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?
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.
IndeedHe 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.