed her mouth-shesaw these things as though she too were looking at someonefor the first time. And, for the first time, it was not anadversary's face Laila saw but a face of grievances unspoken,burdens gone unprotested, a destiny submitted to and endured.
If she stayed, would this be her own face, Laila wondered,twenty years from now?
"I couldn't let him," Laila said "I wasn't raised in a householdwhere people did things like that.""Thisis your household now. You ought to get used to it.""Not to/to I won't.""He'll turn on you too, you know," Mariam said, wiping herhands dry with a rag. "Soon enough. And you gave him adaughter. So, you see, your sin is even less forgivable thanmine."Laila rose to her feet. "I know it's chilly outside, but what doyou say we sinners have us a cup ofchai in the yard?"Mariam looked surprised "I can't. I still have to cut and washthe beans.""I'll help you do it in the morning.""And I have to clean up here.""We'll do it together. If I'm not mistaken, there's somehalwaleft over. Awfully good withchat."Mariam put the rag on the counter. Laila sensed anxiety inthe way she tugged at her sleeves, adjusted herhijab, pushedback a curl of hair.
"The Chinese say it's better to be deprived of food for threedays than tea for one."Mariam gave a half smile. "It's a good saying.""It is.""But I can't stay long.""One cup."They sat on folding chairs outside and atehalwa with theirfingers from a common bowl. They had a second cup, andwhen Laila asked her if she wanted a third Mariam said shedid. As gunfire cracked in the hills, they watched the cloudsslide over the moon and the last of the season's firefliescharting bright yellow arcs in the dark. And when Aziza wokeup crying and Rasheed yelled for Laila to come up and shuther up, a look passed between Laila and Mariam. Anunguarded, knowing look. And in this fleeting, wordlessexchange with Mariam, Laila knew that they were not enemiesany longer.
Chapter 35.
MadamJr rom that night on, Mariam and Laila did their chorestogether. They sat in the kitchen and rolled dough, choppedgreen onions, minced garlic, offered bits of cucumber to Aziza,who banged spoons nearby and played with carrots. In theyard, Aziza lay in a wicker bassinet, dressed in layers ofclothing, a winter muffler wrapped snugly around her neck.
Mariam and Laila kept a watchful eye on her as they did thewash, Mariam's knuckles bumping Laila's as they scrubbedshirts and trousers and diapers.
Mariam slowly grew accustomed to this tentative but pleasantcompanionship. She was eager for the three cups ofchai sheand Laila would share in the yard, a nightly ritual now. In themornings, Mariam found herself looking forward to the soundof Laila's cracked slippers slapping the steps as she came downfor breakfast and to the tinkle of Aziza's shrill laugh, to thesight of her eight little teeth, the milky scent of her skin. IfLaila and Aziza slept in, Mariam became anxious waiting. Shewashed dishes that didn't need washing. She rearrangedcushions in the living room. She dusted clean windowsills. Shekept herself occupied until Laila entered the kitchen, Azizahoisted on her hip.
When Aziza first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyesalways sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming inher mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam,demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closingurgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quiveringanxiety.
"What a scene you're making," Laila would say, releasing herto crawl toward Mariam. "What a scene! Calm down. KhalaMariam isn't going anywhere. There she is, your aunt. See? Goon, now."As soon as she was in Mariam's arms, Aziza's thumb shotinto her mouth and she buried her face in Mariam's neck.
Mariam bounced her stiffly, a half-bewildered, half-gratefulsmile on her lips. Mariam had never before been wanted likethis. Love had never been declared to her so guilelessly, sounreservedly.
Aziza made Mariam want to weep.
"Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly haglike me?" Mariam would murmur into Aziza's hair. "Huh? I amnobody, don't you see? Adehatl What have I got to give you?"But Aziza only muttered contentedly and dug her face indeeper. And when she did that, Mariam swooned. Her eyeswatered. Her heart took flight. And she marveled at how, afterall these years of rattling loose, she had found in this littlecreature the first true connection in her life of false, failedconnections.
* * *Early the following yeah, in January 1994, Dostumdid switchsides. He joined Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and took up positionnear Bala Hissar, the old citadel walls that loomed over the cityfrom the Koh-e-Shirdawazamountains. Together, they fired on Massoud and Rabbaniforces at the Ministry of Defense and the Presidential Palace.
From either side of the Kabul River, they released rounds ofartillery at each other. The streets became littered with bodies,glass, and crumpled chunks of metal. There was looting,murder, and, increasingly, rape, which was used to intimidatecivilians and reward militiamen. Mariam heard of women whowere killing themselves out of fear of being raped, and of menwho, in the name of honor, would kill their wives or daughtersif they'd been raped by the militia.
Aziza shrieked at the thumping of mortars. To distract her,Mariam arranged grains of rice on the floor, in the shape of ahouse or a rooster or a star, and let Aziza scatter them. Shedrew elephants for Aziza the way Jalil had shown her, in onestroke, without ever lifting the tip of the pen.
Rasheed said civilians were getting killed daily, by the dozens.
Hospitals and stores holding medical supplies were gettingshelled. Vehicles carrying emergency food supplies were beingbarred from entering the city, he said, raided, shot at. Mariamwondered if there was fighting like this in Herat too, and, if so,how Mullah Faizullah was coping, if he was still alive, andBibijo too, with all her sons, brides, and grandchildren. And, ofcourse, Jalil. Washe hiding out, Mariam wondered, as she was? Or had hetaken his wives and children and fled the country? She hopedJalil was somewhere safe, that he'd managed to get away fromall of this killing.
For a week, the fighting forced even Rasheed to stay home.
He locked the door to the yard, set booby traps, locked thefront door too and barricaded it with the couch. He paced thehouse, smoking, peering out the window, cleaning his gun,loading and loading it again. Twice, he fired his weapon intothe street claiming he'd seen someone trying to climb the wall.
"They're forcing young boys to join," he said.
"TheMujahideenare. In plain daylight, at gunpoint. They dragboys right off the streets. And when soldiers from a rival militiacapture these boys, they torture them. I heard they electrocutethem-it's what I heard-that they crush their balls with pliers.
They make the boys lead them to their homes. Then theybreak in, kill their fathers, rape their sisters and mothers."He waved his gun over his head. "Let's see them try tobreak into my house. I'll crushtheir balls! I'll blow their headsoff! Do you know how lucky you two are to have a manwho's not afraid of Shaitan himself?"He looked down at the ground, noticed Aziza at his feet. "Getoff my heels!" he snapped, making a shooing motion with hisgun. "Stop following me! And you can stop twirling your wristslike that. I'm not picking you up. Go on! Go on before you getstepped on."Aziza flinched. She crawled back to Mariam, looking bruisedand confused. In Mariam's lap, she sucked her thumbcheerlessly and watched Rasheed in a sullen, pensive way.
Occasionally, she looked up, Mariam imagined, with a look ofwanting to be reassured.
But when it came to fathers, Mariam had no assurances togive.
* * *Maeiam was relieved when the fighting subsided again, mostlybecause they no longer had to be cooped up with Rasheed,with his sour temper infecting the household. And he'dfrightened her badly waving that loaded gun near Aziza.
One day that winter, Laila asked to braid Mariam's hair.
Mariam sat still and watched Laila's slim fingers in the mirrortighten her plaits, Laila's face scrunched in concentration. Azizawas curled up asleep on the floor. Tucked under her arm wasa doll Mariam had hand-stitched for her. Mariam had stuffed itwith beans, made it a dress with tea-dyed fabric and anecklace with tiny empty thread spools through which she'dthreaded a string.
Then Aziza passed gas in her sleep. Laila began to laugh, andMariam joined in. They laughed like this, at each other'sreflection in the mirror, their eyes tearing, and the moment wasso natural, so effortless, that suddenly Mariam started tellingher about Jalil, and Nana, andthe jinn. Laila stood with herhands idle on Mariam's shoulders, eyes locked on Mariam'sface in the mirror. Out the words came, like blood gushingfrom an artery. Mariam told her about Bibi jo, Mullah Faizullah,the humiliating trek to Jalil's house, Nana's suicide. She toldabout Jalil's wives, and the hurriednikka with Rasheed, the tripto Kabul, her pregnancies, the endless cycles of hope anddisappointment, Rasheed's turning on her.
After, Laila sat at the foot of Mariam's chair. Absently, sheremoved a scrap of lint entangled in Aziza's hair. A silenceensued.
"I have something to tell you too," Laila said.
* * *Maeiamdid not sleep that night. She sat in bed, watched thesnow falling soundlessly.
Seasons had come and gone; presidents in Kabul had beeninaugurated and murdered; an empire had been defeated; oldwars had ended and new ones had broken out. But Mariamhad hardly noticed, hardly cared. She had passed these yearsin a distant corner of her mind A dry, barren field, out beyondwish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment- There, thefuture did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: thatlove was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, atreacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowersbegan to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariamuprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them beforethey took hold.
But somehow, over these last months, Laila and Aziza-aharamilike herself, as it turned out-had become extensions of her, andnow, without them, the life Mariam had tolerated for so longsuddenly seemed intolerable.
We're leaving this spring, Aziza and I. Come with us, Mariam.
The years had not been kind to Mariam. But perhaps, shethought, there were kinder years waiting still. A new life, a lifein which she would find the blessings that Nana had saidaharami like her would never see. Two new flowers hadunexpectedly sprouted in her life, and, as Mariam watched thesnow coming down, she pictured Mullah Faizullah twirlinghisiasbeh beads, leaning in and whispering to her in his soft,tremulous voice,But it is God Who has planted them, Mariamjo. And it is His will that you tend to them. It is His will, mygirl.
Chapter 36.
LailaAs daylight steadily bleached darkness from the skythat springmorning of1994, Laila became certain that Rasheed knew. That,any moment now, he would drag her out of bed and askwhether she'd really taken him for such akhar, such a donkey,that he wouldn't find out. Butazan rang out, and then themorning sun was falling flat on the rooftops and the roosterswere crowing and nothing out of the ordinary happenedShe could hear him now in the bathroom, the tapping of hisrazor against the edge of the basin. Then downstairs, movingabout, heating tea. The keys jingled. Now he was crossing theyard, walking his bicycle.
Laila peered through a crack in the living-room curtains. Shewatched him pedal away, a big man on a small bicycle, themorning sun glaring off the handlebars.
"Laila?"Mariam was in the doorway. Laila could tell that she hadn'tslept either. She wondered if Mariam too had been seized allnight by bouts of euphoria and attacks of mouth-drying anxiety.
"We'll leave in half an hour," Laila said.
* * *In the backseat of the taxi, they did not speak. Aziza sat onMariam's lap, clutching her doll, looking with wide-eyedpuzzlement at the city speeding by.
"Ona!"she cried, pointing to a group of little girls skippingrope. "Mayam!Ona"Everywhere she looked, Laila saw Rasheed. She spotted himcoming out of barbershops with windows the color of coal dust,from tiny booths that sold partridges, from battered,open-fronted stores packed with old tires piled from floor toceiling.
She sank lower in her seat.
Beside her, Mariam was muttering a prayer. Laila wished shecould see her face, but Mariam was in burqa-they bothwere-and all she could see was the glitter of her eyes throughthe grid.
This was Laila's first time out of the house in weeks,discounting the short trip to the pawnshop the daybefore-where she had pushed her wedding ring across a glasscounter, where she'd walked out thrilled by the finality of it,knowing there was no going back.
All around her now, Laila saw the consequences of the recentfighting whose sounds she'd heard from the house. Homes thatlay in roofless ruins of brick and jagged stone, gouged buildingswith fallen beams poking through the holes, the charred,mangled husks of cars, upended, sometimes stacked on top ofeach other, walls pocked by holes of every conceivable caliber,shattered glass everywhere. She saw a funeral processionmarching toward a mosque, a black-clad old woman at therear tearing at her hair. They passed a cemetery littered withrock-piled graves and raggedshaheed flags fluttering in thebreeze.
Laila reached across the suitcase, wrapped her fingers aroundthe softness of her daughter's arm.
* * *At the Lahore Gate bus station, near Pol Mahmood Khan inEast Kabul, a row of buses sat idling along the curbside. Menin turbans were busy heaving bundles and crates onto bustops, securing suitcases down with ropes. Inside the station,men stood in a long line at the ticket booth. Burqa-clad womenstood in groups and chatted, their belongings piled at their feet.
Babies were bounced, children scolded for straying too far.
Mujahideen militiamen patrolled the station and the curbside,barking curt orders here and there. They wore boots,pakols,dusty green fatigues. They all carried Kalashnikovs.
Laila felt watched. She looked no one in the face, but she feltas though every person in this place knew, that they werelooking on with disapproval at what she and Mariam weredoing.
"Do you see anybody?" Laila asked.
Mariam shifted Aziza in her arms. "I'm looking."This, Laila had known, would be the first risky part, finding aman suitable to pose with them as a family member. Thefreedoms and opportunities that women had enjoyed between1978 and 1992 were a thing of the past now- Laila could stillremember Babi saying of those years of communist rule,It's agood time to be a woman in Afghanistan, Laila Since theMujahideen takeover in April 1992, Afghanistan's name hadbeen changed to the Islamic State of Afghanistan. The SupremeCourt under Rabbani was filled now with hard-liner mullahswho did away with the communist-era decrees that empoweredwomen and instead passed rulings based on Shari'a, strictIslamic laws that ordered women to cover, forbade their travelwithout a male relative, punished adultery with stoning. Even ifthe actual enforcement of these laws was sporadic at best.Butthey'd enforce them on us more, Laila had said to Mariam,ifthey weren't so busy killing each other. And us.
The second risky part of this trip would come when theyactually arrived in Pakistan. Already burdened with nearly twomillion Afghan refugees, Pakistan had closed its borders toAfghans in January of that year. Laila had heard that onlythose with visas would be admitted. But the border wasporous-always had been-and Laila knew that thousands ofAfghans were still crossing into Pakistan either with bribes orby proving humanitarian grounds- and there were alwayssmugglers who could be hired.We'll find a way when we getthere, she'd told Mariam.
"How about him?" Mariam said, motioning with her chin.
"He doesn't look trustworthy.""And him?""Too old. And he's traveling with two other men."Eventually,Laila found him sitting outside on a park bench,witha veiled woman at his side and a little boy in a skullcap,roughly Aziza's age, bouncing on his knees.He wastall andslender, bearded, wearing an open-collaredshirt and a modestgray coat with missing buttons.
"Wait here,"she said to Mariam. Walking away, she againheard Mariam muttering a prayer.
When Laila approached the young man, he looked up,shielded the sun from his eyes with a hand.
"Forgive me, brother, but are you going to Peshawar?""Yes," he said, squinting.
"I wonder ifyou can help us. Can you do us a favor?"He passed the boy to his wife. He and Laila stepped away.
"What is it,hamshiraT'
She was encouraged to see that he had soft eyes, a kindface.
She told him the story that she and Mariam had agreed on.
She was abiwa,she said, a widow. She and her mother anddaughter had no oneleft in Kabul. They were going toPeshawar to stay with her uncle.
"You want to come with my family," the young man said"I know it'szahmat for you. But you look like a decentbrother, and I-""Don't worry,hamshira I understand. It's no trouble. Let mego and buy your tickets.""Thank you, brother. This issawab, a good deed. God willremember."She fished the envelope from her pocket beneath the burqaand passed it to him. In it was eleven hundred afghanis, orabout half of the money she'd stashed over the past year plusthe sale of the ring. He slipped the envelope in his trouserpocket.
"Wait here."She watched him enter the station. He returned half an hourlater.
"It's best I hold on to your tickets," he said. The bus leavesin one hour, at eleven. We'll all board together. My name isWakil. If they ask-and they shouldn't-I'll tell them you're mycousin."Laila gave him their names, and he said he would remember.
"Stay close," he said.
They sat on the bench adjacent to Wakil and his family's. Itwas a sunny, warm morning, the sky streaked only by a fewwispy clouds hovering in the distance over thehills. Mariambegan feeding Aziza a few of the crackers she'd remembered tobring in their rush to pack. She offered one to Laila.
"I'll throwup," Laila laughed. "I'm too excited.""Metoo.""Thankyou, Mariam.""For what?""For this.For coming with us," Laila said. "I don't think I coulddo this alone.""You won't have to.""We're going to be all right, aren't we, Mariam, where we'regoing?"Mariam's hand slid across the bench and closed over hers.
"The Koran says Allah is the East and the West, thereforewherever you turn there is Allah's purpose.""Bov!"Aziza cried, pointing to a bus. "Mayam,bov""I see it, Aziza jo," Mariam said. "That's right,bov. Soon we'reall going to ride on abov. Oh, the things you're going to see."Laila smiled. She watched a carpenter in his shop across thestreet sawing wood, sending chips flying. She watched the carsbolting past, their windows coated with soot and grime. Shewatched the buses growling idly at the curb, with peacocks,lions, rising suns, and glittery swords painted on their sides.
In the warmth of the morning sun, Laila felt giddy and bold.
She had another of those little sparks of euphoria, and when astray dog with yellow eyes limped by, Laila leaned forward andpet its back.
A few minutes before eleven, a man with a bullhorn called forall passengers to Peshawar to begin boarding. The bus doorsopened with a violent hydraulic hiss. A parade of travelersrushed toward it, scampering past each other to squeezethrough.
Wakil motioned toward Laila as he picked up his son.
"We're going," Laila said.
Wakil led the way. As they approached the bus, Laila sawfaces appear in the windows, noses and palms pressed to theglass. All around them, farewells were yelled.
A young militia soldier was checking tickets at the bus door.
"Bov!" Azxzz.cried.
Wakil handed tickets to the soldier, who tore them in half andhanded them back. Wakil let his wife board first. Laila saw alook pass between Wakil and the militiaman. Wakil, perched onthe first step of the bus, leaned down and said something inhis ear. The militiaman nodded.
Laila's heart plummeted.
"You two, with the child, step aside," the soldier said.
Laila pretended not to hear. She went to climb the steps, buthe grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly pulled her out ofthe line. "You too," he called to Mariam. "Hurry up! You'reholding up the line.""What's the problem, brother?" Laila said through numb lips.
"We have tickets. Didn't my cousin hand them to you?"He made aShh motion with his finger and spoke in a lowvoice to another guard. The second guard, a rotund fellow witha scar down his right cheek, nodded.
"Follow me," this one said to Laila.
"We have to board this bus," Laila cried, aware that her voicewas shaking. "We have tickets. Why are you doing this?""You're not going to get on this bus. You might as well acceptthat. You will follow me. Unless you want your little girl to seeyou dragged."As they were led to a truck, Laila looked over her shoulderand spotted Wakil's boy at the rear of the bus. The boy sawher too and waved happily.
* * *At the police station at Torabaz Khan Intersection, they weremade to sit apart, on opposite ends of a long, crowdedcorridor, between them a desk, behind which a man smokedone cigarette after another and clacked occasionally on atypewriter. Three hours passed this way. Aziza tottered fromLaila to Mariam, then back. She played with a paper clip thatthe man at the desk gave her. She finished the crackers.
Eventually, she fell asleep in Mariam's lap.
At around three o'clock, Laila was taken to an interview room.
Mariam was made to wait with Aziza in the corridor.
The man sitting on the other side of the desk in the interviewroom was in his thirties and wore civilian clothes- black suit,tie, black loafers. He had a neatly trimmed beard, short hair,and eyebrows that met. He stared at Laila, bouncing a pencilby the eraser end on the desk.
"We know," he began, clearing his throat and politely coveringhis mouth with a fist, "that you have already told one lietoday,kamshira The young man at the station was not yourcousin. He told us as much himself. The question is whetheryou will tell more lies today. Personally, I advise you against it.""We were going to stay with my uncle," Laila said "That's thetruth."The policeman nodded. "Thehamshira in the corridor, she'syour mother?""Yes.""She has a Herati accent. You don't.""She was raised in Herat, I was born here in Kabul.""Of course. And you are widowed? You said you were. Mycondolences. And this uncle, thiskaka, where does he live?""In Peshawar.""Yes, you said that." He licked the point of his pencil andpoised it over a blank sheet of paper. "But where inPeshawar? Which neighborhood, please? Street name, sectornumber."Laila tried to push back the bubble of panic that was comingup her chest. She gave him the name of the only street sheknew in Peshawar-she'd heard it mentioned once, at the partyMammy had thrown when the Mujahideen had first come toKabul-"Jamrud Road.""Oh, yes. Same street as the Pearl Continental Hotel. He mighthave mentioned it."Laila seized this opportunity and said he had. "That very samestreet, yes.""Except the hotel is on Khyber Road."Laila could hear Aziza crying in the corridor. "My daughter'sfrightened. May I get her, brother?""I prefer 'Officer.' And you'll be with her shortly. Do you havea telephone number for this uncle?""I do. I did. I…" Even with the burqa between them, Lailawas not buffered from his penetrating eyes. "I'm so upset, Iseem to have forgotten it."He sighed through his nose. He asked for the uncle's name,his wife's name. How many children did he have? What weretheir names? Where did he work? How old was he? Hisquestions left Laila flustered.
He put down his pencil, laced his fingers together, and leanedforward the way parents do when they want to conveysomething to a toddler. "You do realize,hamshira, that it is acrime for a woman to run away. We see a lot of it. Womentraveling alone, claiming their husbands have died. Sometimesthey're telling the truth, most times not. You can be imprisonedfor running away, I assume you understand that,nay1?""Let us go, Officer…" She read the name on his lapel tag.
"Officer Rahman. Honor the meaning of your name and showcompassion. What does it matter to you to let a mere twowomen go? What's the harm in releasing us? We are notcriminals.""I can't.""I beg you, please.""It's a matter ofqanoon, hamshira, a matter of law," Rahmansaid, injecting his voice with a grave, self-important tone. "It ismy responsibility, you see, to maintain order."In spite of her distraught state, Laila almost laughed. She wasstunned that he'd used that word in the face of all that theMujahideen factions had done-the murders, the lootings, therapes, the tortures, the executions, the bombings, the tens ofthousands of rockets they had fired at each other, heedless ofall the innocent people who would die in the cross fire.Order.
But she bit her tongue.
"If you send us back," she said instead, slowly, "there is nosaying what he will do to us."She could see the effort it took him to keep his eyes fromshifting. "What a man does in his home is his business.""What about the law,then, Officer Rahman?" Tears of ragestung her eyes. "Will you be there to maintain order?""As a matter of policy, we do not interfere with private familymatters,hamshira""Of course you don't. When it benefits the man. And isn't thisa 'private family matter,' as you say? Isn't it?"He pushed back from his desk and stood up, straightened hisjacket. "I believe this interview is finished. I must say,hamshira,that you have made a very poor case for yourself. Very poorindeed. Now, if you would wait outside I will have a few wordswith your…whoever she is."Laila began to protest, then to yell, and he had to summonthe help of two more men to have her dragged out of hisoffice.
Mariam's interview lasted only a few minutes. When she cameout, she looked shaken.
"He asked so many questions," she said. "I'm sorry, Laila jo.
I am not smart like you. He asked so many questions, I didn'tknow the answers. I'm sorry.""It's not your fault, Mariam," Laila said weakly. "It's mine. It'sall my fault. Everything is my fault."* * *It was past six o'clock when the police car pulled up in frontof the house. Laila and Mariam were made to wait in thebackseat, guarded by a Mujahid soldier in the passenger seat.
The driver was the one who got out of the car, who knockedon the door, who spoke to Rasheed. It was he who motionedfor them to come.
"Welcome home," the man in the front seat said, lighting acigarette.
* * *"You," he said to Mariam. "You wait here."Mariam quietly took a seat on the couch.
"You two, upstairs."Rasheed grabbed Laila by the elbow and pushed her up thesteps. He was still wearing the shoes he wore to work, hadn'tyet changed to his flip-flops, taken off his watch, hadn't evenshed his coat yet. Laila pictured him as he must have been anhour, or maybe minutes, earlier, rushing from one room toanother, slamming doors, furious and incredulous, cursing underhis breath.
At the top of the stairs, Laila turned to him.
"She didn't want to do it," she said. "I made her do it. Shedidn't want to go-"Laila didn't see the punch coming. One moment she wastalking and the next she was on all fours, wide-eyed andred-faced, trying to draw a breath. It was as if a car had hither at full speed, in the tender place between the lower tip ofthe breastbone and the belly button. She realized she haddropped Aziza, that Aziza was screaming. She tried to breatheagain and could only make a husky, choking sound. Dribblehung from her mouth.
Then she was being dragged by the hair. She saw Aziza lifted,saw her sandals slip off, her tiny feet kicking. Hair was rippedfrom Laila's scalp, and her eyes watered with pain. She saw hisfoot kick open the door to Mariam's room, saw Aziza flungonto the bed. He let go of Laila's hair, and she felt the toe ofhis shoe connect with her left buttock. She howled with pain ashe slammed the door shut. A key rattled in the lock.
Aziza was still screaming. Laila lay curled up on the floor,gasping. She pushed herself up on her hands, crawled towhere Aziza lay on the bed. She reached for her daughter.
Downstairs, the beating began. To Laila, the sounds she heardwere those of a methodical, familiar proceeding. There was nocursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only thesystematic business of beating and being beaten, thethump,thump of something solid repeatedly striking flesh, something,someone, hitting a wall with a thud, cloth ripping. Now andthen, Laila heard running footsteps, a wordless chase, furnitureturning over, glass shattering, then the thumping once more.
Laila took Aziza in her arms. A warmth spread down thefront of her dress when Aziza's bladder let go.
Downstairs, the running and chasing finally stopped. Therewas a sound now like a wooden club repeatedly slapping aside of beef.
Laila rocked Aziza until the sounds stopped, and, when sheheard the screen door creak open and slam shut, she loweredAziza to the ground and peeked out the window. She sawRasheed leading Mariam across the yard by the nape of herneck. Mariam was barefoot and doubled over. There was bloodon his hands, blood on Mariam's face, her hair, down herneck and back. Her shirt had been ripped down the front.
"I'm so sorry, Mariam," Laila cried into the glass.
She watched him shove Mariam into the toolshed. He went in,came out with a hammer and several long planks of wood. Heshut the double doors to the shed, took a key from his pocket,worked the padlock. He tested the doors, then went aroundthe back of the shed and fetched a ladder.
A few minutes later, his face was in Laila's window, nailstucked in the comer of his mouth. His hair was disheveled.
There was a swath of blood on his brow. At the sight of him,Aziza shrieked and buried her face in Laila's armpit.
Rasheed began nailing boards across the window.
* * *The dark was total, impenetrable and constant, without layeror texture. Rasheed had filled the cracks between the boardswith something, put a large and immovable object at the footof the door so no light came from under it. Something hadbeen stuffed in the keyhole.
Laila found it impossible to tell the passage of time with hereyes, so she did it with her good ear.Azan and crowingroosters signaled morning. The sounds of plates clanking in thekitchen downstairs, the radio playing, meant evening.
The first day, they groped and fumbled for each other in thedark. Laila couldn't see Aziza when she cried, when she wentcrawling.
"Aishee,"Aziza mewled."Aishee.""Soon." Laila kissed her daughter, aiming for the forehead,finding the crown of her head instead. "We'll have milk soon.
You just be patient. Be a good, patient little girl for Mammy,and I'll get you someaishee. "Laila sang her a few songs.
Azanrang out a second time and still Rasheed had not giventhem any food, and, worse, no water. That day, a thick,suffocating heat fell on them. The room turned into a pressurecooker. Laila dragged a dry tongue over her lips, thinking ofthe well outside, the water cold and fresh. Aziza kept crying,and Laila noticed with alarm that when she wiped her cheeksher hands came back dry. She stripped the clothes off Aziza,tried to find something to fan her with, settled for blowing onher until she became light-headed. Soon, Aziza stopped crawlingaround. She slipped in and out of sleep.
Several times that day, Laila banged her fists against the walls,used up her energy screaming for help, hoping that a neighborwould hear. But no one came, and her shrieking onlyfrightened Aziza, who began to cry again, a weak, croakingsound. Laila slid to the ground. She thought guiltily of Mariam,beaten and bloodied, locked in this heat in the toolshed.
Laila fell asleep at some point, her body baking in the heat.
She had a dream that she and Aziza had run into Tariq. Hewas across a crowded street from them, beneath the awning ofa tailor's shop. He was sitting on his haunches and samplingfrom a crate of figs.That's your father, Laila said.That manthere, you see him? He's your real baba. She called his name,but the street noise drowned her voice, and Tariq didn't hear.
She woke up to the whistling of rockets streaking overhead.
Somewhere, the sky she couldn't see erupted with blasts andthe long, frantic hammering of machine-gun fire. Laila closedher eyes. She woke again to Rasheed's heavy footsteps in thehallway. She dragged herself to the door, slapped her palmsagainst it.
"Just one glass, Rasheed. Not for me. Do it for her. Youdon't want her blood on your hands." He walked past-Shebegan to plead with him. She begged for forgiveness, madepromises. She cursed him. His door closed. The radio came on.
The muezzin calledazan a third time. Again the heat. Azizabecame even more listless. She stopped crying, stopped movingaltogether.
Laila put her ear over Aziza's mouth, dreading each time thatshe would not hear the shallow whooshing of breath. Even thissimple act of lifting herself made her head swim. She fellasleep, had dreams she could not remember. When she wokeup, she checked on Aziza, felt the parched cracks of her lips,the faint pulse at her neck, lay down again. They would diehere, of that Laila was sure now, but what she really dreadedwas that she would outlast Aziza, who was young and brittle.
How much more could Aziza take? Aziza would die in thisheat, and Laila would have to lie beside her stiffening littlebody and wait for her own death. Again she fell asleep. Wokeup. Fell asleep. The line between dream and wakefulnessblurred.
It wasn't roosters orazan that woke her up again but thesound of something heavy being dragged. She heard a rattling-Suddenly, the room was flooded with light. Her eyes screamedin protest. Laila raised her head, winced, and shielded her eyes.
Through the cracks between her fingers, she saw a big, blurrysilhouette standing in a rectangle of light. The silhouette moved.
Now there was a shape crouching beside her, looming overher, and a voice by her ear.
"You try this again and I will find you. I swear on theProphet's name that I will find you. And, when I do, there isn'ta court in this godforsaken country that will hold meaccountable for what I will do. To Mariam first, then to her,and you last. I'll make you watch. You understand me?I'llmake you watch."And, with that, he left the room. But not before delivering akick to the flank that would have Laila pissing blood for days.
Chapter 37.
Madam SEPTEMBER 1996Iwo and a half years later, Mariam awoke on the morning ofSeptember 27 to the sounds of shouting andwhistling, firecrackers and music. She ran to the living room,found Laila already at the window, Aziza mounted on hershoulders. Laila turned and smiled.
"The Taliban are here," she said.
* * *Mariam had first heard of the Taliban two years before, inOctober 1994, when Rasheed had brought home news thatthey had overthrown the warlords in Kandahar and taken thecity. They were a guerrilla force, he said, made up of youngPashtun men whose families had fled to Pakistan during thewar against the Soviets. Most of them had been raised-someeven born-in refugee camps along the Pakistani border, and inPakistani madrasas, where they were schooled inShari'a bymullahs. Their leader was a mysterious, illiterate, one-eyedrecluse named Mullah Omar, who, Rasheed said with someamusement, called himselfAmeer-ul-Mumineeny Leader of theFaithful.
"It's true that these boys have norisha, no roots," Rasheedsaid, addressing neither Mariam nor Laila. Ever since the failedescape, two and a half years ago, Mariam knew that she andLaila had become one and the same being to him, equallywretched, equally deserving of his distrust, his disdain anddisregard. When he spoke, Mariam had the sense that he washaving a conversation with himself, or with some invisiblepresence in the room, who, unlike her and Laila, was worthyof his opinions.
"They may have no past," he said, smoking and looking up atthe ceiling. "They may know nothing of the world or thiscountry's history. Yes. And, compared to them, Mariam heremight as well be a university professor. Ha! Alltrue. But look around you. What do you see? Corrupt, greedyMujahideen commanders, armed to the teeth, rich off heroin,declaring jihad on one another and killing everyone inbetween-that's what. At least the Taliban are pure andincorruptible. At least they're decent Muslim boys.Wallah, whenthey come, they will clean up this place. They'll bring peaceand order. People won't get shot anymore going out for milk.
No more rockets! Think of it."For two years now, the Taliban had been making their waytoward Kabul, taking cities from the Mujahideen, endingfactional war wherever they'd settled. They had captured theHazara commander Abdul Ali Mazari and executed him. Formonths, they'd settled in the southern outskirts of Kabul, firingon the city, exchanging rockets with Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Earlier in that September of 1996, they had captured the citiesof Jalalabad and Sarobi.
The Taliban had one thing the Mujahideen did not, Rasheedsaid. They were united.
"Let them come," he said. "I, for one, will shower them withrose petals."* * *They "went our that day, the four of them, Rasheed leadingthem from one bus to the next, to greet their new world, theirnew leaders. In every battered neighborhood, Mariam foundpeople materializing from the rubble and moving into thestreets. She saw an old woman wasting handfuls of rice, tossingit at passersby, a drooping, toothless smile on her face. Twomen were hugging by the remains of a gutted building, in thesky above them the whistle, hiss, and pop of a few firecrackersset off by boys perched on rooftops. The national anthemplayed on cassette decks, competing with the honking of cars.
"Look, Mayam!" Aziza pointed to a group of boys runningdown Jadeh Maywand. They were pounding their fists into theair and dragging rusty cans tied to strings. They were yellingthat Massoud and Rabbani had withdrawn from Kabul.
Everywhere, there were shouts:Ailah-u-akbar!
Mariam saw a bedsheet hanging from a window on JadehMaywand. On it, someone had painted three words in big,black letters: zendabaad taliban! Long live the Taliban!
As they walked the streets, Mariam spotted more signs-paintedon windows, nailed to doors, billowing from car antennas-thatproclaimed the same.
* * *Mariam sawher first of the Taliban later that day, atPashtunistan Square, with Rasheed, Laila, and Aziza. A melee ofpeople had gathered there. Mariam saw people craning theirnecks, people crowded around the blue fountain in the centerof the square, people perched on its dry bed. They were tryingto get a view of the end of the square, near the old KhyberRestaurant.
Rasheed used his size to push and shove past the onlookers,and led them to where someone was speaking through aloudspeaker.
When Aziza saw, she let out a shriek and buried her face inMariam's burqa.
The loudspeaker voice belonged to a slender, bearded youngman who wore a black turban. He was standing on some sortof makeshift scaffolding. In his free hand, he held a rocketlauncher. Beside him, two bloodied men hung from ropes tiedto traffic-light posts. Their clothes had been shredded. Theirbloated faces had turned purple-blue.
"I know him," Mariam said, "the one on the left."A young woman in front of Mariam turned around and saidit was Najibullah. The other man was his brother. Mariamremembered Najibullah's plump, mustachioed face, beamingfrom billboards and storefront windows during the Soviet years.
She would later hear that the Taliban had dragged Najibullahfrom his sanctuary at the UN headquarters near DarulamanPalace. That they had tortured him for hours, then tied his legsto a truck and dragged his lifeless body through the streets.
"He killed many, many Muslims!" the young Talib wasshouting through the loudspeaker. He spoke Farsi with aPashto accent, then would switch to Pashto. He punctuated hiswords by pointing to the corpses with his weapon. "His crimesare known to everybody. He was a communist and akqfir Thisis what we do with infidels who commit crimes against Islam!"Rasheed was smirking.
In Mariam's arms, Aziza began to cry.
* * *The following day, Kabul was overrun by trucks. In Khairkhana, in Shar-e-Nau, in Karteh-Parwan, in Wazir Akbar Khanand Taimani, red Toyota trucks weaved through the streets.
Armed bearded men in black turbans sat in their beds. Fromeach truck, a loudspeaker blared announcements, first in Farsi,then Pashto. The same message played from loudspeakersperched atop mosques, and on the radio, which was nowknown as the Voice ofShort 'a. The message was also writtenin flyers, tossed into the streets. Mariam found one in the yard.
Ourwatanis now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey:
Ail citizens must pray five times a day. If it is prayer timeand you are caught doing something other, you will be beaten.
Ail men will grow their beards. The correct length is at leastone clenched fist beneath the chin. If you do not abide by this,you will be beaten.
Ml boys will wear turbans. Boys in grade one through six willwear black turbans, higher grades will wear white. Ail boys willwear Islamic clothes. Shirt collars will be buttoned.
Singing is forbidden.
Dancing is forbidden.
Playing cards, playing chess, gambling, and kiteflying areforbidden.
Writing books, watching films, and painting pictures areforbidden.
If you keep parakeets, you will be beaten. Your birds will bekilled.
If you steal, your hand will be cut off at the wrist. If yousteal again, your foot will be cut off.
If you are not Muslim, do not worship where you can beseen by Muslims. If you do, you will be beaten and imprisoned.
If you are caught trying to convert a Muslim to your faith, youwill be executed.
Attention women:
You will stay inside your homes at all times. It is not properfor women to wander aimlessly about the streets. If you gooutside, you must be accompanied by amahram,a male relative.
If you are caught alone on the street, you will be beaten andsent home.
You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. Youwill cover with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will beseverely beaten.
Cosmetics are forbidden.
Jewelry is forbidden.
You will not wear charming clothes.
You will not speak unless spoken to.
You will not make eye contact with men.
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten.
You will not paint your nails. If you do, you will lose a finger.
Girls are forbidden from attending school All schools for girlswill be closed immediately.
Women are forbidden from working.
If you are found guilty of adultery, you will be stoned todeathListen. Listen well. Obey.Allah-u-akbar.
Rasheed turned off the radio. They were sitting on theliving-room floor, eating dinner less than a week after they'dseen Najibullah's corpse hanging by a rope.
"They can't make half the population stay home and donothing," Laila said.
"Why not?" Rasheed said. For once, Mariam agreed with him.
He'd done the same to her and Laila, in effect, had he not?
Surely Laila saw that.
"This isn't some village. This isKabul. Women here used topractice law and medicine; they held office in thegovernment-"Rasheed grinned. "Spoken like the arrogant daughter of apoetry-reading university man that you are. How urbane, howTajik, of you. You think this is some new, radical idea theTaliban are bringing? Have you ever lived outside of yourprecious little shell in Kabul, mygull Ever cared to visit therealAfghanistan, the south, the east, along the tribal border withPakistan? No? I have. And I can tell you that there are manyplaces in this country that have always lived this way, or closeenough anyhow. Not that you would know.""I refuse to believe it," Laila said "They're not serious.""What the Taliban did to Najibullah looked serious to me,"Rasheed said. "Wouldn't you agree?""He was a communist! He was the head of the Secret Police."Rasheed laughed.
Mariam heard the answer in his laugh: that in the eyes of theTaliban, being a communist and the leader of the dreadedKHAD made Najibullah onlyslightly more contemptible than awoman.

Chapter 38.
LailaJLaila was glad, when the Taliban went to work, that Babiwasn't around to witness it. It would have crippled him.
Men wielding pickaxes swarmed the dilapidated Kabul Museumand smashed pre-Islamic statues to rubble-that is, those thathadn't already been looted by the Mujahideen. The universitywas shut down and its students sent home. Paintings wereripped from walls, shredded with blades. Television screens werekicked in. Books, except the Koran, were burned in heaps, thestores that sold them closed down. The poems of Khalili,Pajwak, Ansari, Haji Dehqan, Ashraqi, Beytaab, Hafez, Jami,Nizami, Rumi, Khayyam, Beydel, and more went up in smoke.
Laila heard of men being dragged from the streets, accused ofskippingnamaz, and shoved into mosques. She learned thatMarco Polo Restaurant, near Chicken Street, had been turnedinto an interrogation center. Sometimes screaming was heardfrom behind its black-painted windows. Everywhere, the BeardPatrol roamed the streets in Toyota trucks on the lookout forclean-shaven faces to bloody.
They shut down the cinemas too. Cinema Park. Ariana. Aryub.
Projection rooms were ransacked and reels of films set to fire.
Laila remembered all the times she and Tariq had sat in thosetheaters and watched Hindi films, all those melodramatic tales oflovers separated by some tragic turn of fate, one adrift in somefaraway land, the other forced into marriage, the weeping, thesinging in fields of marigolds, the longing for reunions. Sheremembered how Tariq would laugh at her for crying at thosefilms.
"I wonder what they've done to my father's cinema," Mariamsaid to her one day. "If it's still there, that is. Or if he stillowns it."Kharabat, Kabul's ancient music ghetto, was silenced. Musicianswere beaten and imprisoned, theirrubab%?iamboura%? andharmoniums trampled upon. The Taliban went to the grave ofTariq's favorite singer, Ahmad Zahir, and fired bullets into it.
"He's been dead for almost twenty years," Laila said toMariam. "Isn't dying once enough?"* * *Rasheed wasnt bothered much by the Taliban. All he had todo was grow a beard, which he did, and visit the mosque,which he also did. Rasheed regarded the Taliban with aforgiving, affectionate kind of bemusement, as one might regardan erratic cousin prone to unpredictable acts of hilarity andscandal.
Every Wednesday night, Rasheed listened to the VoiceofShari'a when the Taliban would announce the names of thosescheduled for punishment. Then, on Fridays, he went to GhaziStadium, bought a Pepsi, and watched the spectacle. In bed, hemade Laila listen as he described with a queer sort ofexhilaration the hands he'd seen severed, the lashings, thehangings, the beheadings.
"I saw a man today slit the throat of his brother's murderer,"he said one night, blowing halos of smoke.
"They're savages," Laila said.
"You think?" he said "Compared to what? The Soviets killed amillion people. Do you know how many people the Mujahideenkilled in Kabul alone these last four years? Fifty thousandFiftythousand! Is it so insensible, by comparison, to chop the handsoff a few thieves? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's in theKoran. Besides, tell me this: If someone killed Aziza, wouldn'tyou want the chance to avenge her?"Laila shot him a disgusted look.
"I'm making a point," he said.
"You're just like them.""It's an interesting eye color she has, Aziza. Don't you think?
It's neither yours nor mine."Rasheed rolled over to face her, gently scratched her thighwith the crooked nail of his index finger.
"Let me explain," he said. "If the fancy should strike me-andI'm not saying it will, but it could, it could-I would be withinmy rights to give Aziza away. How would you like that? Or Icould go to the Taliban one day, just walk in and say that Ihave my suspicions about you. That's all it would take. Whoseword do you think they would believe? What do you thinkthey'd do to you?"Laila pulled her thigh from him.
"Not that I would," he said. "I wouldn't.Nay. Probably not.
You know me.""You're despicable," Laila said.
"That's a big word," Rasheed said. "I've always disliked thatabout you. Even when you were little, when you were runningaround with that cripple, you thought you were so clever, withyour books and poems. What good are all your smarts to younow? What's keeping you off the streets, your smarts or me?
I'm despicable? Half the women in this city would kill to havea husband like me. They wouldkill for it."He rolled back and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
"You like big words? I'll give you one: perspective. That's whatI'm doing here, Laila. Making sure you don't lose perspective."What turned Laila's stomach the rest of the night was thatevery word Rasheed had uttered, every last one, was true.
But, in the morning, and for several mornings after that, thequeasiness in her gut persisted, then worsened, becamesomething dismayingly familiar.
* * *One cold, overcast afternoon soon after, Laila lay on her backon the bedroom floor. Mariam was napping with Aziza in herroom.
In Laila's hands was a metal spoke she had snapped with apair of pliers from an abandoned bicycle wheel She'd found itin the same alley where she had kissed Tariq years back. Fora long time, Laila lay on the floor, sucking air through herteeth, legs partedShe'd adored Aziza from the moment when she'd firstsuspected her existence. There had been none of thisself-doubt, this uncertainty. What a terrible thing it was, Lailathought now, for a mother to fear that she could not summonlove for her own child. What an unnatural thing. And yet shehad to wonder, as she lay on the floor, her sweaty handspoised to guide the spoke, if indeed she could ever loveRasheed's child as she had Tariq's.
In the end, Laila couldn't do it.
It wasn't the fear of bleeding to death that made her dropthe spoke, or even the idea that the act was damnable- whichshe suspected it was. Laila dropped the spoke because shecould not accept what the Mujahideen readily had: thatsometimes in war innocent life had to be taken. Her war wasagainst Rasheed. The baby was blameless. And there had beenenough killing already. Laila had seen enough killing ofinnocents caught in the cross fire of enemies.
Chapter 39.
Madam September 1997Ihis hospital no longer treats women," the guard barked. Hewas standing at the top of the stairs, looking down icily on thecrowd gathered in front of Malalai Hospital.
A loud groan rose from the crowd.
"But this is a women's hospital!" a woman shouted behindMariam. Cries of approval followed this.
Mariam shifted Aziza from one arm to the other. With herfree arm, she supported Laila, who was moaning, and had herown arm flung around Rasheed's neck.
"Not anymore," the Talib said.
"My wife is having a baby!" a heavyset man yelled. "Wouldyou have her give birth here on the street, brother?"Mariam had heard the announcement, in January of thatyear, that men and women would be seen in differenthospitals, that all female staff would be discharged from Kabul'shospitals and sent to work in one central facility. No one hadbelieved it, and the Taliban hadn't enforced the policy. Untilnow.
"What about Ali Abaci Hospital?" another man cried.
The guard shook his head.
"WazirAkbarKhan?""Men only," he said.
"What are we supposed to do?""Go to Rabia Balkhi," the guard said.
A young woman pushed forward, said she had already beenthere. They had no clean water, she said, no oxygen, nomedications, no electricity. "There is nothing there.""That's where you go," the guard said.
There were more groans and cries, an insult or two. Someonethrew a rock.
The Talib lifted his Kalashnikov and fired rounds into the air.
Another Talib behind him brandished a whip.
The crowd dispersed quickly.
* * *The waiting room at Rabia Balkhi was teeming with women inburqas and their children. The air stank of sweat andunwashed bodies, of feet, urine, cigarette smoke, and antiseptic.
Beneath the idle ceiling fan, children chased each other,hopping over the stretched-out legs of dozing fathers.
Mariam helped Laila sit against a wall from which patches ofplaster shaped like foreign countries had slid off Laila rockedback and forth, hands pressing against her belly.
"I'll get you seen, Laila jo. I promise.""Be quick," said Rasheed.
Before the registration window was a horde of women,shoving and pushing against each other. Some were still holdingtheir babies. Some broke from the mass and charged thedouble doors that led to the treatment rooms. An armed Talibguard blocked their way, sent them back.
Mariam waded in. She dug in her heels and burrowed againstthe elbows, hips, and shoulder blades of strangers. Someoneelbowed her in the ribs, and she elbowed back. A hand madea desperate grab at her face. She swatted it away. To propelherself forward, Mariam clawed at necks, at arms and elbows,at hair, and, when a woman nearby hissed, Mariam hissedback.
Mariam saw now the sacrifices a mother made. Decency wasbut one. She thought ruefully of Nana, of the sacrifices that shetoo had made. Nana, who could have given her away, ortossed her in a ditch somewhere and run. But she hadn't.
Instead, Nana had endured the shame of bearing aharami, hadshaped her life around the thankless task of raising Mariamand, in her own way, of loving her. And, in the end, Mariamhad chosen Jalil over her. As she fought her way withimpudent resolve to the front of the melee, Mariam wished shehad been a better daughter to Nana. She wished she'dunderstood then what she understood now aboutmotherhood-She found herself face-to-face with a nurse, whowas covered head to toe in a dirty gray burqa. The nurse wastalking to a young woman, whose burqa headpiece had soakedthrough with a patch of matted blood"My daughter's water broke and the baby won't come,"Mariam called.
"I'mtalking to her!" the bloodied young woman cried "Waityour turn!"The whole mass of them swayed side to side, like the tallgrass around thekolba when the breeze swept across theclearing. A woman behind Mariam was yelling that her girl hadbroken her elbow falling from a tree. Another woman criedthat she was passing bloody stools.
"Does she have a fever?" the nurse asked. It took Mariam amoment to realize she was being spoken to.
"No," Mariam said.
Bleeding?
"No.""Whereis she?"Over the covered heads, Mariam pointed to where Laila wassitting with Rasheed.
"We'll get to her," the nurse said"How long?" Mariam cried Someone had grabbed her by theshoulders and was pulling her back.
"I don't know,"the nurse said. She said they had only twodoctorsand both were operating at the moment.
"She's in pain," Mariam said.
"Me too!" the woman with the bloodied scalp cried. "Waityour turn!"Mariam was being dragged back. Her view of the nurse wasblocked now by shoulders and the backs of heads. She smelleda baby's milky burp.
"Take her for awalk," the nurse yelled. "And wait."* * *It was dark outside when a nurse finally called them in. Thedelivery room had eight beds, on which women moaned andtwisted tended to by fully covered nurses. Two of the womenwere in the act of delivering. There were no curtains betweenthe beds. Laila was given a bed at the far end, beneath awindow that someone had painted black. There was a sinknearby, cracked and dry, and a string over the sink fromwhich hung stained surgical gloves. In the middle of the roomMariam saw an aluminum table. The top shelf had asoot-colored blanket on it; the bottom shelf was empty.
One of the women saw Mariam looking.
"They put the live ones on the top," she said tiredly.
The doctor, in a dark blue burqa, was a small, harriedwoman with birdlike movements. Everything she said came outsounding impatient, urgent.
"First baby." She said it like that, not as a question but as astatement.
"Second," Mariam said.
Laila let out a cry and rolled on her side. Her fingers closedagainst Mariam's.
"Any problems with the first delivery?"'No.
"You're the mother?""Yes," Mariam said.
The doctor lifted the lower half of her burqa and produced ametallic, cone-shaped instrument- She raised Laila's burqa andplaced the wide end of the instrument on her belly, the narrowend to her own ear. She listened foralmost a minute, switched spots, listened again, switched spotsagain.
"I have to feel the baby now,hamshira "She put on one of the gloves hung by a clothespin over thesink. She pushed on Laila's belly with one hand and slid theother inside. Laila whimpered. When the doctor was done, shegave the glove to a nurse, who rinsed it andpinned it back on the string.
"Your daughter needs a caesarian. Do you know what that is?
We have to open her womb and take the baby out, because itis in the breech position.""I don't understand," Mariam said.
The doctor said the baby was positioned so it wouldn't comeout on its own. "And too much time has passed as is. Weneed to go to the operating room now."Laila gave a grimacing nod, and her head drooped to oneside.
"Thereis something I have to tell you," the doctor said. Shemoved closer to Mariam, leaned in, and spoke in a lower,more confidential tone. There was a hint of embarrassment inher voice now.
"What is she saying?" Laila groaned. "Is something wrong withthe baby?""But how will she stand it?" Mariam said.
The doctor must have heard accusation in this question,judging by the defensive shift in her tone.
"You think I want it this way?" she said. "What do you wantme to do? They won't give me what I need. I have no X-rayeither, no suction, no oxygen, not even simple antibiotics. WhenNGOs offer money, the Taliban turn them away. Or they funnelthe money to the places that cater to men.""But, Doctor sahib, isn't there something you can give her?"Mariam asked.
"What's going on?" Laila moaned.
"You can buy the medicine yourself, but-""Write the name," Mariam said. "You write it down and I'llget it."Beneath the burqa, the doctor shook her head curtly. "Thereis no time," she said. "For one thing, none of the nearbypharmacies have it. So you'd have to fight through traffic fromone place to the next, maybe all the way across town, withlittle likelihood that you'd ever find it. It's almost eight-thirtynow, so you'll probably get arrested for breaking curfew. Evenif you find the medicine, chances are you can't afford it. Oryou'll find yourself in a bidding war with someone just asdesperate. There is no time. This baby needs to come outnow.""Tell me what's going on!" Laila said She had propped herselfup on her elbows.
The doctor took a breath, then told Laila that the hospital hadno anesthetic.
"But if we delay, you will lose your baby.""Then cut me open," Laila said. She dropped back on thebed and drew up her knees. "Cut me open and give me mybaby."* * *Inside the old, dingy operating room, Laila lay on a gurneybed as the doctor scrubbed her hands in a basin. Laila wasshivering. She drew in air through her teeth every time thenurse wiped her belly with a cloth soaked in a yellow-brownliquid. Another nurse stood at the door. She kept cracking itopen to take a peek outside.
The doctor was out of her burqa now, and Mariam saw thatshe had a crest of silvery hair, heavy-lidded eyes, and littlepouches of fatigue at the corners of her mouth.
"They want us to operate in burqa," the doctor explained,motioning with her head to the nurse at the door. "She keepswatch. She sees them coming; I cover."She said this in a pragmatic, almost indifferent, tone, andMariam understood that this was a woman far past outrage.
Here was a woman, she thought, who had understood thatshe was lucky to even be working, that there was alwayssomething, something else, that they could take away.
There were two vertical, metallic rods on either side of Laila'sshoulders. With clothespins, the nurse who'd cleansed Laila'sbelly pinned a sheet to them. It formed a curtain between Lailaand the doctor.
Mariam positioned herself behind the crown of Laila's headand lowered her face so their cheeks touched. She could feelLaila's teeth rattling. Their hands locked together.
Through the curtain, Mariam saw the doctor's shadow moveto Laila's left, the nurse to the right. Laila's lips had stretchedall the way back. Spit bubbles formed and popped on thesurface of her clenched teeth. She made quick, little hissingsounds.
The doctor said, "Take heart, little sister."She bent over Laila.
Laila's eyes snapped open. Then her mouth opened. She heldlike this, held, held, shivering, the cords in her neck stretched,sweat dripping from her face, her fingers crushing Mariam's.
Mariam would always admire Laila for how much time passedbefore she screamed.
Chapter 40.
Laila Fall 1999It was Mariam's idea to dig the hole. One morning, shepointed to a patch of soil behind the toolshed. "We can do ithere," she said. "This is a good spot"They took turns striking the ground with a spade, thenshoveling the loose dirt aside. They hadn't planned on a bighole, or a deep one, so the work of digging shouldn't havebeen as demanding as it turned out. It was the drought,started in 1998, in its second year now, that was wreakinghavoc everywhere. It had hardly snowed that past winter anddidn't rain at all that spring. All over the country, farmers wereleaving behind their parched lands, selling off their goods,roaming from village to village looking for water. They movedto Pakistan or Iran. They settled in Kabul. But water tableswere low in the city too, and the shallow wells had dried up.
The lines at the deep wells were so long, Laila and Mariamwould spend hours waiting their turn. The Kabul River, withoutits yearly spring floods, had turned bone-dry. It was a publictoilet now, nothing in it but human waste and rubble.
So they kept swinging the spade and striking, but thesun-blistered ground had hardened like a rock, the dirtunyielding, compressed, almost petrified.
Mariam was forty now. Her hair, rolled up above her face,had a few stripes of gray in it. Pouches sagged beneath hereyes, brown and crescent-shaped. She'd lost two front teeth.
One fell out, the other Rasheed knocked out when she'daccidentally dropped Zalmai. Her skin had coarsened, tannedfrom all the time they were spending in the yardsitting beneaththe brazen sun. They would sit and watch Zalmai chase Aziza.
When it was done, when the hole was dug, they stood over itand looked down.
"It should do," Mariam said.
* * *Zalmai was twonow. He was a plump little boy with curlyhair. He had small brownisheyes, and a rosy tint tohis cheeks,like Rasheed, no matter the weather. He hadhis father'shairlinetoo, thick and half-moon-shaped,set low on his brow.
When Laila was alone with him, Zalmai was sweet,good-humored, and playful. He liked to climb Laila'sshoulders,play hide-and-seek in the yard with her and Aziza. Sometimes,inhis calmer moments, he liked tosit on Laila's lap and haveher sing tohim. His favorite song was "Mullah MohammadJan." He swung his meaty little feet as she sang into his curlyhair and joined in when she got to the chorus, singing whatwords he could make with his raspy voice:
Come and lei's go to Mazar, Mullah Mohammadjan, To seethe fields of tulips, o beloved companion.
Laila loved the moist kisses Zalmai planted on her cheeks,loved his dimpled elbows and stout little toes. She loved ticklinghim, building tunnels with cushions and pillows for him to crawlthrough, watching him fall asleep in her arms with one of hishands always clutching her ear. Her stomach turned when shethought of that afternoon, lying on the floor with the spoke ofa bicycle wheel between her legs. How close she'd come. Itwas unthinkable to her now that she could have evenentertained the idea. Her son was a blessing, and Laila wasrelieved to discover that her fears had proved baseless, thatshe loved Zalmai with the marrow of her bones, just as shedid Aziza.
But Zalmai worshipped his father, and, because he did, hewas transformed when his father was around to dote on him.
Zalmai was quick then with a defiant cackle or an impudentgrin. In his father's presence, he was easily offended. He heldgrudges. He persisted in mischief in spite of Laila's scolding,which he never did when Rasheed was away.
Rasheed approved of all of it. "A sign of intelligence," he said.
He said the same of Zalmai's recklessness-when he swallowed,then pooped, marbles; when he lit matches; when he chewedon Rasheed's cigarettes.
When Zalmai was born, Rasheed had moved him into the bedhe shared with Laila. He had bought him a new crib and hadlions and crouching leopards painted on the side panels. He'dpaid for new clothes, new rattles, new bottles, new diapers,even though they could not afford them and Aziza's old oneswere still serviceable. One day, he came home with abattery-run mobile, which he hung over Zalmai's crib. Littleyellow-and-black bumblebees dangled from a sunflower, andthey crinkled and squeaked when squeezed. A tune playedwhen it was turned on.
"I thought you said business was slow," Laila said.
"I have friends I can borrowfrom," he saiddismissively.
"Howwill you pay them back?""Thingswill turn around. They always do. Look,he likes it.
See?"Mostdays, Laila was deprived ofher son. Rasheed took him tothe shop, let him crawl around under his crowded workbench,play with old rubber soles and spare scraps of leather. Rasheeddrove in his iron nails and turned the sandpaper wheel, andkept a watchful eye on him. If Zalmai toppled a rack of shoes,Rasheed scolded him gently, in a calm, half-smiling way. If hedid it again, Rasheed put downhis hammer, sat him up on hisdesk, and talked to him softly.
Hispatience with Zalmaiwas a well that ran deep and neverdried.
They came home together in the evening, Zalmai's headbouncing on Rasheed's shoulder, both of them smelling of glueand leather. They grinned the way people who share a secretdo,slyly, like they'd satin thatdim shoe shop all day not makingshoes at all butdevising secret plots. Zalmai liked to sit besidehisfather at dinner, where they played private games, as Mariam,Laila, and Azizaset plates onthesojrah. They took turns pokingeach otheron the chest, giggling, pelting each other with breadcrumbs, whispering things the others couldn't hear. If Lailaspoke tothem, Rasheed looked up with displeasure at theunwelcome intrusion. If she asked to hold Zalmai-or, worse,ifZalmai reached for her-Rasheed glowered at her.
Laila walked away feeling stung.
* * *Then one night, a few weeks after Zalmai turned two,Rasheed came home with a television and a VCR. The dayhad been warm, almost balmy, but the evening was cooler andalready thickening into a starless, chilly night-He set it down onthe living-room table. He said he'd bought it on the blackmarket. "Another loan?" Laila asked. "It'saMagnavox."Aziza came into the room. When she saw the TV, she ran toit. "Careful, Aziza jo," saidMariam. "Don't touch."Aziza's hair had become as light as Laila's. Laila could see herown dimples on her cheeks. Aziza had turned into a calm,pensive little girl, with a demeanor that to Laila seemed beyondher six years. Laila marveled at her daughter's manner ofspeech, her cadence and rhythm, her thoughtful pauses andintonations, so adult, so at odds with the immature body thathoused the voice. It was Aziza who with lightheaded authorityhad taken it upon herself to wake Zalmai every day, to dresshim, feed him his breakfast, comb his hair. She was the onewho put him down to nap, who played even-temperedpeacemaker to her volatile sibling. Around him, Aziza had takento giving an exasperated, queerly adult headshake.
Aziza pushed the TV's power button. Rasheed scowled,snatched her wrist and set it on the table, not gently at all.
"This is Zalmai's TV," he said.
Aziza went over to Mariam and climbed in her lap. The twoof them were inseparable now. Of late, with Laila's blessing,Mariam had started teaching Aziza verses from the Koran.
Aziza could already recite by heart the surah ofikhlas, the surahof'fatiha,and already knew how to perform the fourruqats ofmorning prayer.
It's oil I have to give her,Mariam had said to Laila,thisknowledge, these prayers. They're the only true possession I'veever had.
Zalmai came into the room now. As Rasheed watched withanticipation, the way people wait the simple tricks of streetmagicians, Zalmai pulled on the TV's wire, pushed the buttons,pressed his palms to the blank screen. When he lifted them,the condensed little palms faded from the glass. Rasheed smiledwith pride, watched as Zalmai kept pressing his palms andlifting them, over and over.
The Taliban had banned television. Videotapes had beengouged publicly, the tapes ripped out and strung on fenceposts. Satellite dishes had been hung from lampposts. ButRasheed said just because things were banned didn't mean youcouldn't find them.
"I'll start looking for some cartoon videos tomorrow," he said.
"It won't be hard. You can buy anything in undergroundbazaars.""Then maybe you'll buy us a new well," Laila said, and thiswon her a scornful gaze from him.
It was later, after another dinner of plain white rice had beenconsumed and tea forgone again on account of the drought,after Rasheed had smoked a cigarette, that he told Laila abouthis decision.
"No," Laila said.
He said he wasn't asking.
"I don't care if you are or not.""You would if you knew the full story."He said he had borrowed from more friends than he let on,that the money from the shop alone was no longer enough tosustain the five of them. "I didn't tell you earlier to spare youthe worrying.""Besides," he said, "you'd be surprised how much they canbring in."Laila said no again. They were in the living room. Mariamand the children were in the kitchen. Laila could hear theclatter of dishes, Zalmai's high-pitched laugh, Aziza sayingsomething to Mariam in her steady, reasonable voice.
"There will be others like her, younger even," Rasheed said.
"Everyone in Kabul is doing the same."Laila told him she didn't care what other people did with theirchildren.
"I'll keep a close eye on her," Rasheed said, less patientlynow. "It's a safe corner. There's a mosque across the street.""I won't let you turn my daughter into a street beggar!" Lailasnapped.
The slap made a loud smacking sound, the palm of histhick-fingered hand connecting squarely with the meat of Laila'scheek. It made her head whip around. It silenced the noisesfrom the kitchen. For a moment, the house was perfectly quiet.
Then a flurry of hurried footsteps in the hallway before Mariamand the children were in the living room, their eyes shiftingfrom her to Rasheed and back.
Then Laila punched him.
It was the first time she'd struck anybody, discounting theplayful punches she and Tariq used to trade. But those hadbeen open-fisted, more pats than punches, self-consciouslyfriendly, comfortable expressions of anxieties that were bothperplexing and thrilling. They would aim for the muscle thatTariq, in a professorial voice, called thedeltoidLaila watched the arch of her closed fist, slicing through theair, felt the crinkle of Rasheed's stubbly, coarse skin under herknuckles. It made a sound like dropping a rice bag to thefloor. She hit him hard. The impact actually made him staggertwo steps backward.
From the other side of the room, a gasp, a yelp, and ascream. Laila didn't know who had made which noise. At themoment, she was too astounded to notice or care, waiting forher mind to catch up with what her hand had done. When itdid, she believed she might have smiled. She might havegrinnedwhen, to her astonishment, Rasheed calmly walked out of theroom.
Suddenly, it seemed to Laila that the collective hardships oftheir lives-hers, Aziza's, Mariam's-simply dropped away,vaporized like Zalmai's palms from the TV screen. It seemedworthwhile, if absurdly so, to have endured all they'd enduredfor this one crowning moment, for this act of defiance thatwould end the suffering of all indignities.
Laila did not notice that Rasheed was back in the room. Untilhis hand was around her throat. Until she was lifted off herfeet and slammed against the wall.
Up close, his sneering face seemed impossibly large. Lailanoticed how much puffier it was getting with age, how manymore broken vessels charted tiny paths on his nose. Rasheeddidn't say anything. And, really, what could be said, whatneeded saying, when you'd shoved the barrel of your gun intoyour wife's mouth?
* * *It was the raids, the reason they were in the yard digging.
Sometimes monthly raids, sometimes weekly. Of late, almostdaily. Mostly, the Taliban confiscated stuff, gave a kick tosomeone's rear, whacked the back of a head or two. Butsometimes there were public beatings, lashings of soles andpalms.
"Gently," Mariam said now, her knees over the edge. Theylowered the TV into the hole by each clutching one end of theplastic sheet in which it was wrapped"That should do it," Mariam said.
They patted the dirt when they were done, filling the hole upagain. They tossed some of it around so it wouldn't lookconspicuous.
"There," Mariam said, wiping her hands on her dress.
When it was safer, they'd agreed, when the Taliban cut downon their raids, in a month or two or six, or maybe longer,they would dig the TV up.
* * *In Laila'S dream, she and Mariam are out behind the toolsheddigging again. But, this time, it's Aziza they're lowering into theground. Aziza's breath fogs the sheet of plastic in which theyhave wrapped her. Laila sees her panicked eyes, the whitenessof her palms as they slap and push against the sheet. Azizapleads. Laila can't hear her screams.Only for a while, she callsdown,it's only for a while. It's the raids, don't you know, mylove? When the raids are over, Mammy and Khala Mariam willdig you out. I promise, my love. Then we can play. We canplay all you want. She fills the shovel. Laila woke up, out ofbreath, with a taste of soil in her mouth, when the firstgranular lumps of dirt hit the plastic.
Chapter 41.
MadamIn the summer of 2000, the drought reached its third andworst year.
In Helmand, Zabol, Kandahar, villages turned into herds ofnomadic communities, always moving, searching for water andgreen pastures for their livestock. When they found neither,when their goats and sheep and cows died off, they came toKabul They took to the Kareh-Ariana hillside, living in makeshiftslums, packed in huts, fifteen or twenty at a time.
That was also the summer ofTitanic, the summer that Mariamand Aziza were a tangle of limbs, rolling and giggling, Azizainsistingshe get to be Jack.
"Quiet, Aziza jo.""Jack! Say my name, Khala Mariam. Say it. Jack!" "Yourfather will be angry if you wake him.""Jack! And you're Rose."It would end with Mariam on her back, surrendering, agreeingagain to be Rose. "Fine, you be Jack," she relented "You dieyoung, and I get to live to a ripe old age.""Yes, but I die a hero," said Aziza, "while you, Rose, youspend your entire, miserable life longing for me." Then,straddling Mariam's chest, she'd announce, "Now we mustkiss!" Mariam whipped her head side to side, and Aziza,delighted with her own scandalous behavior, cackled throughpuckered lips.
Sometimes Zalmai would saunter in and watch this game.
What didhe get to be, he asked"You can be the iceberg," said Aziza.
That summer,Titanic fever gripped Kabul. People smuggledpirated copies of the film from Pakistan- sometimes in theirunderwear. After curfew, everyone locked their doors, turnedout the lights, turned down the volume, and reaped tears forJack and Rose and the passengers of the doomed ship. Ifthere was electrical power, Mariam, Laila, and the childrenwatched it too. A dozen times or more, they unearthed the TVfrom behind the toolshed, late at night, with the lights out andquilts pinned over the windows.
At the Kabul River, vendors moved into the parched riverbed.
Soon, from the river's sunbaked hollows, it was possible tobuyTitanic carpets, andTitanic cloth, from bolts arranged inwheelbarrows. There wasTitanic deodorant,Titanictoothpaste,Titanic perfume,Titanicpakora, evenTitanic burqas. Aparticularly persistent beggar began calling himself "TitanicBeggar.""Titanic City" was born.
It's the song,they said.
No, the sea. The luxury. The ship.
It's the sex,they whisperedLeo,said Aziza sheepishly.It's all about Leo.
"Everybody wants Jack," Laila said to Mariam. "That's what itis. Everybody wants Jack to rescue them from disaster. Butthere is no Jack. Jack is not coming back. Jack is dead."* * *Then, late that summer, a fabric merchant fell asleep andforgot to put out his cigarette. He survived the fire, but hisstore did not. The fire took the adjacent fabric store as well, asecondhand clothing store, a small furniture shop, a bakery.
They told Rasheed later that if the winds had blown eastinstead of west, his shop, which was at the corner of the block,might have been spared.
* * *They sold everything.
First to go were Mariam's things, then Laila's. Aziza's babyclothes, the few toys Laila had fought Rasheed to buy her.
Aziza watched the proceedings with a docile look. Rasheed'swatch too was sold, his old transistor radio, his pair of neckties,his shoes, and his wedding ring. The couch, the table, the rug,and the chairs went too. Zalmai threw a wicked tantrum whenRasheed sold the TV.
After the fire, Rasheed was home almost every day. Heslapped Aziza. He kicked Mariam. He threw things. He foundfault with Laila, the way she smelled, the way she dressed, theway she combed her hair, her yellowing teeth.
"What's happened to you?" he said. "I marriedapart, and nowI'm saddled with a hag. You're turning into Mariam."He got fired from the kebab house near Haji Yaghoub Squarebecause he and a customer got into a scuffle. The customercomplained that Rasheed had rudely tossed the bread on histable. Harsh words had passed. Rasheed had called thecustomer a monkey-faced Uzbek. A gun had been brandished.
A skewer pointed in return. In Rasheed's version, he held theskewer. Mariam had her doubts.
Fired from the restaurant in Taimani because customerscomplained about the long waits, Rasheed said the cook wasslow and lazy.
"You were probably out back napping," said Laila.
"Don't provoke him, Laila jo," Mariam said.
"I'm warning you, woman," he said.
"Either that or smoking.""I swear to God.""You can't help being what you are."And then he was on Laila, pummeling her chest, her head,her belly with fists, tearing at her hair, throwing her to thewall. Aziza was shrieking, pulling at his shirt; Zalmai wasscreaming too, trying to get him off his mother. Rasheedshoved the children aside, pushed Laila to the ground, andbegan kicking her. Mariam threw herself on Laila. He went onkicking, kicking Mariam now, spittle flying from his mouth, hiseyes glittering with murderous intent, kicking until he couldn'tanymore.
"I swear you're going to make me kill you, Laila," he said,panting. Then he stormed out of the house.
* * *When the money ran out, hunger began to cast a pall overtheir lives. It was stunning to Mariam how quickly alleviatinghunger became the crux of their existence.
Rice, boiled plain and white, with no meat or sauce, was arare treat now. They skipped meals with increasing andalarming regularity. Sometimes Rasheed brought home sardinesin a can and brittle, dried bread that tasted like sawdust.
Sometimes a stolen bag of apples, at the risk of getting hishand sawed off. In grocery stores, he carefully pocketed cannedravioli, which they split five ways, Zalmai getting the lion'sshare. They ate raw turnips sprinkled with salt. Limp leaves oflettuce and blackened bananas for dinner.
Death from starvation suddenly became a distinct possibility.
Some chose not to wait for it. Mariam heard of aneighborhood widow who had ground some dried bread, lacedit with rat poison, and fed it to all seven of her children. Shehad saved the biggest portion for herself.
Aziza's ribs began to push through the skin, and the fat fromher cheeks vanished. Her calves thinned, and her complexionturned the color of weak tea. When Mariam picked her up,she could feel her hip bone poking through the taut skin.
Zalmai lay around the house, eyes dulled and half closed, or inhis father's lap limp as a rag. He cried himself to sleep, whenhe could muster the energy, but his sleep was fitful andsporadic. White dots leaped before Mariam's eyes whenever shegot up. Her head spun, and her ears rang all the time. Sheremembered something Mullah Faizullah used to say abouthunger when Ramadan started:Even the snakebiiien man findssleep, but not the hungry.
"My children are going to die," Laila said. "Right before myeyes.""They are not," Mariam said. "I won't let them. It's going tobe all right, Laila jo. I know what to do."* * *One blistering-hot day, Mariam put on her burqa, and sheand Rasheed walked to the Intercontinental Hotel. Bus fare wasan un-affordable luxury now, and Mariam was exhausted bythe time they reached the top of the steep hill. Climbing theslope, she was struck by bouts of dizziness, and twice she hadto stop, wait for it to pass.
At the hotel entrance, Rasheed greeted and hugged one ofthe doormen, who was dressed in a burgundy suit and visorcap. There was some friendly-looking talk between them.
Rasheed spoke with his hand on the doorman's elbow. Hemotioned toward Mariam at one point, and they both lookedher way briefly. Mariam thought there was something vaguelyfamiliar about the doorman.
When the doorman went inside, Mariam and Rasheed waited.
From this vantage point, Mariam had a view of the PolytechnicInstitute, and, beyond that, the old Khair khana district and theroad to Mazar. To the south, she could see the bread factory,Silo, long abandoned, its pale yellow fa9ade pocked withyawning holes from all the shelling it had endured. Farthersouth, she could make out the hollow ruins of DarulamanPalace, where, many years back, Rasheed had taken her for apicnic. The memory of that day was a relic from a past thatno longer seemed like her own.
Mariam concentrated on these things, these landmarks. Shefeared she might lose her nerve if she let her mind wander.
Every few minutes, jeeps and taxis drove up to the hotelentrance. Doormen rushed to greet the passengers, who wereall men, armed, bearded, wearing turbans, all of them steppingout with the same self-assured, casual air of menace. Mariamheard bits of their chatter as they vanished through the hotel'sdoors. She heard Pashto and Farsi, but Urdu and Arabic too.
"Meet ourreal masters," Rasheed said in a low-pitched voice.
"Pakistani and Arab Islamists. The Taliban are puppets.Theseare the big players and Afghanistan is their playground."Rasheed said he'd heard rumors that the Taliban wereallowing these people to set up secret camps all over thecountry, where young men were being trained to becomesuicide bombers and jihadi fighters.
"What's taking him so long?" Mariam said.
Rasheed spat, and kicked dirt on the spit.
An hour later, they were inside, Mariam and Rasheed,following the doorman. Their heels clicked on the tiled floor asthey were led across the pleasantly cool lobby. Mariam saw twomen sitting on leather chairs, rifles and a coffee table betweenthem, sipping black tea and eating from a plate ofsyrup-coatedjelabi, rings sprinkled with powdered sugar. Shethought of Aziza, who lovedjelabi, and tore her gaze away.
The doorman led them outside to a balcony. From his pocket,he produced a small black cordless phone and a scrap ofpaper with a number scribbled on it. He told Rasheed it washis supervisor's satellite phone.
"I got you five minutes," he said. "No more.""Tashakor,"Rasheed said. "I won't forget this."The doorman nodded and walked away. Rasheed dialed. Hegave Mariam the phone.
As Mariam listened to the scratchy ringing, her mindwandered. It wandered to the last time she'd seen Jalil, thirteenyears earlier, back in the spring of 1987. He'd stood on thestreet outside her house, leaning on a cane, beside the blueBenz with the Herat license plates and the white stripe bisectingthe roof, the hood, and trunk. He'd stood there for hours,waiting for her, now and then calling her name, just as shehad once calledhis name outsidehis house. Mariam had partedthe curtain once, just a bit, and caught a glimpse of him. Onlya glimpse, but long enough to see that his hair had turnedfluffy white, and that he'd started to stoop. He wore glasses, ared tie, as always, and the usual white handkerchief triangle inhis breast pocket. Most striking, he was thinner, much thinner,than she remembered, the coat of his dark brown suitdrooping over his shoulders, the trousers pooling at his ankles.
Jalil had seen her too, if only for a moment. Their eyes hadmet briefly through a part in the curtains, as they had metmany years earlier through a part in another pair of curtains.
But then Mariam had quickly closed the curtains. She had saton the bed, waited for him to leave.
She thought now of the letter Jalil had finally left at her door.
She had kept it for days, beneath her pillow, picking it up nowand then, turning it over in her hands. In the end, she hadshredded it unopened.
And now here she was, after all these years, calling him.
Mariam regretted her foolish, youthful pride now. She wishednow that she had let him in. What would have been the harmto let him in, sit with him, let him say what he'd come to say?
He was her father. He'd not been a good father, it was true,but how ordinary his faults seemed now, how forgivable, whencompared to Rasheed's malice, or to the brutality and violencethat she had seen men inflict on one another.
She wished she hadn't destroyed his letter.
A man's deep voice spoke in her ear and informed her thatshe'd reached the mayor's office in Herat.
Mariam cleared her throat."Salaam, brother, I am looking forsomeone who lives in Herat. Or he did, many years ago. Hisname is Jalil Khan. He lived in Shar-e-Nau and owned thecinema. Do you have any information as to his whereabouts?"The irritation was audible in the man's voice. "This is whyyoucall the mayor's office?"Mariam said she didn't know who else to call. "Forgive me,brother. I know you have important things to tend to, but it islife and death, a question of life and death I am calling about.""I don't know him. The cinema's been closed for many years.""Maybe there's someone there who might know him,someone-""There is no one."Mariam closed her eyes. "Please, brother. There are childreninvolved. Small children."A long sigh.
"Maybe someone there-""There's a groundskeeper here. I think he's lived here all ofhis life.""Yes, ask him, please.""Call back tomorrow."Mariam said she couldn't. "I have this phone for five minutesonly. I don't-"There was a click at the other end, and Mariam thought hehad hung up. But she could hear footsteps, and voices, adistant car horn, and some mechanical humming punctuated byclicks, maybe an electric fan. She switched the phone to herother ear, closed her eyes.
She pictured Jalil smiling, reaching into his pocket.
Ah. Of course. Well Here then. Without Juriher ado…A leaf-shaped pendant, tiny coins etched with moons and starshanging from it.
Try it on, Mariam jo.
What do you think?
Ithink you look like a queen.
A few minutes passed. Then footsteps, a creaking sound, anda click. "He does know him.""He does?""It's what he says.""Where is he?" Mariam said. "Does this man know where JalilKhan is?"There was a pause. "He says he died years ago, back in1987."Mariam's stomach fell. She'd considered the possibility, ofcourse. Jalil would have been in his mid-to late seventies bynow, but…1987.
He was dying then. He had driven all the way from Herat tosay good-bye.
She moved to the edge of the balcony. From up here, shecould see the hotel's once-famous swimming pool, empty andgrubby now, scarred by bullet holes and decaying tiles. Andthere was the battered tennis court, the ragged net lying limplyin the middle of it like dead skin shed by a snake.
"I have to go now," the voice at the other end said"I'm sorry to have bothered you," Mariam said, weepingsoundlessly into the phone. She saw Jalil waving to her,skipping from stone to stone as he crossed the stream, hispockets swollen with gifts. All the times she had held herbreath for him, for God to grant her more time with him.
"Thank you," Mariam began to say, but the man at the otherend had already hung up.
Rasheed was looking at her. Mariam shook her head.
"Useless," he said, snatching the phone from her. "Likedaughter, like father."On their way out of the lobby, Rasheed walked briskly to thecoffee table, which was now abandoned, and pocketed the lastringof jelabi. He took it home and gave it to Zalmai.
Chapter 42.
LailaIn a paper bag, Aziza packed these things: her flowered shirtand her lone pair of socks, her mismatched wool gloves, anold, pumpkin-colored blanket dotted with stars and comets, asplintered plastic cup, a banana, her set of dice-It was a coolmorning in April 2001, shortly before Laila's twenty-thirdbirthday. The sky was a translucent gray, and gusts of aclammy, cold wind kept rattling the screen door.
This was a few days after Laila heard that Ahmad ShahMassoud had gone to France and spoken to the EuropeanParliament. Massoud was now in his native North, and leadingthe Northern Alliance, the sole opposition group still fighting theTaliban. In Europe, Massoud had warned the West aboutterrorist camps in Afghanistan, and pleaded with the U.S. tohelp him fight the Taliban.
"If President Bush doesn't help us," he had said, "theseterrorists will damage the U.S. and Europe very soon."A month before that, Laila had learned that the Taliban hadplanted TNT in the crevices of the giant Buddhas in Bamiyanand blown them apart, calling them objects of idolatry and sin.
There was an outcry around the world, from the U.S. toChina. Governments, historians, and archaeologists from all overthe globe had written letters, pleaded with the Taliban not todemolish the two greatest historical artifacts in Afghanistan. Butthe Taliban had gone ahead and detonated their explosivesinside the two-thousand-year-old Buddhas. They hadchantedAllah-u-akbar with each blast, cheered each time thestatues lost an arm or a leg in a crumbling cloud of dust. Lailaremembered standing atop the bigger of the two Buddhas withBabi and Tariq, back in 1987, a breeze blowing in their sunlitfaces, watching a hawk gliding in circles over the sprawlingvalley below. But when she heard the news of the statues'
demise, Laila was numb to it. It hardly seemed to matter. Howcould she care about statues when her own life was crumblingdust?
Until Rasheed told her it was time to go, Laila sat on thefloor in a comer of the living room, not speaking andstone-faced, her hair hanging around her face in straggly curls.
No matter how much she breathed in and out, it seemed toLaila that she couldn't fill her lungs with enough air.
* * *On the way to Karteh-Seh, Zalmai bounced in Rasheed's arms,and Aziza held Mariam's hand as she walked quickly besideher. The wind blew the dirty scarf tied under Aziza's chin andrippled the hem of her dress. Aziza was more grim now, asthough she'd begun to sense, with each step, that she wasbeing duped. Laila had not found the strength to tell Aziza thetruth. She had told her that she was going to a school, aspecial school where the children ate and slept and didn't comehome after class. Now Aziza kept pelting Laila with the samequestions she had been asking for days. Did the students sleepin different rooms or all in one great big room? Would shemake friends? Was she, Laila, sure that the teachers would benice?
And, more than once,How long do I have to stay?
They stopped two blocks from the squat, barracks-stylebuilding.
"Zalmai and I will wait here," Rasheed said. "Oh, before Iforget…"He fished a stick of gum from his pocket, a parting gift, andheld it out to Aziza with a stiff, magnanimous air. Aziza took itand muttered a thank-you. Laila marveled at Aziza's grace,Aziza's vast capacity for forgiveness, and her eyes filled. Herheart squeezed, and she was faint with sorrow at the thoughtthat this afternoon Aziza would not nap beside her, that shewould not feel the flimsy weight of Aziza's arm on her chest,the curve of Aziza's head pressing into her ribs, Aziza's breathwarming her neck, Aziza's heels poking her belly.
When Aziza was led away, Zalmai began wailing, crying, Ziza!
Ziza! He squirmed and kicked in his father's arms, called forhis sister, until his attention was diverted by an organ-grinder'smonkey across the street.
They walked the last two blocks alone, Mariam, Laila, andAziza. As they approached the building, Laila could see itssplintered fa9ade, the sagging roof, the planks of wood nailedacross frames with missing windows, the top of a swing setover a decaying wall.
They stopped by the door, and Laila repeated to Aziza whatshe had told her earlier.
"And if they ask about your father, what do you say?""The Mujahideen killed him," Aziza said, her mouth set withwariness.
"That's good. Aziza, do you understand?""Because this is a special school," Aziza said Now that theywere here, and the building was a reality, she looked shaken.
Her lower lip was quivering and her eyes threatened to wellup, and Laila saw how hard she was struggling to be brave.
"If we tell the truth," Aziza said in a thin, breathless voice,"they won't take me. It's a special school. I want to go home.""I'll visit all the time," Laila managed to say. "I promise.""Me too," said Mariam. "We'll come to see you, Aziza jo, andwe'll play together, just like always. It's only for a while, untilyour father finds work.""They have food here," Laila said shakily. She was glad forthe burqa, glad that Aziza couldn't see how she was fallingapart inside it. "Here, you won't go hungry. They have riceand bread and water, and maybe even fruit.""Butyouwon't be here. And Khala Mariam won't be with me.""I'll come and see you," Laila said. "All the time. Look at me,Aziza. I'll come and see you. I'm your mother. If it kills me, I'llcome and see you."* * *The orphanage director was a stooping, narrow-chested manwith a pleasantly lined face. He was balding, had a shaggybeard, eyes like peas. His name was Zaman. He wore askullcap. The left lens of his eyeglasses was chipped.
As he led them to his office, he asked Laila and Mariam theirnames, asked for Aziza's name too, her age. They passedthrough poorly lit hallways where barefoot children steppedaside and watched They had disheveled hair or shaved scalps.
They wore sweaters with frayed sleeves, ragged jeans whoseknees had worn down to strings, coats patched with duct tape.
Laila smelled soap and talcum, ammonia and urine, and risingapprehension in Aziza, who had begun whimpering.
Laila had a glimpse of the yard: weedy lot, rickety swing set,old tires, a deflated basketball. The rooms they passed werebare, the windows covered with sheets of plastic. A boy dartedfrom one of the rooms and grabbed Laila's elbow, and tried toclimb up into her arms. An attendant, who was cleaning upwhat looked like a puddle of urine, put down his mop andpried the boy off.
Zaman seemed gently proprietary with the orphans. He pattedthe heads of some, as he passed by, said a cordial word ortwo to them, tousled their hair, without condescension. Thechildren welcomed his touch. They all looked at him, Lailathought, in hope of approval.
He showed them into his office, a room with only threefolding chairs, and a disorderly desk with piles of paperscattered atop it.
"You're from Herat," Zaman said to Mariam. "I can tell fromyour accent."He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands over hisbelly, and said he had a brother-in-law who used to live there.
Even in these ordinary gestures, Laila noted a laborious qualityto his movements. And though he was smiling faintly, Lailasensed something troubled and wounded beneath,disappointment and defeat glossed over with a veneer of goodhumor.
"He was a glassmaker," Zaman said. "He made thesebeautiful, jade green swans. You held them up to sunlight andthey glittered inside, like the glass was filled with tiny jewels.
Have you been back?"Mariam said she hadn't.
"I'm from Kandahar myself. Have you ever been toKandahar,hamshira1? No? It's lovely. What gardens! And thegrapes! Oh, the grapes. They bewitch the palate."A few children had gathered by the door and were peekingin. Zaman gently shooed them away, in Pashto.
"Of course I love Herat too. City of artists and writers, Sufisand mystics. You know the old joke, that you can't stretch aleg in Herat without poking a poet in the rear."Next to Laila, Aziza snorted.
Zaman feigned a gasp. "Ah, there. I've made you laugh,littlehamshira. That's usually the hard part. I was worried, there,for a while. I thought I'd have to cluck like a chicken or braylike a donkey. But, there you are. And so lovely you are."He called in an attendant to look after Aziza for a fewmoments. Aziza leaped onto Mariam's lap and clung to her.
"We're just going to talk, my love,"Laila said. "I'll be righthere. All right? Right here.""Why don't we go outside for a minute, Aziza jo?" Mariamsaid. "Your mother needs to talk to Kaka Zaman here.Just fora minute. Now, come on."When they were alone, Zaman asked for Aziza's date of birth,history of illnesses, allergies. He asked about Aziza's father, andLaila had the strange experience of telling a lie that was reallythe truth. Zaman listened, his expression revealing neither beliefnor skepticism. He ran the orphanage on the honor system, hesaid. If ahamshira said her husband was dead and she couldn'tcare for her children, he didn't question it.
Laila began to cry.
Zaman put down his pen.
"I'm ashamed," Laila croaked, her palm pressed to her mouth.
"Look at me,hamshira ""What kind of mother abandons her own child?""Look at me."Laila raised her gaze.
"It isn't your fault. Do you hear me? Not you. It'sthosesavages, thosewahshis, who are to blame. They bringshame on me as a Pashtun. They've disgraced the name ofmy people. And you're not alone,hamshira We get mothers likeyou all the time-all the time-mothers who come here who can'tfeed their children because the Taliban won't let them go outand make a living. So you don't blame yourself. No one hereblames you. I understand." He leaned forward."Hamshira Iunderstand."Laila wiped her eyes with the cloth of her burqa.
"As for this place," Zaman sighed, motioning with his hand,"you can see that it's in dire state. We're always underfunded,always scrambling, improvising. We get little or no support fromthe Taliban. But we manage. Like you, we do what we have todo. Allah is good and kind, and Allah provides, and, as longHe provides, I will see to it that Aziza is fed and clothed. Thatmuch I promise you."Laila nodded.
"All right?"He was smiling companionably. "But don't cry,hamshira Don'tlet her see you cry."Laila wiped her eyes again. "God bless you," she said thickly.
"God bless you, brother."***But "when the time for good-byes came, the scene eruptedprecisely as Laila had dreaded.
Aziza panicked.
All the way home, leaning on Mariam, Laila heard Aziza'sshrill cries. In her head, she saw Zaman's thick, callousedhands close around Aziza's arms; she saw them pull, gently atfirst, then harder, then with force to pry Aziza loose from her.
She saw Aziza kicking in Zaman's arms as he hurriedly turnedthe corner, heard Aziza screaming as though she were aboutto vanish from the face of the earth. And Laila saw herselfrunning down the hallway, head down, a howl rising up herthroat.
"I smell her," she told Mariam at home. Her eyes swamunseeingly past Mariam's shoulder, past the yard, the walls, tothe mountains, brown as smoker's spit. "I smell her sleep smell.
Do you? Do you smell it?""Oh, Laila jo," said Mariam. "Don't. What good is this? Whatgood?"* * *At first, Rasheed humored Laila, and accompanied them-her,Mariam, and Zalmai-to the orphanage, though he made sure,as they walked, that she had an eyeful of his grievous looks,an earful of his rants over what a hardship she was puttinghim through, how badly his legs and back and feet achedwalking to and from the orphanage. He made sure she knewhow awfully put out he was.
"I'm not a young man anymore," he said. "Not that you care.
You'd run me to the ground, if you had your way. But youdon't, Laila. You don't have your way."They parted ways two blocks from the orphanage, and henever spared them more than fifteen minutes. "A minute late,"he said, "and I start walking. I mean it."Laila had to pester him, plead with him, in order to spin outthe allotted minutes with Aziza a bit longer. For herself, and forMariam, who was disconsolate over Aziza's absence, though, asalways, Mariam chose to cradle her own suffering privately andquietly. And for Zalmai too, who asked for his sister every day,and threw tantrums that sometimes dissolved into inconsolablefits of crying.
Sometimes, on the way to the orphanage, Rasheed stoppedand complained that his leg was sore. Then he turned aroundand started walking home in long, steady strides, without somuch as a limp. Or he clucked his tongue and said, "It's mylungs, Laila. I'm short of breath. Maybe tomorrow I'll feelbetter, or the day after. We'll see." He never bothered to feigna single raspy breath. Often, as he turned back and marchedhome, he lit a cigarette. Laila would have to tail him home,helpless, trembling with resentment and impotent rage.
Then one day he told Laila he wouldn't take her anymore.
"I'm too tired from walking the streets all day," he said,"looking for work.""Then I'll go by myself," Laila said. "You can't stop me,Rasheed. Do you hear me? You can hit me all you want, butI'll keep going there.""Do as you wish. But you won't get past the Taliban. Don'tsay I didn't warn you.""I'm coming with you," Mariam said.
Laila wouldn't allow it. "You have to stay home with Zalmai. Ifwe get stopped…Idon't want him to see."And so Laila's life suddenly revolved around finding ways tosee Aziza. Half the time, she never made it to the orphanage.
Crossing the street, she was spotted by the Taliban and riddledwith questions-What is your name? Where are you going? Whyare you alone? Where is yourmahram? -before she was senthome. If she was lucky, she was given a tongue-lashing or asingle kick to the rear, a shove in the back. Other times, shemet with assortments of wooden clubs, fresh tree branches,short whips, slaps, often fists.
One day, a young Talib beat Laila with a radio antenna.
When he was done, he gave a final whack to the back of herneck and said, "I see you again, I'll beat you until yourmother's milk leaks out of your bones."That time, Laila went home. She lay on her stomach, feelinglike a stupid, pitiable animal, and hissed as Mariam arrangeddamp cloths across her bloodied back and thighs. But, usually,Laila refused to cave in. She made as if she were going home,then took a different route down side streets. Sometimes shewas caught, questioned, scolded-two, three, even four times in asingle day. Then the whips came down and the antennas slicedthrough the air, and she trudged home, bloodied, without somuch as a glimpse of Aziza. Soon Laila took to wearing extralayers, even in the heat, two, three sweaters beneath the burqa,for padding against the beatings.
But for Laila, the reward, if she made it past the Taliban, wasworth it. She could spend as much time as she likedthen-hours,even-with Aziza. They sat in the courtyard, near theswing set, among other children and visiting mothers, andtalked about what Aziza had learned that week.
Aziza said Kaka Zaman made it a point to teach themsomething every day, reading and writing most days, sometimesgeography, a bit of history or science, something about plants,animals.
"But we have to pull the curtains," Aziza said, "so the Talibandon't see us." Kaka Zaman had knitting needles and balls ofyarn ready, she said, in case of a Taliban inspection. "We putthe books away and pretend to knit."One day, during a visit with Aziza, Laila saw a middle-agedwoman, her burqa pushed back, visiting with three boys and agirl. Laila recognized the sharp face, the heavy eyebrows, if notthe sunken mouth and gray hair. She remembered the shawls,the black skirts, the curt voice, how she used to wear herjet-black hair tied in a bun so that you could see the darkbristles on the back of her neck. Laila remembered this womanonce forbidding the female students from covering, sayingwomen and men were equal, that there was no reason womenshould cover if men didn't.
At one point, Khala Rangmaal looked up and caught her gaze,but Laila saw no lingering, no light of recognition, in her oldteacher's eyes.
* * *"They're fractures along the earth's crust," said Aziza. 'They'recalled faults."It was a warm afternoon, a Friday, in June of 2001. Theywere sitting in the orphanage's back lot, the four of them,Laila, Zalmai, Mariam, and Aziza. Rasheed had relented thistime-as he infrequently did-and accompanied the four of them.
He was waiting down the street, by the bus stop.
Barefoot kids scampered about around them. A flat soccer ballwas kicked around, chased after listlessly.
"And, on either side of the faults, there are these sheets ofrock that make up the earth's crust," Aziza was saying.
Someone had pulled the hair back from Aziza's face, braidedit, and pinned it neatly on top of her head. Laila begrudgedwhoever had gotten to sit behind her daughter, to flip sectionsof her hair one over the other, had asked her to sit still.
Aziza was demonstrating by opening her hands, palms up,and rubbing them against each other. Zalmai watched this withintense interest.
"Kectonic plates, they're called?""Tectonic,"Laila said. It hurt to talk. Her jaw was still sore,her back and neck ached. Her lip was swollen, and her tonguekept poking the empty pocket of the lower incisor Rasheed hadknocked loose two days before. Before Mammy and Babi haddied and her life turned upside down, Laila never would havebelieved that a human body could withstand this much beating,this viciously, this regularly, and keep functioning.
"Right. And when they slide past each other, they catch andslip-see, Mammy?-and it releases energy, whichtravels to the earth's surface and makes it shake.""You're getting so smart," Mariam said "So much smarterthan your dumbkhala"Aziza's face glowed, broadened. "You're not dumb, KhalaMariam. And Kaka Zaman says that, sometimes, the shifting ofrocks is deep, deep below, and it's powerful and scary downthere, but all we feel on the surface is a slight tremor. Only aslight tremor."The visit before this one, it was oxygen atoms in theatmosphere scattering the blue light from the sun.If the earthhad no atmosphere, Aziza had said a little breathlessly,the skywouldn ‘t be blue at all but a pitch-black sea and the sun abig bright star in the dark"Is Aziza coming home with us this time?" Zalmai said.
"Soon, my love," Laila said. "Soon."Laila watched him wander away, walking like his father,stooping forward, toes turned in. He walked to the swing set,pushed an empty seat, ended up sitting on the concrete,ripping weeds from a crack.
Water evaporates from the leaves-Mammy, did you know?-theway it does from laundry hanging from a line. And that drivesthe flow of water up the tree. From the ground and throughthe roots, then all the way up the tree trunk, through thebranches and into the leaves. It's called transpiration.
More than once, Laila had wondered what the Taliban woulddo about Kaka Zaman's clandestine lessons if they found out.
During visits, Aziza didn't allow for much silence. She filled allthe spaces with effusive speech, delivered in a high, ringingvoice. She was tangential with her topics, and her handsgesticulated wildly, flying up with a nervousness that wasn't likeher at all. She had a new laugh, Aziza did. Not so much alaugh, really, as nervous punctuation, meant, Laila suspected, toreassure.
And there were other changes. Laila would notice the dirtunder Aziza's fingernails, and Aziza would notice her noticingand bury her hands under her thighs. Whenever a kid cried intheir vicinity, snot oozing from his nose, or if a kid walked bybare-assed, hair clumped with dirt, Aziza's eyelids fluttered andshe was quick to explain it away. She was like a hostessembarrassed in front of her guests by the squalor of herhome, the untidiness of her children.
Questions of how she was coping were met with vague butcheerful replies.
Doing Jim, Khala I'm fine.
Do kids pick on you?
They dont Mammy. Everyone is nice.
Are you eating? Sleeping all right?
Eating. Sleeping too. Yes. We had lamb last night Maybe itwas last week.
When Aziza spoke like this, Laila saw more than a little ofMariam in her.
Aziza stammered now. Mariam noticed it first. It was subtlebut perceptible, and more pronounced with words that beganwith /. Laila asked Zaman about it. He frowned and said, "Ithought she'd always done that."They left the orphanage with Aziza that Friday afternoon for ashort outing and met Rasheed, who was waiting for them bythe bus stop. When Zalmai spotted his father, he uttered anexcited squeak and impatiently wriggled from Laila's arms.
Aziza's greeting to Rasheed was rigid but not hostile.
Rasheed said they should hurry, he had only two hoursbefore he had to report back to work. This was his first weekas a doorman for the Intercontinental. From noon to eight, sixdays a week, Rasheed opened car doors, carried luggage,mopped up the occasional spill. Sometimes, at day's end, thecook at the buffet-style restaurant let Rasheed bring home afew leftovers-as long as he was discreet about it-cold meatballssloshing in oil; fried chicken wings, the crust gone hard anddry; stuffed pasta shells turned chewy; stiff, gravelly rice.
Rasheed had promised Laila that once he had some moneysaved up, Aziza could move back home.
Rasheed was wearing his uniform, a burgundy red polyestersuit, white shirt, clip-on tie, visor cap pressing down on hiswhite hair. In this uniform, Rasheed was transformed. Helooked vulnerable, pitiably bewildered, almost harmless. Likesomeone who had accepted without a sigh of protest theindignities life had doled out to him. Someone both patheticand admirable in his docility.
They rode the bus to Titanic City. They walked into theriverbed, flanked on either side by makeshift stalls clinging tothe dry banks. Near the bridge, as they were descending thesteps, a barefoot man dangled dead from a crane, his ears cutoff, his neck bent at the end of a rope. In the river, theymelted into the horde of shoppers milling about, the moneychangers and bored-looking NGO workers, the cigarettevendors, the covered women who thrust fake antibioticprescriptions at people and begged for money to fill them.
Whip-toting,naswar-chew'mg Talibs patrolled Titanic City on thelookout for the indiscreet laugh, the unveiled face.
From a toy kiosk, betweenapoosieen coat vendor and afake-flower stand, Zalmai picked out a rubber basketball withyellow and blue swirls.
"Pick something," Rasheed said to Aziza.
Aziza hedged, stiffened with embarrassment.
"Hurry. I have to be at work in an hour."Aziza chose a gum-ball machine-the same coin could beinserted to get candy, then retrieved from the flap-door coinreturn below.
Rasheed's eyebrows shot up when the seller quoted him theprice. A round of haggling ensued, at the end of whichRasheed said to Aziza contentiously, as if itwere she who'dhaggled him, "Give it back. I can't afford both."On the way back, Aziza's high-spirited fa9ade waned thecloser they got to the orphanage. The hands stopped flyingup. Her face turned heavy. It happened every time. It wasLaila's turn now, with Mariam pitching in, to take up thechattering, to laugh nervously, to fill the melancholy quiet withbreathless, aimless banter-Later, after Rasheed had droppedthem off and taken a bus to work, Laila watched Aziza wavegood-bye and scuff along the wall in the orphanage back lot.
She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had saidearlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down andhow sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor.
* * *"Getaway, you!" Zalmai cried.
"Hush," Mariam said "Who are you yelling at?"He pointed. "There. That man."Laila followed his finger. Therewas a man at the front door ofthe house, leaning against it. His head turned when he sawthem approaching. He uncrossed his arms. Limped a few stepstoward them.
Laila stopped.
A choking noise came up her throat. Her knees weakened.
Laila suddenly wanted,needed, to grope for Mariam's arm, hershoulder, her wrist, something, anything, to lean on. But shedidn't. She didn't dare. She didn't dare move a muscle. Shedidn't dare breathe, or blink even, for fear that he was nothingbut a mirage shimmering in the distance, a brittle illusion thatwould vanish at the slightest provocation. Laila stood perfectlystill and looked at Tariq until her chest screamed for air andher eyes burned to blink. And, somehow, miraculously, aftershe took a breath, closed and opened her eyes, he was stillstanding there. Tariq was still standing there.
Laila allowed herself to take a step toward him. Then another.
And another. And then she was running.

Chapter 43.
MadamUpstairs, in Mariam's room, Zalmai was wound up. Hebounced his new rubber basketball around for a while, on thefloor, against the walls. Mariam asked him not to, but he knewthat she had no authority to exert over him and so he wenton bouncing his ball, his eyes holding hers defiantly. For awhile, they pushed his toy car, an ambulance with bold redlettering on the sides, sending it back and forth between themacross the room.
Earlier, when they had met Tariq at the door, Zalmai hadclutched the basketball close to his chest and stuck a thumb inhis mouth-something he didn't do anymore except when hewas apprehensive. He had eyed Tariq with suspicion.
"Who is that man?" he said now. "I don't like him."Mariam was going to explain, say something about him andLaila growing up together, but Zalmai cut her off and said toturn the ambulance around, so the front grille faced him, and,when she did, he said he wanted his basketball again.
"Where is it?" he said. "Where is the ball Baba jan got me?
Where is it? I want it! I want it!" his voice rising andbecoming more shrill with each word.
"It was just here," Mariam said, and he cried, "No, it's lost, Iknow it. I just know it's lost! Where is it? Where is it?""Here," she said, fetching the ball from the closet where it hadrolled to. But Zalmai was bawling now and pounding his fists,crying that it wasn't the same ball, it couldn't be, because hisball was lost, and this was a fake one, where had his real ballgone? Where? Where where where?
He screamed until Laila had to come upstairs to hold him, torock him and run her fingers through his tight, dark curls, todry his moist cheeks and cluck her tongue in his ear.
Mariam waited outside the room. From atop the staircase, allshe could see of Tariq were his long legs, the real one and theartificial one, in khaki pants, stretched out on the uncarpetedliving-room floor. It was then that she realized why thedoorman at the Continental had looked familiar the day sheand Rasheed had gone there to place the call to Jalil. He'dbeen wearing a cap and sunglasses, that was why it hadn'tcome to her earlier. But Mariam remembered now, from nineyears before, remembered him sitting downstairs, patting hisbrow with a handkerchief and asking for water. Now allmanner of questions raced through her mind: Had the sulfapills too been part of the ruse? Which one of them had plottedthe lie, provided the convincing details? And how much hadRasheed paid Abdul Sharif-if that was even his name-to comeand crush Laila with the story of Tariq's death?
Chapter 44.
LailaIariq said that one of the men who shared his cell had acousin who'd been publicly flogged once for painting flamingos.
He, the cousin, had a seemingly incurable thing for them.
"Entire sketchbooks," Tariq said. "Dozens of oil paintings ofthem, wading in lagoons, sunbathing in marshlands. Flying intosunsets too, I'm afraid.""Flamingos," Laila said. She looked at him sitting against thewall, his good leg bent at the knee. She had an urge to touchhim again, as she had earlier by the front gate when she'drun to him. It embarrassed her now to think of how she'dthrown her arms around his neck and wept into his chest,how she'd said his name over and over in a slurring, thickvoice. Had she acted too eagerly, she wondered, toodesperately? Maybe so. But she hadn't been able to help it.
And now she longed to touch him again, to prove to herselfagain that he was really here, that he was not a dream, anapparition.
"Indeed," he said. "Flamingos."When the Taliban had found the paintings, Tariq said, they'dtaken offense at the birds' long, bare legs. After they'd tied thecousin's feet and flogged his soles bloody, they had presentedhim with a choice: Either destroy the paintings or make theflamingos decent. So the cousin had picked up his brush andpainted trousers on every last bird"And there you have it. Islamic flamingos," Tariq said-Laughtercame up, but Laila pushed it back down. She was ashamed ofher yellowing teeth, the missing incisor-Ashamed of her witheredlooks and swollen lip. She wished she'd had the chance towash her face, at least comb her hair.
"But he'll have the last laugh, the cousin," Tariq said- "Hepainted those trousers with watercolor. When the Taliban aregone, he'll just wash them off" He smiled-Laila noticed that hehad a missing tooth of his own-and looked down at his hands.
"Indeed"He was wearingapakol on his head, hiking boots, and a blackwool sweater tucked into thewaist of khaki pants. He was halfsmiling, nodding slowly. Laila didn't remember him saying thisbefore, this wordindeed, and this pensive gesture,the fingersmaking a tent in his lap, the nodding, it was new too. Such anadult word, such an adult gesture, and why should it be sostartling? Hewas an adult now, Tariq, a twenty-five-year-oldman with slow movements and a tiredness to his smile. Tall,bearded, slimmer than in her dreams of him, but withstrong-looking hands, workman's hands, with tortuous, full veins.
His face was still lean and handsome but not fair-skinned anylonger; his brow had a weathered look to it, sunburned, likehis neck, the brow of a traveler at the end of a long andwearying journey. Hispakol was pushed back on his head, andshe could see that he'd started to lose his hair. The hazel ofhis eyes was duller than she remembered, paler, or perhaps itwas merely the light in the room.
Laila thought of Tariq's mother, her unhurried manners, theclever smiles, the dull purple wig. And his father, with hissquinty gaze, his wry humor. Earlier, at the door, with a voicefull of tears, tripping over her own words, she'd told Tariqwhat she thought had happened to him and his parents, andhe had shaken his head. So now she asked him how theywere doing, his parents. But she regretted the question whenTariq looked down and said, a bit distractedly, "Passed on.""I'm so sorry.""Well. Yes. Me too. Here." He fished a small paper bag fromhis pocket and passed it to her. "Compliments of Alyona."Inside was a block of cheese in plastic wrap.
"Alyona. It's a pretty name." Laila tried to say this nextwithout wavering. "Your wife?""My goat." He was smiling at her expectantly, as thoughwaiting for her to retrieve a memory.
Then Laila remembered. The Soviet film. Alyona had been thecaptain's daughter, the girl in love with the first mate. That wasthe day that she, Tariq, and Hasina had watched Soviet tanksand jeeps leave Kabul, the day Tariq had worn that ridiculousRussian fur hat.
"I had to tie her to a stake in the ground," Tariq was saying.
"And build a fence. Because of the wolves. In the foothillswhere I live, there's a wooded area nearby, maybe a quarterof a mile away, pine trees mostly, some fir, deodars. Theymostly stick to the woods, the wolves do, but a bleating goat,one that likes to go wandering, that can draw them out. Sothe fence. The stake."Laila asked him which foothills.
"Pir PanjaL Pakistan," he said "Where I live is called Murree;it's a summer retreat, an hour from Islamabad. It's hilly andgreen, lots of trees, high above sea level So it's cool in thesummer. Perfect for tourists."The British had built it as a hill station near their militaryheadquarters in Rawalpindi, he said, for the Victorians to escapethe heat. You could still spot a few relics of the colonial times,Tariq said, the occasional tearoom, tin-roofed bungalows, calledcottages, that sort of thing. The town itself was small andpleasant. The main street was called the Mall, where there wasa post office, a bazaar, a few restaurants, shops thatovercharged tourists for painted glass and handknotted carpets.
Curiously, the Mall's one-way traffic flowed in one direction oneweek, the opposite direction the next week.
"The locals say that Ireland's traffic is like that too in places,"Tariq said. "I wouldn't know. Anyway, it's nice. It's aplain life, but I like it. I like living there.""With your goat. With Alyona."Laila meant this less as a joke than as a surreptitious entryinto another line of talk, such as who else was there with himworrying about wolves eating goats. But Tariq only went onnodding.
"I'm sorry about your parents too," he said.
"You heard.""I spoke to some neighbors earlier," he said. A pause, duringwhich Laila wondered what else the neighbors had told him. "Idon't recognize anybody. From the old days, I mean.""They're all gone. There's no one left you'd know.""I don't recognize Kabul.""Neither do I," Laila said. "And I never left."* * *"Mammy has a new friend," Zalmai said after dinner later thatsame night, after Tariq had left. "A man."Rasheed looked up."Does she, now?"* * *Tariqasked ifhecould smoke.
They had stayed awhile at theNasir Bagh refugee camp nearPeshawar, Tariq said, tapping ash into a saucer. There weresixty thousand Afghans living there already when he and hisparents arrived.
"It wasn't as bad as some of the other camps like, Godforbid, Jalozai," he said. "I guess at one point it was evensome kind of model camp, back during the Cold War, a placethe West could point to and prove to the world they weren'tjust funnel ing arms into Afghanistan."But that had been during the Soviet war, Tariq said, the daysof jihad and worldwide interest and generous funding and visitsfrom Margaret Thatcher.
"You know the rest, Laila. After the war, the Soviets fell apart,and the West moved on. There was nothing at stake for themin Afghanistan anymore and the money dried up. Now NasirBagh is tents, dust, and open sewers. When we got there, theyhanded us a stick and a sheet of canvas and told us to buildourselves a tent."Tariq said what he remembered most about Nasir Bagh,where they had stayed for a year, was the color brown.
"Brown tents. Brown people. Brown dogs. Brown porridge."There was a leafless tree he climbed every day, where hestraddled a branch and watched the refugees lying about in thesun, their sores and stumps in plain view. He watched littleemaciated boys carrying water in their jerry cans, gathering dogdroppings to make fire, carving toy AK-47s out of wood withdull knives, lugging the sacks of wheat flour that no one couldmake bread from that held together. All around the refugeetown, the wind made the tents flap. It hurled stubbles of weedeverywhere, lifted kites flown from the roofs of mud hovels.
"A lot of kids died. Dysentery, TB, hunger-you name it.
Mostly, that damn dysentery. God, Laila. I saw so many kidsburied. There's nothing worse a person can see."He crossed his legs. It grew quiet again between them for awhile.
"My father didn't survive that first winter," he said. "He diedin his sleep. I don't think there was any pain."That same winter, he said, his mother caught pneumonia andalmost died, would have died, if not for a camp doctor whoworked out of a station wagon made into a mobile clinic. Shewould wake up all night long, feverish, coughing out thick,rust-colored phlegm. The queues were long to see the doctor,Tariq said. Everyone was shivering in line, moaning, coughing,some with shit running down their legs, others too tired orhungry or sick to make words.
"But he was a decent man, the doctor. He treated mymother, gave her some pills, saved her life that winter."That same winter, Tariq had cornered a kid.
"Twelve, maybe thirteen years old," he said evenly. "I held ashard of glass to his throat and took his blanket from him. Igave it to my mother."He made a vow to himself, Tariq said, after his mother'sillness, that they would not spend another winter in camp. He'dwork, save, move them to an apartment in Peshawar withheating and clean water. When spring came, he looked forwork. From time to time, a truck came to camp early in themorning and rounded up a couple of dozen boys, took themto a field to move stones or an orchard to pick apples inexchange for a little money, sometimes a blanket, a pair ofshoes. But they never wanted him, Tariq said.
"One look at my leg and it was over."There were other jobs. Ditches to dig, hovels to build, waterto carry, feces to shovel from outhouses. But young menfought over these jobs, and Tariq never stood a chance-Thenhe met a shopkeeper one day, that fall of 1993.
"He offered me money to take a leather coat to Lahore. Nota lot but enough, enough for one or maybe two months'
apartment rent."The shopkeeper gave him a bus ticket, Tariq said, and theaddress of a street corner near the Lahore Rail Station wherehe was to deliver the coat to a friend of the shopkeeper's.
"I knew already. Of course I knew," Tariq said. "He said thatif I got caught, I was on my own, that I should rememberthat he knew where my mother lived. But the money was toogood to pass up. And winter was coming again.""How far did you get?" Laila asked.
"Not far," he said and laughed, sounding apologetic, ashamed.
"Never even got on the bus. But I thought I was immune, youknow, safe. As though there was some accountant up theresomewhere, a guy with a pencil tucked behind his ear whokept track of these things, who tallied things up, and he'd lookdown and say, 'Yes, yes, he can have this, we'll let it go. He'spaid some dues already, this one.'"It was in the seams, the hashish, and it spilled all over thestreet when the police took a knife to the coat.
Tariq laughed again when he said this, a climbing, shaky kindof laugh, and Laila remembered how he used to laugh like thiswhen they were little, to cloak embarrassment, to make light ofthings he'd done that were foolhardy or scandalous.
* * *"He has A limp," Zalmai said. "Is this who Ithink it is?""He was only visiting," Mariam said.
"Shut up, you," Rasheed snapped, raising a finger. He turnedback to Laila. "Well, what do you know? Laili and Majnoonreunited. Just like old times." His face turned stony. "So you lethim in. Here. In my house. You let him in. He was in herewith my son.""You duped me. You lied to me," Laila said, gritting her teeth.
"You had that man sit across from me and… You knew Iwould leave if I thought he was alive.""AND YOU DIDN'T LIE TO ME?" Rasheed roared. "Youthink I didn't figure it out? About yourharamil You take me fora fool, you whore?"* * *The more Tariq talked, the more Laila dreaded the momentwhen he would stop. The silence that would follow, the signalthat it was her turn to give account, to provide the why andhow and when, to make official what he surely already knew.
She felt a faint nausea whenever he paused. She averted hiseyes. She looked down at his hands, at the coarse, dark hairsthat had sprouted on the back of them in the interveningyears.
Tariq wouldn't say much about his years in prison save thathe'd learned to speak Urdu there. When Laila asked, he gavean impatient shake of his head. In this gesture, Laila saw rustybars and unwashed bodies, violent men and crowded halls, andceilings rotting with moldy deposits. She read in his face that ithad been a place of abasement, of degradation and despair.
Tariq said his mother tried to visit him after his arrest.
"Three times she came. But I never got to see her," he said.
He wrote her a letter, and a few more after that, eventhough he doubted that she would receive them.
"And I wrote you.""You did?""Oh,volumes," he said. "Your friend Rumi would have enviedmy production." Then he laughed again, uproariously this time,as though he was both startled at his own boldness andembarrassed by what he had let on.
Zalmai began bawling upstairs.
* * *"Just like old times, then," Rasheed said. "The two of you. Isuppose you let him see your face.""She did," said Zalmai. Then, to Laila, "You did, Mammy. Isaw you."* * *"Your son doesn't care for me much," Tariq said when Lailareturned downstairs.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's not that. He just…Don't mind him."Then quickly she changed the subject because it made her feelperverse and guilty to feel that about Zalmai, who was a child,a little boy who loved his father, whose instinctive aversion tothis stranger was understandable and legitimate.
And I wrote you.
Volumes. Volumes.
"How long have you been in Murree?""Less than a year," Tariq said-He befriended an older man inprison, he said, a fellow named Salim, a Pakistani, a formerfield hockey player who had been in and out of prison foryears and who was serving ten years for stabbing anundercover policeman. Every prison has a man like Salim, Tariqsaid. There was always someone who was cunning andconnected, who worked the system and found you things,someone around whom the air buzzed with both opportunityand danger-It was Salim who had sent out Tariq's queriesabout his mother, Salim who had sat him down and told him,in a soft, fatherly voice, that she had died of exposure.
Tariq spent seven years in the Pakistani prison. "I got offeasy," he said. "I was lucky. The judge sitting on my case, itturned out, had a brother who'd married an Afghan woman.
Maybe he showed mercy. I don't know."When Tariq's sentence was up, early in the winter of 2000,Salim gave him his brother's address and phone number. Thebrother's name was Sayeed.
"He said Sayeed owned a small hotel in Murree," Tariq said.
"Twenty rooms and a lounge, a little place to cater to tourists.
He said tell him I sent you."Tariq had liked Murree as soon as he'd stepped off the bus:
the snow-laden pines; the cold, crisp air; the shuttered woodencottages, smoke curling up from chimneys.
Here was a place, Tariq had thought, knocking on Sayeed'sdoor, a place not only worlds removed from the wretchednesshe'd known but one that made even the notion of hardshipand sorrow somehow obscene, unimaginable.
"I said to myself, here is a place where a man can get on."Tariq was hired as a janitor and handyman. He did well, hesaid, during the one-month trial period, at half pay, that Sayeedgranted him. As Tariq spoke, Laila saw Sayeed, whom sheimagined narrow-eyed and ruddy-faced, standing at thereception office window watching Tariq chop wood and shovelsnow off the driveway. She saw him stooping over Tariq's legs,observing, as Tariq lay beneath the sink fixing a leaky pipe.
She pictured him checking the register for missing cash.
Tariq's shack was beside the cook's little bungalow, he said.
The cook was a matronly old widow named Adiba. Bothshacks were detached from the hotel itself, separated from themain building by a scattering of almond trees, a park bench,and a pyramid-shaped stone fountain that, in the summer,gurgled water all day. Laila pictured Tariq in his shack, sittingup in bed, watching the leafy world outside his window.
At the end of the grace period, Sayeed raised Tariq's pay tofull, told him his lunches were free, gave him a wool coat, andfitted him for a new leg. Tariq said he'd wept at the man'skindness.
With his first month's full salary in his pocket, Tariq had goneto town and bought Alyona.
"Her fur is perfectly white," Tariq said, smiling. "Somemornings, when it's snowed all night, you look out the windowand all you see of her is two eyes and a muzzle."Laila nodded Another silence ensued Upstairs, Zalmai hadbegun bouncing his ball again against the wall.
"I thought you were dead," Laila said.
"I know. You told me."Laila's voice broke. She had to clear her throat, collect herself.
"The man who came to give the news, he was soearnest…Ibelieved him, Tariq. I wish I hadn't, but I did. Andthen I felt so alone and scared. Otherwise, I wouldn't haveagreed to marry Rasheed. I wouldn't have…""You don't have to do this," he said softly, avoiding her eyes.
There was no hidden reproach, no recrimination, in the way hehad said this. No suggestion of blame.
"But I do. Because there was a bigger reason why I marriedhim. There's something you don't know, Tariq.Someone. I haveto tell you."* * *"Did you srr and talk with him too?" Rasheed asked Zalmai.
Zalmai said nothing. Laila saw hesitation and uncertainty in hiseyes now, as if he had just realized that what he'd disclosedhad turned out to be far bigger than he'd thought.
"I asked you a question, boy."Zalmai swallowed. His gaze kept shifting. "I was upstairs,playing with Mariam.""And your mother?"Zalmai looked at Laila apologetically, on the verge of tears.
"It's all right, Zalmai," Laila said. "Tell the truth.""She was…She was downstairs, talking to that man," he saidin a thin voice hardly louder than a whisper.
"I see," said Rasheed. "Teamwork."* * *As he was leaving, Tariq said, "I want to meet her. I want tosee her.""I'll arrange it," Laila said.
"Aziza. Aziza." He smiled, tasting the word. Whenever Rasheeduttered her daughter's name, it came out soundingunwholesome to Laila, almost vulgar.
"Aziza. It's lovely.""So is she. You'll see.""I'll count the minutes."Almost ten years had passed since they had last seen eachother. Laila's mind flashed to all the times they'd met in thealley, kissing in secret. She wondered how she must seem tohim now. Did he still find her pretty? Or did she seemwithered to him, reduced, pitiable, like a fearful, shuffling oldwoman? Almost ten years. But, for a moment, standing therewith Tariq in the sunlight, it was as though those years hadnever happened. Her parents' deaths, her marriage to Rasheed,the killings, the rockets, the Taliban, the beatings, the hunger,even her children, all of it seemed like a dream, a bizarredetour, a mere interlude between that last afternoon togetherand this moment.
Then Tariq's face changed, turned grave. She knew thisexpression. It was the same look he'd had on his face thatday, all those years ago when they'd both been children, whenhe'd unstrapped his leg and gone after Khadim. He reachedwith one hand now and touched the comer of her lower lip.
"He did this to you," he said coldly.
At his touch, Laila remembered the frenzy of that afternoonagain when they'd conceived Aziza. His breath on her neck, themuscles of his hips flexing, his chest pressing against herbreasts, their hands interlocked.
"I wish I'd taken you with me," Tariq nearly whispered.
Laila had to lower her gaze, try not to cry.
"I know you're a married woman and a mother now. Andhere I am, after all these years, after all that's happened,showing up at your doorstep. Probably, it isn't proper, or fair,but I've come such a long way to see you, and… Oh, Laila, Iwish I'd never left you.""Don't," she croaked.
"I should have tried harder. I should have married you whenI had the chance. Everything would have been different, then.""Don't talk this way. Please. It hurts."He nodded, started to take a step toward her, then stoppedhimself. "I don't want to assume anything. And I don't meanto turn your life upside down, appearing like this out ofnowhere. If you want me to leave, if you want me to go backto Pakistan, say the word, Laila. I mean it. Say it and I'll go.
I'll never trouble you again. I'll-""No!" Laila said more sharply than she'd intended to. She sawthat she'd reached for his arm, that she was clutchingit. Shedropped her hand. "No. Don't leave, Tariq. No. Please stay."Tariq nodded.
"He works from noon to eight. Come back tomorrowafternoon. I'll take you to Aziza.""I'm not afraid of him, you know.""I know. Come back tomorrow afternoon.""And then?""And then…Idon't know. I have to think. This is…""I know it is," he said. "I understand. I'm sorry. I'm sorry fora lot of things.""Don't be. You promised you'd come back. And you did."His eyes watered. "It's good to see you, Laila."She watched him walk away, shivering where she stood. Shethought,Volumes, and another shudder passed through her, acurrent of something sad and forlorn, but also something eagerand recklessly hopeful.
Chapter 45.
MadamI was upstairs, playing with Mariam," Zalmai said.
"And your mother?""She was…She was downstairs, talking to that man.""I see," said Rasheed. "Teamwork."Mariam watched his face relax, loosen. She watched the foldsclear from his brow. Suspicion and misgiving winked out of hiseyes. He sat up straight, and, for a few brief moments, heappeared merely thoughtful, like a captain informed of imminentmutiny taking his time to ponder his next move.
He looked up.
Mariam began to say something, but he raised a hand, and,without looking at her, said, "It's too late, Mariam."To Zalmai he said coldly, "You're going upstairs, boy."On Zalmai's face, Mariam saw alarm. Nervously, he lookedaround at the three of them. He sensed now that his tattletalegame had let something serious-adult serious-into the room. Hecast a despondent, contrite glance toward Mariam, then hismother.
In a challenging voice, Rasheed said,"Now!"He took Zalmai by the elbow. Zalmai meekly let himself be ledupstairs.
They stood frozen, Mariam and Laila, eyes to the ground, asthough looking at each other would give credence to the wayRasheed saw things, that while he was opening doors andlugging baggage for people who wouldn't spare him a glance alewd conspiracy was shaping behind his back, in his home, inhis beloved son's presence. Neither one of them said a word.
They listened to the footsteps in the hallway above, one heavyand foreboding, the other the pattering of a skittish little animal.
They listened to muted words passed, a squeaky plea, a curtretort, a door shut, the rattle of a key as it turned. Then oneset of footsteps returning, more impatiently now.
Mariam saw his feet pounding the steps as he came down.
She saw him pocketing the key, saw his belt, the perforatedend wrapped tightly around his knuckles. The fake brass buckledragged behind him, bouncing on the steps.
She went to stop him, but he shoved her back and blew byher. Without saying a word, he swung the belt at Laila. He didit with such speed that she had no time to retreat or duck, oreven raise a protective arm. Laila touched her fingers to hertemple, looked at the blood, looked at Rasheed, withastonishment. It lasted only a moment or two, this look ofdisbelief, before it was replaced by something hateful.
Rasheed swung the belt again.
This time, Laila shielded herself with a forearm and made agrab at the belt. She missed, and Rasheed brought the beltdown again. Laila caught it briefly before Rasheed yanked itfree and lashed at her again. Then Laila was dashing aroundthe room, and Mariam was screaming words that ran togetherand imploring Rasheed, as he chased Laila, as he blocked herway and cracked his belt at her. At one point, Laila duckedand managed to land a punch across his ear, which made himspit a curse and pursue her even more relentlessly. He caughther, threw her up against the wall, and struck her with thebelt again and again, the buckle slamming against her chest,her shoulder, her raised arms, her fingers, drawing bloodwherever it struck.
Mariam lost count of how many times the belt cracked, howmany pleading words she cried out to Rasheed, how manytimes she circled around the incoherent tangle of teeth and fistsand belt, before she saw fingers clawing at Rasheed's face,chipped nails digging into his jowls and pulling at his hair andscratching his forehead. How long before she realized, with bothshock and relish, that the fingers were hers.
He let go of Laila and turned on her. At first, he looked ather without seeing her, then his eyes narrowed, appraisedMariam with interest. The look in them shifted from puzzlementto shock, then disapproval, disappointment even, lingering therea moment.
Mariam remembered the first time she had seen his eyes,under the wedding veil, in the mirror, with Jalil looking on,how their gazes had slid across the glass and met, hisindifferent, hers docile, conceding, almost apologetic.
Apologetic.
Mariam saw now in those same eyes what a fool she hadbeen.
Had she been a deceitful wife? she asked herself. Acomplacent wife? A dishonorable woman? Discreditable? Vulgar?
What harmful thing had she willfully done to this man towarrant his malice, his continual assaults, the relish with whichhe tormented her? Had she not looked after him when he wasill? Fed him, and his friends, cleaned up after him dutifully?
Had she not given this man her youth?
Had she ever justly deserved his meanness?
The belt made a thump when Rasheed dropped it to theground and came for her. Some jobs, thatthump said, weremeant to be done with bare hands.
But just as he was bearing down on her, Mariam saw Lailabehind him pick something up from the ground. She watchedLaila's hand rise overhead, hold, then come swooping downagainst the side of his face. Glass shattered. The jaggedremains of the drinking glass rained down to the ground.
There was blood on Laila's hands, blood flowing from the opengash on Rasheed's cheek, blood down his neck, on his shirt.
He turned around, all snarling teeth and blazing eyes.
They crashed to the ground, Rasheed and Laila, thrashingabout. He ended up on top, his hands already wrappedaround Laila's neck.
Mariam clawed at him. She beat at his chest. She hurledherself against him. She struggled to uncurl his fingers fromLaila's neck. She bit them. But they remained tightly clampedaround Laila's wind-pipe, and Mariam saw that he meant tocarry this through.
He meant to suffocate her, and there was nothing either ofthem could do about it.
Mariam backed away and left the room. She was aware of athumping sound from upstairs, aware that tiny palms wereslapping against a locked door. She ran down the hallway. Sheburst through the front door. Crossed the yard.
In the toolshed, Mariam grabbed the shovel.
Rasheed didn't notice her coming back into the room. He wasstill on top of Laila, his eyes wide and crazy, his handswrapped around her neck. Laila's face was turning blue now,and her eyes had rolled back. Mariam saw that she was nolonger struggling.He's going to kill her, she thought.He reallymeans to. And Mariam could not, would not, allow that tohappen. He'd taken so much from her in twenty-seven yearsof marriage. She would not watch him take Laila too.
Mariam steadied her feet and tightened her grip around theshovel's handle. She raised it. She said his name. She wantedhim to see.
"Rasheed."He looked up.
Mariam swung.
She hit him across the temple. The blow knocked him offLaila.
Rasheed touched his head with the palm of his hand. Helooked at the blood on his fingertips, then at Mariam. Shethought she saw his face soften. She imagined that somethinghad passed between them, that maybe she had quite literallyknocked some understanding into his head. Maybe he sawsomething in her face too, Mariam thought, something thatmade him hedge. Maybe he saw some trace of all theself-denial, all the sacrifice, all the sheer exertion it had takenher to live with him for all these years, live with his continualcondescension and violence, his faultfinding and meanness. Wasthat respect she saw in his eyes? Regret?
But then his upper lip curled back into a spiteful sneer, andMariam knew then the futility, maybe even the irresponsibility,of not finishing this. If she let him walk now, how long beforehe fetched the key from his pocket and went for that gun ofhis upstairs in the room where he'd locked Zalmai? HadMariam been certain that he would be satisfied with shootingonly her, that there was a chance he would spare Laila, shemight have dropped the shovel. But in Rasheed's eyes she sawmurder for them both.
And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raised it as high asshe could, arching it so it touched the small of her back. Sheturned it so the sharp edge was vertical, and, as she did, itoccurred to her that this was the first time thatshe wasdeciding the course of her own life.
And, with that, Mariam brought down the shovel This time,she gave it everything she had.
Chapter 46.
LailaLaila was aware of the face over her, all teeth and tobaccoand foreboding eyes. She was dimly aware, too, of Mariam, apresence beyond the face, of her fists raining down. Abovethem was the ceiling, and it was the ceiling Laila was drawnto, the dark markings of mold spreading across it like ink on adress, the crack in the plaster that was a stolid smile or afrown, depending on which end of the room you looked at itfrom. Laila thought of all the times she had tied a rag aroundthe end of a broom and cleaned cobwebs from this ceiling.
The three times she and Mariam had put coats of white painton it. The crack wasn't a smile any longer now but a mockingleer. And it was receding. The ceiling was shrinking, lifting,rising away from her and toward some hazy dimness beyond.
It rose until it shrank to the size of a postage stamp, whiteand bright, everything around it blotted out by the shuttereddarkness. In the dark, Rasheed's face was like a sunspot.
Brief little bursts of blinding light before her eyes now, likesilver stars exploding. Bizarre geometric forms in the light,worms, egg-shaped things, moving up and down, sideways,melting into each other, breaking apart, morphing intosomething else, then fading, giving way to blackness.
Voices muffled and distant.
Behind the lids of her eyes, her children's faces flared andfizzled. Aziza, alert and burdened, knowing, secretive. Zalmai,looking up at his father with quivering eagerness.
It would end like this, then, Laila thought. What a pitiableend-But then the darkness began to lift. She had a sensationof rising up, of being hoisted up. The ceiling slowly came back,expanded, and now Laila could make out the crack again, andit was the same old dull smile.
She was being shaken.Are you all right? Answer me, are youall right? Mariam's face, engraved with scratches, heavy withworry, hovered over Laila.
Laila tried a breath. It burned her throat. She tried another. Itburned even more this time, and not just her throat but herchest too. And then she was coughing, and wheezing. Gasping.
But breathing. Her good ear rang.
* * *The first thing she saw when she sat up was Rasheed. Hewas lying on his back, staring at nothing with an unblinking,fish-mouthed expression. A bit of foam, lightly pink, haddribbled from his mouth down his cheek. The front of hispants was wet. She saw his forehead.
Then she saw the shovel.
A groan came out of her. "Oh," she said, tremulously, barelyable to make a voice, "Oh, Mariam."* * *Laila paced, moaning and banging her hands together, asMariam sat near Rasheed, her hands in her lap, calm andmotionless. Mariam didn't say anything for a long time.
Laila's mouth was dry, and she was stammering her words,trembling all over. She willed herself not to look at Rasheed, atthe rictus of his mouth, his open eyes, at the blood congealingin the hollow of his collarbone.
Outside, the light was fading, the shadows deepening. Mariam'sface looked thin and drawn in this light, but she did notappear agitated or frightened, merely preoccupied, thoughtful, soself-possessed that when a fly landed on her chin she paid itno attention. She just sat there with her bottom lip stuck out,the way she did when she was absorbed in thought.
At last, she said, "Sit down, Laila jo."Laila did, obediently.
"We have to move him. Zalmai can't see this."* * *Mariam fished the bedroom key from Rasheed's pocket beforethey wrapped him in a bedsheet. Laila took him by the legs,behind the knees, and Mariam grabbed him under the arms.
They tried lifting him, but he was too heavy, and they endedup dragging him. As they were passing through the front doorand into the yard, Rasheed's foot caught against the doorframeand his leg bent sideways. They had to back up and try again,and then something thumped upstairs and Laila's legs gave out.
She dropped Rasheed. She slumped to the ground, sobbingand shaking, and Mariam had to stand over her, hands onhips, and say that she had to get herself together. That whatwas done was done-After a time, Laila got up and wiped herface, and they carried Rasheed to the yard without furtherincident. They took him into the toolshed. They left him behindthe workbench, on which sat his saw, some nails, a chisel, ahammer, and a cylindrical block of wood that Rasheed hadbeen meaning to carve into something for Zalmai but hadnever gotten around to doing-Then they went back inside.
Mariam washed her hands, ran them through her hair, took adeep breath and let it out. "Let me tend to your wounds now.
You're all cut up, Laila jo."* * *Mahiam said she needed the night to think things over. Toget her thoughts together and devise a plan.
"There is a way," she said, "and I just have to find it.""We have to leave! We can't stay here," Laila said in abroken, husky voice. She thought suddenly of the sound theshovel must have made striking Rasheed's head, and her bodypitched forward. Bile surged up her chest.
Mariam waited patiently until Laila felt better. Then she hadLaila lie down, and, as she stroked Laila's hair in her lap,Mariam said not to worry, that everything would be fine. Shesaid that they would leave-she, Laila, the children, and Tariqtoo. They would leave this house, and this unforgiving city.
They would leave this despondent country altogether, Mariamsaid, running her hands through Laila's hair, and go someplaceremote and safe where no one would find them, where theycould disown their past and find shelter.
"Somewhere with trees," she said. "Yes. Lots of trees."They would live in a small house on the edge of some townthey'd never heard of, Mariam said, or in a remote villagewhere the road was narrow and unpaved but lined with allmanner of plants and shrubs. Maybe there would be a path totake, a path that led to a grass field where the children couldplay, or maybe a graveled road that would take them to aclear blue lake where trout swam and reeds poked through thesurface. They would raise sheep and chickens, and they wouldmake bread together and teach the children to read. Theywould make new lives for themselves-peaceful, solitary lives-andthere the weight of all that they'd endured would lift fromthem, and they would be deserving of all the happiness andsimple prosperity they would find.
Laila murmured encouragingly. It would be an existence rifewith difficulties, she saw, but of a pleasurable kind, difficultiesthey could take pride in, possess, value, as one would a familyheirloom. Mariam's soft maternal voice went on, brought adegree of comfort to her.There is a way, she'd said, and, inthe morning, Mariam would tell her what needed to be doneand they would do it, and maybe by tomorrow this time theywould be on their way to this new life, a life luxuriant withpossibility and joy and welcomed difficulties. Laila was gratefulthat Mariam was in charge, unclouded and sober, able to thinkthis through for both of them. Her own mind was a jittery,muddled mess.
Mariam got up. "You should tend to your son now." On herwas the most stricken expression Laila had ever seen on ahuman face.
* * *Laila found him in the dark, curled up on Rasheed'sside ofthe mattress. She slipped beneath the covers beside him andpulled the blanket over them.
"Are you asleep?"Without turning around to face her, he said, "Can't sleep yet.
Baba jan hasn't said theBabaloo prayers with me.""Maybe I can say them with you tonight.""You can't say them like he can."She squeezed his little shoulder. Kissed the nape of his neck.
"I can try.""Where is Baba jan?""Baba jan has gone away," Laila said, her throat closing upagain.
And there it was, spoken for the first time, the great, damninglie.How many more times would this lie have to be told? Lailawondered miserably. How many more times would Zalmai haveto be deceived? She pictured Zalmai, his jubilant, runningwelcomes when Rasheed came home and Rasheed picking himup by the elbows and swinging him round and round untilZalmai's legs flew straight out, the two of them gigglingafterward when Zalmai stumbled around like a drunk. Shethought of their disorderly games and their boisterous laughs,their secretive glances.
A pall of shame and grief for her son fell over Laila.
"Where did he go?""I don't know, my love."When was he coming back? Would Baba jan bring a presentwith him when he returned?
She did the prayers with Zalmai.
Twenty-oneBismallah-e-rahman-erahims -one for each knuckle ofseven fingers. She watched him cup his hands before his faceand blow into them, then place the back of both hands on hisforehead and make a casting-away motion, whispering,Babaloo,be gone, do not come to Zalmai, he has no businesswith you. Babaloo,be gone. Then, to finish off, theysaidAilah-u-akbar three times. And later, much later that night,Laila was startled by a muted voice:Did Babajan leave becauseof me? Because of what I said, about you and the mandownstairs?
She leaned over him, meaning to reassure, meaning to sayIthad nothing to do with you, Zalmai. No. Nothing is your fault.
But he was asleep, his small chest rising and sinking.
* * *When Laila "went to bed, her mind was muffled up, clouded,incapable of sustained rational thought. But when she woke up,to the muezzin's call for morning prayer, much of the dullnesshad lifted.
She sat up and watched Zalmai sleep for a while, the ball ofhis fist under his chin. Laila pictured Mariam sneaking into theroom in the middle of the night as she and Zalmai had slept,watching them, making plans in her head.
Laila slipped out of bed. It took effort to stand. She achedeverywhere. Her neck, her shoulders, her back, her arms, herthighs, all engraved with the cuts of Rasheed's belt buckle.
Wincing, she quietly left the bedroom.
In Mariam's room, the light was a shade darker than gray,the kind of light Laila had always associated with crowingroosters and dew rolling off blades of grass. Mariam was sittingin a corner, on a prayer rug facing the window. Slowly, Lailalowered herself to the ground, sitting down across from her.
"You should go and visit Aziza this morning," Mariam said.
"I know what you mean to do.""Don't walk. Take the bus, you'll blend in. Taxis are tooconspicuous. You're sure to get stopped for riding alone.""What you promised last night…"Laila could not finish. The trees, the lake, the nameless village.
A delusion, she saw. A lovely lie meant to soothe. Like cooingto a distressed child.
"I meant it," Mariam said. "I meant it foryou, Laila jo.""I don't want any of it without you," Laila croaked.
Mariam smiled wanly.
"I want it to be just like you said, Mariam, all of us goingtogether, you, me, the children. Tariq has a place in Pakistan.
We can hide out there for a while, wait for things to calmdown-""That's not possible," Mariam said patiently, like a parent to awell-meaning but misguided child.
"We'll take care of each other," Laila said, choking on thewords, her eyes wet with tears. "Like you said. No. I'll takecareof you for a change.""Oh, Laila jo."Laila went on a stammering rant. She bargained. Shepromised. She would do all the cleaning, she said, and all thecooking. "You won't have to do a thing. Ever again. You rest,sleep in, plant a garden. Whatever you want, you ask and I'llget it for you. Don't do this, Mariam. Don't leave me. Don'tbreak Aziza's heart.""They chop off hands for stealing bread," Mariam said "Whatdo you think they'll do when they find a dead husband andtwo missing wives?""No one will know," Laila breathed. "No one will find us.""They will. Sooner or later. They're bloodhounds." Mariam'svoice was low, cautioning; it made Laila's promises soundfantastical, trumped-up, foolish.
"Mariam, please-""When they do, they'll find you as guilty as me. Tariq too. Iwon't have the two of you living on the run, like fugitives.
What will happen to your children if you're caught?"Laila's eyes brimming, stinging.
"Who will take care of them then? The Taliban? Think like amother, Laila jo. Think like a mother. I am.""I can't.""You have to.""It isn't fair," Laila croaked.
"But itis. Come here. Come lie here."Laila crawled to her and again put her head on Mariam's lap.
She remembered all the afternoons they'd spent together,braiding each other's hair, Mariam listening patiently to herrandom thoughts and ordinary stories with an air of gratitude,with the expression of a person to whom a unique andcoveted privilege had been extended "Itis fair," Mariam said.
"I've killed our husband. I've deprived your son of his father. Itisn't right that I run. Ican't. Even if they never catch us, I'llnever…" Her lips trembled. "I'll never escape your son's griefHow do I look at him? How do I ever bring myself to look athim, Laila jo?"Mariam twiddled a strand of Laila's hair, untangled a stubborncurl.
"For me, it ends here. There's nothing more I want.
Everything I'd ever wished for as a little girl you've alreadygiven me. You and your children have made me so veryhappy. It's all right, Laila jo. This is all right. Don't be sad."Laila could find no reasonable answer for anything Mariamsaid. But she rambled on anyway, incoherently, childishly, aboutfruit trees that awaited planting and chickens that awaitedraising. She went on about small houses in unnamed towns,and walks to trout-filled lakes. And, in the end, when thewords dried up, the tears did not, and all Laila could do wassurrender and sob like a child over-whelmed by an adult'sunassailable logic. All she could do was roll herself up and buryher face one last time in the welcoming warmth of Mariam'slap.
* * *Later that morning, Mariam packed Zalmai a small lunch ofbread and dried figs. For Aziza too she packed some figs, anda few cookies shaped like animals. She put it all in a paperbag and gave it to Laila.
"Kiss Aziza for me," she said. "Tell her she is thenoor of myeyes and the sultan of my heart. Will you do that for me?"Laila nodded, her lips pursed together.
"Take the bus, like I said, and keep your head low.""When will I see you, Mariam? I want to see you before Itestify. I'll tell them how it happened. I'll explain that it wasn'tyour fault. That you had to do it. They'll understand, won'tthey, Mariam? They'll understand."Mariam gave her a soft look.
She hunkered down to eye level with Zalmai. He was wearinga red T-shirt, ragged khakis, and a used pair of cowboy bootsRasheed had bought him from Mandaii. He was holding hisnew basketball with both hands. Mariam planted a kiss on hischeek.
"You be a good, strong boy, now," she said. "You treat yourmother well." She cupped his face. He pulled back but sheheld on. "I am so sorry, Zalmai jo. Believe me that I'm sovery sorry for all your pain and sadness."Laila held Zalmai's hand as they walked down the roadtogether. Just before they turned the corner, Laila lookedback and saw Mariam at the door. Mariam was wearing awhite scarf over her head, a dark blue sweater buttoned in thefront, and white cotton trousers. A crest of gray hair had fallenloose over her brow. Bars of sunlight slashed across her faceand shoulders. Mariam waved amiably.
They turned the corner, and Laila never saw Mariam again.
Chapter 47.
MadamBack in akolba, it seemed, after all these years.
The Walayat women's prison was a drab, square-shapedbuilding in Shar-e-Nau near Chicken Street. It sat in the centerof a larger complex that housed male inmates. A padlockeddoor separated Mariam and the other women from thesurrounding men. Mariam counted five working cells. They wereunfurnished rooms, with dirty, peeling walls, and small windowsthat looked into the courtyard. The windows were barred, eventhough the doors to the cells were unlocked and the womenwere free to come and go to the courtyard as they pleased.
The windows had no glass. There were no curtains either,which meant the Talib guards who roamed the courtyard hadan eyeful of the interior of the cells. Some of the womencomplained that the guards smoked outside the window andleered in, with their inflamed eyes and wolfish smiles, that theymuttered indecent jokes to each other about them. Because ofthis, most of the women wore burqas all day and lifted themonly after sundown, after the main gate was locked and theguards had gone to their posts.
At night, the cell Mariam shared with five women and fourchildren was dark. On those nights when there was electricalpower, they hoisted Naghma, a short, flat-chested girl with blackfrizzy hair, up to the ceiling. There was a wire there fromwhich the coating had been stripped. Naghma would hand-wrapthe live wire around the base of the lightbulb then to make acircuit.
The toilets were closet-sized, the cement floor cracked Therewas a small, rectangular hole in the ground, at the bottom ofwhich was a heap of feces. Flies buzzed in and out of thehole-In the middle of the prison was an open, rectangularcourtyard, and, in the middle of that, a well The well had nodrainage, meaning the courtyard was often a swamp and thewater tasted rotten. Laundry lines, loaded with handwashedsocks and diapers, slashed across each other in the courtyard.
This was where inmates met visitors, where they boiled the ricetheir families brought them-the prison provided no food Thecourtyard was also the children's playground-Mariam hadlearned that many of the children had been born in Walayat,had never seen the world outside these walls. Mariam watchedthem chase each other around, watched their shoeless feet slingmud. All day, they ran around, making up lively games,unaware of the stench of feces and urine that permeatedWalayat and their own bodies, unmindful of the Talib guardsuntil one smacked them.
Mariam had no visitors. That was the first and only thing shehad asked the Talib officials here. No visitors.
* * *None of the women in Mariam's cell were serving time forviolent crime-they were all there for the common offense of"running away from home." As a result, Mariam gained somenotoriety among them, became a kind of celebrity. The womeneyed her with a reverent, almost awestruck, expression. Theyoffered her their blankets. They competed to share their foodwith her.
The most avid was Naghma, who was always hugging herelbows and following Mariam everywhere she went. Naghmawas the sort of person who found it entertaining to dispensenews of misfortune, whether others' or her own. She said herfather had promised her to a tailor some thirty years olderthan her.
"He smellslike goh, and has fewer teeth than fingers," Naghmasaid of the tailor.
She'd tried to elope to Gardez with a young man she'd fallenin love with, the son of a local mullah. They'd barely made itout of Kabul. When they were caught and sent back, themullah's son was flogged before he repented and said thatNaghma had seduced him with her feminine charms. She'd casta spell on him, he said. He promised he would rededicatehimself to the study of the Koran. The mullah's son was freed.
Naghma was sentenced to five years.
It was just as well, she said, her being here in prison. Herfather had sworn that the day she was released he would takea knife to her throat.
Listening to Naghma, Mariam remembered the dim glimmer ofcold stars and the stringy pink clouds streaking over theSafid-koh mountains that long-ago morning when Nana hadsaid to her,Like a compass needle that points north, a man'saccusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You rememberthat, Mariam.
* * *Mamam'S trial had taken place the week before. There wasno legal council, no public hearing, no cross-examining ofevidence, no appeals. Mariam declined her right to witnesses.
The entire thing lasted less than fifteen minutes.
The middle judge, a brittle-looking Talib, was the leader. Hewas strikingly gaunt, with yellow, leathery skin and a curly redbeard. He wore eyeglasses that magnified his eyes and revealedhow yellow the whites were. His neck looked too thin tosupport the intricately wrapped turban on his head.
"You admit to this,hamshira?I he asked again in a tired voice.
"I do," Mariam said.
The man nodded. Or maybe he didn't. It was hard to tell; hehad a pronounced shaking of his hands and head thatreminded Mariam of Mullah Faizullah's tremor. When he sippedtea, he did not reach for his cup. He motioned to thesquare-shouldered man to his left, who respectfully brought itto his lips. After, the Talib closed his eyes gently, a muted andelegant gesture of gratitude.
Mariam found a disarming quality about him. When he spoke,it was with a tinge of guile and tenderness. His smile waspatient. He did not look at Mariam despisingly. He did notaddress her with spite or accusation but with a soft tone ofapology.
"Do you fully understand what you're saying?" the bony-facedTalib to the judge's right, not the tea giver, said. This one wasthe youngest of the three. He spoke quickly and with emphatic,arrogant confidence. He'd been irritated that Mariam could notspeak Pashto. He struck Mariam as the sort of quarrelsomeyoung man who relished his authority, who saw offenseseverywhere, thought it his birthright to pass judgment.
"I do understand," Mariam said.
"I wonder," the young Talib said. "God has made usdifferently, you women and us men. Our brains are different.
You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors andtheir science have proven this. This is why we require only onemale witness but two female ones.""I admit to what I did, brother," Mariam said. "But, if Ihadn't, he would have killed her. He was strangling her.""So you say. But, then, women swear to all sorts of things allthe time.""It's the truth.""Do you have witnesses? Other than yourambagh?’'
"I do not," said Mariam.
"Well, then." He threw up his hands and snickered.
It was the sickly Talib who spoke next.
"I have a doctor in Peshawar," he said. "A fine, youngPakistani fellow. I saw him a month ago, and then again lastweek. I said, tell me the truth, friend, and he said to me, threemonths, Mullah sahib, maybe six at most-all God's will, ofcourse."He nodded discreetly at the square-shouldered man on his leftand took another sip of the tea he was offered. He wiped hismouth with the back of his tremulous hand. "It does notfrighten me to leave this life that my only son left five yearsago, this life that insists we bear sorrow upon sorrow longafter we can bear no more. No, I believe I shall gladly takemy leave when the time comes.
"What frightens me,hamshira, is the day God summons mebefore Him and asks,Why did you not do as I said, Mullah?
Why did you not obey my laws? How shall I explain myself toHim,hamshira1? What will be my defense for not heeding Hiscommands? All I can do, all any of us can do, in the time weare granted, is to go on abiding by the laws He has set forus. The clearer I see my end,hamshira, the nearer I am to myday of reckoning, the more determined I grow to carry out Hisword. However painful it may prove."He shifted on his cushion and winced.
"I believe you when you say that your husband was a manof disagreeable temperament," he resumed, fixing Mariam withhis bespectacled eyes, his gaze both stern and compassionate.
"But I cannot help but be disturbed by the brutality of youraction,hamshira I am troubled by what you have done; I amtroubled that his little boy was crying for him upstairs whenyou did it.
"I am tired and dying, and I want to be merciful. I want toforgive you. But when God summons me and says,But itwasn't for you to forgive, Mullah, what shall I say?"His companions nodded and looked at him with admiration.
"Something tells me you are not a wicked woman,hamshiraBut you have done a wicked thing. And you must pay for thisthing you have done.Shari'a is not vague on this matter. It saysI must send you where I will soon join you myself.
"Do you understand,hamshira?"Mariam looked down at her hands. She said she did.
"May Allah forgive you."Before they led her out, Mariam was given a document, toldto sign beneath her statement and the mullah's sentence. Asthe three Taliban watched, Mariam wrote it out, hername-themeem, thereh, theyah, and themeem -remembering thelast time she'd signed her name to a document, twenty-sevenyears before, at Jalil's table, beneath the watchful gaze ofanother mullah.
* * *Mahiam spent ten days in prison. She sat by the window ofthe cell, watched the prison life in the courtyard. When thesummer winds blew, she watched bits of scrap paper ride thecurrents in a frenzied, corkscrew motion, as they were hurledthis way and that, high above the prison walls. She watchedthe winds stir mutiny in the dust, whipping it into violent spiralsthat ripped through the courtyard. Everyone-the guards, theinmates, the children, Mariam-burrowed their faces in the hookof their elbows, but the dust would not be denied. It madehomes of ear canals and nostrils, of eyelashes and skin folds,of the space between molars. Only at dusk did the winds diedown. And then if a night breeze blew, it did so timidly, as ifto atone for the excesses of its daytime sibling.
On Mariam's last day at Walayat, Naghma gave her atangerine. She put it in Mariam's palm and closed her fingersaround it. Then she burst into tears.
"You're the best friend I ever had," she said.
Mariam spent the rest of the day by the barred windowwatching the inmates below. Someone was cooking a meal, anda stream of cumin-scented smoke and warm air waftedthrough the window. Mariam could see the children playing ablindfolded game. Two little girls were singing a rhyme, andMariam remembered it from her childhood, remembered Jalilsinging it to her as they'd sat on a rock, fishing in the stream:
Lili Mi birdbath, Sitting on a dirt path, Minnow sat on the rimand drank, Slipped, and in the water she sankMariam had disjointed dreams that last night. She dreamed ofpebbles, eleven of them, arranged vertically. Jalil, young again,all winning smiles and dimpled chins and sweat patches, coatflung over his shoulder, come at last to take his daughter awayfor a ride in his shiny black Buick Roadmaster. Mullah Faizullahtwirling his rosary beads, walking with her along the stream,their twin shadows gliding on the water and on the grassybanks sprinkled with a blue-lavender wild iris that, in thisdream, smelled like cloves. She dreamed of Nana in thedoorway of thekolba, her voice dim and distant, calling her todinner, as Mariam played in cool, tangled grass where antscrawled and beetles scurried and grasshoppers skipped amid allthe different shades of green. The squeak of a wheelbarrowlaboring up a dusty path. Cowbells clanging. Sheep baaing on ahill.
* * *On the way to Ghazi Stadium, Mariam bounced in the bed ofthe truck as it skidded around potholes andits wheels spatpebbles. The bouncing hurt her tailbone. A young, armed Talibsat across from her looking at her.
Mariam wondered if he would be the one, this amiable-lookingyoung man with the deep-set bright eyes and slightly pointedface, with the black-nailed index finger drumming the side ofthe truck.
"Are you hungry, mother?" he said.
Mariam shook her head.
"I have a biscuit. It's good. You can have it if you're hungry.
I don't mind.""No.Tashakor, brother."He nodded, looked at her benignly. "Are you afraid, mother?"A lump closed off her throat. In a quivering voice, Mariamtold him the truth.
"Yes. I'm very afraid.""I have a picture of my father," he said. "I don't rememberhim. He was a bicycle repairman once, I know that much. ButI don't remember how he moved, you know, how he laughedor the sound of his voice." He looked away, then back atMariam. "My mother used to say that he was the bravest manshe knew. Like a lion, she'd say.
But she told me he was crying like a child the morning thecommunists took him. I'm telling you so you know that it'snormal to be scared. It's nothing to be ashamed of, mother."For the first time that day, Mariam cried a little.
* * *Thousands of eyes bore down on her. In the crowdedbleachers, necks were craned for the benefit of a better view.
Tongues clucked. A murmuring sound rippled through thestadium when Mariam was helped down from the truck.
Mariam imagined heads shaking when the loudspeakerannounced her crime. But she did not look up to see whetherthey were shaking with disapproval or charity, with reproach orpity. Mariam blinded herself to them all.
Earlier that morning, she had been afraid that she wouldmake a fool of herself, that she would turn into a pleading,weeping spectacle. She had feared that she might scream orvomit or even wet herself, that, in her last moments, she wouldbe betrayed by animal instinct or bodily disgrace. But when shewas made to descend from the truck, Mariam's legs did notbuckle. Her arms did not flail. She did not have to be dragged.
And when she did feel herself faltering, she thought of Zalmai,from whom she had taken the love of his life, whose daysnow would be shaped by the sorrow of his father'sdisappearance. And then Mariam's stride steadied and shecould walk without protest.
An armed man approached her and told her to walk towardthe southern goalpost. Mariam could sense the crowd tighteningup with anticipation. She did not look up. She kept her eyes tothe ground, on her shadow, on her executioner's shadowtrailing hers.
Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariamknew that life for the most part had been unkind to her. Butas she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help butwish for more of it. She wished she could see Laila again,wished to hear the clangor of her laugh, to sit with her oncemore for a pot ofchai and leftoverhalwa under a starlit sky.
She mourned that she would never see Aziza grow up, wouldnot see the beautiful young woman that she would one daybecome, would not get to paint her hands with henna andtossnoqul candy at her wedding. She would never play withAziza's children. She would have liked that very much, to beold and play with Aziza's children.
Near the goalpost, the man behind her asked her to stop.
Mariam did. Through the crisscrossing grid of the burqa, shesaw his shadow arms lift his shadow Kalashnikov.
Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet asshe closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but asensation of abundant peace that washed over her. Shethought of her entry into this world, theharami child of a lowlyvillager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. Aweed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman whohad loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend,a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequenceat last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that sheshould die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end toa life of illegitimate beginnings.
Mariam's final thoughts were a few words from the Koran,which she muttered under her breath.
He has created the heavens and the earth with the truth; Hemakes the night cover the day and makes the day overtakethe night, and He has made the sun and the moonsubservient; each one runs on to an assigned term; now surelyHe is the Mighty, the Great Forgiver.
"Kneel," the Talib saidO my Lord! Forgive and have mercy, for you are the best ofthe merciful ones.
"Kneel here,hamshira And look down."One last time, Mariam did as she was told.
Part Four Chapter 48.
Tariq has headaches now.
Some nights, Laila awakens and finds him on the edge oftheir bed, rocking, his undershirt pulled over his head Theheadaches began in Nasir Bagh, he says, then worsened inprison. Sometimes they make him vomit, blind him in one eye.
He says it feels like a butcher's knife burrowing in one temple,twisting slowly through his brain, then poking out the otherside.
"I can taste the metal, even, when they begin."Sometimes Laila wets a cloth and lays it on his forehead andthat helps a little. The little round white pills Sayeed's doctorgave Tariq help too. But some nights, all Tariq can do is holdhis head and moan, his eyes bloodshot, his nose dripping. Lailasits with him when he's in the grip of it like that, rubs theback of his neck, takes his hand in hers, the metal of hiswedding band cold against her palm.
They married the day that they arrived in Murree. Sayeedlooked relieved when Tariq told him they would. He would nothave to broach with Tariq the delicate matter of an unmarriedcouple living in his hotel. Sayeed is not at all as Laila hadpictured him, ruddy-faced and pea-eyed. He has asalt-and-pepper mustache whose ends he rolls to a sharp tip,and a shock of long gray hair combed back from the brow.
He is a soft-spoken, mannerly man, with measured speech andgraceful movements.
It was Sayeecl who summoned a friend and a mullah forthenikka that day, Sayeed who pulled Tariq aside and gave himmoney. Tariq wouldn't take it, but Sayeed insisted. Tariq wentto the Mall then and came back with two simple, thin weddingbands. They married later that night, after the children hadgone to bed.
In the mirror, beneath the green veil that the mullah drapedover their heads, Laila's eyes met Tariq's. There were no tears,no wedding-day smiles, no whispered oaths of long-lasting love.
In silence, Laila looked at their reflection, at faces that hadaged beyond their years, at the pouches and lines and sagsthat now marked their once-scrubbed, youthful faces. Tariqopened his mouth and began to say something, but, just as hedid, someone pulled the veil, and Laila missed what it was thathe was going to say.
That night, they lay in bed as husband and wife, as thechildren snored below them on sleeping cots. Laila rememberedthe ease with which they would crowd the air between themwith words, she and Tariq, when they were younger, thehaywire, brisk flow of their speech, always interrupting eachother, tugging each other's collar to emphasize a point, thequickness to laugh, the eagerness to delight. So much hadhappened since those childhood days, so much that needed tobe said. But that first night the enormity of it all stole thewords from her. That night, it was blessing enough to bebeside him. It was blessing enough to know that he was here,to feel the warmth of him next to her, to lie with him, theirheads touching, his right hand laced in her left.
In the middle of the night, when Laila woke up thirsty, shefound their hands still clamped together, in the white-knuckle,anxious way of children clutching balloon strings.
* * *Laila likes Mukree'S cool, foggy mornings and its dazzlingtwilights, the dark brilliance of the sky at night; the green ofthe pines and the soft brown of the squirrels darting up anddown the sturdy tree trunks; the sudden downpours that sendshoppers in the Mall scrambling for awning cover. She likes thesouvenir shops, and the various hotels that house tourists, evenas the locals bemoan the constant construction, the expansionof infrastructure that they say is eating away at Murree'snatural beauty. Laila finds it odd that people should lamentthebuilding of buildings. In Kabul, they would celebrate it.
She likes that they have a bathroom, not an outhouse but anactual bathroom, with a toilet that flushes, a shower, and asink too, with twin faucets from which she can draw, with aflick of her wrist, water, either hot or cold. She likes waking upto the sound of Alyona bleating in the morning, and theharmlessly cantankerous cook, Adiba, who works marvels in thekitchen.
Sometimes, as Laila watches Tariq sleep, as her childrenmutter and stir in their own sleep, a great big lump ofgratitude catches in her throat, makes her eyes water.
In the mornings, Laila follows Tariq from room to room. Keysjingle from a ring clipped to his waist and a spray bottle ofwindow cleaner dangles from the belt loops of his jeans. Lailabrings a pail filled with rags, disinfectant, a toilet brush, andspray wax for the dressers. Aziza tags along, a mop in onehand, the bean-stuffed doll Mariam had made for her in theother. Zalmai trails them reluctantly, sulkily, always a few stepsbehind.
Laila vacuums, makes the bed, and dusts. Tariq washes thebathroom sink and tub, scrubs the toilet and mops thelinoleum floor. He stocks the shelves with clean towels,miniature shampoo bottles, and bars of almond-scented soap.
Aziza has laid claim to the task of spraying and wiping thewindows. The doll is never far from where she works.
Laila told Aziza about Tariq a few days after thenikkaIt is strange, Laila thinks, almost unsettling, the thing betweenAziza and Tariq. Already, Aziza is finishing his sentences and hehers. She hands him things before he asks for them. Privatesmiles shoot between them across the dinner table as if theyare not strangers at all but companions reunited after a lengthyseparation.
Aziza looked down thoughtfully at her hands when Laila toldher.
"I like him," she said, after a long pause.
"He lovesyou.""He said that?""He doesn't have to, Aziza.""Tell me the rest, Mammy. Tell me so I know."And Laila did.
"Your father is a good man. He is the best man I've everknown.""What if he leaves?" Aziza said"He will never leave. Look at me, Aziza. Your father will neverhurt you, and he will never leave."The relief on Aziza's face broke Laila's heart.
* * *Tariq has bought Zalmai a rocking horse, built him a wagon.
From a prison inmate, he learned to make paper animals, andso he has folded, cut, and tucked countless sheets of paperinto lions and kangaroos for Zalmai, into horses and brightlyplumed birds. But these overtures are dismissed by Zalmaiunceremoniously, sometimes venomously.
"You're a donkey!" he cries. "I don't want your toys!""Zalmai!" Laila gasps.
"It's all right," Tariq says. "Laila, it's all right. Let him.""You're not my Baba jan! My real Baba jan is away on atrip, and when he gets back he's going to beat you up! Andyou won't be able to run away, because he has two legs andyou only have one!"At night, Laila holds Zalmai against her chest andrecitesBabaloo prayers with him. When he asks, she tells himthe lie again, tells him his Baba jan has gone away and shedoesn't know when he would come back. She abhors this task,abhors herself for lying like this to a childLaila knows that this shameful lie will have to be told againand again. It will have to because Zalmai will ask, hoppingdown from a swing, waking from an afternoon nap, and, later,when he's old enough to tie his own shoes, to walk to schoolby himself, the lie will have to be delivered again.
At some point, Laila knows, the questions will dry up. Slowly,Zalmai will cease wondering why his father has abandoned him.
He will not spot his father any longer at traffic lights, instooping old men shuffling down the street or sipping tea inopen-fronted samovar houses. And one day it will hit him,walking along some meandering river, or gazing out at anuntracked snowfield, that his father's disappearance is no longeran open, raw wound. That it has become something elsealtogether, something more soft-edged and indolent. Like a lore.
Something to be revered, mystified by.
Laila is happy here in Murree. But it is not an easyhappiness. It is not a happiness without cost.
* * *On his days off, Tariq takes Laila and the children to theMall, along which are shops that sell trinkets and next to whichis an Anglican church built in the mid-nineteenth century. Tariqbuys them spicychapli kebabs from street vendors. They strollamid the crowds of locals, the Europeans and their cellularphones and digital cameras, the Punjabis who come here toescape the heat of the plains.
Occasionally, they board a bus to Kashmir Point. From there,Tariq shows them the valley of the Jhelum River, thepine-carpeted slopes, and the lush, densely wooded hills, wherehe says monkeys can still be spotted hopping from branch tobranch. They go to the mapleclad Nathia Gali too, some thirtykilometers from Murree, where Tariq holds Laila's hand as theywalk the tree-shaded road to the Governor's House. They stopby the old British cemetery, or take a taxi up a mountain peakfor a view of the verdant, fog-shrouded valley below.
Sometimes on these outings, when they pass by a storewindow, Laila catches their reflections in it. Man, wife, daughter,son. To strangers, she knows, they must appear like the mostordinary of families, free of secrets, lies, and regrets.
* * *Azizahas nightmares from which she wakes up shrieking. Lailahas to lie beside her on the cot, dry her cheeks with hersleeve, soothe her back to sleep.
Laila has her own dreams. In them, she's always back at thehouse in Kabul, walking the hall, climbing the stairs.
She is alone, but behind the doors she hears the rhythmichiss of an iron, bedsheets snapped, then folded. Sometimes shehears a woman's low-pitched humming of an old Herati song.
But when she walks in, the room is empty. There is no onethere.
The dreams leave Laila shaken. She wakes from them coatedin sweat, her eyes prickling with tears. It is devastating. Everytime, it is devastating.

Chapter 49.
One Sunday that September, Laila is putting Zalmai, who hasa cold, down for a nap when Tariq bursts into their bungalow.
"Did you hear?" he says, panting a little. "They killed him.
Ahmad Shah Massoud. He's dead.""What?"From the doorway, Tariq tells her what he knows.
"They say he gave an interview to a pair of journalists whoclaimed they were Belgians originally from Morocco. As they'retalking, a bomb hidden in the video camera goes off. KillsMassoud and one of the journalists. They shoot the other oneas he tries to run. They're saying now the journalists wereprobably Al-Qaeda men."Laila remembers the poster of Ahmad Shah Massoud thatMammy had nailed to the wall of her bedroom. Massoudleaning forward, one eyebrow cocked, his face furrowed inconcentration, as though he was respectfully listening tosomeone. Laila remembers how grateful Mammy was thatMassoud had said a graveside prayer at her sons' burial, howshe told everyone about it. Even after war broke out betweenhis faction and the others, Mammy had refused to blamehim.He's a good man, she used to say.
He wants peace. He wants to rebuild Afghanistan. But theywon 't let him. They just won 't let him.For Mammy, even inthe end, even after everything went so terribly wrong andKabul lay in ruins, Massoud was still the Lion of Panjshir.
Laila is not as forgiving- Massoud's violent end brings her nojoy, but she remembers too well the neighborhoods razedunder his watch, the bodies dragged from the rubble, thehands and feet of children discovered on rooftops or the highbranch of some tree days after their funeral She rememberstoo clearly the look on Mammy's own face moments before therocket slammed in and, much as she has tried to forget, Babi'sheadless torso landing nearby, the bridge tower printed on hisT-shirt poking through thick fog and blood.
"There is going to be a funeral," Tariq is saying. "I'm sure ofit. Probably in Rawalpindi. It'll be huge."Zalmai, who was almost asleep, is sitting up now, rubbing hiseyes with balled fists.
Two days later, they are cleaning a room when they hear acommotion. Tariq drops the mop and hurries out. Laila tailshim.
Thenoise is coming from the hotel lobby. There is a loungearea to the right of the reception desk, with several chairs andtwo couches upholstered in beige suede. In the corner, facingthe couches, is a television, and Sayeed, the concierge, andseveral guests are gathered in front of.
Laila and Tariq work their way in.
The TV is tuned to BBC. On the screen is a building, atower, black smoke billowing from its top floors. Tariq sayssomething to Sayeed and Sayeed is in midreply when a planeappears from the corner of the screen. It crashes into theadjacent tower, exploding into a fireball that dwarfs any ball offire that Laila has ever seen. A collective yelp rises fromeveryone in the lobby.
In less than two hours, both towers have collapsedSoon all the TV stations are talking about Afghanistan and theTaliban and Osama bin Laden.
* * *"Did you hear what the Taliban said?" Tariq asks. "About binLaden?"Aziza is sitting across from him on the bed, considering theboard. Tariq has taught her to play chess. She is frowning andtapping her lower lip now, mimicking the body language herfather assumes when he's deciding on a move.
Zalmai's cold is a little better. He is asleep, and Laila isrubbing Vicks on his chest.
"I heard," she says.
The Taliban have announced that they won't relinquish binLaden because he is amehman, a guest, who has foundsanctuary in Afghanistan and it is against thePashiunwali codeof ethics to turn over a guest. Tariq chuckles bitterly, and Lailahears in his chuckle that he is revolted by this distortion of anhonorable Pashtun custom, this misrepresentation of his people'sways.
A few days after the attacks, Laila and Tariq are in the hotellobby again. On the TV screen, George W. Bush is speaking.
There is a big American flag behind him. At one point, hisvoice wavers, and Laila thinks he is going to weep.
Sayeed, who speaks English, explains to them that Bush hasjust declared war.
"On whom?" says Tariq.
"On your country, to begin with."* * *"It may not be such a bad thing," Tariq says.
They have finished making love. He's lying beside her, hishead on her chest, his arm draped over her belly. The firstfew times they tried, there was difficulty. Tariq was all apologies,Laila all reassurances. There are still difficulties, not physicalnow but logistical. The shack they share with the children issmall. The children sleep on cots below them and so there islittle privacy. Most times, Laila and Tariq make love in silence,with controlled, muted passion, fully clothed beneath the blanketas a precaution against interruptions by the children. They areforever wary of the rustling sheets, the creaking bedsprings. Butfor Laila, being with Tariq is worth weathering theseapprehensions. When they make love, Laila feels anchored, shefeels sheltered. Her anxieties, that their life together is atemporary blessing, that soon it will come loose again in stripsand tatters, are allayed. Her fears of separation vanish.
"What do you mean?" she says now.
"What's going on back home. It may not be so bad in theend."Back home, bombs are falling once again, this time Americanbombs-Laila has been watching images of the war every dayon the television as she changes sheets and vacuums. TheAmericans have armed the warlords once more, and enlistedthe help of the Northern Alliance to drive out the Taliban andfind bin Laden.
But it rankles Laila, what Tariq is saying. Shepushes his headroughly off her chest.
"Not so bad? People dying? Women, children, old people?
Homes destroyed again? Not so bad?""Shh.You'll wake the children.""How can you say that, Tariq?" she snaps. "After the so-calledblunder in Karam? A hundred innocent people! You saw thebodies for yourself!""No," Tariq says. He props himself up on his elbow, looksdown at Laila. "You misunderstand. What I meant was-""You wouldn't know," Laila says. She is aware that her voiceis rising, that they are having their first fight as husband andwife. "You left when the Mujahideen began fighting, remember?
I'm the one who stayed behind. Me. Iknow war.I lost myparents to war. Myparents, Tariq. And now to hear you saythat war is not so bad?""I'm sorry, Laila. I'm sorry." He cups her face in his hands.
"You're right. I'm sorry. Forgive me. What I meant wasthat maybe there will be hope at the other end of this war,that maybe for the first time in a long time-""I don't want to talk about this anymore," Laila says, surprisedat how she has lashed out at him. It's unfair, she knows, whatshe said to him-hadn't war taken his parents too?-andwhatever flared in her is softening already. Tariq continues tospeak gently, and, when he pulls her to him, she lets him.
When he kisses her hand, then her brow, she lets him. Sheknows that he is probably right. She knows how his commentwas intended. Maybe thisis necessary. Maybe theremil be hopewhen Bush's bombs stop falling. But she cannot bring herselfto say it, not when what happened to Babi and Mammy ishappening to someone now in Afghanistan, not when someunsuspecting girl or boy back home has just been orphanedby a rocket as she was. Laila cannot bring herself to say it.
It's hard to rejoice. It seems hypocritical, perverse.
That night, Zalmai wakes up coughing. Before Laila can move,Tariq swings his legs over the side of the bed. He straps onhis prosthesis and walks over to Zalmai, lifts him up into hisarms. From the bed, Laila watches Tariq's shape moving backand forth in the darkness. She sees the outline of Zalmai'shead on his shoulder, the knot of his hands at Tariq's neck,his small feet bouncing by Tariq's hip.
When Tariq comes back to bed, neither of them saysanything. Laila reaches over and touches his face. Tariq'scheeks are wet.
Chapter 50.
For Laila, life in Murree is one of comfort and tranquillity.
The work is not cumbersome, and, on their days off, she andTariq take the children to ride the chairlift to Patriata hill, orgo to Pindi Point, where, on a clear day, you can see as faras Islamabad and downtown Rawalpindi. There, they spread ablanket on the grass and eat meatball sandwiches withcucumbers and drink cold ginger ale.
It is a good life, Laila tells herself, a life to be thankful for. Itis, in fact, precisely the sort of life she used to dream forherself in her darkest days with Rasheed. Every day, Lailareminds herself of this.
Then one warm night in July 2002, she and Tariq are lyingin bed talking in hushed voices about all the changes backhome. There have been so many. The coalition forces havedriven the Taliban out of every major city, pushed them acrossthe border to Pakistan and to the mountains in the south andeast of Afghanistan. ISAF, an international peacekeeping force,has been sent to Kabul. The country has an interim presidentnow, Hamid Karzai.
Laila decides that now is the time to tell Tariq.
A year ago, she would have gladly given an arm to get out ofKabul. But in the last few months, she has found herselfmissing the city of her childhood. She misses the bustle of ShorBazaar, the Gardens of Babur, the call of the water carrierslugging their goatskin bags. She misses the garment hagglers atChicken Street and the melon hawkers in Karteh-Parwan.
But it isn't mere homesickness or nostalgia that has Lailathinking of Kabul so much these days. She has becomeplagued by restlessness. She hears of schools built in Kabul,roads repaved, women returning to work, and her life here,pleasant as it is, grateful as she is for it, seems… insufficient toher. Inconsequential Worse yet, wasteful. Of late, she hasstarted hearing Babi's voice in her head.You can be anythingyou want, Laila, he says.I know this about you. And Ialsoknow that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to needyou.
Laila hears Mammy's voice too. She remembers Mammy'sresponse to Babi when he would suggest that they leaveAfghanistan.Iwant to see my sons' dream come true. I want tobe there when it happens, when Afghanistan is free, so theboys see it too. They'll see it through my eyes. There is a partof Laila now that wants to return to Kabul, for Mammy andBabi, for them to see it throughher eyes.
And then, most compellingly for Laila, there is Mariam. DidMariam die for this? Laila asks herself. Did she sacrifice herselfso she, Laila, could be a maid in a foreign land? Maybe itwouldn't matter to Mariam what Laila did as long as she andthe children were safe and happy. But it matters to Laila.
Suddenly, it matters very much.
"I want to go back," she says.
Tariq sits up in bed and looks down at her.
Laila is struck again by how beautiful he is, the perfect curveof his forehead, the slender muscles of his arms, his brooding,intelligent eyes. A year has passed, and still there are times, atmoments like this, when Laila cannot believe that they havefound each other again, that he is really here, with her, that heis her husband.
"Back? To Kabul?" he asks.
"Onlyif you want it too.""Are you unhappy here? You seem happy. The children too."Laila sits up. Tariq shifts on the bed, makes room for her.
"Iam happy," Laila says. "Of course I am. But…where do wego from here, Tariq? How long do we stay? This isn't home.
Kabul is, and back there so much is happening, a lot of itgood. I want to be a part of it all. I want todo something. Iwant to contribute. Do you understand?"Tariq nods slowly. "This is what you want, then? You'resure?""I want it, yes, I'm sure. But it's more than that. I feel likeIhave to go back. Staying here, it doesn't feel right anymore."Tariq looks at his hands, then back up at her.
"But only-only-if you want to go too."Tariq smiles. The furrows from his brow clear, and for a briefmoment he is the old Tariq again, the Tariq who did not getheadaches, who had once said that in Siberia snot turned toice before it hit the ground. It may be her imagination, butLaila believes there are more frequent sightings of this old Tariqthese clays.
"Me?" he says. "I'll follow you to the end of the world, Laila."She pulls him close and kisses his lips. She believes she hasnever loved him more than at this moment. "Thank you," shesays, her forehead resting against his.
"Let's go home.""But first, I want to go to Herat," she says.
"Herat?"Laila explains.
* * *The children need reassuring, each in their own way. Lailahas to sit down with an agitated Aziza, who still hasnightmares, who'd been startled to tears the week before whensomeone had shot rounds into the sky at a wedding nearby.
Laila has to explain to Aziza that when they return to Kabulthe Taliban won't be there, that there will not be any fighting,and that she will not be sent back to the orphanage. "We'll alllive together. Your father, me, Zalmai. And you, Aziza. You'llnever, ever, have to be apart from me again. I promise." Shesmiles at her daughter. "Until the dayyou want to, that is.
When you fall in love with some young man and want tomarry him."On the day they leave Murree, Zalmai is inconsolable. He haswrapped his arms around Alyona's neck and will not let go.
"I can't pry him off of her, Mammy," says Aziza.
"Zalmai. We can't take a goat on the bus," Laila explainsagain.
It isn't until Tariq kneels down beside him, until he promisesZalmai that he will buy him a goat just like Alyona in Kabul,that Zalmai reluctantly lets go.
There are tearful farewells with Sayeed as well For good luck,he holds a Koran by the doorway for Tariq, Laila, and thechildren to kiss three times, then holds it high so they canpass under it. He helps Tariq load the two suitcases into thetrunk of his car. It is Sayeed who drives them to the station,who stands on the curb waving good-bye as the bus sputtersand pulls away.
As she leans back and watches Sayeed receding in the rearwindow of the bus, Laila hears the voice of doubt whispering inher head. Are they being foolish, she wonders, leaving behindthe safety of Murree? Going back to the land where herparents and brothers perished, where the smoke of bombs isonly now settling?
And then, from the darkened spirals of her memory, rise twolines of poetry, Babi's farewell ode to Kabul:
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her -walls.
Laila settles back in her seat, blinking the wetness from hereyes. Kabul is waiting. Needing. This journey home is the rightthing to do.
But first there is one last farewell to be said.
* * *The wars in Afghanistan have ravaged the roads connectingKabul, Herat, and Kandahar. The easiest way to Herat now isthrough Mashad, in Iran. Laila and her family are there onlyovernight. They spend the night at a hotel, and, the nextmorning, they board another bus.
Mashad is a crowded, bustling city. Laila watches as parks,mosques, andchelo kebab restaurants pass by. When the buspasses the shrine to Imam Reza, the eighth Shi'a imam, Lailacranes her neck to get a better view of its glistening tiles, theminarets, the magnificent golden dome, all of it immaculatelyand lovingly preserved. She thinks of the Buddhas in her owncountry. They are grains of dust now, blowing about theBamiyan Valley in the wind.
The bus ride to the Iranian-Afghan border takes almost tenhours. The terrain grows more desolate, more barren, as theynear Afghanistan. Shortly before they cross the border intoHerat, they pass an Afghan refugee camp. To Laila, it is a blurof yellow dust and black tents and scanty structures made ofcorrugated-steel sheets. She reaches across the seat and takesTariq's hand.
* * *In Herat, most of the streets are paved, lined with fragrantpines. There are municipal parks and libraries in reconstruction,manicured courtyards, freshly painted buildings. The traffic lightswork, and, most surprisingly to Laila, electricity is steady. Lailahas heard that Herat's feudal-style warlord, Ismail Khan, hashelped rebuild the city with the considerable customs revenuethat he collects at the Afghan-Iranian border, money that Kabulsays belongs not to him but to the central government. Thereis both a reverential and fearful tone when the taxi driver whotakes them to Muwaffaq Hotel mentions Ismail Khan's name.
The two-night stay at the Muwaffaq will cost them nearly afifth of their savings, but the trip from Mashad has been longand wearying, and the children are exhausted. The elderly clerkat the desk tells Tariq, as he fetches the room key, that theMuwaffaq is popular with journalists and NGO workers.
"Bin Laden slept here once," he boasts.
The room has two beds, and a bathroom with running coldwater. There is a painting of the poet Khaja Abdullah Ansaryon the wall between the beds. From the window, Laila has aview of the busy street below, and of a park across the streetwith pastel-colored-brick paths cutting through thick clusters offlowers. The children, who have grown accustomed to television,are disappointed that there isn't one in the room. Soonenough, though, they are asleep. Soon enough, Tariq and Lailatoo have collapsed. Laila sleeps soundly in Tariq's arms, exceptfor once in the middle of the night when she wakes from adream she cannot remember.
* * *The next morning, after a breakfast of tea with fresh bread,quince marmalade, and boiled eggs, Tariq finds her a taxi.
"Are you sure you don't want me to come along?" Tariq says.
Aziza is holding his hand Zalmai isn't, but he is standing closeto Tariq, leaning one shoulder on Tariq's hip.
"I'm sure.""I worry.""I'll be fine," Laila says. "I promise. Take the children to amarket. Buy them something."Zalmai begins to cry when the taxi pulls away, and, whenLaila looks back, she sees that he is reaching for Tariq. Thathe is beginning to accept Tariq both eases and breaks Laila'sheart.
* * *"You're not from herat," the driver says.
He has dark, shoulder-length hair-a common thumbing of thenose at the departed Taliban, Laila has discovered-and somekind of scar interrupting his mustache on the left side. There isa photo taped to the windshield, on his side. It's of a younggirl with pink cheeks and hair parted down the middle intotwin braids.
Laila tells him that she has been in Pakistan for the last year,that she is returning to Kabul. "Deh-Mazang."Through the windshield, she sees coppersmiths welding brasshandles to jugs, saddlemakers laying out cuts of rawhide to dryin the sun.
"Have you lived here long, brother?" she asks.
"Oh, my whole life. I was born here. I've seen everything.
You remember the uprising?"Laila says she does, but he goes on.
"This was back in March 1979, about nine months before theSoviets invaded. Some angry Heratis killed a few Sovietadvisers, so the Soviets sent in tanks and helicopters andpounded this place. For three days,hamshira, they fired on thecity. They collapsed buildings, destroyed one of the minarets,killed thousands of people.Thousands. I lost two sisters in thosethree days. One of them was twelve years old." He taps thephoto on his windshield. "That's her.""I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story ismarked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, shesees, people find a way to survive, to go on. Laila thinks ofher own life and all that has happened to her, and she isastonished that she too has survived, that she is alive andsitting in this taxi listening to this man'sstory.
* * *Gul Daman is a village of a few walled houses rising amongflatkolbas built with mud and straw. Outside thekolbas, Lailasees sunburned women cooking, their faces sweating in steamrising from big blackened pots set on makeshift firewood grills.
Mules eat from troughs. Children giving chase to chickens beginchasing the taxi. Laila sees men pushing wheelbarrows filledwith stones. They stop and watch the car pass by. The drivertakes a turn, and they pass a cemetery with a weather-wornmausoleum in the center of it. The driver tells her that avillage Sufi is buried there.
There is a windmill too. In the shadow of its idle, rust-coloredvanes, three little boys are squatting, playing with mud. Thedriver pulls over and leans out of the window. Theoldest-looking of the three boys is the one to answer. Hepoints to a house farther up the road. The driver thanks him,puts the car back in gear.
He parks outside the walled, one-story house. Laila sees thetops of fig trees above the walls, some of the branches spillingover the side.
"I won't be long," she says to the driver.
* * *The middle-aged man who opens the door is short, thin,russet-haired. His beard is streaked with parallel stripes of gray.
He is wearing achapan over hispirhan-tumban.
They exchangesalaam alaykums.
"Is this Mullah Faizullah's house?" Laila asks.
"Yes. I am his son, Hamza. Is there something I can do foryou,hamshireh? ”
"I've come here about an old friend of your father's, Mariam."Hamza blinks. A puzzled look passes across his face.
"Mariam…""Jalil Khan's daughter."He blinks again. Then he puts a palm to his cheek and hisface lights up with a smile that reveals missing and rottingteeth. "Oh!" he says. It comes out sounding likeOhhhhhh, likean expelled breath. "Oh! Mariam! Are you her daughter? Isshe-" He is twisting his neck now, looking behind her eagerly,searching. "Is she here? It's been so long! Is Mariam here?""She has passed on, I'm afraid."The smile fades from Hamza's face.
For a moment, they stand there, at the doorway, Hamzalooking at the ground. A donkey brays somewhere.
"Come in," Hamza says. He swings the door open. "Pleasecome in."* * *They srr on the floor in a sparsely furnished room. There isa Herati rug on the floor, beaded cushions to sit on, and aframed photo of Mecca on the wall They sit by the openwindow, on either side of an oblong patch of sunlight- Lailahears women's voices whispering from another room. A littlebarefoot boy places before them a platter of green tea andpistachiogaaz nougats. Hamza nods at him.
"My son."The boy leaves soundlessly.
"So tell me," Hamza says tiredly.
Laila does. She tells him everything. It takes longer than she'dimagined. Toward the end, she struggles to maintaincomposure. It still isn't easy, one year later, talking aboutMariam.
When she's done, Hamza doesn't say anything for a longtime. He slowly turns his teacup on its saucer, one way, thenthe other.
"My father, may he rest in peace, was so very fond of her,"he says at last. "He was the one who sangazan in her earwhen she was born, you know. He visited her every week,never missed. Sometimes he took me with him. He was hertutor, yes, but he was a friend too. He was a charitable man,my father. It nearly broke him when Jalil Khan gave heraway.""I'm sorry to hear about your father. May God forgive him."Hamza nods his thanks. "He lived to be a very old man. Heoutlived Jalil Khan, in fact. We buried him in the villagecemetery, not far from where Mariam's mother is buried. Myfather was a dear, dear man, surely heaven-bound."Laila lowers her cup.
"May I ask you something?""Of course.""Can you show me?" she says. "Where Mariam lived. Canyou take me there?"* * *The driver agrees to wait awhile longer.
Hamza and Laila exit the village and walk downhill on theroad that connects Gul Daman to Herat. After fifteen minutesor so, he points to a narrow gap in the tall grass that flanksthe road on both sides.
"That's how you get there," he says. "There is a path there."The path is rough, winding, and dim, beneath the vegetationand undergrowth. The wind makes the tall grass slam againstLaila's calves as she and Hamza climb the path, take the turns.
On either side of them is a kaleidoscope of wilciflowers swayingin the wind, some tall with curved petals, others low, fan-leafed.
Here and there a few ragged buttercups peep through the lowbushes. Laila hears the twitter of swallows overhead and thebusy chatter of grasshoppers underfoot.
They walk uphill this way for two hundred yards or more.
Then the path levels, and opens into a flatter patch of land.
They stop, catch their breath. Laila dabs at her brow with hersleeve and bats at a swarm of mosquitoes hovering in front ofher face. Here she sees the low-slung mountains in thehorizon, a few cottonwoods, some poplars, various wild bushesthat she cannot name.
"There used to be a stream here," Hamza says, a little out ofbreath. "But it's long dried up now."He says he will wait here. He tells her to cross the drystreambed, walk toward the mountains.
"I'll wait here," he says, sitting on a rock beneath a poplar.
"You go on.""I won't-""Don't worry. Take your time. Go on,hamshireh. "Laila thanks him. She crosses the streambed, stepping fromone stone to another. She spots broken soda bottles amid therocks, rusted cans, and a mold-coated metallic container with azinc lid half buried in the ground.
She heads toward the mountains, toward the weeping willows,which she can see now, the long drooping branches shakingwith each gust of wind. In her chest, her heart is drumming.
She sees that the willows are arranged as Mariam had said, ina circular grove with a clearing in the middle. Laila walks faster,almost running now. She looks back over her shoulder andsees that Hamza is a tiny figure, hischapan a burst of coloragainst the brown of the trees' bark. She trips over a stoneand almost falls, then regains her footing. She hurries the restof the way with the legs of her trousers pulled up. She ispanting by the time she reaches the willows.
Mariam'skolba is still here.
When she approaches it, Laila sees that the lone windowpaneis empty and that the door is gone. Mariam had described achicken coop and a tandoor, a wooden outhouse too, but Lailasees no sign of them. She pauses at the entrance to thekolbaShe can hear flies buzzing inside.
To get in, she has to sidestep a large fluttering spiderweb. It'sdim inside. Laila has to give her eyes a few moments toadjust. When they do, she sees that the interior is even smallerthan she'd imagined. Only half of a single rotting, splinteredboard remains of the floorboards. The rest, she imagines, havebeen ripped up for burning as firewood. The floor is carpetednow with dry-edged leaves, broken bottles, discarded chewinggum wrappers, wild mushrooms, old yellowed cigarette butts.
But mostly with weeds, some stunted, some springingimpudently halfway up the walls.
Fifteen years, Laila thinks. Fifteen years in this place.
Laila sits down, her back to the wall. She listens to the windfiltering through the willows. There are more spiderwebsstretched across the ceiling. Someone has spray-paintedsomething on one of the walls, but much of it has sloughedoff, and Laila cannot decipher what it says. Then she realizesthe letters are Russian. There is a deserted bird's nest in onecorner and a bat hanging upside down in another corner,where the wall meets the low ceiling.
Laila closes her eyes and sits there awhile.
In Pakistan, it was difficult sometimes to remember the detailsof Mariam's face. There were times when, like a word on thetip of her tongue, Mariam's face eluded her. But now, here inthis place, it's easy to summon Mariam behind the lids of hereyes: the soft radiance of her gaze, the long chin, thecoarsened skin of her neck, the tight-lipped smile. Here, Lailacan lay her cheek on the softness of Mariam's lap again, canfeel Mariam swaying back and forth, reciting verses from theKoran, can feel the words vibrating down Mariam's body, toher knees, and into her own ears.
Then, suddenly, the weeds begin to recede, as if something ispulling them by the roots from beneath the ground. They sinklower and lower until the earth in thekolba has swallowed thelast of their spiny leaves. The spiderwebs magically unspinthemselves. The bird's nest self-disassembles, the twigs snappingloose one by one, flying out of thekolba end over end. Aninvisible eraser wipes the Russian graffiti off the wall.
The floorboards are back. Laila sees a pair of sleeping cotsnow, a wooden table, two chairs, a cast-iron stove in thecorner, shelves along the walls, on which sit clay pots andpans, a blackened teakettle, cups and spoons. She hearschickens clucking outside, the distant gurgling of the stream.
A young Mariam is sitting at the table making a doll by theglow of an oil lamp. She's humming something. Her face issmooth and youthful, her hair washed, combed back. She hasall her teeth.
Laila watches Mariam glue strands of yam onto her doll'shead. In a few years, this little girl will be a woman who willmake small demands on life, who will never burden others,who will never let on that she too has had sorrows,disappointments, dreams that have been ridiculed. A womanwho will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring withoutcomplaint, her grace not sullied butshaped by the turbulencethat washes over her. Already Laila sees something behind thisyoung girl's eyes, something deep in her core, that neitherRasheed nor the Taliban will be able to break. Something ashard and unyielding as a block of limestone. Something that, inthe end, will beher undoing and Laila's salvation.
The little girl looks up. Puts down the doll. Smiles.
Laila jo?
Laila's eyes snap open. She gasps, and her body pitchesforward. She startles the bat, which zips from one end ofthekolba to the other, its beating wings like the fluttering pagesof a book, before it flies out the window.
Laila gets to her feet, beats the dead leaves from the seat ofher trousers. She steps out of thekolba Outside, the light hasshifted slightly. A wind is blowing, making the grass ripple andthe willow branches click.
Before she leaves the clearing, Laila takes one last look atthekolba where Mariam had slept, eaten, dreamed, held herbreath for Jalil. On sagging walls, the willows cast crookedpatterns that shift with each gust of wind. A crow has landedon the flat roof. It pecks at something, squawks, flies off.
"Good-bye, Mariam."And, with that, unaware that she is weeping, Laila begins torun through the grass.
She finds Hamza still sitting on the rock. When he spots her,he stands up.
"Let's go back," he says. Then, "I have something to giveyou."* * *Laila watts for Hamza in the garden by the front door. Theboy who had served them tea earlier is standing beneath oneof the fig trees holding a chicken, watching her impassively.
Laila spies two faces, an old woman and a young girl inhijabobserving her demurely from a window.
The door to the house opens and Hamza emerges. He iscarrying a box.
He gives it to Laila.
"Jalil Khan gave this to my father a month or so before hedied/' Hamza says. "He asked my father to safeguard it forMariam until she came to claim it. My father kept it for twoyears. Then, just before he passed away, he gave it to me,and asked me to save it for Mariam. But she…you know, shenever came."Laila looks down at the oval-shaped tin box. It looks like anold chocolate box. It's olive green, with fading gilt scrolls allaround the hinged lid There is a little rust on the sides, andtwo tiny dents on the front rim of the lid. Laila tries to openthe box, but the latch is locked.
"What's in it?" she asks.
Hamza puts a key in her palm. "My father never unlocked it.
Neither did 1.Isuppose it was God's will that it be you."* * *Back at the hotel, Tariq and the children are not back yet.
Laila sits on the bed, the box on her lap. Part of her wantsto leave it unopened, let whatever Jalil had intended remain asecret. But, in the end, the curiosity proves too strong. Sheslides in the key. It takes some rattling and shaking, but sheopens the box.
In it, she finds three things: an envelope, a burlap sack, anda videocassette.
Laila takes the tape and goes down to the reception desk.
She learns from the elderly clerk who had greeted them theday before that the hotel has only one VCR, in its biggest suite.
The suite is vacant at the moment, and he agrees to take her.
He leaves the desk to a mustachioed young man in a suit whois talking on a cellular phone.
The old clerk leads Laila to the second floor, to a door at theend of a long hallway. He works the lock, lets her in.
Laila's eyes find the TV in the corner. They register nothingelse about the suite-She turns on the TV, turns on the VCR.
Puts the tape in and pushes the play button. The screen isblank for a few moments, and Laila begins to wonder why Jalilhad gone to the trouble of passing a blank tape to Mariam.
But then there is music, and images begin to play on thescreen.
Laila frowns. She keeps watching for a minute or two. Thenshe pushes stop, fast-forwards the tape, and pushes play again.
It's the same film.
The old man is looking at her quizzically.
The film playing on the screen is Walt Disney'sPinocchio. Lailadoes not understand.
* * *Tariq and the children come back to the hotel just after sixo'clock. Aziza runs to Laila and shows her theearrings Tariq has bought for her, silver with an enamelbutterfly on each. Zalmai is clutching an inflatable dolphin thatsqueaks when its snout is squeezed.
"How are you?" Tariq asks, putting his arm around hershoulder.
"I'm fine," Laila says. "I'll tell you later."They walk to a nearby kebab house to eat. It's a small place,with sticky, vinyl tablecloths, smoky and loud But the lamb istender and moist and the bread hot. They walk the streets fora while after. Tariq buys the children rosewater ice cream froma street-side kiosk. They eat, sitting on a bench, the mountainsbehind them silhouetted against the scarlet red of dusk. The airis warm, rich with the fragrance of cedar.
Laila had opened the envelope earlier when she'd come backto the room after viewing the videotape. In it was a letter,handwritten in blue ink on a yellow, lined sheet of paper.
It read:
May 13, 1987My dear Mariam:
I pray that this letter finds you in good healthAs you kno w, I came to Kabul a month ago to speak withyou. Bui you would not see me. Iwas disappointed but couldnot blame you. In your place, Imight have done the same. Ilostthe privilege of your good graces a long time ago and for thatI only have myself to blame. Bui if you are reading this letter,then you have read the letter that Ilefi at your door. You haveread it and you have come to see Mullah Faizullah, as I hadasked that you do. Iam grateful that you did, Mariam jo. Iamgrateful for this chance to say a few words to you.
Where do I begin?
Your father has known so much sorrow since we last spoke,Mariamjo. Your stepmother Afsoon was killed on the first dayof the 1979 uprising. A stray bullet killed your sister Niloufarthat same day. Ican still see her, my Utile Niloufar, doingheadsiands to impress guests. Your brother Farhad joined thejihad in J 980. The Soviets killed him in J 982, just outsideofHelmand. I never got to see his body. I don 'i know if youhave children of your own, Mariamjo, but if you do I praythat God look after them and spare you the grief that Ihaveknown. I still dream of them. I still dream of my deadchildren.
I have dreams of you too, Mariam jo. Imiss you. Imiss thesound of your voice, your laughter. I miss reading to you, andall those times we fished together. Do you remember all thosetimes we fished together? You were a good daughter, Mariamjo, and I cannot ever think of you without feeling shame andregret. Regret… When it comes to you, Mariamjo, I haveoceans of it. I regret that I did not see you the day you cameto Herat. I regret that I did not open the door and take youin. I regret that I did not make you a daughter to me, ihatlleiyou live in that place for all those years. Andfor what? Fearof losing face? Of staining my so-called good name? How Utilethose things matter to me now after all the loss, all the terriblethings Ihave seen in this cursed war. Bui now, of course, it istoo late. Perhaps this is just punishment for those who havebeen heartless, to understand only when nothing can beundone. Now all Ican do is say that you were a gooddaughter, Mariamjo, and that Inever deserved you. Now all Ican do is ask for your forgiveness. So forgive me, Mariamjo.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
I am not the wealthy man you once knew. The communistsconfiscated so much of my land, and all of my stores as well.
But it is petty to complain, for God-for reasons that I do notunderstand-has still blessed me with far more than mostpeople. Since my return from Kabul, Ihave managed to sellwhat Utile remained of my land. I have enclosed for you yourshare of the inheritance. You can see that it is far fromafortune, but it is something. It is something. (You will alsonotice that I have taken the liberty of exchanging the moneyinto dollars. I think it is for the best God alone knows the fateof our own beleaguered currency.)I hope you do not think that I am trying to buy yourforgiveness. I hope you will credit me with knowing that yourforgiveness is not for sale. It never was. I am merely givingyou, if belatedly, what was rightfully yours all along. I was nota dutiful father to you in life. Perhaps in death I can be.
Ah, death. I won't burden you with details, but death is withinsight for me now. Weak heart, the doctors say. It is a fittingmanner of death, I think, for a weak man.
Mariamjo,I dare, I dare allow myself the hope that, after you read this,you will be more charitable to me than I ever was to you.
That you might find it in your heart to come and see yourfather. That you will knock on my door one more time andgive me the chance to open it this time, to welcome you, totake you in my arms, my daughter, as I should have all thoseyears ago. It is a hope as weak as my heart. This I know. ButI will be waiting. I will be listening for your knock I will behoping.
May God grant you a long and prosperous life, my daughter.
May God give you many healthy and beautiful children. Mayyou find the happiness, peace, and acceptance that I did notgive you. Be well. I leave you in the loving hands of God.
Your undeserving father, JalilThat night, after they return to the hotel, after the childrenhave played and gone to bed, Laila tells Tariq about the letter.
She shows him the money in the burlap sack. When shebegins to cry, he kisses her face and holds her in his arms.
Chapter 51.
April 2003Thedrought has ended. It snowed at last this past winter,kneedeep, and now it has been raining for days.The KabulRiver is flowing once again. Its spring floods have washed awayTitanic City.
There is mud on the streets now. Shoes squish. Cars gettrapped. Donkeys loaded with apples slog heavily, their hoovessplattering muck from rain puddles. But no one is complainingabout the mud, no one is mourning Titanic City.We need Kabulto be green again, people say.
Yesterday, Laila watched her children play in the downpour,hopping from one puddle to another in their backyard beneatha lead-colored sky. She was watching from the kitchen windowof the small two-bedroom house that they are renting inDeh-Mazang. There is a pomegranate tree in the yard and athicket of sweetbriar bushes. Tariq has patched the walls andbuilt the children a slide, a swing set, a little fenced area forZalmai's new goat. Laila watched the rain slide off Zalmai'sscalp-he has asked that he be shaved, like Tariq, who is incharge now of saying theBabaloo prayers. The rain flattenedAziza's long hair, turned it into sodden tendrils that sprayedZalmai when she snapped her head.
Zalmai is almost six. Aziza is ten. They celebrated her birthdaylast week, took her to Cinema Park, where, at last,Titanic wasopenly screened for the people of Kabul.
* * *"Come on, children, we're going to be late," Laila calls, puttingtheir lunches in a paper bag-It's eight o'clock in the morning.
Laila was up at five. As always, it was Aziza who shook herawake for morningnamaz. The prayers, Laila knows, are Aziza'sway of clinging to Mariam, her way of keeping Mariam closeawhile yet before time has its way, before it snatches Mariamfrom the garden of her memory like a weed pulled by itsroots.
Afternamaz, Laila had gone back to bed, and was still asleepwhen Tariq left the house. She vaguely remembers him kissingher cheek. Tariq has found work with a French NGO that fitsland mine survivors and amputees with prosthetic limbs.
Zalmai comes chasing Aziza into the kitchen.
"You have your notebooks, you two? Pencils? Textbooks?""Right here," Aziza says, lifting her backpack. Again, Lailanotices how her stutter is lessening.
"Let's go, then."Laila lets the children out of the house, locks the door. Theystep out into the cool morning. It isn't raining today. The skyis blue, and Laila sees no clumps of clouds in the horizon.
Holding hands, the three of them make their way to the busstop. The streets are busy already, teeming with a steadystream of rickshaws, taxicabs, UN trucks, buses, ISAF jeeps.
Sleepy-eyed merchants are unlocking store gates that had beenrolled down for the night-Vendors sit behind towers of chewinggum and cigarette packs. Already the widows have claimed theirspots at street corners, asking the passersby for coins.
Laila finds it strange to be back in Kabul The city haschanged Every day now she sees people planting saplings,painting old houses, carrying bricks for new ones. They diggutters and wells. On windowsills, Laila spots flowers potted inthe empty shells of old Mujahideen rockets-rocket flowers,Kabulis call them. Recently, Tariq took Laila and the children tothe Gardens of Babur, which are being renovated. For the firsttime in years, Laila hears music at Kabul's street corners,rubaband tabla,dooiar, harmonium and tamboura, old Ahmad Zahirsongs.
Laila wishes Mammy and Babi were alive to see thesechanges. But, like Mil's letter, Kabul's penance has arrived toolate.
Laila and the children are about to cross the street to the busstop when suddenly a black Land Cruiser with tinted windowsblows by. It swerves at the last instant and misses Laila by lessthan an arm's length. It splatters tea-colored rainwater all overthe children's shirts.
Laila yanks her children back onto the sidewalk, heartsomersaulting in her throat.
The Land Cruiser speeds down the street, honks twice, andmakes a sharp left.
Laila stands there, trying to catch her breath, her fingersgripped tightly around her children's wrists.
It slays Laila. It slays her that the warlords have been allowedback to Kabul That her parents' murderers live in posh homeswith walled gardens, that they have been appointed minister ofthis and deputy minister of that, that they ride with impunity inshiny, bulletproof SUVs through neighborhoods that theydemolished. It slays her.
But Laila has decided that she will not be crippled byresentment. Mariam wouldn't want it that way.What's thesense? she would say with a smile both innocent andwise.What good is it, Laila jo? And so Laila has resignedherself to moving on. For her own sake, for Tariq's, for herchildren's. And for Mariam, who still visits Laila in her dreams,who is never more than a breath or two below herconsciousness. Laila has moved on. Because in the end sheknows that's all she can do. That and hope.
* * *Zamanis standing at the free throw line, his knees bent,bouncing a basketball. He is instructing a group of boys inmatching jerseys sitting in a semicircle on the court. Zamanspots Laila, tucks the ball under his arm, and waves. He sayssomething to the boys, who then wave and cry out,"Salaam,moalim sahib!"Laila waves back.
The orphanage playground has a row of apple saplings nowalong the east-facing wall. Laila is planning to plant some onthe south wall as well as soon as it is rebuilt. There is a newswing set, new monkey bars, and a jungle gym.
Laila walks back inside through the screen door.
They have repainted both the exterior and the interior of theorphanage. Tariq and Zaman have repaired all the roof leaks,patched the walls, replaced the windows, carpeted the roomswhere the children sleep and play. This past winter, Lailabought a few beds for the children's sleeping quarters, pillowstoo, and proper wool blankets. She had cast-iron stovesinstalled for the winter.
Anis,one of Kabul's newspapers, had run a story the monthbefore on the renovation of the orphanage. They'd taken aphoto too, of Zaman, Tariq, Laila, and one of the attendants,standing in a row behind the children. When Laila saw thearticle, she'd thought of her childhood friends Giti and Hasina,and Hasina saying,By the time we're twenty, Giti and I, we'llhave pushed out four, five kids each Bui you, Laila, you'll makeus two dummies proud. You 're going to be somebody. I knowone day I'll pick up a newspaper and find your picture on thefrontpage. The photo hadn't made the front page, but there itwas nevertheless, as Hasina had predicted.
Laila takes a turn and makes her way down the samehallway where, two years before, she and Mariam had deliveredAziza to Zaman. Laila still remembers how they had to pryAziza's fingers from her wrist. She remembers running downthis hallway, holding back a howl, Mariam calling after her,Aziza screaming with panic. The hallway's walls are coverednow with posters, of dinosaurs, cartoon characters, the Buddhasof Bamiyan, and displays of artwork by the orphans. Many ofthe drawings depict tanks running over huts, men brandishingAK-47s, refugee camp tents, scenes of jihad.
Laila turns a corner in the hallway and sees the children now,waiting outside the classroom. She is greeted by their scarves,their shaved scalps covered by skullcaps, their small, leanfigures, the beauty of their drabness.
When the children spot Laila, they come running. They comerunning at full tilt. Laila is swarmed. There is a flurry ofhigh-pitched greetings, of shrill voices, of patting, clutching,tugging, groping, of jostling with one another to climb into herarms. There are outstretched little hands and appeals forattention. Some of them call herMother. Laila does not correctthem.
It takes Laila some work this morning to calm the childrendown, to get them to form a proper queue, to usher them intothe classroom.
It was Tariq and Zaman who built the classroom by knockingdown the wall between two adjacent rooms. The floor is stillbadly cracked and has missing tiles. For the time being, it iscovered with tarpaulin, but Tariq has promised to cement somenew tiles and lay down carpeting soon.
Nailed above the classroom doorway is a rectangular board,which Zaman has sanded and painted in gleaming white. On it,with a brush, Zaman has written four lines of poetry, hisanswer, Laila knows, to those who grumble that the promisedaid money to Afghanistan isn't coming, that the rebuilding isgoing too slowly, that there is corruption, that the Taliban areregrouping already and will come back with a vengeance, thatthe world will forget once again about Afghanistan. The linesare from his favorite of Hafez'sghazals:
Joseph shall return to Canaan, grieve not, Hovels shall turn torose gardens, grieve not. If a flood should arrive, to drown allthat's alive, Noah is your guide in the typhoon's eye, grieve notLaila passes beneath the sign and enters the classroom. Thechildren are taking their seats, flipping notebooks open,chattering- Aziza is talking to a girl in the adjacent row. Apaper airplane floats across the room in a high arc. Someonetosses it back.
"Open your Farsi books, children," Laila says, dropping herown books on her desk.
To a chorus of flipping pages, Laila makes her way to thecurtainless window. Through the glass, she can see the boys inthe playground lining up to practice their free throws. Abovethem, over the mountains, the morning sun is rising. It catchesthe metallic rim of the basketball hoop, the chain link of thetire swings, the whistle hanging around Zaman's neck, his new,unchipped spectacles. Laila flattens her palms against the warmglass panes. Closes her eyes. She lets the sunlight fall on hercheeks, her eyelids, her brow.
When they first came back to Kabul, it distressed Laila thatshe didn't know where the Taliban had buried Mariam. Shewished she could visit Mariam's grave, to sit with her awhile,leave a flower or two. But Laila sees now that it doesn'tmatter. Mariam is never very far. She is here, in these wallsthey've repainted, in the trees they've planted, in the blanketsthat keep the children warm, in these pillows and books andpencils. She is in the children's laughter. She is in the versesAziza recites and in the prayers she mutters when she bowswestward. But, mostly, Mariam is in Laila's own heart, whereshe shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.
Someone has been calling her name, Laila realizes. She turnsaround, instinctively tilts her head, lifting her good ear just atad. It's Aziza.
"Mammy? Are you all right?"The room has become quiet. The children are watching her.
Laila is about to answer when her breath suddenly catches.
Her hands shoot down. They pat the spot where, a momentbefore, she'd felt a wave go through her. She waits. But thereis no more movement.
"Mammy?""Yes, my love." Laila smiles. "I'm all right. Yes. Very much."As she walks to her desk at the front of the class, Lailathinks of the naming game they'd played again over dinner thenight before. It has become a nightly ritual ever since Lailagave Tariq and the children the news. Back and forth they go,making a case for their own choice. Tariq likes Mohammad.
Zalmai, who has recently watchedSuperman on tape, is puzzledas to why an Afghan boy cannot be named Clark. Aziza iscampaigning hard for Aman. Laila likes Omar.
But the game involves only male names. Because, if it's a girl,Laila has already named her.
AfterwordFor almost three decades now, the Afghan refugee crisis hasbeen one of the most severe around the globe. War, hunger,anarchy, and oppression forced millions of people-like Tariq andhis family in this tale-to abandon their homes and fleeAfghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. At theheight of the exodus, as many as eight million Afghans wereliving abroad as refugees. Today, more than two million Afghanrefugees remain in Pakistan.
Over the past year, I have had the privilege of working as aU.S. envoy for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, one of theworld's foremost humanitarian agencies. UNHCR's mandate is toprotect the basic human rights of refugees, provide emergencyrelief, and to help refugees restart their lives in a safeenvironment. UNHCR provides assistance to more than twentymillion displaced people around the world, not only inAfghanistan but also in places such as Colombia, Burundi, theCongo, Chad, and the Datfur region of Sudan. Working withUNHCR to help refugees has been one of the most rewardingand meaningful experiences of my life.
To help, or simply to learn more about UNHCR, its work, orthe plight of refugees in general, please visit:www.UNrefugees.org.
Thank you.
Khaled Hosseini January 31, 2007AcknowledgmentsA few clarifications before I give thanks. The village of GulDaman is a fictional place-as far as I know. Those who arefamiliar with the city of Herat will notice that I have takenminor liberties describing the geography around it. Last, the titleof this novel comes from a poem composed by Saeb-e-Tabrizi,a seventeenth-century Persian poet. Those who know theoriginal Farsi poem will doubtless note that the Englishtranslation of the line containing the title of this novel is not aliteral one. But it is the generally accepted translation, by Dr.
Josephine Davis, and I found it lovely. I am grateful to her.
I would like to thank Qayoum Sarwar, Hekmat Sadat, ElyseHathaway, Rosemary Stasek, Lawrence Quill, and HaleemaJazmin Quill for their assistance and support.
Very special thanks to my father, Baba, for reading thismanuscript, for his feedback, and, as ever, for his love andsupport. And to my mother, whose selfless, gentle spiritpermeates this tale. You are my reason, Mother jo. My thanksgo to my in-laws for their generosity and many kindnesses. Tothe rest of my wonderful family, I remain indebted and gratefulto each and every one of you.
I wish to thank my agent, Elaine Koster, for always, alwaysbelieving, Jody Hotchkiss (Onward!), David Grossman, HelenHeller, and the tireless Chandler Crawford. I am grateful andindebted to every single person at Riverhead Books. Inparticular, I want to thank Susan Petersen Kennedy andGeoffrey Kloske for their faith in this story. My heartfelt thanksalso go to Marilyn Ducksworth, Mih-Ho Cha, Catharine Lynch,Craig D. Burke, Leslie Schwartz, Honi Werner, and WendyPearl. Special thanks to my sharp-eyed copy editor, Tony Davis,who missesnothing, and, lastly, to my talented editor, Sarah McGrath, forher patience, foresight, and guidance.
Finally, thank you, Roya. For reading this story, again andagain, for weathering my minor crises of confidence (and acouple of major ones), for never doubting. This book wouldnot be without you. I love you.

The End