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.
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.
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 KabulAnd, with that, she lay down again and pulled up the blanket.
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.
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.
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.