madamdo you know who i am?"the girl's eyes fluttered"do you know what has happened?"the girl's mouth quivered. she closed her eyes. swallowed.
her hand grazed her left cheek. she mouthed something.
mariam leaned in closer.
"this ear," the girl breathed. "i can't hear."* * *for the first "week, the girl did little but sleep, with help fromthe pink pills rasheed paid for at the hospital. she murmuredin her sleep. sometimes she spoke gibberish, cried out, calledout names mariam did not recognize. she wept in her sleep,grew agitated, kicked the blankets off, and then mariam had tohold her down. sometimes she retched and retched, threw upeverything mariam fed her.
when she wasn't agitated, the girl was a sullen pair of eyesstaring from under the blanket, breathing out short littleanswers to mariam and rasheed's questions. some days shewas childlike, whipped her head side to side, when mariam,then rasheed, tried to feed her. she went rigid when mariamcame at her with a spoon. but she tired easily and submittedeventually to their persistent badgering. long bouts of weepingfollowed surrender.
rasheed had mariam rub antibiotic ointment on the cuts onthe girl's face and neck, and on the sutured gashes on hershoulder, across her forearms and lower legs. mariam dressedthem with bandages, which she washed and recycled. she heldthe girl's hair back, out of her face, when she had to retch.
"how long is she staying?" she asked rasheed.
"until she's better. look at her. she's in no shape to go.
poor thing."* * *it was rasheed who found the girl, who dug her out frombeneath the rubble.
"lucky i was home," he said to the girl. he was sitting on afolding chair beside mariam's bed, where the girl lay. "luckyfor you, i mean. i dug you out with my own hands. therewas a scrap of metal this big-" here, he spread his thumb andindex finger apart to show her, at least doubling, in mariam'sestimation, the actual size of it. "this big. sticking right out ofyour shoulder. it was really embedded in there. i thought i'dhave to use a pair of pliers.
but you're all right. in no time, you'll benau socha. good asnew."it was rasheed who salvaged a handful of hakim's books.
"most of them were ash. the rest were looted, i'm afraid."he helped mariam watch over the girl that first week. oneday, he came home from work with a new blanket and pillow.
another day, a bottle of pills.
"vitamins," he said.
it was rasheed who gave laila the news that her friendtariq's house was occupied now.
"a gift," he said. "from one of sayyaf s commanders to threeof his men. a gift. ha!"the threemen were actually boys with suntanned, youthfulfaces. mariam would see them when she passed by, alwaysdressed in their fatigues, squatting by the front door of tariq'shouse, playing cards and smoking, their kalashnikovs leaningagainst the wall. the brawny one, the one with the self-satisfied,scornful demeanor, was the leader. the youngest was also thequietest, the one who seemed reluctant to wholeheartedlyembrace his friends' air of impunity. he had taken to smilingand tipping his headsalaam when mariam passed by. when hedid, some of his surface smugness dropped away, and mariamcaught a glint of humility as yet uncorrupted.
then one morning rockets slammed into the house. theywere rumored later to have been fired by the hazaras ofwahdat. for some time, neighbors kept finding bits and piecesof the boys.
"they had it coming," said rasheed.
* * *the girl was extraordinarily lucky, mariam thought, to escapewith relatively minor injuries, considering the rocket had turnedher house into smoking rubble. and so,slowly, the girl gotbetter. she began to eat more, began to brush her own hair.
she took baths on her own. she began taking her mealsdownstairs, with mariam and rasheed.
but then some memory would rise, unbidden, and therewould be stony silences or spells of churlishness. withdrawalsand collapses. wan looks. nightmares and sudden attacks ofgrief. retching.
and sometimes regrets.
"i shouldn't even be here,"she said one day.
mariam was changing the sheets. the girl watchedfromthefloor, herbruised knees drawn up against her chest.
"my father wanted to take out the boxes. the books. he saidthey were too heavyfor me. but i wouldn't let him. i was soeager. i should have been the one inside the house when ithappened."mariam snapped the clean sheet and let it settle on the bedshe looked at the girl, at her blond curls, her slender neckand green eyes, her high cheekbones and plump lips. mariamremembered seeing her on the streets when she was little,tottering after her mother on the way to the tandoor, riding onthe shoulders of her brother, the younger one, with the patchof hair on his ear. shooting marbles with the carpenter's boy.
the girl was looking back as if waiting for mariam to pass onsome morsel of wisdom, to say something encouraging- butwhat wisdom did mariam have to offer? what encouragement?
mariam remembered the day they'd buried nana and how littlecomfort she had found when mullah faizullah had quoted thekoran for her.blessed is he in whose hand is the kingdom,and he who has power over all things, who created deathand life that he may try you. or when he'd said of her ownguilt,these thoughts are no good, mariam jo. they will destroyyou. it wasn't your fault it wasn't your fault.
what could she say to this girl that would ease her burden?
as it turned out, mariam didn't have to say anything. becausethe girl's face twisted, and she was on all fours then sayingshe was going to be sick.
"wait! hold on. i'll get a pan. not on the floor. i justcleaned…oh. oh.khodaya. god."* * *then one day, about a month after the blast that killed thegirl's parents, a man came knocking. mariam opened the door.
he stated his business.
"there is a man here to see you," mariam said.
the girl raised her head from the pillow.
"he says his name is abdul sharif.""i don't know any abdul sharif.""well, he's here asking for you. you need to come down andtalk to him."
