A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini [82]
Now the girl was in the room, her eyes wide, her face contorted.
“I should have known that you’d corrupt her,” Rasheed spat at Mariam. He swung the belt, testing it against his own thigh. The buckle jingled loudly.
“Stop it, bas!” the girl said. “Rasheed, you can’t do this.”
“Go back to the room.”
Mariam backpedaled again.
“No! Don’t do this!”
“Now!”
Rasheed raised the belt again and this time came at Mariam.
Then an astonishing thing happened: The girl lunged at him. She grabbed his arm with both hands and tried to drag him down, but she could do no more than dangle from it. She did succeed in slowing Rasheed’s progress toward Mariam.
“Let go!” Rasheed cried.
“You win. You win. Don’t do this. Please, Rasheed, no beating! Please don’t do this.”
They struggled like this, the girl hanging on, pleading, Rasheed trying to shake her off, keeping his eyes on Mariam, who was too stunned to do anything.
In the end, Mariam knew that there would be no beating, not that night. He’d made his point. He stayed that way a few moments longer, arm raised, chest heaving, a fine sheen of sweat filming his brow. Slowly, Rasheed lowered his arm. The girl’s feet touched ground and still she wouldn’t let go, as if she didn’t trust him. He had to yank his arm free of her grip.
“I’m on to you,” he said, slinging the belt over his shoulder. “I’m on to you both. I won’t be made an ahmaq, a fool, in my own house.”
He threw Mariam one last, murderous stare, and gave the girl a shove in the back on the way out.
When she heard their door close, Mariam climbed back into bed, buried her head beneath the pillow, and waited for the shaking to stop.
* * *
THREE TIMES THAT NIGHT, Mariam was awakened from sleep. The first time, it was the rumble of rockets in the west, coming from the direction of Karteh-Char. The second time, it was the baby crying downstairs, the girl’s shushing, the clatter of spoon against milk bottle. Finally, it was thirst that pulled her out of bed.
Downstairs, the living room was dark, save for a bar of moonlight spilling through the window. Mariam could hear the buzzing of a fly somewhere, could make out the outline of the cast-iron stove in the corner, its pipe jutting up, then making a sharp angle just below the ceiling.
On her way to the kitchen, Mariam nearly tripped over something. There was a shape at her feet. When her eyes adjusted, she made out the girl and her baby lying on the floor on top of a quilt.
The girl was sleeping on her side, snoring. The baby was awake. Mariam lit the kerosene lamp on the table and hunkered down. In the light, she had her first real close-up look at the baby, the tuft of dark hair, the thick-lashed hazel eyes, the pink cheeks, and lips the color of ripe pomegranate.
Mariam had the impression that the baby too was examining her. She was lying on her back, her head tilted sideways, looking at Mariam intently with a mixture of amusement, confusion, and suspicion. Mariam wondered if her face might frighten her, but then the baby squealed happily and Mariam knew that a favorable judgment had been passed on her behalf.
“Shh,” Mariam whispered. “You’ll wake up your mother, half deaf as she is.”
The baby’s hand balled into a fist. It rose, fell, found a spastic path to her mouth. Around a mouthful of her own hand, the baby gave Mariam a grin, little bubbles of spittle shining on her lips.
“Look at you. What a sorry sight you are, dressed like a damn boy. And all bundled up in this heat. No wonder you’re still awake.”
Mariam pulled the blanket off the baby, was horrified to find a second one beneath, clucked her tongue, and pulled that one off too. The baby giggled with relief.
She flapped her arms like a bird.
“Better, nay?”
As Mariam was pulling back, the baby grabbed her pinkie. The tiny fingers curled themselves tightly around it. They felt warm and soft, moist with drool.