A Thousand Splendid Suns (16 page)

29.

Mariam

I
’m so sorry,” Rasheed said to the girl, taking his bowl of
mastawa
and meatballs from Mariam without looking at her. “I know you were very close . . .
friends
. . . the two of you. Always together, since you were kids. It’s a terrible thing, what’s happened. Too many young Afghan
men are dying this way.”

He motioned impatiently with his hand, still looking at the girl, and Mariam passed him a napkin.

For years, Mariam had looked on as he ate, the muscles of his temples churning, one hand making compact little rice balls,
the back of the other wiping grease, swiping stray grains, from the corners of his mouth. For years, he had eaten without
looking up, without speaking, his silence condemning, as though some judgment were being passed, then broken only by an accusatory
grunt, a disapproving cluck of his tongue, a one-word command for more bread, more water.

Now he ate with a spoon. Used a napkin. Said
lotfan
when asking for water. And talked. Spiritedly and incessantly.

“If you ask me, the Americans armed the wrong man in Hekmatyar. All the guns the CIA handed him in the eighties to fight the
Soviets. The Soviets are gone, but he still has the guns, and now he’s turning them on innocent people like your parents.
And he calls this jihad. What a farce! What does jihad have to do with killing women and children? Better the CIA had armed
Commander Massoud.”

Mariam’s eyebrows shot up of their own will.
Commander
Massoud? In her head, she could hear Rasheed’s rants against Massoud, how he was a traitor and a communist. But, then, Massoud
was a Tajik, of course. Like Laila.

“Now,
there
is a reasonable fellow. An honorable Afghan. A man genuinely interested in a peaceful resolution.”

Rasheed shrugged and sighed.

“Not that they give a damn in America, mind you. What do they care that Pashtuns and Hazaras and Tajiks and Uzbeks are killing
each other? How many Americans can even tell one from the other? Don’t expect help from them, I say. Now that the Soviets
have collapsed, we’re no use to them. We served our purpose. To them, Afghanistan is a
kenarab,
a shit hole. Excuse my language, but it’s true. What do you think, Laila jan?”

The girl mumbled something unintelligible and pushed a meatball around in her bowl.

Rasheed nodded thoughtfully, as though she’d said the most clever thing he’d ever heard. Mariam had to look away.

“You know, your father, God give him peace, your father and I used to have discussions like this. This was before you were
born, of course. On and on we’d go about politics. About books too. Didn’t we, Mariam? You remember.”

Mariam busied herself taking a sip of water.

“Anyway, I hope I am not boring you with all this talk of politics.”

Later, Mariam was in the kitchen, soaking dishes in soapy water, a tightly wound knot in her belly.

It wasn’t so much
what
he said, the blatant lies, the contrived empathy, or even the fact that he had not raised a hand to her, Mariam, since he
had dug the girl out from under those bricks.

It was the
staged
delivery. Like a performance. An attempt on his part, both sly and pathetic, to impress. To charm.

And suddenly Mariam knew that her suspicions were right. She understood with a dread that was like a blinding whack to the
side of her head that what she was witnessing was nothing less than a courtship.

WHEN SHE’D at last worked up the nerve, Mariam went to his room.

Rasheed lit a cigarette, and said, “Why not?”

Mariam knew right then that she was defeated. She’d half expected, half hoped, that he would deny everything, feign surprise,
maybe even outrage, at what she was implying. She might have had the upper hand then. She might have succeeded in shaming
him. But it stole her grit, his calm acknowledgment, his matter-of-fact tone.

“Sit down,” he said. He was lying on his bed, back to the wall, his thick, long legs splayed on the mattress. “Sit down before
you faint and cut your head open.”

Mariam felt herself drop onto the folding chair beside his bed.

“Hand me that ashtray, would you?” he said.

Obediently, she did.

Rasheed had to be sixty or more now—though Mariam, and in fact Rasheed himself did not know his exact age. His hair had gone
white, but it was as thick and coarse as ever. There was a sag now to his eyelids and the skin of his neck, which was wrinkled
and leathery. His cheeks hung a bit more than they used to. In the mornings, he stooped just a tad. But he still had the stout
shoulders, the thick torso, the strong hands, the swollen belly that entered the room before any other part of him did.

On the whole, Mariam thought that he had weathered the years considerably better than she.

“We need to legitimize this situation,” he said now, balancing the ashtray on his belly. His lips scrunched up in a playful
pucker. “People will talk. It looks dishonorable, an unmarried young woman living here. It’s bad for my reputation. And hers.
And yours, I might add.”

“Eighteen years,” Mariam said. “And I never asked you for a thing. Not one thing. I’m asking now.”

He inhaled smoke and let it out slowly. “She can’t just
stay
here, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I can’t go on feeding her and clothing her and giving her a place to sleep. I’m not
the Red Cross, Mariam.”

“But this?”

“What of it? What? She’s too young, you think? She’s fourteen. Hardly a child. You were fifteen, remember? My mother was fourteen
when she had me. Thirteen when she married.”

“I . . . I don’t want this,” Mariam said, numb with contempt and helplessness.

“It’s not your decision. It’s hers and mine.”

“I’m too old.”

“She’s too young, you’re too old. This is nonsense.”

“I
am
too old. Too old for you to do this to me,” Mariam said, balling up fistfuls of her dress so tightly her hands shook. “For
you, after all these years, to make me an
ambagh
.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. It’s a common thing and you know it. I have friends who have two, three, four wives. Your own father
had three. Besides, what I’m doing now most men I know would have done long ago. You know it’s true.”

“I won’t allow it.”

At this, Rasheed smiled sadly.

“There
is
another option,” he said, scratching the sole of one foot with the calloused heel of the other. “She can leave. I won’t stand
in her way. But I suspect she won’t get far. No food, no water, not a rupiah in her pockets, bullets and rockets flying everywhere.
How many days do you suppose she’ll last before she’s abducted, raped, or tossed into some roadside ditch with her throat
slit? Or all three?”

He coughed and adjusted the pillow behind his back.

“The roads out there are unforgiving, Mariam, believe me. Bloodhounds and bandits at every turn. I wouldn’t like her chances,
not at all. But let’s say that by some miracle she gets to Peshawar. What then? Do you have any idea what those camps are
like?”

He gazed at her from behind a column of smoke.

“People living under scraps of cardboard. TB, dysentery, famine, crime. And that’s before winter. Then it’s frostbite season.
Pneumonia. People turning to icicles. Those camps become frozen graveyards.

“Of course,” he made a playful, twirling motion with his hand, “she could keep warm in one of those Peshawar brothels. Business
is booming there, I hear. A beauty like her ought to bring in a small fortune, don’t you think?”

He set the ashtray on the nightstand and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Look,” he said, sounding more conciliatory now, as a victor could afford to. “I knew you wouldn’t take this well. I don’t
really blame you. But this is for the best. You’ll see. Think of it this way, Mariam. I’m giving
you
help around the house and
her
a sanctuary. A home and a husband. These days, times being what they are, a woman needs a husband. Haven’t you noticed all
the widows sleeping on the streets? They would kill for this chance. In fact, this is . . . Well, I’d say this is downright
charitable of me.”

He smiled.

“The way I see it, I deserve a medal.”

LATER, in the dark, Mariam told the girl.

For a long time, the girl said nothing.

“He wants an answer by this morning,” Mariam said.

“He can have it now,” the girl said. “My answer is yes.”

30.

Laila

T
he next day, Laila stayed in bed. She was under the blanket in the morning when Rasheed poked his head in and said he
was going to the barber. She was still in bed when he came home late in the afternoon, when he showed her his new haircut,
his new used suit, blue with cream pinstripes, and the wedding band he’d bought her.

Rasheed sat on the bed beside her, made a great show of slowly undoing the ribbon, of opening the box and plucking out the
ring delicately. He let on that he’d traded in Mariam’s old wedding ring for it.

“She doesn’t care. Believe me. She won’t even notice.”

Laila pulled away to the far end of the bed. She could hear Mariam downstairs, the hissing of her iron.

“She never wore it anyway,” Rasheed said.

“I don’t want it,” Laila said, weakly. “Not like this. You have to take it back.”

“Take it back?” An impatient look flashed across his face and was gone. He smiled. “I had to add some cash too—quite a lot,
in fact. This is a better ring, twenty-two-karat gold. Feel how heavy? Go on, feel it. No?” He closed the box. “How about
flowers? That would be nice. You like flowers? Do you have a favorite? Daisies? Tulips? Lilacs? No flowers? Good! I don’t
see the point myself. I just thought . . . Now, I know a tailor here in Deh-Mazang. I was thinking we could take you there
tomorrow, get you fitted for a proper dress.”

Laila shook her head.

Rasheed raised his eyebrows.

“I’d just as soon—” Laila began.

He put a hand on her neck. Laila couldn’t help wincing and recoiling. His touch felt like wearing a prickly old wet wool sweater
with no undershirt.

“Yes?”

“I’d just as soon we get it done.”

Rasheed’s mouth opened, then spread in a yellow, toothy grin. “Eager,” he said.

BEFORE ABDUL SHARIF’S VISIT, Laila had decided to leave for Pakistan. Even after Abdul Sharif came bearing his news, Laila
thought now, she might have left. Gone somewhere far from here. Detached herself from this city where every street corner
was a trap, where every alley hid a ghost that sprang at her like a jack-in-the-box. She might have taken the risk.

But, suddenly, leaving was no longer an option.

Not with this daily retching.

This new fullness in her breasts.

And the awareness, somehow, amid all of this turmoil, that she had missed a cycle.

Laila pictured herself in a refugee camp, a stark field with thousands of sheets of plastic strung to makeshift poles flapping
in the cold, stinging wind. Beneath one of these makeshift tents, she saw her baby, Tariq’s baby, its temples wasted, its
jaws slack, its skin mottled, bluish gray. She pictured its tiny body washed by strangers, wrapped in a tawny shroud, lowered
into a hole dug in a patch of windswept land under the disappointed gaze of vultures.

How could she run now?

Laila took grim inventory of the people in her life.

Ahmad and Noor, dead. Hasina, gone. Giti, dead. Mammy, dead. Babi, dead. Now Tariq . . .

But, miraculously, something of her former life remained, her last link to the person that she had been before she had become
so utterly alone. A part of Tariq still alive inside her, sprouting tiny arms, growing translucent hands. How could she jeopardize
the only thing she had left of him, of her old life?

She made her decision quickly. Six weeks had passed since her time with Tariq. Any longer and Rasheed would grow suspicious.

She knew that what she was doing was dishonorable. Dishonorable, disingenuous, and shameful. And spectacularly unfair to Mariam.
But even though the baby inside her was no bigger than a mulberry, Laila already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make.
Virtue was only the first.

She put a hand on her belly. Closed her eyes.

LAILA WOULD REMEMBER the muted ceremony in bits and fragments. The cream-colored stripes of Rasheed’s suit. The sharp smell
of his hair spray. The small shaving nick just above his Adam’s apple. The rough pads of his tobacco-stained fingers when
he slid the ring on her. The pen. Its not working. The search for a new pen. The contract. The signing, his sure-handed, hers
quavering. The prayers. Noticing, in the mirror, that Rasheed had trimmed his eyebrows.

And, somewhere in the room, Mariam watching. The air choking with her disapproval.

Laila could not bring herself to meet the older woman’s gaze.

LYING BENEATH HIS cold sheets that night, she watched him pull the curtains shut. She was shaking even before his fingers
worked her shirt buttons, tugged at the drawstring of her trousers. He was agitated. His fingers fumbled endlessly with his
own shirt, with undoing his belt.

Laila had a full view of his sagging breasts, his protruding belly button, the small blue vein in the center of it, the tufts
of thick white hair on his chest, his shoulders, and upper arms. She felt his eyes crawling all over her.

“God help me, I think I love you,” he said.

Through chattering teeth, she asked him to turn out the lights.

Later, when she was sure that he was asleep, Laila quietly reached beneath the mattress for the knife she had hidden there
earlier. With it, she punctured the pad of her index finger. Then she lifted the blanket and let her finger bleed on the sheets
where they had lain together.

31.

Mariam

I
n the daytime, the girl was no more than a creaking bedspring, a patter of footsteps overhead. She was water splashing
in the bathroom, or a teaspoon clinking against glass in the bedroom upstairs. Occasionally, there were sightings: a blur
of billowing dress in the periphery of Mariam’s vision, scurrying up the steps, arms folded across the chest, sandals slapping
the heels.

But it was inevitable that they would run into each other. Mariam passed the girl on the stairs, in the narrow hallway, in
the kitchen, or by the door as she was coming in from the yard. When they met like this, an awkward tension rushed into the
space between them. The girl gathered her skirt and breathed out a word or two of apology, and, as she hurried past, Mariam
would chance a sidelong glance and catch a blush. Sometimes she could smell Rasheed on her. She could smell his sweat on the
girl’s skin, his tobacco, his appetite. Sex, mercifully, was a closed chapter in her own life. It had been for some time,
and now even the thought of those laborious sessions of lying beneath Rasheed made Mariam queasy in the gut.

At night, however, this mutually orchestrated dance of avoidance between her and the girl was not possible. Rasheed said they
were a family. He insisted they were, and families had to eat together, he said.

“What is this?” he said, his fingers working the meat off a bone—the spoon-and-fork charade was abandoned a week after he
married the girl. “Have I married a pair of statues? Go on, Mariam,
gap bezan,
say something to her. Where are your manners?”

Sucking marrow from a bone, he said to the girl, “But you mustn’t blame her. She is quiet. A blessing, really, because,
wallah,
if a person hasn’t got much to say she might as well be stingy with words. We are city people, you and I, but she is
dehati
. A village girl. Not even a village girl. No. She grew up in a
kolba
made of mud
outside
the village. Her father put her there. Have you told her, Mariam, have you told her that you are a
harami
? Well, she is. But she is not without qualities, all things considered. You will see for yourself, Laila jan. She is sturdy,
for one thing, a good worker, and without pretensions. I’ll say it this way: If she were a car, she would be a Volga.”

Mariam was a thirty-three-year-old woman now, but that word,
harami,
still had sting. Hearing it still made her feel like she was a pest, a cockroach. She remembered Nana pulling her wrists.
You are a clumsy little
harami.
This is my
reward for everything
I’ve
endured. An heirloom-breaking clumsy
little
harami.

“You,” Rasheed said to the girl, “you, on the other hand, would be a Benz. A brand-new, first-class, shiny Benz.
Wah wah
. But. But.” He raised one greasy index finger. “One must take certain . . . cares . . . with a Benz. As a matter of respect
for its beauty and craftsmanship, you see. Oh, you must be thinking that I am crazy,
diwana,
with all this talk of automobiles. I am not saying you are cars. I am merely making a point.”

For what came next, Rasheed put down the ball of rice he’d made back on the plate. His hands dangled idly over his meal, as
he looked down with a sober, thoughtful expression.

“One mustn’t speak ill of the dead much less the
shaheed.
And I intend no disrespect when I say this, I want you to know, but I have certain . . . reservations . . . about the way
your parents—Allah, forgive them and grant them a place in paradise—about their, well, their leniency with you. I’m sorry.”

The cold, hateful look the girl flashed Rasheed at this did not escape Mariam, but he was looking down and did not notice.

“No matter. The point is, I am your husband now, and it falls on me to guard not only
your
honor but
ours,
yes, our
nang
and
namoos
. That is the husband’s burden. You let me worry about that. Please. As for you, you are the queen, the
malika,
and this house is your palace. Anything you need done you ask Mariam and she will do it for you. Won’t you, Mariam? And if
you fancy something, I will get it for you. You see, that is the sort of husband I am.

“All I ask in return, well, it is a simple thing. I ask that you avoid leaving this house without my company. That’s all.
Simple, no? If I am away and you need something urgently, I mean
absolutely
need it and it cannot wait for me, then you can send Mariam and she will go out and get it for you. You’ve noticed a discrepancy,
surely. Well, one does not drive a Volga and a Benz in the same manner. That would be foolish, wouldn’t it? Oh, I also ask
that when we are out together, that you wear a burqa. For your own protection, naturally. It is best. So many lewd men in
this town now. Such vile intentions, so eager to dishonor even a married woman. So. That’s all.”

He coughed.

“I should say that Mariam will be my eyes and ears when I am away.” Here, he shot Mariam a fleeting look that was as hard
as a steel-toed kick to the temple. “Not that I am mistrusting. Quite the contrary. Frankly, you strike me as far wiser than
your years. But you are still a young woman, Laila jan, a
dokhtar e jawan,
and young women can make unfortunate choices. They can be prone to mischief. Anyway, Mariam will be accountable. And if there
is a slipup . . .”

On and on he went. Mariam sat watching the girl out of the corner of her eye as Rasheed’s demands and judgments rained down
on them like the rockets on Kabul.

ONE DAY, Mariam was in the living room folding some shirts of Rasheed’s that she had plucked from the clothesline in the yard.
She didn’t know how long the girl had been standing there, but, when she picked up a shirt and turned around, she found her
standing by the doorway, hands cupped around a glassful of tea.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the girl said. “I’m sorry.”

Mariam only looked at her.

The sun fell on the girl’s face, on her large green eyes and her smooth brow, on her high cheekbones and the appealing, thick
eyebrows, which were nothing like Mariam’s own, thin and featureless. Her yellow hair, uncombed this morning, was middle-parted.

Mariam could see in the stiff way the girl clutched the cup, the tightened shoulders, that she was nervous. She imagined her
sitting on the bed working up the nerve.

“The leaves are turning,” the girl said companionably. “Have you seen? Autumn is my favorite. I like the smell of it, when
people burn leaves in their gardens. My mother, she liked springtime the best. You knew my mother?”

“Not really.”

The girl cupped a hand behind her ear. “I’m sorry?”

Mariam raised her voice. “I said no. I didn’t know your mother.”

“Oh.”

“Is there something you want?”

“Mariam jan, I want to . . . About the things he said the other night—”

“I have been meaning to talk to you about it.” Mariam broke in.

“Yes, please,” the girl said earnestly, almost eagerly. She took a step forward. She looked relieved.

Outside, an oriole was warbling. Someone was pulling a cart; Mariam could hear the creaking of its hinges, the bouncing and
rattling of its iron wheels. There was the sound of gunfire not so far away, a single shot followed by three more, then nothing.

“I won’t be your servant,” Mariam said. “I won’t.”

The girl flinched. “No. Of course not!”

“You may be the palace
malika
and me a
dehati,
but I won’t take orders from you. You can complain to him and he can slit my throat, but I won’t do it. Do you hear me? I
won’t be your servant.”

“No! I don’t expect—”

“And if you think you can use your looks to get rid of me, you’re wrong. I was here first. I won’t be thrown out. I won’t
have you cast me out.”

“It’s not what I want,” the girl said weakly.

“And I see your wounds are healed up now. So you can start doing your share of the work in this house—”

The girl was nodding quickly. Some of her tea spilled, but she didn’t notice. “Yes, that’s the other reason I came down, to
thank you for taking care of me—”

“Well, I wouldn’t have,” Mariam snapped. “I wouldn’t have fed you and washed you and nursed you if I’d known you were going
to turn around and steal my husband.”

“Steal—”

“I will still cook and wash the dishes. You will do the laundry and the sweeping. The rest we will alternate daily. And one
more thing. I have no use for your company. I don’t want it. What I want is to be alone. You will leave me be, and I will
return the favor. That’s how we will get on. Those are the rules.”

When she was done speaking, her heart was hammering and her mouth felt parched. Mariam had never before spoken in this manner,
had never stated her will so forcefully. It ought to have felt exhilarating, but the girl’s eyes had teared up and her face
was drooping, and what satisfaction Mariam found from this outburst felt meager, somehow illicit.

She extended the shirts toward the girl.

“Put them in the
almari,
not the closet. He likes the whites in the top drawer, the rest in the middle, with the socks.”

The girl set the cup on the floor and put her hands out for the shirts, palms up. “I’m sorry about all of this,” she croaked.

“You should be,” Mariam said. “You should be sorry.”