the gun was red, the trigger guard bright green. behind thegun loomed khadim's grinning face. khadim was eleven, liketariq. he was thick, tall, and had a severe underbite. hisfather was a butcher in deh-mazang, and, from time to time,khadim was known to fling bits of calf intestine at passersby.
sometimes, if tariq wasn't nearby, khadim shadowed laila inthe schoolyard at recess, leering, making little whining noises.
one time, he'd tapped her on the shoulder and said,you 're sovery pretty, yellow hair. i want to marry you.
now he waved the gun. "don't worry," he said. "this won'tshow. noton your hair.""don't you do it! i'm warning you.""what are you going to do?" he said. "sic your cripple onme? 'oh, tariq jan. oh, won't you come home and save mefrom thebadmashl'"laila began to backpedal, but khadim was already pumpingthe trigger. one after another, thin jets of warm water strucklaila's hair, then her palm when she raised it to shield herface.
now the other boys came out of their hiding, laughing,cackling.
an insult laila had heard on the street rose to her lips. shedidn't really understand it-couldn't quite picture the logistics ofit-but the words packed a fierce potency, and she unleashedthem now.
"your mother eats cock!""at least she's not a loony like yours," khadim shot back,unruffled "at least my father's not a sissy! and, by the way,why don't you smell your hands?"the other boys took up the chant. "smell your hands! smellyour hands!"laila did, but she knew even before she did, what he'd meantabout it not showing in her hair. she let out a high-pitchedyelp. at this, the boys hooted even harder.
laila turned around and, howling, ran home.
* * *she drew water from the well, and, in the bathroom, filled abasin, tore off her clothes. she soaped her hair, franticallydigging fingers into her scalp, whimpering with disgust. sherinsed with a bowl and soaped her hair again. several times,she thought she might throw up. she kept mewling andshivering, as she rubbed and rubbed the soapy washclothagainst her face and neck until they reddened.
this would have never happened if tariq had been with her,she thought as she put on a clean shirt and fresh trousers.
khadim wouldn't have dared. of course, it wouldn't havehappened if mammy had shown up like she was supposed toeither. sometimes laila wondered why mammy had evenbothered having her. people, she believed now, shouldn't beallowed to have new children if they'd already given away alltheir love to their old ones. it wasn't fair. a fit of angerclaimed her. laila went to her room, collapsed on her bed.
when the worst of it had passed, she went across the hallwayto mammy's door and knocked. when she was younger, lailaused to sit for hours outside this door. she would tap on itand whisper mammy's name over and over, like a magic chantmeant to break a spell:mammy, mammy, mammy, mammy…but mammy never opened the door. she didn't open it now.
laila turned the knob and walked in.
* * *sometimes mammy had good days. she sprang out of bedbright-eyed and playful. the droopy lower lip stretched upwardin a smile. she bathed. she put on fresh clothes and woremascara. she let laila brush her hair, which laila loved doing,and pin earrings through her earlobes. they went shoppingtogether to mandaii bazaar. laila got her to play snakes andladders, and they ate shavings from blocks of dark chocolate,one of the few things they shared a common taste for. laila'sfavorite part of mammy's good days was when babi camehome, when she and mammy looked up from the board andgrinned at him with brown teeth. a gust of contentment puffedthrough the room then, and laila caught a momentary glimpseof the tenderness, the romance, that had once bound herparents back when this house had been crowded and noisyand cheerful.
mammy sometimes baked on her good days and invitedneighborhood women over for tea and pastries. laila got to lickthe bowls clean, as mammy set the table with cups andnapkins and the good plates. later, laila would take her placeat the living-room table and try to break into the conversation,as the women talked boisterously and drank tea andcomplimented mammy on her baking. though there was nevermuch for her to say, laila liked to sit and listen in because atthese gatherings she was treated to a rare pleasure: she got tohear mammy speaking affectionately about babi.
"what a first-rate teacher he was," mammy said. "hisstudents loved him. and not only because he wouldn't beatthem with rulers, like other teachers did. they respected him,you see, because he respectedthem. he was marvelous."mammy loved to tell the story of how she'd proposed to him.
"i was sixteen, he was nineteen. our families lived next doorto each other in panjshir. oh, i had the crush onhim,hamshirasl i used to climb the wall between our houses,and we'd play in his father's orchard. hakim was always scaredthat we'd get caught and that my father would give him aslapping. 'your father's going to give me a slapping,' he'dalways say. he was so cautious, so serious, even then. andthen one day i said to him, i said, 'cousin, what will it be?
are you going to ask for my hand or are you going to makeme comekhasiegari to you?' i said it just like that. you shouldhave seen the face on him!"mammy would slap her palms together as the women, andlaila, laughed.
listening to mammy tell these stories, laila knew that therehad been a time when mammy always spoke this way aboutbabi. a time when her parents did not sleep in separaterooms. laila wished she hadn't missed out on those times.
inevitably, mammy's proposal story led to matchmakingschemes. when afghanistan was free from the soviets and theboys returned home, they would need brides, and so, one byone, the women paraded the neighborhood girls who might ormight not be suitable for ahmad and noon laila always feltexcluded when the talk turned to her brothers, as though thewomen were discussing a beloved film that only she hadn'tseen. she'd been two years old when ahmad and noor hadleft kabul for panjshir up north, to join commander ahmadshah massoud's forces and fight the jihad laila hardlyremembered anything at all about them. a shiny allah pendantaround ahmad's neck. a patch of black hairs on one of noor'sears. and that was it.
"what about azita?""the rugmaker's daughter?" mammy said, slapping her cheekwith mock outrage.
"she has a thicker mustache than hakim!""there's anahita. we hear she's top in her class atzarghoona.""have you seen the teeth on that girl? tombstones. she'shiding a graveyard behind those lips.""how about the wahidi sisters?""those two dwarfs? no, no, no. oh, no. not for my sons.
not for my sultans. they deserve better."as the chatter went on, laila let her mind drift, and, asalways, it found tariq.
* * *mammy had pulled the yellowish curtains. in the darkness, theroom had a layered smell about it: sleep, unwashed linen,sweat, dirty socks, perfume, the previous night's leftoverqurma.
laila waited for her eyes to adjust before she crossed theroom. even so, her feet became entangled with items ofclothing that littered the floor.
laila pulled the curtains open. at the foot of the bed was anold metallic folding chair. laila sat on it and watched theunmoving blanketed mound that was her mother.
the walls of mammy's room were covered with pictures ofahmad and noor. everywhere laila looked, two strangerssmiled back. here was noor mounting a tricycle. here wasahmad doing his prayers, posing beside a sundial babi and hehad built when he was twelve. and there they were, herbrothers, sitting back to back beneath the old pear tree in theyard.
beneath mammy's bed, laila could see the corner of ahmad'sshoe box protruding. from time to time, mammy showed herthe old, crumpled newspaper clippings in it, and pamphlets thatahmad had managed to collect from insurgent groups andresistance organizations headquartered in pakistan. one photo,laila remembered, showed a man in a long white coat handinga lollipop to a legless little boy. the caption below the photoread:children are the intended victims of soviet land minecampaign. the article went on to say that the soviets also likedto hide explosives inside brightly colored toys. if a child pickedit up, the toy exploded, tore off fingers or an entire hand. thefather could not join the jihad then; he'd have to stay homeand care for his child. in another article in ahmad's box, ayoung mujahid was saying that the soviets had dropped gason his village that burned people's skin and blinded them. hesaid he had seen his mother and sister running for the stream,coughing up blood.
"mammy."the mound stirred slightly. it emitted a groan.
"get up, mammy. it's three o'clock."another groan. a hand emerged, like a submarine periscopebreaking surface, and dropped. the mound moved morediscernibly this time. then the rustle of blankets as layers ofthem shifted over each other. slowly, in stages, mammymaterialized: first the slovenly hair, then the white, grimacingface, eyes pinched shut against the light, a hand groping forthe headboard, the sheets sliding down as she pulled herselfup, grunting. mammy made an effort to look up, flinchedagainst the light, and her head drooped over her chest.
"how was school?" she muttered.
so it would begin. the obligatory questions, the perfunctoryanswers. both pretending. unenthusiastic partners, the two ofthem, in this tired old dance.
"school was fine," laila said.
"did you learn anything?""the usual.""did you eat?""i did.""good."mammy raised her head again, toward the window. shewinced and her eyelids fluttered the right side of her face wasred, and the hair on that side had flattened.
"i have a headache.""should i fetch you some aspirin?"mammy massaged her temples. "maybe later. is your fatherhome?""it's only three.""oh. right. you said that already." mammy yawned. "i wasdreaming just now," she said, her voice only a bit louder thanthe rustle of her nightgown against the sheets. "just now,before you came in. but i can't remember it now. does thathappen to you?""it happens to everybody, mammy.""strangest thing.""i should tell you that while you were dreaming, a boy shotpiss out of a water gun on my hair.""shot what? what was that? i'm sony.""piss. urine.""that's…that's terrible. god i'm sorry. poor you. i'll have atalk with him first thing in the morning. or maybe with hismother. yes, that would be better, i think.""i haven't told you who it was.""oh. well, who was it?""nevermind.""you're angry.""you were supposed to pick me up.""i was," mammy croaked. laila could not tell whether thiswas a question. mammy began picking at her hair. this wasone of life's great mysteries to laila, that mammy's picking hadnot made her bald as an egg. "what about…what's his name,your friend, tariq? yes, what about him?""he's been gone for a week.""oh." mammy sighed through her nose. "did you wash?""yes.""so you're clean, then." mammy turned her tired gaze to thewindow. "you're clean, and everything is fine."laila stood up. "i have homework now.""of course you do. shut the curtains before you go, my love,"mammy said, her voice fading. she was already sinking beneaththe sheets.
as laila reached for the curtains, she saw a car pass by onthe street tailed by a cloud of dust. it was the blue benz withthe herat license plate finally leaving. she followed it with hereyes until it vanished around a turn, its back window twinklingin the sun.
"i won't forget tomorrow," mammy was saying behind her. "ipromise.""you said that yesterday.""you don't know, laila.""know what?" laila wheeled around to face her mother.
"what don't i know?"mammy's hand floated up to her chest, tapped there. "inhere.
what's inhere. " then it fell flaccid. "you just don't know."
