A thousand Splendid Suns

51. 
 
  April 2003 

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  Thedrought has ended. It snowed at last this past winter, kneedeep, and now it has be-
en raining for days.The Kabul River is flowing once again. Its spring floods have was-
hed away Titanic City. 
 
  There is mud on the streets now. Shoes squish. Cars get trapped. Donkeys loaded with 
apples slog heavily, their hooves splattering muck from rain puddles. But no one is 
complaining about the mud, no one is mourning Titanic City.We need Kabul to be green 
again, people say. 
 
  Yesterday, Laila watched her children play in the downpour, hopping from one puddle 
to another in their backyard beneath a lead-colored sky. She was watching from the 
kitchen window of the small two-bedroom house that they are renting in Deh-Mazang. 
There is a pomegranate tree in the yard and a thicket of sweetbriar bushes. Tariq has 
patched the walls and built the children a slide, a swing set, a little fenced area for Zal-
mai's new goat. Laila watched the rain slide off Zalmai's scalp-he has asked that he be 
shaved, like Tariq, who is in charge now of saying theBabaloo prayers. The rain flatte-
ned Aziza's long hair, turned it into sodden tendrils that sprayed Zalmai when she snap-
ped her head. 
 
  Zalmai is almost six. Aziza is ten. They celebrated her birthday last week, took her to 
Cinema Park, where, at last,Titanic was openly screened for the people of Kabul. 
 
* * * 
 
  "Come on, children, we're going to be late," Laila calls, putting their lunches in a paper 
bag-It's eight o'clock in the morning. Laila was up at five. As always, it was Aziza who 
shook her awake for morningnamaz. The prayers, Laila knows, are Aziza's way of clin-
ging to Mariam, her way of keeping Mariam close awhile yet before time has its way, 
before it snatches Mariam from the garden of her memory like a weed pulled by its ro-
ots. 
 
  Afternamaz, Laila had gone back to bed, and was still asleep when Tariq left the ho-
use. She vaguely remembers him kissing her cheek. Tariq has found work with a French 
NGO that fits land mine survivors and amputees with prosthetic limbs. 
 
  Zalmai comes chasing Aziza into the kitchen. 
 
  "You have your notebooks, you two? Pencils? Textbooks?" 
 
  "Right here," Aziza says, lifting her backpack. Again, Laila notices how her stutter is 
lessening. 
 
  "Let's go, then." 
 
  Laila lets the children out of the house, locks the door. They step out into the cool mor-
ning. It isn't raining today. The sky is blue, and Laila sees no clumps of clouds in the 
horizon. Holding hands, the three of them make their way to the bus stop. The streets 
are busy already, teeming with a steady stream of rickshaws, taxicabs, UN trucks, bu-
ses, ISAF jeeps. Sleepy-eyed merchants are unlocking store gates that had been rolled 

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down for the night-Vendors sit behind towers of chewing gum and cigarette packs. Al-
ready the widows have claimed their spots at street corners, asking the passersby for co-
ins. 
  Laila finds it strange to be back in Kabul The city has changed Every day now she sees 
people planting saplings, painting old houses, carrying bricks for new ones. They dig 
gutters and wells. On windowsills, Laila spots flowers potted in the empty shells of old 
Mujahideen rockets-rocket flowers, Kabulis call them. Recently, Tariq took Laila and 
the children to the Gardens of Babur, which are being renovated. For the first time in 
years, Laila hears music at Kabul's street corners,rubab and tabla,dooiar, harmonium 
and tamboura, old Ahmad Zahir songs. 
 
  Laila wishes Mammy and Babi were alive to see these changes. But, like Mil's letter, 
Kabul's penance has arrived too late. 
 
  Laila  and  the  children  are  about to cross the street to the bus stop when suddenly a 
black Land Cruiser with tinted windows blows by. It swerves at the last instant and mis-
ses Laila by less than an arm's length. It splatters tea-colored rainwater all over the 
children's shirts. 
 
  Laila yanks her children back onto the sidewalk, heart somersaulting in her throat. 
  The Land Cruiser speeds down the street, honks twice, and makes a sharp left. 
  Laila stands there, trying to catch her breath, her fingers gripped tightly around her 
children's wrists. 
 
  It slays Laila. It slays her that the warlords have been allowed back to Kabul That her 
parents' murderers live in posh homes with walled gardens, that they have been appoin-
ted minister of this and deputy minister of that, that they ride with impunity in shiny, 
bulletproof SUVs through neighborhoods that they demolished. It slays her. 
 
  But Laila has decided that she will not be crippled by resentment. Mariam wouldn't 
want it that way.What's the sense? she would say with a smile both innocent and wi-
se.What good is it, Laila jo? And so Laila has resigned herself to moving on. For her 
own sake, for Tariq's, for her children's. And for Mariam, who still visits Laila in her 
dreams, who is never more than a breath or two below her consciousness. Laila has mo-
ved on. Because in the end she knows that's all she can do. That and hope. 
 
* * * 
 
  Zamanis standing at the free throw line, his knees bent, bouncing a basketball. He is 
instructing a group of boys in matching jerseys sitting in a semicircle on the court. Za-
man spots Laila, tucks the ball under his arm, and waves. He says something to the 
boys, who then wave and cry out,"Salaam, moalim sahib!" 
  Laila waves back. 
 
  The orphanage playground has a row of apple saplings now along the east-facing wall. 
Laila is planning to plant some on the south wall as well as soon as it is rebuilt. There is 
a new swing set, new monkey bars, and a jungle gym. 
  Laila walks back inside through the screen door. 
 

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  They have repainted both the exterior and the interior of the orphanage. Tariq and Za-
man have repaired all the roof leaks, patched the walls, replaced the windows, carpeted 
the rooms where the children sleep and play. This past winter, Laila bought a few beds 
for the children's sleeping quarters, pillows too, and proper wool blankets. She had cast-
iron stoves installed for the winter. 
 
  Anis,one of Kabul's newspapers, had run a story the month before on the renovation of 
the orphanage. They'd taken a photo too, of Zaman, Tariq, Laila, and one of the atten-
dants, standing in a row behind the children. When Laila saw the article, she'd thought 
of her childhood friends Giti and Hasina, and Hasina saying,By the time we're twenty,