Madam
Jr rom that night on, Mariam and Laila did their chores together. They sat in the kitchen and rolled
dough, chopped green onions, minced garlic, offered bits of cucumber to Aziza, who banged spoons
nearby and played with carrots. In the yard, Aziza lay in a wicker bassinet, dressed in layers of
clothing, a winter muffler wrapped snugly around her neck. Mariam and Laila kept a watchful eye on
her as they did the wash, Mariam's knuckles bumping Laila's as they scrubbed shirts and trousers and
diapers.
Mariam slowly grew accustomed to this tentative but pleasant companionship. She was eager for the
three cups ofchai she and Laila would share in the yard, a nightly ritual now. In the mornings, Mariam
found herself looking forward to the sound of Laila's cracked slippers slapping the steps as she came
down for breakfast and to the tinkle of Aziza's shrill laugh, to the sight of her eight little teeth, the
milky scent of her skin. If Laila and Aziza slept in, Mariam became anxious waiting. She washed
dishes that didn't need washing. She rearranged cushions in the living room. She dusted clean
windowsills. She kept herself occupied until Laila entered the kitchen, Aziza hoisted on her hip.
When Aziza first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began
mewling and squirming in her mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be
held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering
anxiety.
"What a scene you're making," Laila would say, releasing her to crawl toward Mariam. "What a
scene! Calm down. Khala Mariam isn't going anywhere. There she is, your aunt. See? Go on, now."
As soon as she was in Mariam's arms, Aziza's thumb shot into her mouth and she buried her face in
Mariam's neck.
Mariam bounced her stiffly, a half-bewildered, half-grateful smile on her lips. Mariam had never
before been wanted like this. Love had never been declared to her so guilelessly, so unreservedly.
Aziza made Mariam want to weep.
"Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me?" Mariam would murmur into
Aziza's hair. "Huh? I am nobody, don't you see? Adehatl What have I got to give you?"
But Aziza only muttered contentedly and dug her face in deeper. And when she did that, Mariam
swooned. Her eyes watered. Her heart took flight. And she marveled at how, after all these years of
rattling loose, she had found in this little creature the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections.
Early the following yeah, in January 1994, Dostumdid switch sides. He joined Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, and took up position near Bala Hissar, the old citadel walls that loomed over the city
from the Koh-e-Shirdawaza
mountains. Together, they fired on Massoud and Rabbani forces at the Ministry of Defense and the
Presidential Palace. From either side of the Kabul River, they released rounds of artillery at each
other. The streets became littered with bodies, glass, and crumpled chunks of metal. There was
looting, murder, and, increasingly, rape, which was used to intimidate civilians and reward
militiamen. Mariam heard of women who were killing themselves out of fear of being raped, and of
men who, in the name of honor, would kill their wives or daughters if they'd been raped by the militia.
Aziza shrieked at the thumping of mortars. To distract her, Mariam arranged grains of rice on the
floor, in the shape of a house or a rooster or a star, and let Aziza scatter them. She drew elephants for
Aziza the way Jalil had shown her, in one stroke, without ever lifting the tip of the pen.
Rasheed said civilians were getting killed daily, by the dozens. Hospitals and stores holding
medical supplies were getting shelled. Vehicles carrying emergency food supplies were being barred
from entering the city, he said, raided, shot at. Mariam wondered if there was fighting like this in
Herat too, and, if so, how Mullah Faizullah was coping, if he was still alive, and Bibijo too, with all
her sons, brides, and grandchildren. And, of course, Jalil. Was
he hiding out, Mariam wondered, as she was? Or had he taken his wives and children and fled the
country? She hoped Jalil was somewhere safe, that he'd managed to get away from all of this killing.
For a week, the fighting forced even Rasheed to stay home. He locked the door to the yard, set
booby traps, locked the front door too and barricaded it with the couch. He paced the house, smoking,
peering out the window, cleaning his gun, loading and loading it again. Twice, he fired his weapon
into the street claiming he'd seen someone trying to climb the wall.
"They're forcing young boys to join," he said. "TheMujahideenare. In plain daylight, at gunpoint.
They drag boys right off the streets. And when soldiers from a rival militia capture these boys, they
torture them. I heard they electrocute them-it's what I heard-that they crush their balls with pliers.
They make the boys lead them to their homes. Then they break in, kill their fathers, rape their sisters
and mothers."
He waved his gun over his head. "Let's see them try to break into my house. I'll crushtheir balls! I'll
blow their heads off! Do you know how lucky you two are to have a man who's not afraid of Shaitan
himself?"
He looked down at the ground, noticed Aziza at his feet. "Get off my heels!" he snapped, making a
shooing motion with his gun. "Stop following me! And you can stop twirling your wrists like that. I'm
not picking you up. Go on! Go on before you get stepped on."
Aziza flinched. She crawled back to Mariam, looking bruised and confused. In Mariam's lap, she sucked her thumb cheerlessly and watched Rasheed in a sullen, pensive way. Occasionally, she
looked up, Mariam imagined, with a look of wanting to be reassured.
But when it came to fathers, Mariam had no assurances to give.
* * *
Maeiam was relieved when the fighting subsided again, mostly because they no longer had to be
cooped up with Rasheed, with his sour temper infecting the household. And he'd frightened her badly
waving that loaded gun near Aziza.
One day that winter, Laila asked to braid Mariam's hair.
Mariam sat still and watched Laila's slim fingers in the mirror tighten her plaits, Laila's face
scrunched in concentration. Aziza was curled up asleep on the floor. Tucked under her arm was a doll
Mariam had hand-stitched for her. Mariam had stuffed it with beans, made it a dress with tea-dyed
fabric and a necklace with tiny empty thread spools through which she'd threaded a string.
Then Aziza passed gas in her sleep. Laila began to laugh, and Mariam joined in. They laughed like
this, at each other's reflection in the mirror, their eyes tearing, and the moment was so natural, so
effortless, that suddenly Mariam started telling her about Jalil, and Nana, andthe jinn. Laila stood
with her hands idle on Mariam's shoulders, eyes locked on Mariam's face in the mirror. Out the
words came, like blood gushing from an artery. Mariam told her about Bibi jo, Mullah Faizullah, the
humiliating trek to Jalil's house, Nana's suicide. She told about Jalil's wives, and the hurriednikka
with Rasheed, the trip to Kabul, her pregnancies, the endless cycles of hope and disappointment,
Rasheed's turning on her.
After, Laila sat at the foot of Mariam's chair. Absently, she removed a scrap of lint entangled in
Aziza's hair. A silence ensued.
"I have something to tell you too," Laila said.
* * *
Maeiamdid not sleep that night. She sat in bed, watched the snow falling soundlessly.
Seasons had come and gone; presidents in Kabul had been inaugurated and murdered; an empire had
been defeated; old wars had ended and new ones had broken out. But Mariam had hardly noticed,
hardly cared. She had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind A dry, barren field, out
beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment- There, the future did not matter. And the
past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a
treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land
of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold.
But somehow, over these last months, Laila and Aziza-aharami like herself, as it turned out-had
become extensions of her, and now, without them, the life Mariam had tolerated for so long suddenly
seemed intolerable.We're leaving this spring, Aziza and I. Come with us, Mariam.
The years had not been kind to Mariam. But perhaps, she thought, there were kinder years waiting
still. A new life, a life in which she would find the blessings that Nana had said aharami like her
would never see. Two new flowers had unexpectedly sprouted in her life, and, as Mariam watched
the snow coming down, she pictured Mullah Faizullah twirling hisiasbeh beads, leaning in and
whispering to her in his soft, tremulous voice,But it is God Who has planted them, Mariam jo. And it
is His will that you tend to them. It is His will, my girl.