A thousand Splendid Suns

42. 
 
  Laila 
 
  In a paper bag, Aziza packed these things: her flowered shirt and her lone pair of 
socks, her mismatched wool gloves, an old, pumpkin-colored blanket dotted with stars 
and comets, a splintered plastic cup, a banana, her set of dice-It was a cool morning in 
April 2001, shortly before Laila's twenty-third birthday. The sky was a translucent gray, 
and gusts of a clammy, cold wind kept rattling the screen door. 
  This was a few days after Laila heard that Ahmad Shah Massoud had gone to France 
and spoken to the European Parliament. Massoud was now in his native North, and le-
ading the Northern Alliance, the sole opposition group still fighting the Taliban. In 
Europe, Massoud had warned the West about terrorist camps in Afghanistan, and ple-
aded with the U.S. to help him fight the Taliban. 
 
  "If President Bush doesn't help us," he had said, "these terrorists will damage the U.S. 
and Europe very soon." 
 
  A month before that, Laila had learned that the Taliban had planted TNT in the crevi-
ces of the giant Buddhas in Bamiyan and blown them apart, calling them objects of ido-
latry and sin. There was an outcry around the world, from the U.S. to China. Govern-
ments, historians, and archaeologists from all over the globe had written letters, pleaded 
with the Taliban not to demolish the two greatest historical artifacts in Afghanistan. But 
the Taliban had gone ahead and detonated their explosives inside the two-thousand-ye-
ar-old Buddhas. They had chantedAllah-u-akbar with each blast, cheered each time the 
statues lost an arm or a leg in a crumbling cloud of dust. Laila remembered standing 
atop the bigger of the two Buddhas with Babi and Tariq, back in 1987, a breeze blowing 
in their sunlit faces, watching a hawk gliding in circles over the sprawling valley below. 
But when she heard the news of the statues' demise, Laila was numb to it. It hardly se-
emed to matter. How could she care about statues when her own life was crumbling 
dust? 
  Until Rasheed told her it was time to go, Laila sat on the floor in a comer of the living 
room, not speaking and stone-faced, her hair hanging around her face in straggly curls. 
No matter how much she breathed in and out, it seemed to Laila that she couldn't fill her 
lungs with enough air. 
 
* * * 
 

---

  On the way to Karteh-Seh, Zalmai bounced in Rasheed's arms, and Aziza held Mari-
am's hand as she walked quickly beside her. The wind blew the dirty scarf tied under 
Aziza's chin and rippled the hem of her dress. Aziza was more grim now, as though 
she'd begun to sense, with each step, that she was being duped. Laila had not found the 
strength to tell Aziza the truth. She had told her that she was going to a school, a special 
school where the children ate and slept and didn't come home after class. Now Aziza 
kept pelting Laila with the same questions she had been asking for days. Did the stu-
dents sleep in different rooms or all in one great big room? Would she make friends? 
Was she, Laila, sure that the teachers would be nice? 
 
  And, more than once,How long do I have to stay? 
 
  They stopped two blocks from the squat, barracks-style building. 
 
  "Zalmai and I will wait here," Rasheed said. "Oh, before I forget…" 
 
  He fished a stick of gum from his pocket, a parting gift, and held it out to Aziza with a 
stiff, magnanimous air. Aziza took it and muttered a thank-you. Laila marveled at Azi-
za's grace, Aziza's vast capacity for forgiveness, and her eyes filled. Her heart squeezed, 
and she was faint with sorrow at the thought that this afternoon Aziza would not nap be-
side her, that she would not feel the flimsy weight of Aziza's arm on her chest, the curve 
of Aziza's head pressing into her ribs, Aziza's breath warming her neck, Aziza's heels 
poking her belly. 
 
  When Aziza was led away, Zalmai began wailing, crying, Ziza! Ziza! He squirmed and 
kicked in his father's arms, called for his sister, until his attention was diverted by an or-
gan-grinder's monkey across the street. 
 
  They walked the last two blocks alone, Mariam, Laila, and Aziza. As they approached 
the building, Laila could see its splintered fa9ade, the sagging roof, the planks of wood 
nailed across frames with missing windows, the top of a swing set over a decaying wall. 
 
  They stopped by the door, and Laila repeated to Aziza what she had told her earlier. 
 
  "And if they ask about your father, what do you say?" 
  "The Mujahideen killed him," Aziza said, her mouth set with wariness. 
 
  "That's good. Aziza, do you understand?" 
 
  "Because this is a special school," Aziza said Now that they were here, and the buil-
ding was a reality, she looked shaken. Her lower lip was quivering and her eyes threate-
ned to well up, and Laila saw how hard she was struggling to be brave. "If we tell the 
truth," Aziza said in a thin, breathless voice, "they won't take me. It's a special school. I 
want to go home." 
 
  "I'll visit all the time," Laila managed to say. "I promise." 
 
  "Me too," said Mariam. "We'll come to see you, Aziza jo, and we'll play together, just 
like always. It's only for a while, until your father finds work." 
 

---

  "They have food here," Laila said shakily. She was glad for the burqa, glad that Aziza 
couldn't see how she was falling apart inside it. "Here, you won't go hungry. They have 
rice and bread and water, and maybe even fruit." 
 
  "Butyouwon't be here. And Khala Mariam won't be with me." 
 
  "I'll come and see you," Laila said. "All the time. Look at me, Aziza. I'll come and see 
you. I'm your mother. If it kills me, I'll come and see you." 
 
* * * 
 
  The orphanage director was a stooping, narrow-chested man with a pleasantly lined fa-
ce. He was balding, had a shaggy beard, eyes like peas. His name was Zaman. He wore 
a skullcap. The left lens of his eyeglasses was chipped. 
  As he led them to his office, he asked Laila and Mariam their names, asked for Aziza's 
name too, her age. They passed through poorly lit hallways where barefoot children 
stepped aside and watched They had disheveled hair or shaved scalps. They wore swe-
aters with frayed sleeves, ragged jeans whose knees had worn down to strings, coats 
patched with duct tape. Laila smelled soap and talcum, ammonia and urine, and rising 
apprehension in Aziza, who had begun whimpering. 
  Laila had a glimpse of the yard: weedy lot, rickety swing set, old tires, a deflated bas-
ketball. The rooms they passed were bare, the windows covered with sheets of plastic. 
A boy darted from one of the rooms and grabbed Laila's elbow, and tried to climb up in-
to her arms. An attendant, who was cleaning up what looked like a puddle of urine, put 
down his mop and pried the boy off. 
 
  Zaman seemed gently proprietary with the orphans. He patted the heads of some, as he 
passed by, said a cordial word or two to them, tousled their hair, without condescension. 
The children welcomed his touch. They all looked at him, Laila thought, in hope of ap-
proval. 
  He showed them into his office, a room with only three folding chairs, and a disorderly 
desk with piles of paper scattered atop it. 
 
  "You're from Herat," Zaman said to Mariam. "I can tell from your accent." 
 
  He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands over his belly, and said he had a brot-
her-in-law who used to live there. Even in these ordinary gestures, Laila noted a laborio-
us quality to his movements. And though he was smiling faintly, Laila sensed somet-
hing troubled and wounded beneath, disappointment and defeat glossed over with a ve-
neer of good humor. 
 
  "He was a glassmaker," Zaman said. "He made these beautiful, jade green swans. You 
held them up to sunlight and they glittered inside, like the glass was filled with tiny 
jewels. Have you been back?" 
 
  Mariam said she hadn't. 
  "I'm from Kandahar myself. Have you ever been to Kandahar,hamshira1? No? It's lo-
vely. What gardens! And the grapes! Oh, the grapes. They bewitch the palate." 
  A few children had gathered by the door and were peeking in. Zaman gently shooed 
them away, in Pashto. 

---

 
  "Of course I love Herat too. City of artists and writers, Sufis and mystics. You know 
the old joke, that you can't stretch a leg in Herat without poking a poet in the rear." 
 
  Next to Laila, Aziza snorted. 
  Zaman feigned a gasp. "Ah, there. I've made you laugh, littlehamshira. That's usually 
the hard part. I was worried, there, for a while. I thought I'd have to cluck like a chicken 
or bray like a donkey. But, there you are. And so lovely you are." 
 
  He called in an attendant to look after Aziza for a few moments. Aziza leaped onto 
Mariam's lap and clung to her. 
 
  "We're just going to talk, my love,"Laila said. "I'll be right here. All right? Right he-
re." 
 
  "Why don't we go outside for a minute, Aziza jo?" Mariam said. "Your mother needs 
to talk to Kaka Zaman here.Just for a minute. Now, come on." 
 
  When they were alone, Zaman asked for Aziza's date of birth, history of illnesses, al-
lergies. He asked about Aziza's father, and Laila had the strange experience of telling a 
lie that was really the truth. Zaman listened, his expression revealing neither belief nor 
skepticism. He ran the orphanage on the honor system, he said. If ahamshira said her 
husband was dead and she couldn't care for her children, he didn't question it. 
 
  Laila began to cry. 
  Zaman put down his pen. 
 
  "I'm ashamed," Laila croaked, her palm pressed to her mouth. 
 
  "Look at me,hamshira " 
 
  "What kind of mother abandons her own child?" 
 
  "Look at me." 
 
  Laila raised her gaze. 
  "It isn't your fault. Do you hear me? Not you. It's thosesavages, thosewahshis, who are 
to blame. They bring shame on me as a Pashtun. They've disgraced the name of my pe-
ople. And you're not alone,hamshira We get mothers like you all the time-all the time-
mothers who come here who can't feed their children because the Taliban won't let them 
go out and make a living. So you don't blame yourself. No one here blames you. I un-
derstand." He leaned forward."Hamshira I understand." 
 
  Laila wiped her eyes with the cloth of her burqa. 
 
  "As for this place," Zaman sighed, motioning with his hand, "you can see that it's in di-
re state. We're always underfunded, always scrambling, improvising. We get little or no 
support from the Taliban. But we manage. Like you, we do what we have to do. Allah is 
good and kind, and Allah provides, and, as long He provides, I will see to it that Aziza 
is fed and clothed. That much I promise you." 

---

  Laila nodded. 
 
  "All right?" 
 
  He was smiling companionably. "But don't cry,hamshira Don't let her see you cry." 
  Laila wiped her eyes again. "God bless you," she said thickly. "God bless you, brot-
her." 
 
*** 
 
  But "when the time for good-byes came, the scene erupted precisely as Laila had dre-
aded. 
 
  Aziza panicked. 
  All the way home, leaning on Mariam, Laila heard Aziza's shrill cries. In her head, she 
saw Zaman's thick, calloused hands close around Aziza's arms; she saw them pull, 
gently at first, then harder, then with force to pry Aziza loose from her. She saw Aziza 
kicking in Zaman's arms as he hurriedly turned the corner, heard Aziza screaming as 
though she were about to vanish from the face of the earth. And Laila saw herself run-
ning down the hallway, head down, a howl rising up her throat. 
  "I smell her," she told Mariam at home. Her eyes swam unseeingly past Mariam's sho-
ulder, past the yard, the walls, to the mountains, brown as smoker's spit. "I smell her sle-
ep smell. Do you? Do you smell it?" 
 
  "Oh, Laila jo," said Mariam. "Don't. What good is this? What good?" 
 
* * * 
 
  At first, Rasheed humored Laila, and accompanied them-her, Mariam, and Zalmai-to 
the orphanage, though he made sure, as they walked, that she had an eyeful of his gri-
evous looks, an earful of his rants over what a hardship she was putting him through, 
how badly his legs and back and feet ached walking to and from the orphanage. He ma-
de sure she knew how awfully put out he was. 
 
  "I'm not a young man anymore," he said. "Not that you care. You'd run me to the gro-
und, if you had your way. But you don't, Laila. You don't have your way." 
  They parted ways two blocks from the orphanage, and he never spared them more than 
fifteen minutes. "A minute late," he said, "and I start walking. I mean it." 
  Laila had to pester him, plead with him, in order to spin out the allotted minutes with 
Aziza a bit longer. For herself, and for Mariam, who was disconsolate over Aziza's ab-
sence, though, as always, Mariam chose to cradle her own suffering privately and qui-
etly. And for Zalmai too, who asked for his sister every day, and threw tantrums that so-
metimes dissolved into inconsolable fits of crying. 
 
  Sometimes, on the way to the orphanage, Rasheed stopped and complained that his leg 
was sore. Then he turned around and started walking home in long, steady strides, wit-
hout so much as a limp. Or he clucked his tongue and said, "It's my lungs, Laila. I'm 
short of breath. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better, or the day after. We'll see." He never 
bothered to feign a single raspy breath. Often, as he turned back and marched home, he 

---

lit a cigarette. Laila would have to tail him home, helpless, trembling with resentment 
and impotent rage. 
 
  Then one day he told Laila he wouldn't take her anymore. "I'm too tired from walking 
the streets all day," he said, "looking for work." 
 
  "Then I'll go by myself," Laila said. "You can't stop me, Rasheed. Do you hear me? 
You can hit me all you want, but I'll keep going there." 
 
  "Do as you wish. But you won't get past the Taliban. Don't say I didn't warn you." 
 
  "I'm coming with you," Mariam said. 
 
  Laila wouldn't allow it. "You have to stay home with Zalmai. If we get stop-
ped…Idon't want him to see." 
 
  And so Laila's life suddenly revolved around finding ways to see Aziza. Half the time, 
she never made it to the orphanage. Crossing the street, she was spotted by the Taliban 
and riddled with questions-What is your name? Where are you going? Why are you alo-