A thousand Splendid Suns

Who created death and life that He may try you. 
 
  Ransacked with guilt, Mariam would kneel and pray for forgiveness for these tho-
ughts. 
 
* * * 
 
  Meanwhile, a change had come over Rasheed ever since the day at the bathhouse. 
Most nights when he came home, he hardly talked anymore. He ate, smoked, went to 
bed, sometimes came back in the middle of the night for a brief and, of late, quite rough 
session of coupling. He was more apt to sulk these days, to fault her cooking, to comp-
lain about clutter around the yard or point out even minor uncleanliness in the house. 
Occasionally, he took her around town on Fridays, like he used to, but on the sidewalks 
he walked quickly and always a few steps ahead of her, without speaking, unmindful of 
Mariam who almost had to run to keep up with him. He wasn't so ready with a laugh on 
these outings anymore. He didn't buy her sweets or gifts, didn't stop and name places to 
her as he used to. Her questions seemed to irritate him. 
 
  One night, they were sitting in the living room listening to the radio. Winter was pas-
sing. The stiff winds that plastered snow onto the face and made the eyes water had cal-
med. Silvery fluffs of snow were melting off the branches of tall elms and would be rep-
laced in a few weeks with stubby, pale green buds. Rasheed was shaking his foot ab-
sently to the tabla beat of a Hamahang song, his eyes crinkled against cigarette smoke. 
 
  "Are you angry with me?" Mariam asked. 
 
  Rasheed said nothing. The song ended and the news came on. A woman's voice repor-
ted that President Daoud Khan had sent yet another group of Soviet consultants back to 
Moscow, to the expected displeasure of the Kremlin. 
 
  "I worry that you are angry with me." 
 
  Rasheed sighed 
 
  "Are you?" 
 
  His eyes shifted to her. "Why would I be angry?" 
 
  "I don't know, but ever since the baby-" 
 
  "Is that the kind of man you take me for, after everything I've done for you?" 

---

 
  "No. Of course not." 
 
  "Then stop pestering me!" 
 
  "I'm sorry.Bebakhsh, Rasheed. I'm sorry." 
 
  He crushed out his cigarette and lit another. He turned up the volume on the radio. 
  "I've been thinking, though," Mariam said, raisingher voice so as to be heard over the 
music. 
 
  Rasheedsighed again, more irritably this time, turned down the volume once more. He 
rubbed hisforehead wearily. "What now?" 
  "I've been thinking, that maybe we should have a proper burial For the baby, I mean. 
Just us, a few prayers, 
  nothing more." 
 
  Mariam had been thinking about it for a while. She didn't want to forget this baby. It 
didn't seem right, not to mark this loss in some way that was permanent. 
 
  "What for? It's idiotic." 
 
  "It would make me feel better, I think." 
 
  "Thm youdo it," he said sharply. "I've already buried one son. I won't bury another. 
 
  Now, if you don't mind, I'm trying to listen." 
 
  He turned up the volume again, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 
  One sunny morning that week, Mariam picked a spot in the yard and dug a hole. 
  "In the name of Allah and with Allah, and in the name of the messenger of Allah upon 
whom be the blessings and peace of Allah," she said under her breath as her shovel bit 
into the ground. She placed the suede coat that Rasheed had bought for the baby in the 
hole and shoveled dirt over it. 
 
  "You make the night to pass into the day and You make the day to pass into the night, 
and You bring forth the living from the dead and You bring forth the dead from the li-
ving, and You give sustenance to whom You please without measure." 
  She patted the dirt with the back of the shovel.She squatted by the mound, closed her 
eyes. 
 
  Give sustenance, Allah. 
 
  Give sustenance to me.