A thousand Splendid Suns

Part Two 
 
  16. Kabul,Spring1987 
 
  JN ine-year-old Laila rose from bed, as she did most mornings, hungry for the sight of 
her friend Tariq. This morning, however, she knew there would be no Tariq sighting. 
 
  "How long will you be gone?" she'd asked when Tariq had told her that his parents we-
re taking him south, to the city of Ghazni, to visit his paternal uncle. 
 
  "Thirteen days." 
 
  "Thirteen days?" 
 
  "It's not so long. You're making a face, Laila." 
 
  "I am not." 
 
  "You're not going to cry, are you?" 
 
  "I am not going to cry! Not over you. Not in a thousand years." 
 

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  She'd kicked at his shin, not his artificial but his real one, and he'd playfully whacked 
the back of her head. 
 
  Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, Laila had learned a funda-
mental truth about time: Like the accordion on which Tariq's father sometimes played 
old Pashto songs, time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq's absence or presen-
ce-Downstairs, her parents were fighting. Again. Laila knew the routine: Mammy, fero-
cious, indomitable, pacing and ranting; Babi, sitting, looking sheepish and dazed, nod-
ding obediently, waiting for the storm to pass. Laila closed her door and changed. But 
she could still hear them. She could still hearher Finally, a door slammed. Pounding fo-
otsteps. Mammy's bed creaked loudly. Babi, it seemed, would survive to see another 
day. 
 
  "Laila!" he called now. "I'm going to be late for work!" 
 
  "One minute!" 
  Laila put on her shoes and quickly brushed her shoulder-length, blond curls in the mir-
ror. Mammy always told Laila that she had inherited her hair color-as well as her thick-
lashed, turquoise green eyes, her dimpled cheeks, her high cheekbones, and the pout of 
her lower lip, which Mammy shared-from her great-grandmother, Mammy's grandmot-
her.She was a pari,a stunner, Mammy said.Her beauty was the talk of the valley. It skip-
ped two generations of women in our family, but it sure didn't bypass you, Laila The 
valley Mammy referred to was the Panjshir, the Farsi-speaking Tajik region one hund-
red kilometers northeast of Kabul. Both Mammy and Babi, who were first cousins, had 
been born and raised in Panjshir; they had moved to Kabul back in 1960 as hopeful, 
bright-eyed newlyweds when Babi had been admitted to Kabul University. 
 
  Laila scrambled downstairs, hoping Mammy wouldn't come out of her room for anot-
her round. She found Babi kneeling by the screen door. 
 
  "Did you see this, Laila?" 
 
  The rip in the screen had been there for weeks. Laila hunkered down beside him. "No. 
Must be new." 
 
  "That's what I told Fariba." He looked shaken, reduced, as he always did after Mammy 
was through with him. "She says it's been letting in bees." 
 
  Laila's heart went out to him. Babi was a small man, with narrow shoulders and slim, 
delicate hands, almost like a woman's. At night, when Laila walked into Babi's room, 
she always found the downward profile of his face burrowing into a book, his glasses 
perched on the tip of his nose. Sometimes he didn't even notice that she was there. 
When he did, he marked his page, smiled a close-lipped, companionable smile. Babi 
knew most of Rumi's and Hafez'sghazals by heart. He could speak at length about the 
struggle between Britain and czarist Russia over Afghanistan. He knew the difference 
between a stalactite and a stalagmite, and could tell you that the distance between the 
earth and the sun was the same as going from Kabul to Ghazni one and a half million ti-
mes. But if Laila needed the lid of a candy jar forced open, she had to go to Mammy, 
which felt like a betrayal. Ordinary tools befuddled Babi. On his watch, squeaky door 
hinges never got oiled. Ceilings went on leaking after he plugged them. Mold thrived 

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defiantly in kitchen cabinets. Mammy said that before he left with Noor to join the jihad 
against the Soviets, back in 1980, it was Ahmad who had dutifully and competently 
minded these things. 
  "But if you have a book that needs urgent reading," she said, "then Hakim is your 
man." 
 
  Still, Laila could not shake the feeling that at one time, before Ahmad and Noor had 
gone to war against the Soviets-before Babi hadlet them go to war-Mammy too had tho-
ught Babi's bookishness endearing, that, once upon a time, she too had found his forget-
fulness and ineptitude charming. 
 
  "So what is today?" he said now, smiling coyly. "Day five? Or is it six?" 
 
  "What do I care? I don't keep count," Laila lied, shrugging, loving him for remembe-
ring- Mammy had no idea that Tariq had left. 
 
  "Well, his flashlight will be going off before you know it," Babi said, referring to Laila 
and Tariq's nightly signaling game. They had played it for so long it had become a bed-
time ritual, like brushing teeth. 
 
  Babi ran his finger through the rip. "I'll patch this as soon as I get a chance. We'd better 
go." He raised his voice and called over his shoulder, "We're going now, Fariba! I'm ta-
king Laila to school. Don't forget to pick her up!" 
 
  Outside, as she was climbing on the carrier pack of Babi's bicycle, Laila spotted a car 
parked up the street, across from the house where the shoemaker, Rasheed, lived with 
his reclusive wife. It was a Benz, an unusual car in this neighborhood, blue with a thick 
white stripe bisecting the hood, the roof, and the trunk. Laila could make out two men 
sitting inside, one behind the wheel, the other in the back. 
 
  "Who are they?" she said. 
 
  "It's not our business," Babi said. "Climb on, you'll be late for class." 
 
  Laila remembered another fight, and, that time, Mammy had stood over Babi and said 
in a mincing way,That's your business, isn't it, cousin? To make nothing your business.