A thousand Splendid Suns

sky wouldn ‘t be blue at all but a pitch-black sea and the sun a big bright star in the 
dark 
 
  "Is Aziza coming home with us this time?" Zalmai said. 
  "Soon, my love," Laila said. "Soon." 
 
  Laila watched him wander away, walking like his father, stooping forward, toes turned 
in. He walked to the swing set, pushed an empty seat, ended up sitting on the concrete, 
ripping weeds from a crack. 
 
  Water evaporates from the leaves-Mammy, did you know?-the way it does from la-
undry hanging from a line. And that drives the flow of water up the tree. From the gro-
und and through the roots, then all the way up the tree trunk, through the branches and 
into the leaves. It's called transpiration. 
 
  More than once, Laila had wondered what the Taliban would do about Kaka Zaman's 
clandestine lessons if they found out. 
 
  During visits, Aziza didn't allow for much silence. She filled all the spaces with effusi-
ve speech, delivered in a high, ringing voice. She was tangential with her topics, and her 
hands gesticulated wildly, flying up with a nervousness that wasn't like her at all. She 
had a new laugh, Aziza did. Not so much a laugh, really, as nervous punctuation, meant, 
Laila suspected, to reassure. 
 
  And  there  were  other  changes. Laila would notice the dirt under Aziza's fingernails, 
and Aziza would notice her noticing and bury her hands under her thighs. Whenever a 
kid cried in their vicinity, snot oozing from his nose, or if a kid walked by bare-assed, 
hair clumped with dirt, Aziza's eyelids fluttered and she was quick to explain it away. 
She was like a hostess embarrassed in front of her guests by the squalor of her home, 
the untidiness of her children. 
 
  Questions of how she was coping were met with vague but cheerful replies. 
 
  Doing Jim, Khala I'm fine. 
 
  Do kids pick on you? 
 
  They dont Mammy. Everyone is nice. 
 
  Are you eating? Sleeping all right? 
 
  Eating. Sleeping too. Yes. We had lamb last night Maybe it was last week. 
 
  When Aziza spoke like this, Laila saw more than a little of Mariam in her. 
  Aziza stammered now. Mariam noticed it first. It was subtle but perceptible, and more 
pronounced with words that began with /. Laila asked Zaman about it. He frowned and 
said, "I thought she'd always done that." 
 
  They left the orphanage with Aziza that Friday afternoon for a short outing and met 
Rasheed, who was waiting for them by the bus stop. When Zalmai spotted his father, he 

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uttered an excited squeak and impatiently wriggled from Laila's arms. Aziza's greeting 
to Rasheed was rigid but not hostile. 
 
  Rasheed said they should hurry, he had only two hours before he had to report back to 
work. This was his first week as a doorman for the Intercontinental. From noon to eight, 
six days a week, Rasheed opened car doors, carried luggage, mopped up the occasional 
spill. Sometimes, at day's end, the cook at the buffet-style restaurant let Rasheed bring 
home a few leftovers-as long as he was discreet about it-cold meatballs sloshing in oil; 
fried chicken wings, the crust gone hard and dry; stuffed pasta shells turned chewy; 
stiff, gravelly rice. Rasheed had promised Laila that once he had some money saved up, 
Aziza could move back home. 
 
  Rasheed was wearing his uniform, a burgundy red polyester suit, white shirt, clip-on 
tie, visor cap pressing down on his white hair. In this uniform, Rasheed was transfor-
med. He looked vulnerable, pitiably bewildered, almost harmless. Like someone who 
had accepted without a sigh of protest the indignities life had doled out to him. Some-
one both pathetic and admirable in his docility. 
 
  They rode the bus to Titanic City. They walked into the riverbed, flanked on either si-
de by makeshift stalls clinging to the dry banks. Near the bridge, as they were descen-
ding the steps, a barefoot man dangled dead from a crane, his ears cut off, his neck bent 
at the end of a rope. In the river, they melted into the horde of shoppers milling about, 
the money changers and bored-looking NGO workers, the cigarette vendors, the cove-
red women who thrust fake antibiotic prescriptions at people and begged for money to 
fill them. Whip-toting,naswar-chew'mg Talibs patrolled Titanic City on the lookout for 
the indiscreet laugh, the unveiled face. 
  From a toy kiosk, betweenapoosieen coat vendor and a fake-flower stand, Zalmai pic-
ked out a rubber basketball with yellow and blue swirls. 
 
  "Pick something," Rasheed said to Aziza. 
 
  Aziza hedged, stiffened with embarrassment. 
 
  "Hurry. I have to be at work in an hour." 
 
  Aziza chose a gum-ball machine-the same coin could be inserted to get candy, then 
retrieved from the flap-door coin return below. 
  Rasheed's eyebrows shot up when the seller quoted him the price. A round of haggling 
ensued, at the end of which Rasheed said to Aziza contentiously, as if itwere she who'd 
haggled him, "Give it back. I can't afford both." 
 
  On the way back, Aziza's high-spirited fa9ade waned the closer they got to the orpha-
nage. The hands stopped flying 
 
  up. Her face turned heavy. It happened every time. It was Laila's turn now, with Mari-
am pitching in, to take up the chattering, to laugh nervously, to fill the melancholy quiet 
with breathless, aimless banter-Later, after Rasheed had dropped them off and taken a 
bus to work, Laila watched Aziza wave good-bye and scuff along the wall in the orpha-
nage back lot. She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about 

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fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the sur-
face is a slight tremor. 
 
* * * 
 
  "Getaway, you!" Zalmai cried. 
 
  "Hush," Mariam said "Who are you yelling at?" 
 
  He pointed. "There. That man." 
 
  Laila followed his finger. Therewas a man at the front door of the house, leaning aga-
inst it. His head turned when he saw them approaching. He uncrossed his arms. Limped 
a few steps toward them. 
 
  Laila stopped. 
  A choking noise came up her throat. Her knees weakened. Laila suddenly wanted,ne-
eded, to grope for Mariam's arm, her shoulder, her wrist, something, anything, to lean 
on. But she didn't. She didn't dare. She didn't dare move a muscle. She didn't dare breat-
he, or blink even, for fear that he was nothing but a mirage shimmering in the distance, 
a brittle illusion that would vanish at the slightest provocation. Laila stood perfectly still 
and looked at Tariq until her chest screamed for air and her eyes burned to blink. And, 
somehow, miraculously, after she took a breath, closed and opened her eyes, he was still 
standing there. Tariq was still standing there. 
  Laila allowed herself to take a step toward him. Then another. And another. And then 
she was running.