A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini [39]
On the wall behind Khala Rangmaal’s desk was a map of the Soviet Union, a map of Afghanistan, and a framed photo of the latest communist president, Najibullah, who, Babi said, had once been the head of the dreaded KHAD, the Afghan secret police. There were other photos too, mainly of young Soviet soldiers shaking hands with peasants, planting apple saplings, building homes, always smiling genially.
“Well,” Khala Rangmaal said now, “have I disturbed your daydreaming, Inqilabi Girl?”
This was her nickname for Laila, Revolutionary Girl, because she’d been born the night of the April coup of 1978—except Khala Rangmaal became angry if anyone in her class used the word coup. What had happened, she insisted, was an inqilab, a revolution, an uprising of the working people against inequality. Jihad was another forbidden word. According to her, there wasn’t even a war out there in the provinces, just skirmishes against troublemakers stirred by people she called foreign provocateurs. And certainly no one, no one, dared repeat in her presence the rising rumors that, after eight years of fighting, the Soviets were losing this war. Particularly now that the American president, Reagan, had started shipping the Mujahideen Stinger Missiles to down the Soviet helicopters, now that Muslims from all over the world were joining the cause: Egyptians, Pakistanis, even wealthy Saudis, who left their millions behind and came to Afghanistan to fight the jihad.
“Bucharest. Havana,” Laila managed.
“And are those countries our friends or not?”
“They are, moalim sahib. They are friendly countries.”
Khala Rangmaal gave a curt nod.
WHEN SCHOOL LET OUT, Mammy again didn’t show up like she was supposed to. Laila ended up walking home with two of her classmates, Giti and Hasina.
Giti was a tightly wound, bony little girl who wore her hair in twin ponytails held by elastic bands. She was always scowling, and walking with her books pressed to her chest, like a shield. Hasina was twelve, three years older than Laila and Giti, but had failed third grade once and fourth grade twice. What she lacked in smarts Hasina made up for in mischief and a mouth that, Giti said, ran like a sewing machine. It was Hasina who had come up with the Khala Rangmaal nickname.
Today, Hasina was dispensing advice on how to fend off unattractive suitors. “Foolproof method, guaranteed to work. I give you my word.”
“This is stupid. I’m too young to have a suitor!”
Giti said.
“You’re not too young.”
“Well, no one’s come to ask for my hand.”
“That’s because you have a beard, my dear.”
Giti’s hand shot up to her chin, and she looked with alarm to Laila, who smiled pityingly—Giti was the most humorless person Laila had ever met—and shook her head with reassurance.
“Anyway, you want to know what to do or not, ladies?”
“Go ahead,” Laila said.
“Beans. No less than four cans. On the evening the toothless lizard comes to ask for your hand. But the timing, ladies, the timing is everything. You have to suppress the fireworks ’til it’s time to serve him his tea.”
“I’ll remember that,” Laila said.
“So will he.”
Laila could have said then that she didn’t need this advice because Babi had no intention of giving her away anytime soon. Though Babi worked at Silo, Kabul’s gigantic bread factory, where he labored amid the heat and the humming machinery stoking the massive ovens and mill grains all day, he was a university-educated man. He’d been a high school teacher before the communists fired him—this was shortly after the coup of 1978, about a year and a half before the Soviets had invaded. Babi had made it clear to Laila from a young age that the most important thing in his life, after her safety, was her schooling.
I know you’re still young, but I want you to understand and learn this now, he said. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You’re a very, very bright girl. Truly,