A thousand Splendid Suns

* * * 
 
  Zalmai  was  twonow. He was a plump little boy with curly hair. He had small brow-
nisheyes, and a rosy tint tohis cheeks, like Rasheed, no matter the weather. He hadhis 
father'shairline too, thick and half-moon-shaped,set low on his brow. 
  When Laila was alone with him, Zalmai was sweet, good-humored, and playful. He li-
ked to climb Laila'sshoulders, play hide-and-seek in the yard with her and Aziza. So-
metimes, inhis calmer moments, he liked tosit on Laila's lap and have her sing tohim. 
His favorite song was "Mullah Mohammad Jan." He swung his meaty little feet as she 
sang into his curly hair and joined in when she got to the chorus, singing what words he 
could make with his raspy voice: 
 
  Come and lei's go to Mazar, Mullah Mohammadjan, To see the fields of tulips, o belo-
ved companion. 
 

---

  Laila loved the moist kisses Zalmai planted on her cheeks, loved his dimpled elbows 
and stout little toes. She loved tickling him, building tunnels with cushions and pillows 
for him to crawl through, watching him fall asleep in her arms with one of his hands al-
ways clutching her ear. Her stomach turned when she thought of that afternoon, lying 
on the floor with the spoke of a bicycle wheel between her legs. How close she'd come. 
It was unthinkable to her now that she could have even entertained the idea. Her son 
was a blessing, and Laila was relieved to discover that her fears had proved baseless, 
that she loved Zalmai with the marrow of her bones, just as she did Aziza. 
  But Zalmai worshipped his father, and, because he did, he was transformed when his 
father was around to dote on him. Zalmai was quick then with a defiant cackle or an im-
pudent grin. In his father's presence, he was easily offended. He held grudges. He per-
sisted in mischief in spite of Laila's scolding, which he never did when Rasheed was 
away. 
  Rasheed approved of all of it. "A sign of intelligence," he said. He said the same of 
Zalmai's recklessness-when he swallowed, then pooped, marbles; when he lit matches; 
when he chewed on Rasheed's cigarettes. 
  When Zalmai was born, Rasheed had moved him into the bed he shared with Laila. He 
had bought him a new crib and had lions and crouching leopards painted on the side pa-
nels. He'd paid for new clothes, new rattles, new bottles, new diapers, even though they 
could not afford them and Aziza's old ones were still serviceable. One day, he came ho-
me with a battery-run mobile, which he hung over Zalmai's crib. Little yellow-and-
black bumblebees dangled from a sunflower, and they crinkled and squeaked when squ-
eezed. A tune played when it was turned on. 
  "I thought you said business was slow," Laila said. 
  "I have friends I can borrowfrom," he saiddismissively. 
  "Howwill you pay them back?" 
  "Thingswill turn around. They always do. Look,he likes it. See?" 
  Mostdays, Laila was deprived ofher son. Rasheed took him to the shop, let him crawl 
around under his crowded workbench, play with old rubber soles and spare scraps of le-
ather. Rasheed drove in his iron nails and turned the sandpaper wheel, and kept a watch-
ful eye on him. If Zalmai toppled a rack of shoes, Rasheed scolded him gently, in a 
calm, half-smiling way. If he did it again, Rasheed put downhis hammer, sat him up on 
his desk, and talked to him softly. 
  Hispatience with Zalmaiwas a well that ran deep and never dried. 
  They came home together in the evening, Zalmai's head bouncing on Rasheed's shoul-
der, both of them smelling of glue and leather. They grinned the way people who share 
a secret do,slyly, like they'd satin thatdim shoe shop all day not making shoes at all 
butdevising secret plots. Zalmai liked to sit besidehis father at dinner, where they pla-
yed private games, as Mariam, Laila, and Azizaset plates onthesojrah. They took turns 
poking each otheron the chest, giggling, pelting each other with bread crumbs, whispe-
ring things the others couldn't hear. If Laila spoke tothem, Rasheed looked up with 
displeasure at the unwelcome intrusion. If she asked to hold Zalmai-or, worse,if Zalmai 
reached for her-Rasheed glowered at her. 
  Laila walked away feeling stung. 
 
* * * 
 
  Then one night, a few weeks after Zalmai turned two, Rasheed came home with a tele-
vision and a VCR. The day had been warm, almost balmy, but the evening was cooler 
and already thickening into a starless, chilly night-He set it down on the living-room 

---

table. He said he'd bought it on the black market. "Another loan?" Laila asked. "It'sa-
Magnavox." 
  Aziza came into the room. When she saw the TV, she ran to it. "Careful, Aziza jo," sa-
idMariam. "Don't touch." 
  Aziza's hair had become as light as Laila's. Laila could see her own dimples on her 
cheeks. Aziza had turned into a calm, pensive little girl, with a demeanor that to Laila 
seemed beyond her six years. Laila marveled at her daughter's manner of speech, her ca-
dence and rhythm, her thoughtful pauses and intonations, so adult, so at odds with the 
immature body that housed the voice. It was Aziza who with lightheaded authority had 
taken it upon herself to wake Zalmai every day, to dress him, feed him his breakfast, 
comb his hair. She was the one who put him down to nap, who played even-tempered 
peacemaker to her volatile sibling. Around him, Aziza had taken to giving an exaspera-
ted, queerly adult headshake. 
 
  Aziza pushed the TV's power button. Rasheed scowled, snatched her wrist and set it on 
the table, not gently at all. 
  "This is Zalmai's TV," he said. 
  Aziza went over to Mariam and climbed in her lap. The two of them were inseparable 
now. Of late, with Laila's blessing, Mariam had started teaching Aziza verses from the 
Koran. Aziza could already recite by heart the surah ofikhlas, the surah of'fatiha,and al-
ready knew how to perform the fourruqats of morning prayer. 
  It's oil I have to give her,Mariam had said to Laila,this knowledge, these prayers. 
They're the only true possession I've ever had. 
  Zalmai came into the room now. As Rasheed watched with anticipation, the way peop-
le wait the simple tricks of street magicians, Zalmai pulled on the TV's wire, pushed the 
buttons, pressed his palms to the blank screen. When he lifted them, the condensed little 
palms faded from the glass. Rasheed smiled with pride, watched as Zalmai kept pres-
sing his palms and lifting them, over and over. 
  The Taliban had banned television. Videotapes had been gouged publicly, the tapes 
ripped out and strung on fence posts. Satellite dishes had been hung from lampposts. 
But Rasheed said just because things were banned didn't mean you couldn't find them. 
  "I'll start looking for some cartoon videos tomorrow," he said. "It won't be hard. You 
can buy anything in underground bazaars." 
 
  "Then maybe you'll buy us a new well," Laila said, and this won her a scornful gaze 
from him. 
  It was later, after another dinner of plain white rice had been consumed and tea forgo-
ne again on account of the drought, after Rasheed had smoked a cigarette, that he told 
Laila about his decision. 
  "No," Laila said. 
  He said he wasn't asking. 
  "I don't care if you are or not." 
  "You would if you knew the full story." 
  He said he had borrowed from more friends than he let on, that the money from the 
shop alone was no longer enough to sustain the five of them. "I didn't tell you earlier to 
spare you the worrying." 
  "Besides," he said, "you'd be surprised how much they can bring in." 
  Laila said no again. They were in the living room. Mariam and the children were in the 
kitchen. Laila could hear the clatter of dishes, Zalmai's high-pitched laugh, Aziza saying 
something to Mariam in her steady, reasonable voice. 

---

  "There will be others like her, younger even," Rasheed said. "Everyone in Kabul is do-
ing the same." 
 
  Laila told him she didn't care what other people did with their children. 
  "I'll keep a close eye on her," Rasheed said, less patiently now. "It's a safe corner. The-
re's a mosque across the street." 
  "I won't let you turn my daughter into a street beggar!" Laila snapped. 
  The slap made a loud smacking sound, the palm of his thick-fingered hand connecting 
squarely with the meat of Laila's cheek. It made her head whip around. It silenced the 
noises from the kitchen. For a moment, the house was perfectly quiet. Then a flurry of 
hurried footsteps in the hallway before Mariam and the children were in the living ro-
om, their eyes shifting from her to Rasheed and back. 
  Then Laila punched him. 
  It was the first time she'd struck anybody, discounting the playful punches she and Ta-
riq used to trade. But those had been open-fisted, more pats than punches, self-conscio-
usly friendly, comfortable expressions of anxieties that were both perplexing and thril-
ling. They would aim for the muscle that Tariq, in a professorial voice, called thedeltoid 
  Laila watched the arch of her closed fist, slicing through the air, felt the crinkle of Ras-
heed's stubbly, coarse skin under her knuckles. It made a sound like dropping a rice bag 
to the floor. She hit him hard. The impact actually made him stagger two steps back-
ward. 
 
  From the other side of the room, a gasp, a yelp, and a scream. Laila didn't know who 
had made which noise. At the moment, she was too astounded to notice or care, waiting 
for her mind to catch up with what her hand had done. When it did, she believed she 
might have smiled. She might havegrinned when, to her astonishment, Rasheed calmly 
walked out of the room. 
  Suddenly, it seemed to Laila that the collective hardships of their lives-hers, Aziza's, 
Mariam's-simply dropped away, vaporized like Zalmai's palms from the TV screen. It 
seemed worthwhile, if absurdly so, to have endured all they'd endured for this one crow-
ning moment, for this act of defiance that would end the suffering of all indignities. 
  Laila did not notice that Rasheed was back in the room. Until his hand was around her 
throat. Until she was lifted off her feet and slammed against the wall. 
  Up close, his sneering face seemed impossibly large. Laila noticed how much puffier it 
was getting with age, how many more broken vessels charted tiny paths on his nose. 
Rasheed didn't say anything. And, really, what could be said, what needed saying, when 
you'd shoved the barrel of your gun into your wife's mouth? 
 
* * * 
 
  It was the raids, the reason they were in the yard digging. Sometimes monthly raids, 
sometimes weekly. Of late, almost daily. Mostly, the Taliban confiscated stuff, gave a 
kick to someone's rear, whacked the back of a head or two. But sometimes there were 
public beatings, lashings of soles and palms. 
 
  "Gently," Mariam said now, her knees over the edge. They lowered the TV into the ho-
le by each clutching one end of the plastic sheet in which it was wrapped 
  "That should do it," Mariam said. 
  They patted the dirt when they were done, filling the hole up again. They tossed some 
of it around so it wouldn't look conspicuous. 

---

  "There," Mariam said, wiping her hands on her dress. 
  When it was safer, they'd agreed, when the Taliban cut down on their raids, in a month 
or two or six, or maybe longer, they would dig the TV up. 
 
* * * 
 
  In Laila'S dream, she and Mariam are out behind the toolshed digging again. But, this 
time, it's Aziza they're lowering into the ground. Aziza's breath fogs the sheet of plastic 
in which they have wrapped her. Laila sees her panicked eyes, the whiteness of her 
palms as they slap and push against the sheet. Aziza pleads. Laila can't hear her scre-
ams.Only for a while, she calls down,it's only for a while. It's the raids, don't you know, 
my love? When the raids are over, Mammy and Khala Mariam will dig you out. I pro-
mise, my love. Then we can play. We can play all you want. She fills the shovel. Laila 
woke up, out of breath, with a taste of soil in her mouth, when the first granular lumps 
of dirt hit the plastic.