A thousand Splendid Suns

PART FOUR 
 
48. 
 
  Tariq has headaches now. 
 
  Some nights, Laila awakens and finds him on the edge of their bed, rocking, his un-
dershirt pulled over his head The headaches began in Nasir Bagh, he says, then worse-
ned in prison. Sometimes they make him vomit, blind him in one eye. He says it feels li-
ke a butcher's knife burrowing in one temple, twisting slowly through his brain, then po-
king out the other side. 
 
  "I can taste the metal, even, when they begin." 
 
  Sometimes Laila wets a cloth and lays it on his forehead and that helps a little. The lit-
tle round white pills Sayeed's doctor gave Tariq help too. But some nights, all Tariq can 
do is hold his head and moan, his eyes bloodshot, his nose dripping. Laila sits with him 
when he's in the grip of it like that, rubs the back of his neck, takes his hand in hers, the 
metal of his wedding band cold against her palm. 
 

---

  They married the day that they arrived in Murree. Sayeed looked relieved when Tariq 
told him they would. He would not have to broach with Tariq the delicate matter of an 
unmarried couple living in his hotel. Sayeed is not at all as Laila had pictured him, rud-
dy-faced and pea-eyed. He has a salt-and-pepper mustache whose ends he rolls to a 
sharp tip, and a shock of long gray hair combed back from the brow. He is a soft-spo-
ken, mannerly man, with measured speech and graceful movements. 
 
  It was Sayeecl who summoned a friend and a mullah for thenikka that day, Sayeed 
who pulled Tariq aside and gave him money. Tariq wouldn't take it, but Sayeed insisted. 
Tariq went to the Mall then and came back with two simple, thin wedding bands. They 
married later that night, after the children had gone to bed. 
 
  In the mirror, beneath the green veil that the mullah draped over their heads, Laila's 
eyes met Tariq's. There were no tears, no wedding-day smiles, no whispered oaths of 
long-lasting love. In silence, Laila looked at their reflection, at faces that had aged be-
yond their years, at the pouches and lines and sags that now marked their once-scrub-
bed, youthful faces. Tariq opened his mouth and began to say something, but, just as he 
did, someone pulled the veil, and Laila missed what it was that he was going to say. 
  That night, they lay in bed as husband and wife, as the children snored below them on 
sleeping cots. Laila remembered the ease with which they would crowd the air between 
them with words, she and Tariq, when they were younger, the haywire, brisk flow of 
their speech, always interrupting each other, tugging each other's collar to emphasize a 
point, the quickness to laugh, the eagerness to delight. So much had happened since tho-
se childhood days, so much that needed to be said. But that first night the enormity of it 
all stole the words from her. That night, it was blessing enough to be beside him. It was 
blessing enough to know that he was here, to feel the warmth of him next to her, to lie 
with him, their heads touching, his right hand laced in her left. 
 
  In the middle of the night, when Laila woke up thirsty, she found their hands still 
clamped together, in the white-knuckle, anxious way of children clutching balloon 
strings. 
 
* * * 
 
  Laila likes Mukree'S cool, foggy mornings and its dazzling twilights, the dark brillian-
ce of the sky at night; the green of the pines and the soft brown of the squirrels darting 
up and down the sturdy tree trunks; the sudden downpours that send shoppers in the 
Mall scrambling for awning cover. She likes the souvenir shops, and the various hotels 
that house tourists, even as the locals bemoan the constant construction, the expansion 
of infrastructure that they say is eating away at Murree's natural beauty. Laila finds it 
odd that people should lament thebuilding of buildings. In Kabul, they would celebrate 
it. 
 
  She likes that they have a bathroom, not an outhouse but an actual bathroom, with a to-
ilet that flushes, a shower, and a sink too, with twin faucets from which she can draw, 
with a flick of her wrist, water, either hot or cold. She likes waking up to the sound of 
Alyona bleating in the morning, and the harmlessly cantankerous cook, Adiba, who 
works marvels in the kitchen. 
 

---

  Sometimes, as Laila watches Tariq sleep, as her children mutter and stir in their own 
sleep, a great big lump of gratitude catches in her throat, makes her eyes water. 
 
  In the mornings, Laila follows Tariq from room to room. Keys jingle from a ring clip-
ped to his waist and a spray bottle of window cleaner dangles from the belt loops of his 
jeans. Laila brings a pail filled with rags, disinfectant, a toilet brush, and spray wax for 
the dressers. Aziza tags along, a mop in one hand, the bean-stuffed doll Mariam had ma-
de for her in the other. Zalmai trails them reluctantly, sulkily, always a few steps be-
hind. 
 
  Laila vacuums, makes the bed, and dusts. Tariq washes the bathroom sink and tub, 
scrubs the toilet and mops the linoleum floor. He stocks the shelves with clean towels, 
miniature shampoo bottles, and bars of almond-scented soap. Aziza has laid claim to the 
task of spraying and wiping the windows. The doll is never far from where she works. 
  Laila told Aziza about Tariq a few days after thenikka 
  It is strange, Laila thinks, almost unsettling, the thing between Aziza and Tariq. Alre-
ady, Aziza is finishing his sentences and he hers. She hands him things before he asks 
for them. Private smiles shoot between them across the dinner table as if they are not 
strangers at all but companions reunited after a lengthy separation. 
  Aziza looked down thoughtfully at her hands when Laila told her. 
 
  "I like him," she said, after a long pause. 
 
  "He lovesyou." 
 
  "He said that?" 
 
  "He doesn't have to, Aziza." 
 
  "Tell me the rest, Mammy. Tell me so I know." 
 
  And Laila did. 
 
  "Your father is a good man. He is the best man I've ever known." 
 
  "What if he leaves?" Aziza said 
 
  "He will never leave. Look at me, Aziza. Your father will never hurt you, and he will 
never leave." 
 
  The relief on Aziza's face broke Laila's heart. 
 
* * * 
 
  Tariq has bought Zalmai a rocking horse, built him a wagon. From a prison inmate, he 
learned to make paper animals, and so he has folded, cut, and tucked countless sheets of 
paper into lions and kangaroos for Zalmai, into horses and brightly plumed birds. But 
these overtures are dismissed by Zalmai unceremoniously, sometimes venomously. 
 
  "You're a donkey!" he cries. "I don't want your toys!" 

---

 
  "Zalmai!" Laila gasps. 
 
  "It's all right," Tariq says. "Laila, it's all right. Let him." 
 
  "You're not my Baba jan! My real Baba jan is away on a trip, and when he gets back 
he's going to beat you up! And you won't be able to run away, because he has two legs 
and you only have one!" 
 
  At  night,  Laila  holds  Zalmai  against her chest and recites
Babaloo
 prayers with him. 
When he asks, she tells him the lie again, tells him his Baba jan has gone away and she 
doesn't know when he would come back. She abhors this task, abhors herself for lying 
like this to a child 
  Laila knows that this shameful lie will have to be told again and again. It will have to 
because Zalmai will ask, hopping down from a swing, waking from an afternoon nap, 
and, later, when he's old enough to tie his own shoes, to walk to school by himself, the 
lie will have to be delivered again. 
 
  At some point, Laila knows, the questions will dry up. Slowly, Zalmai will cease won-
dering why his father has abandoned him. He will not spot his father any longer at traf-
fic lights, in stooping old men shuffling down the street or sipping tea in open-fronted 
samovar houses. And one day it will hit him, walking along some meandering river, or 
gazing out at an untracked snowfield, that his father's disappearance is no longer an 
open, raw wound. That it has become something else altogether, something more soft-
edged and indolent. Like a lore. Something to be revered, mystified by. 
 
  Laila is happy here in Murree. But it is not an easy happiness. It is not a happiness wit-
hout cost. 
 
* * * 
 
  On his days off, Tariq takes Laila and the children to the Mall, along which are shops 
that sell trinkets and next to which is an Anglican church built in the mid-nineteenth 
century. Tariq buys them spicychapli kebabs from street vendors. They stroll amid the 
crowds of locals, the Europeans and their cellular phones and digital cameras, the Punj-
abis who come here to escape the heat of the plains. 
 
  Occasionally, they board a bus to Kashmir Point. From there, Tariq shows them the 
valley of the Jhelum River, the pine-carpeted slopes, and the lush, densely wooded hills, 
where he says monkeys can still be spotted hopping from branch to branch. They go to 
the mapleclad Nathia Gali too, some thirty kilometers from Murree, where Tariq holds 
Laila's hand as they walk the tree-shaded road to the Governor's House. They stop by 
the old British cemetery, or take a taxi up a mountain peak for a view of the verdant, 
fog-shrouded valley below. 
 
  Sometimes on these outings, when they pass by a store window, Laila catches their 
reflections in it. Man, wife, daughter, son. To strangers, she knows, they must appear li-
ke the most ordinary of families, free of secrets, lies, and regrets. 
 
* * * 

---

 
  Azizahas nightmares from which she wakes up shrieking. Laila has to lie beside her on 
the cot, dry her cheeks with her sleeve, soothe her back to sleep. 
 
  Laila has her own dreams. In them, she's always back at the house in Kabul, walking 
the hall, climbing the stairs. 
 
  She is alone, but behind the doors she hears the rhythmic hiss of an iron, bedsheets 
snapped, then folded. Sometimes she hears a woman's low-pitched humming of an old 
Herati song. But when she walks in, the room is empty. There is no one there. 
  The dreams leave Laila shaken. She wakes from them coated in sweat, her eyes prick-
ling with tears. It is devastating. Every time, it is devastating. 
 
49. 
 
  One Sunday that September, Laila is putting Zalmai, who has a cold, down for a nap 
when Tariq bursts into their bungalow. 
 
  "Did you hear?" he says, panting a little. "They killed him. Ahmad Shah Massoud. 
He's dead." 
 
  "What?" 
 
  From the doorway, Tariq tells her what he knows. 
 
  "They say he gave an interview to a pair of journalists who claimed they were Belgians 
originally from Morocco. As they're talking, a bomb hidden in the video camera goes 
off. Kills Massoud and one of the journalists. They shoot the other one as he tries to run. 
They're saying now the journalists were probably Al-Qaeda men." 
 
  Laila remembers the poster of Ahmad Shah Massoud that Mammy had nailed to the 
wall of her bedroom. Massoud leaning forward, one eyebrow cocked, his face furrowed 
in concentration, as though he was respectfully listening to someone. Laila remembers 
how grateful Mammy was that Massoud had said a graveside prayer at her sons' burial, 
how she told everyone about it. Even after war broke out between his faction and the ot-
hers, Mammy had refused to blame him.He's a good man, she used to say. 
 
  He wants peace. He wants to rebuild Afghanistan. But they won 't let him. They just