Chereads / A Thousand splendid suns / Chapter 16 - chapter 16

Chapter 16 - chapter 16

Kabul, Spring 1987

JN ine-year-old Laila rose from bed, as she did most mornings, hungry for the sight of her friend

Tariq. This morning, however, she knew there would be no Tariq sighting.

"How long will you be gone?" she'd asked when Tariq had told her that his parents were taking him

south, to the city of Ghazni, to visit his paternal uncle.

"Thirteen days."

"Thirteen days?"

"It's not so long. You're making a face, Laila."

"I am not."

"You're not going to cry, are you?"

"I am not going to cry! Not over you. Not in a thousand years."

She'd kicked at his shin, not his artificial but his real one, and he'd playfully whacked the back of her

head.

Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, Laila had learned a fundamental truth about

time: Like the accordion on which Tariq's father sometimes played old Pashto songs, time stretched

and contracted depending on Tariq's absence or presence-Downstairs, her parents were fighting.

Again. Laila knew the routine: Mammy, ferocious, indomitable, pacing and ranting; Babi, sitting,

looking sheepish and dazed, nodding obediently, waiting for the storm to pass. Laila closed her door

and changed. But she could still hear them. She could still hearher Finally, a door slammed. Pounding

footsteps. Mammy's bed creaked loudly. Babi, it seemed, would survive to see another day.

"Laila!" he called now. "I'm going to be late for work!"

"One minute!"

Laila put on her shoes and quickly brushed her shoulder-length, blond curls in the mirror. Mammy

always told Laila that she had inherited her hair color-as well as her thick-lashed, turquoise green

eyes, her dimpled cheeks, her high cheekbones, and the pout of her lower lip, which Mammy shared-

from her great-grandmother, Mammy's grandmother.She was a pari,a stunner, Mammy said.Her beauty

was the talk of the valley. It skipped two generations of women in our family, but it sure didn't bypass

you, Laila The valley Mammy referred to was the Panjshir, the Farsi-speaking Tajik region one

hundred kilometers northeast of Kabul. Both Mammy and Babi, who were first cousins, had been born

and raised in Panjshir; they had moved to Kabul back in 1960 as hopeful, bright-eyed newlyweds

when Babi had been admitted to Kabul University.

Laila scrambled downstairs, hoping Mammy wouldn't come out of her room for another round. She

found Babi kneeling by the screen door.

"Did you see this, Laila?"

The rip in the screen had been there for weeks. Laila hunkered down beside him. "No. Must be

new."

"That's what I told Fariba." He looked shaken, reduced, as he always did after Mammy was through

with him. "She says it's been letting in bees."

Laila's heart went out to him. Babi was a small man, with narrow shoulders and slim, delicate

hands, almost like a woman's. At night, when Laila walked into Babi's room, she always found the

downward profile of his face burrowing into a book, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

Sometimes he didn't even notice that she was there. When he did, he marked his page, smiled a close-

lipped, companionable smile. Babi knew most of Rumi's and Hafez'sghazals by heart. He could speak

at length about the struggle between Britain and czarist Russia over Afghanistan. He knew the

difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite, and could tell you that the distance between the earth

and the sun was the same as going from Kabul to Ghazni one and a half million times. But if Laila

needed the lid of a candy jar forced open, she had to go to Mammy, which felt like a betrayal.

Ordinary tools befuddled Babi. On his watch, squeaky door hinges never got oiled. Ceilings went on

leaking after he plugged them. Mold thrived defiantly in kitchen cabinets. Mammy said that before he

left with Noor to join the jihad against the Soviets, back in 1980, it was Ahmad who had dutifully and

competently minded these things.

"But if you have a book that needs urgent reading," she said, "then Hakim is your man."

Still, Laila could not shake the feeling that at one time, before Ahmad and Noor had gone to war

against the Soviets-before Babi hadlet them go to war-Mammy too had thought Babi's bookishness

endearing, that, once upon a time, she too had found his forgetfulness and ineptitude charming.

"So what is today?" he said now, smiling coyly. "Day five? Or is it six?"

"What do I care? I don't keep count," Laila lied, shrugging, loving him for remembering- Mammy

had no idea that Tariq had left.

"Well, his flashlight will be going off before you know it," Babi said, referring to Laila and Tariq's

nightly signaling game. They had played it for so long it had become a bedtime ritual, like brushing

teeth.

Babi ran his finger through the rip. "I'll patch this as soon as I get a chance. We'd better go." He

raised his voice and called over his shoulder, "We're going now, Fariba! I'm taking Laila to school.

Don't forget to pick her up!"

Outside, as she was climbing on the carrier pack of Babi's bicycle, Laila spotted a car parked up the

street, across from the house where the shoemaker, Rasheed, lived with his reclusive wife. It was a

Benz, an unusual car in this neighborhood, blue with a thick white stripe bisecting the hood, the roof,

and the trunk. Laila could make out two men sitting inside, one behind the wheel, the other in the back.

"Who are they?" she said."It's not our business," Babi said. "Climb on, you'll be late for class."

Laila remembered another fight, and, that time, Mammy had stood over Babi and said in a mincing

way,That's your business, isn't it, cousin? To make nothing your business. Even your own sons going

to war. Howl pleaded with you. Bui you buried your nose in those cursed books and let our sons go

like they were a pair of haramis.

Babi pedaled up the street, Laila on the back, her arms wrapped around his belly. As they passed the

blue Benz, Laila caught a fleeting glimpse of the man in the backseat: thin, white-haired, dressed in a

dark brown suit, with a white handkerchief triangle in the breast pocket. The only other thing she had

time to notice was that the car had Herat license plates.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, except at the turns, where Babi braked cautiously and said,

"Hold on, Laila. Slowing down. Slowing down. There."

* * *

In class that day, Laila found it hard to pay attention, between Tariq's absence and her parents' fight.

So when the teacher called on her to name the capitals of Romania and Cuba, Laila was caught off

guard.

The teacher's name was Shanzai, but, behind her back, the students called her Khala Rangmaal,

Auntie Painter, referring to the motion she favored when she slapped students-palm, then back of the

hand, back and forth, like a painter working a brush. Khala Rangmaal was a sharp-faced young

woman with heavy eyebrows. On the first day of school, she had proudly told the class that she was

the daughter of a poor peasant from Khost. She stood straight, and wore her jet-black hair pulled

tightly back and tied in a bun so that, when Khala Rangmaal turned around, Laila could see the dark

bristles on her neck. Khala Rangmaal did not wear makeup or jewelry. She did not cover and forbade

the female students from doing it. She said women and men were equal in every way and there was no

reason women should cover if men didn't.

She said that the Soviet Union was the best nation in the world, along with Afghanistan. It was kind

to its workers, and its people were all equal. Everyone in the Soviet Union was happy and friendly,

unlike America, where crime made people afraid to leave their homes. And everyone in Afghanistan

would be happy too, she said, once the antiprogressives, the backward bandits, were defeated.

"That's why our Soviet comrades came here in 1979. To lend their neighbor a hand. To help us

defeat these brutes who want our country to be a backward, primitive nation. And you must lend your

own hand, children. You must report anyone who might know about these rebels. It's your duty. You

must listen, then report. Even if it's your parents, your uncles or aunts. Because none of them loves

you as much as your country does. Your country comes first, remember! I will be proud of you, and so

will your country."

On the wall behind Khala Rangmaal's desk was a map of the Soviet Union, a map of Afghanistan,

and a framed photo of the latest communist president, Najibullah, who, Babi said, had once been the

head of the dreaded KHAD, the Afghan secret police. There were other photos too, mainly of young.Soviet soldiers shaking hands with peasants, planting apple saplings, building homes, always smiling

genially.

"Well," Khala Rangmaal said now, "have I disturbed your daydreaming,Inqilabi Girl?"

This was her nickname for Laila, Revolutionary Girl, because she'd been born the night of the April

coup of 1978-except Khala Rangmaal became angry if anyone in her class used the wordcoup. What

had happened, she insisted, was aninqilab, a revolution, an uprising of the working people against

inequality.Jihad was another forbidden word. According to her, there wasn't even a war out there in

the provinces, just skirmishes against troublemakers stirred by people she called foreign

provocateurs. And certainly no one,no one, dared repeat in her presence the rising rumors that, after

eight years of fighting, the Soviets were losing this war. Particularly now that the American president,

Reagan, had started shipping the Mujahideen Stinger Missiles to down the Soviet helicopters, now

that Muslims from all over the world were joining the cause: Egyptians, Pakistanis, even wealthy

Saudis, who left their millions behind and came to Afghanistan to fight the jihad.

"Bucharest. Havana," Laila managed.

"And are those countries our friends or not?"

"They are,moolim sahib. They are friendly countries."

Khala Rangmaal gave a curt nod.

* * *

When school let out. Mammy again didn't show up like she was supposed to. Laila ended up walking

home with two of her classmates, Giti and Hasina.

Giti was a tightly wound, bony little girl who wore her hair in twin ponytails held by elastic bands.

She was always scowling, and walking with her books pressed to her chest, like a shield. Hasina was

twelve, three years older than Laila and Giti, but had failed third grade once and fourth grade twice.

What she lacked in smarts Hasina made up for in mischief and a mouth that, Giti said, ran like a

sewing machine. It was Hasina who had come up with the Khala Rangmaal nickname-Today, Hasina

was dispensing advice on how to fend off unattractive suitors. "Foolproof method, guaranteed to

work. I give you my word."

"This is stupid. I'm too young to have a suitor!" Giti said.

"You're not too young."

"Well, no one's come to ask formy hand."

"That's because you have a beard, my dear."

Giti's hand shot up to her chin, and she looked with alarm to Laila, who smiled pityingly-Giti was

the most humorless person Laila had ever met-and shook her head with reassurance."Anyway, you want to know what to do or not, ladies?"

"Go ahead," Laila said.

"Beans. No less than four cans. On the evening the toothless lizard comes to ask for your hand. But

the timing, ladies, the timing is everything- You have to suppress the fireworks 'til it's time to serve

him his tea."

"I'll remember that," Laila said.

"So will he."

Laila could have said then that she didn't need this advice because Babi had no intention of giving

her away anytime soon. Though Babi worked at Silo, Kabul's gigantic bread factory, where he

labored amid the heat and the humming machinery stoking the massive ovens and mill grains all day,

he was a university-educated man. He'd been a high school teacher before the communists fired him-

this was shortly after the coup of 1978, about a year and a half before the Soviets had invaded. Babi

had made it clear to Laila from ayoung age that the most important thing in his life, after her safety,

was her schooling.

I know you're still young, bull waniyou to understand and learn this now,he said.Marriage can wait,

education cannot You're a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You can be anything you want, Laila I

know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as

much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are

uneducated, Laila No chance.

But Laila didn't tell Hasina that Babi had said these things, or how glad she was to have a father like

him, or how proud she was of his regard for her, or how determined she was to pursue her education

just as he had his. For the last two years, Laila had received theawal numra certificate, given yearly

to the top-ranked student in each grade.

She said nothing of these things to Hasina, though, whose own father was an ill-tempered taxi driver

who in two or three years would almost certainly give her away. Hasina had told Laila, in one of her

infrequent serious moments, that it had already been decided that she would marry a first cousin who

was twenty years older than her and owned an auto shop in Lahore.I've seen him twice, Hasina had

said.Both times he ate with his mouth open.

"Beans, girls," Hasina said. "You remember that. Unless, of course"-here she flashed an impish grin

and nudged Laila with an elbow-"it's your young handsome, one-legged prince who comes knocking-

Then…"

Laila slapped the elbow away. She would have taken offense if anyone else had said that about

Tariq. But she knew that Hasina wasn't malicious. She mocked-it was what she did-and her mocking

spared no one, least of all herself.

"You shouldn't talk that way about people!" Giti said."What people is that?"

"People who've been injured because of war," Giti said earnestly, oblivious to Hasina's toying.

"I think Mullah Giti here has a crush on Tariq. I knew it! Ha! But he's already spoken for, don't you

know? Isn't he, Laila?"

"I do not have a crush. On anyone!"

They broke off from Laila, and, still arguing this way, turned in to their street.

Laila walked alone the last three blocks. When she was on her street, she noticed that the blue Benz

was still parked there, outside Rasheed and Mariam's house. The elderly man in the brown suit was

standing by the hood now, leaning on a cane, looking up at the house.

That was when a voice behind Laila said, "Hey. Yellow Hair. Look here."

Laila turned around and was greeted by the barrel of a gun.