A thousand Splendid Suns

know better look. 
 
  By the time we're twenty,Hasina used to say,Giti and I, we'll have pushed out four, five 
kids each Bui you, Laila, you '1Imake m two dummies proud. You 're going to be some-
body. I know one day I'll pick up a newspaper and find your picture on the frontpage. 
 
  Giti was beside Laila now, chopping cucumbers, with a dreamy, far-off look on her fa-
ce. 
 
  Mammy was nearby, in her brilliant summer dress, peeling boiled eggs with Wajma, 
the midwife, and Tariq's mother. 
 
  "I'm going to present Commander Massoud with a picture of Ahmad and Noor," 
Mammy was saying to Wajma as Wajma nodded and tried to look interested and since-
re. 
 

---

  "He personally oversaw the burial. He said a prayer at their grave. It'll be a token of 
thanks for his decency." Mammy cracked another boiled egg. "I hear he's a reflective, 
honorable man. 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 li-
ving-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. He seemed to take pleasure in not 
being welcome here, in infecting this female atmosphere with his half-grinning, mascu-
line irreverence. 
  Laila did her best not to look at him, not to give these women any more gossip fodder 
than they already had So she kept her eyes down and said nothing to him, but she re-
membered a dream she'd had a few nights before, of his face and hers, together in a mir-
ror, beneath a soft, green veil. And grains of rice, dropping from his hair, bouncing off 
the glass with alink. 
 
  Tariq reached to sample a morsel of veal cooked with potatoes. 
 
  "Ho bacha!"Giti slapped the back of his hand. Tariq stole it anyway and laughed. 
  He stood almost a foot taller than Laila now. He shaved. His face was leaner, more an-
gular. His shoulders had broadened. Tariq liked to wear pleated trousers, black shiny lo-
afers, and short-sleeve shirts that showed off his newly muscular arms-compliments of 
an old, rusty set of barbells that he lifted daily in his yard. His face had lately adopted 
an expression of playful contentiousness. He had taken to a self-conscious cocking of 
his head when he spoke, slightly to the side, and to arching one eyebrow when he laug-
hed. He let his hair grow and had fallen into the habit of tossing the floppy locks often 
and unnecessarily. The corrupt half grin was a new thing too. 
 
  The last time Tariq was shooed out of the kitchen, his mother caught Laila stealing a 
glance at him. Laila's heart jumped, and her eyes fluttered guiltily. She quickly occupied 
herself with tossing the chopped cucumber into the pitcher of salted, watered-down yo-
gurt. But she could sense Tariq's mother watching, her knowing, approving half smile. 
  The men filled their plates and glasses and took their meals to the yard. Once they had 
taken their share, the women and children settled on the floor around thesofrah and ate. 
 
  It was afterfat sofrah was cleared and the plates were stacked in the kitchen, when the 
frenzy of tea making and remembering who took green and who black started, that Ta-
riq motioned with his head and slipped out the door. 
  Laila waited five minutes, then followed. 
 
  She found him three houses down the street, leaning against the wall at the entrance of 
a narrow-mouthed alley between two adjacent houses. He was humming an old Pashto 
song, by Ustad Awal Mir: 
 

---

  Da ze ma ziba waian, da ze ma dada waian. This is our beautiful land, this is our belo-