Afterword
AFTERWORD For almost three decades now, the Afghan refugee crisis has been one of the most severe around the globe. War, hunger, anarchy, and oppression forced millions of people—like Tariq and his family in this tale—to abandon their homes and flee Afghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. At the height of the exodus, […]
Chapter 51
51. Apri 2003 The drought has ended. It snowed at last this past winter, knee-deep, and now it has been raining for days. The Kabul River is flowing once again. Its spring floods have washed away Titanic City. There is mud on the streets now. Shoes squish. Cars get trapped. Donkeys loaded with apples slog […]
Chapter 50
50. For Laila, life in Murree is one of comfort and tranquillity. The work is not cumbersome, and, on their days off, she and Tariq take the children to ride the chairlift to Patriata hill, or go to Pindi Point, where, on a clear day, you can see as far as Islamabad and downtown Rawalpindi. […]
Chapter 49
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 […]
Chapter 48
48. Tariq has headaches now. Some nights, Laila awakens and finds him on the edge of their bed, rocking, his undershirt pulled over his head. The headaches began in Nasir Bagh, he says, then worsened in prison. Sometimes they make him vomit, blind him in one eye. He says it feels like a butcher’s knife […]
Part Four
PART FOUR
Chapter 47
47. Mariam Back in a kolba, it seemed, after all these years. The Walayat women’s prison was a drab, square-shaped building in Shar-e-Nau near Chicken Street. It sat in the center of a larger complex that housed male inmates. A padlocked door separated Mariam and the other women from the surrounding men. Mariam counted five […]
Chapter 46
46. Laila Laila was aware of the face over her, all teeth and tobacco and foreboding eyes. She was dimly aware, too, of Mariam, a presence beyond the face, of her fists raining down. Above them was the ceiling, and it was the ceiling Laila was drawn to, the dark markings of mold spreading across […]
Chapter 45
45. Mariam I was upstairs, playing with Mariam,” Zalmai said. “And your mother?” “She was . . . She was downstairs, talking to that man.” “I see,” said Rasheed. “Teamwork.” Mariam watched his face relax, loosen. She watched the folds clear from his brow. Suspicion and misgiving winked out of his eyes. He sat up […]
Chapter 44
44. Laila Tariq said that one of the men who shared his cell had a cousin who’d been publicly flogged once for painting flamingos. He, the cousin, had a seemingly incurable thing for them. “Entire sketchbooks,” Tariq said. “Dozens of oil paintings of them, wading in lagoons, sunbathing in marshlands. Flying into sunsets too, I’m […]