A thousand Splendid Suns

sied herself making a bottle."You know that." 
  "I  don't  knowwhat  Iknow." Rasheed deposited the shavings on the windowsill and 
dropped onto the bed. The springs protested with a loud creak. He splayed his legs, pic-
ked at his crotch. "And as….friends, did the two of you ever do anything out of order?" 
  "Out of order?" 
  Rasheed smiled lightheartedly, but Laila could feel his gaze, cold and watchful. "Let 
me see, now. Well, did heever give you a kiss? Maybeput his hand where it didn't be-
long?" 
  Laila winced with, she hoped, an indignant air. She could feel her heart drumming in 
her throat."He was like abrother to me." 
  "So he was a friend or a brother?" 
  "Both. He^" 
  "Which was it?" 
  "He was like both." 
 
  "But  brothers  and  sisters are creatures of curiosity.Yes. Sometimes a brother lets his 
sister see his pecker, and asister will-" 
  "You sicken me," Laila said. 
  "So there was nothing." 
  "I don't want to talk about this anymore." 
  Rasheed tilted his head, pursed his lips, nodded. "People gossiped, you know. I re-
member. They said all sorts of things about you two. But you're saying there was not-
hing." 
  She willed herself to glare athim. 
  He held her eyesfor an excruciatingly long time in an unblinking way that made her 
knuckles go pale around the milkbottle, and it took all that Laila could muster to not 
falter. 
  She shuddered at what he would do if hefound out that she had been stealing from 
him. Every week, since Aziza's birth, she pried his wallet open when he wasasleep or in 
the outhouse and took a single bill. Some weeks, if the wallet was light, she took only a 
five-afghanibill, or nothing at all, for fear that he would notice. When the wallet was 
plump, she helpedherself to a ten or a twenty, once even risking two twenties. She hid 
the money in a pouchshe'd sewn in the lining of her checkered winter coat. 
 
  She wondered what he would do if he knew that she was planning to run away next 
spring. Next summer at the latest. Laila hoped to have a thousand afghanis or more sto-
wed away, half of which would go to the bus fare from Kabul to Peshawar. She would 
pawn her wedding ring when the time drew close, as well as the other jewelry that Ras-
heed had given her the year before when she was still themalika of his palace. 
  "Anyway," he said at last, fingers drumming his belly, "I can't be blamed. I am a hus-
band. These are the things a husband wonders. But he's lucky he died the way he did. 
Because if he was here now, if I got my hands on him…" He sucked through his teeth 
and shook his head. 
  "What happened to not speaking ill of the dead?" 
  "I guess some people can't be dead enough," he said. 

---

 
* * * 
 
  Two days later, Laila woke up in the morning and found a stack of baby clothes, neatly 
folded, outside her bedroom door. There was a twirl dress with little pink fishes sewn 
around the bodice, a blue floral wool dress with matching socks and mittens, yellow pa-
jamas with carrot-colored polka dots, and green cotton pants with a dotted ruffle on the 
cuff. 
  "There is a rumor," Rasheed said over dinner that night, smacking his lips, taking no 
notice of Aziza or the pajamas Laila had put on her, "that Dostum is going to change si-
des and join Hekmatyar. Massoud will have his hands full then, fighting those two. And 
we mustn't forget the Hazaras." He took a pinch of the pickled eggplant Mariam had 
made that summer. "Let's hope it's just that, a rumor. Because if that happens, this war," 
he waved one greasy hand, "will seem like a Friday picnic at Paghman." 
  Later, he mounted her and relieved himself with wordless haste, fully dressed save for 
histumban, not removed but pulled down to the ankles. When the frantic rocking was 
over, he rolled off her and was asleep in minutes. 
  Laila slipped out of the bedroom and found Mariam in the kitchen squatting, cleaning 
a pair of trout. A pot of rice was already soaking beside her. The kitchen smelled like 
cumin and smoke, browned onions and fish. 
  Laila sat in a comer and draped her knees with the hem of her dress. 
  "Thank you," she said. 
  Mariam took no notice of her. She finished cutting up the first trout and picked up the 
second. With a serrated knife, she clipped the fins, then turned the fish over, its under-
belly facing her, and sliced it expertly from the tail to the gills. Laila watched her put 
her thumb into its mouth, just over the lower jaw, push it in, and, in one downward stro-
ke, remove the gills and the entrails. 
  "The clothes are lovely." 
  "I had no use for them," Mariam muttered. She dropped the fish on a newspaper smud-
ged with slimy, gray juice and sliced off its head. "It was either your daughter or the 
moths." 
 
  "Where did you learn to clean fish like that?" 
  "When I was a little girl, I lived by a stream. I used tocatch my ownfish." 
  "I've never fished" 
  "Not much toit. It's mostly waiting." 
  Lailawatched her cut the gutted trout into thirds. "Did you sew the clothes yourself?" 
  Mariam nodded. 
  "When?" 
  Mariamrinsed sections offish in a bowl of water. "When I was pregnant the first time. 
Or maybe the second time. Eighteen, nineteen years ago. Long time, anyhow. Like I sa-
id, I never had anyuse for them." 
  "You're a really goodkhayai. Maybe you can teach me." 
  Mariam placed the rinsed chunks of trout into a clean bowl.Drops of water drip-
pingfrom her fingertips,she raised her head and looked at Laila, looked at heras if for