A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini [124]
Laila’s eyes brimming, stinging.
“Who will take care of them then? The Taliban? Think like a mother, Laila jo. Think like a mother. I am.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“It isn’t fair,” Laila croaked.
“But it is. Come here. Come lie here.”
Laila crawled to her and again put her head on Mariam’s lap. She remembered all the afternoons they’d spent together, braiding each other’s hair, Mariam listening patiently to her random thoughts and ordinary stories with an air of gratitude, with the expression of a person to whom a unique and coveted privilege had been extended.
“It is fair,” Mariam said. “I’ve killed our husband. I’ve deprived your son of his father. It isn’t right that I run. I can’t. Even if they never catch us, I’ll never . . .” Her lips trembled. “I’ll never escape your son’s grief. How do I look at him? How do I ever bring myself to look at him, Laila jo?”
Mariam twiddled a strand of Laila’s hair, untangled a stubborn curl.
“For me, it ends here. There’s nothing more I want.
Everything I’d ever wished for as a little girl you’ve already given me. You and your children have made me so very happy. It’s all right, Laila jo. This is all right. Don’t be sad.”
Laila could find no reasonable answer for anything Mariam said. But she rambled on anyway, incoherently, childishly, about fruit trees that awaited planting and chickens that awaited raising. She went on about small houses in unnamed towns, and walks to trout-filled lakes. And, in the end, when the words dried up, the tears did not, and all Laila could do was surrender and sob like a child overwhelmed by an adult’s unassailable logic. All she could do was roll herself up and bury her face one last time in the welcoming warmth of Mariam’s lap.
LATER THAT MORNING, Mariam packed Zalmai a small lunch of bread and dried figs. For Aziza too she packed some figs, and a few cookies shaped like animals. She put it all in a paper bag and gave it to Laila.
“Kiss Aziza for me,” she said. “Tell her she is the noor of my eyes and the sultan of my heart. Will you do that for me?”
Laila nodded, her lips pursed together.
“Take the bus, like I said, and keep your head low.”
“When will I see you, Mariam? I want to see you before I testify. I’ll tell them how it happened. I’ll explain that it wasn’t your fault. That you had to do it. They’ll understand, won’t they, Mariam? They’ll understand.”
Mariam gave her a soft look.
She hunkered down to eye level with Zalmai. He was wearing a red T-shirt, ragged khakis, and a used pair of cowboy boots Rasheed had bought him from Mandaii. He was holding his new basketball with both hands. Mariam planted a kiss on his cheek.
“You be a good, strong boy, now,” she said. “You treat your mother well.” She cupped his face. He pulled back but she held on. “I am so sorry, Zalmai jo. Believe me that I’m so very sorry for all your pain and sadness.”
Laila held Zalmai’s hand as they walked down the road together. Just before they turned the corner, Laila looked back and saw Mariam at the door. Mariam was wearing a white scarf over her head, a dark blue sweater buttoned in the front, and white cotton trousers. A crest of gray hair had fallen loose over her brow. Bars of sunlight slashed across her face and shoulders. Mariam waved amiably.
They turned the corner, and Laila never saw Mariam again.
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 working cells. They were unfurnished rooms, with dirty, peeling walls, and small windows that looked into the courtyard. The windows were barred, even though the doors to the cells were unlocked and the women were free to come and go to the courtyard as they pleased. The windows had no glass. There were no curtains either, which meant the Talib