A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini [58]
Tariq reached to sample a morsel of veal cooked with potatoes.
“Ho bacha!” Giti slapped the back of his hand. Tariq stole it anyway and laughed.
He stood almost a foot taller than Laila now. He shaved. His face was leaner, more angular. His shoulders had broadened. Tariq liked to wear pleated trousers, black shiny loafers, and short-sleeve shirts that showed off his newly muscular arms—compliments of an old, rusty set of barbells that he lifted daily in his yard. His face had lately adopted an expression of playful contentiousness.
He had taken to a self-conscious cocking of his head when he spoke, slightly to the side, and to arching one eyebrow when he laughed. He let his hair grow and had fallen into the habit of tossing the floppy locks often and unnecessarily. The corrupt half grin was a new thing too.
The last time Tariq was shooed out of the kitchen, his mother caught Laila stealing a glance at him. Laila’s heart jumped, and her eyes fluttered guiltily. She quickly occupied herself with tossing the chopped cucumber into the pitcher of salted, watered-down yogurt. But she could sense Tariq’s mother watching, her knowing, approving half smile.
The men filled their plates and glasses and took their meals to the yard. Once they had taken their share, the women and children settled on the floor around the sofrah and ate.
It was after the sofrah was cleared and the plates were stacked in the kitchen, when the frenzy of tea making and remembering who took green and who black started, that Tariq motioned with his head and slipped out the door.
Laila waited five minutes, then followed.
She found him three houses down the street, leaning against the wall at the entrance of a narrow-mouthed alley between two adjacent houses. He was humming an old Pashto song, by Ustad Awal Mir:
Da ze ma ziba watan,
da ze ma dada watan.
This is our beautiful land,
this is our beloved land.
And he was smoking, another new habit, which he’d picked up from the guys Laila spotted him hanging around with these days. Laila couldn’t stand them, these new friends of Tariq’s. They all dressed the same way, pleated trousers, and tight shirts that accentuated their arms and chest. They all wore too much cologne, and they all smoked. They strutted around the neighborhood in groups, joking, laughing loudly, sometimes even calling after girls, with identical stupid, self-satisfied grins on their faces. One of Tariq’s friends, on the basis of the most passing of resemblances to Sylvester Stallone, insisted he be called Rambo.
“Your mother would kill you if she knew about your smoking,” Laila said, looking one way, then the other, before slipping into the alley.
“But she doesn’t,” he said. He moved aside to make room.
“That could change.”
“Who is going to tell? You?”
Laila tapped her foot. “Tell your secret to the wind, but don’t blame it for telling the trees.”
Tariq smiled, the one eyebrow arched. “Who said that?”
“Khalil Gibran.”
“You’re a show-off.”
“Give me a cigarette.”
He shook his head no and crossed his arms. This was a new entry in his repertoire of poses: back to the wall, arms crossed, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his good leg casually bent.
“Why not?”
“Bad for you,” he said.
“And it’s not bad for you?”
“I do it for the girls.”
“What girls?”
He smirked. “They think it’s sexy.”
“It’s not.”
“No?”
“I assure you.”
“Not sexy?”
“You look khila, like a half-wit.”
“That hurts,” he said.
“What girls anyway?”
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m indifferently curious.”
“You can’t be both.” He took another drag and squinted through the smoke. “I’ll bet they’re talking about us now.”
In Laila’s head, Mammy’s voice rang out. Like a mynah bird in your hands. Slacken your grip and away it flies. Guilt bore its teeth into her. Then Laila shut off Mammy’s voice. Instead, she savored the way Tariq had said us. How thrilling, how conspiratorial, it sounded coming from him. And how reassuring to hear him say it like that—casually, naturally. Us. It acknowledged their connection, crystallized it.
“And what are they