Modern World History students, this is Coach Roberts, your narrator, as we continue to our third section of A Thousand Splendid Sons. This time we will be talking about Miriam and Layla. Do 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. Miriam leaned closer. This year, the girl breathed. I can't hear.
For the first week, the girl did a little bit sleep, with help from the pink pills Rashid paid for at the hospital. She murmured in her sleep, sometimes she spoke gibberish, cried out, called out names Miriam didn't recognize. She wept in her sleep, grew agitated, kicked the blankets off, and then Miriam had to hold her down. Sometimes she retched and retched, threw up everything Miriam fed her. When she wasn't agitated, the girl was a sullen pair of eyes staring from under a blanket, breathing out short little answers to Miriam and Rashid's questions.
Rashid had Miriam rub antibiotic ointment on the cuts on the girl's face and neck and on the sutured gashes on her shoulder, across her forearms and lower legs. Miriam dressed them with bandages, which she washed and recycled. She held the 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 is in no shape to go.
Poor thing. It was Rasheed who had found the girl, who dug her out from beneath the rubble. Lucky I was home, he said to the girl.
He was sitting on a folding chair beside Miriam's bed, where the girl lay. Lucky for you, I mean. I dug you out with my own hands. There was a scrap of metal this big.
Here, he spreads his thumb and index finger apart to show her. at least doubling, in Miriam's estimation, the actual size of it. This big, sticking right out of your shoulder. It was really embedded in there.
I thought I'd have to use a pair of pliers. But you're all right. In no time, you'll be buen sacha.
Good as new. The girl was extraordinarily lucky, Miriam thought, to escape with relatively minor injuries, considering the rocket had turned her house into smoking rubble. And so slowly, the girl got better.
She began to eat more, began to brush her own hair. She took baths on her own. She began taking her meals downstairs with Miriam and Rashid. After a few more days, a man named Abdul Sharif visits Layla. He tells Layla that he was in a refugee camp with Tariq and Tariq became very ill.
Tariq begged Abdul Sharif to find Layla and tell her of his illness. Unfortunately, Tariq died soon after. Layla is heartbroken.
I am so sorry, Rashid said to the girl, taking his bowl of mashwa and meatballs from Miriam without looking at her. I know you were very close friends, the two of you, always together since you were kids. It's a terrible thing. What's happened? Too many young Afghan men are dying this way.
He motioned impatiently with his hands still looking at the girl, and Miriam passed him a napkin. For years Miriam had looked on as he ate, the muscles of his temple churning, one hand making compact little rice balls, the back of the other wiping grease, swiping stray grains from the corner of his mouth. For years he had eaten without looking up, without speaking, his silence condemning, as though some judgment were being passed. then broken only by an accusatory grunt a disapproving cluck of his tongue a word command for bread or water now he ate with a spoon used a napkin said the lot fan when asking for water and talked spiritedly and insistently later miriam was in the kitchen soaking dishes in soapy water a tightly wound knot in her belly it wasn't so much what he had said the blatant lies the contrived empathy or even the fact that he had not raised a hand to her, Miriam, since he had dug the girl out from under those bricks. It was the stage delivery, like a performance, an attempt on his part, both sly and pathetic, to impress, to charm.
And suddenly Miriam knew that her suspicion was right. She understood with dread that what was like a blinding whack to the side of her head. that what she was witnessing was nothing less than a courtship. When she'd at last worked up the nerve, Miriam went to her room.
Rasheed lit a cigarette and said, why not? Miriam knew then that she was defeated. She half expected, half hoped that he would deny everything, think surprise, maybe even outrage at what she was implying. She might have had the upper hand then. She might have succeeded in shaming him, but it stole her grit, his calm acknowledgement, his matter-of-fact tone.
Rasheed had to be 60 or more now, though Miriam, and in fact Rasheed himself, did not know his exact. age. His hair had gone white, but it was thick and coarse as ever. There was a sag now to his eyelids and the skin of his neck, which was wrinkled and leathery. His cheeks hung a bit more than they used to.
In the mornings, he stooped just a tad, but he still had the stout shoulders, the thick torso, the strong hands, the swollen belly that entered the room before any other part of him did. We need to legitimize this situation, he said now, balancing the ashtray on his belly, his lips scrunched up in a playful pucker. People will talk.
It looks dishonorable, an unmarried young woman living here. It's bad for my reputation, and hers. And yours, I might add. 18 years, Miriam said, and I never asked you for a thing. Not one thing.
I'm asking now. He inhaled smoke and let it out slowly. She can't just stay here, if that's what you're suggesting.
I can't go on feeding her and clothing her and giving her a place to sleep. I'm not the Red Cross, Miriam. But this?
What of it? What? She's too young, you think? She's fourteen.
Hardly a child. You were fifteen, remember? My mother was fourteen when she had me. Thirteen when she married. I...
I don't want this, Miriam said, numb with contempt and helplessness. It's not your decision. It's hers. And mine.
I'm too old. She's too young. You're too old.
This is nonsense. I am too old, too old for you to do this to me, Miriam said, balling up fistfuls of her dress so tightly her hand shook. For you, after all these years, to make me an animal. Don't be so dramatic.
It's a common thing, you know. I have friends who have two, three, four wives. Your own father had three.
Besides, what am I doing now? most men I know would have done long ago. You know it's true. Later in the dark, Miriam told the girl.
For a long time, the girl said nothing. He wants an answer by this morning, Miriam said. He can have it now, the girl said.
My answer is yes. Before Abdul Sharif's visit, Layla had decided to leave Pakistan. Even after Abdul Sharif came bearing his news, Layla thought now.
she might have left. Gone somewhere far from here, detached herself from this city where every street corner was a trap, where every alley hid a ghost that sprang at her like a jack-in-the-box. She might have taken the risk, but suddenly, leaving was no longer an option. Not with the daily retchings, this new fullness in her breasts, and the awareness somehow, amid all this turmoil, that she had missed a cycle. Layla pictured herself in a refugee camp.
a stark field with thousands of sheets of plastic strung to makeshift poles flapping in the cold, stinging wind. Beneath one of these makeshift tents, she saw her baby, Tarik's baby. Its temples wasted, its jaws slack, its skin mottled bluish-gray. She pictured its tiny body washed by strangers, wrapped in a tawny shroud, lowered into a hole dug in a patch of one-tripped land under the disappointed gaze of vultures. How could she run now?
Layla took grim inventory of the people in her life. Ahmed, Noir, dead. Hasina, gone.
Gidi, dead. Mammy, dead. Bobby, dead. Now Tark. But miraculously, something of her former life remained, her last link to the person she had been before she had become so utterly alone.
A part of Tark still lived inside of her, spreading tiny arms, growing translucent hands. How could she jeopardize the only thing that she had left of him, of her old life? She made her decision quickly. Six weeks had passed since her time with Tariq. Any longer and Rasheed would grow suspicious.
She knew that what she was doing was dishonorable, dishonorable, disingenuous, and shameful. And spectacularly unfair to Miriam. But even though the baby inside her was no bigger than a mulberry, Layla already knew the sacrifices a mother had to make.
Virtue was only the first. She put a hand on her belly, closed her eyes. In the daytime, the girl was no more than a creaking bedspring, a patter of footsteps overhead. She was water splashing in the bedroom, or a teaspoon clinking against the glass in the bedroom upstickers.
Occasionally, there were sightings, a blur of billowing dress in the periphery of Miriam's vision. Scurrying up the steps, arms folded across the chest, sandals slapping the heels. At night, however...
this mutually orchestrated dance of avoidance between her and the girl was not possible. Rashid said they were a family. He insisted they were. And families eat together, he said.
What is this? He said, his fingers working the meat off a bone with a spoon and fork charade was abandoned a week after he married the girl. Have I married a pair of statues? Go on, Miriam. Gopizan, say something to her.
Where are your manners? Sucking marrow from a bone He said to the girl, but you mustn't blame her. She is quiet.
A blessing, really. Because voila, if a person hasn't gotten too much to say, she might as well be stingy with words. We are city people, you and I. But she is Dahali, a village girl.
Not even a village girl, no. She grew up in a kolba made of mud outside the village. Her father put her there. Have I told you? Miriam, have you told her that you are Harami?
Well, she is. but she's not without qualities, all things considered. You will see for yourself, Layla. She is sturdy for one thing, a good worker, and without pretensions.
I'll say it this way, if she was a car, she would be a Volga. Miriam was a 33-year-old woman now, but that word harami still has sting. Hearing it still made her feel like she was a pest, a cockroach.
She remembered Nana pulling her wrist, you are clumsy, you tell a harami. This is my reward for everything I've endured. A hairline-breaking clumsy Yutel Harami.
You, Rasheed said to the girl, you on the other hand would be a Benz. A brand new, first-class, shiny Benz. One day, Miriam was in the living room folding some shirts of Rasheed's that she had plucked from the clothesline in the yard.
She didn't know how long the girl had been standing there, but when she picked up a shirt and turned around, she found her standing by the doorway. hand cupped around a glass full of tea i didn't mean to startle you the girl said and i'm sorry miriam only looked at her is there something you want miriam jan i want to about the things he said the other night i have been meaning to talk to you about it miriam broke in yes please the girl said earnestly almost eagerly she took a step forward she looked relieved i won't be your servant miriam said i won't the girl flinched No, of course not. I will still cook and wash the dishes. You will do laundry and the sweeping. The rest we will alternate daily.
And one more thing. I have no use for your company. I don't want it.
What I want is to be alone. You will leave me be, and I will return the favor. That's how we will get on. Those are the rules. Early one morning the next spring of 1993, Miriam stood by the living room window and watched Rashid escort the girl out of the house.
The girl was tottering forward, bent at the waist. one arm draped protectively across the taut drum of her belly, the shape of her elbow directing her across the yard like a traffic policeman. Delete last two minutes.
Early one morning the next spring of 1993, Miriam stood by the living room window and watched Rashid escort the girl out of the house. The girl was tottering forward, bent at the waist, one arm draped protectively across the taut drum of her belly. the shape of which was visible through her burka rashid anxious and overly attentive was holding her elbow directing her across the yard like a traffic policeman he made a wait here gesture rushed to the front gate then motioned for the girl to come forward one foot popping the gate open when she reached him he took her by the hand helped her through the gate miriam could almost hear him say watch your step now my flower my goal They came back early the next evening. Miriam saw Rasheed enter the yard first.
He left the gate though prematurely and it almost hit the girl in the face. He crossed the yard in a few quick steps. Miriam detected a shadow on his face, a dark underlying, darkness underlying the coppery light of dusk.
In the house, he took off his coat, threw it on the couch. Brushing past Miriam, he said in a brusque voice, I'm hungry, get supper ready. The front door to the house opened. from the hallway miriam saw the girl a swaddled bundle in the hook of her left arm she had one foot outside the other inside against the door to vent it from springing shut she stooped over and was grunting trying to reach the paper bag of belongings that she had put down in order to open the door Her face was grimacing with effort.
She looked up and saw Miriam. Miriam turned around and went to the kitchen to warm Rashid's meal. It's like someone is ramming a screwdriver into my ear, Rashid said, rubbing his eyes. He was standing in Miriam's door, puffy-eyed, wearing only ambiance, tied with a floppy knot.
His white hair was straggly, pointing every which way, just crying. I can't stand it. Downstairs, the girl was walking the baby across the floor. trying to sing to her. Take her outside, Rashid yelled over her shoulder.
Can't you take her outside? Sometimes I swear, sometimes I want to put that thing in a box and let her float down Kabul River like a baby Moses. Miriam never heard him call his daughter by the name that the girl had given her, Aziza, the cherished one. It was always the baby or when he was really exasperated, that thing.
Miriam watched as the girl's days became consumed with cycles of feeding, rocking, bouncing, walking, even when the baby napped. There were soil diapers to scrub and leave soak in a pail of the disinfectant the girl had insisted Rashid buy for her. There were fingernails to trim with sandpaper, coveralls, pajamas to wash and hang up and dry.
These clothes, like other things about the baby, became a point of contention. Every night, there were demonstrations. When the girl insisted he witness something, Rashid tipping his chin upward and cast an impatient, side-long glance down the blue-veined hook of his nose. Watch.
Watch how she laughs when I snap my fingers. There. See? Did you see? Rashid would grunt and go back to his plate.
Miriam remembered how the girl's mere presence used to overwhelm her. Everything she had used to please him, intrigue him, make him look up from his plate and nod with approval. The strange thing was, the girl's fall from grace ought to have pleased Miriam, brought her a sense of vindication. But it didn't.
It didn't. To our own surprise, Miriam found herself pitting the girl. You should not get so attached, Rashid said one night.
What do you mean? I was listening to the radio the other night, Voice of America. I heard an interesting statistic.
They said that in Afghanistan, one out of every four children will die before the age of five. That's what they said. Now they, what? What? Where are you going?
Come back here. Get back here this instant. He gave Miriam a bewildered look. What's the matter with her? That night Miriam was lying in bed when the bickering started again.
Usually the bickering ran its course after a few minutes, but a half an hour passed and not only was it still going on, it was escalating. Miriam could hear Rashid shouting now. The girl's voice underneath his was tentative and shrill.
soon the baby was wailing then miriam heard their door open violently in the morning she would find the door-knob circular in impression in the hallway wall she was sitting up in bed when her own door slammed open and rashid came through he was wearing white underpants and a matching undershirt stained yellow in the underarms with sweat on his feet he wore flip-flops he held a belt in his hand the brown leather one he thought for his nika with the girl and was wrapped the profaned end round his fist it's your doing i know this he snarled advancing on her miriam slid out of her bed and began backpedalling her arms instinctively crossed over her chest where he often struck first what are you talking about she stammered her denying me you're teaching her to over the years miriam had learned to harden herself against his scorn and his reproach his ridiculing and reprimanding This fear she had no control over. All these years and still she shivered with fright when he was like this, sneering, tightening the belt around his fist, the creaking of the letter, the glint in his bloodshot eyes. It was the fear of the goat released in the tiger's cage, when the tiger first looks upon from his poles to begin to growl.
Now the girl was in the room. Her eyes wide, her face contorted. I should have known that you would corrupt her. Rasheed spat at Miriam.
He swung the belt, testing it against his own thigh. The buckle jingled loudly. Stop it, Bast.
The girl said, Rasheed, you can't do this. Go back to the room. Miriam backpedaled again. No, don't do this.
Rasheed raised the belt again and this time came at Miriam. Then a 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 towards Miriam. Let go, Rashid cried. You win, you win.
Don't do this. Please, Rashid. No beating.
Please, don't do this. They struggled like this, the girl hanging on, pleading, Rashid trying to shake her off, keeping his eyes on Miriam, who was too stunned to do anything. In the end, Miriam knew that there would be no beating, not that night. He made his point. He stayed the way he was a few moments longer, arm raised, chest heaving, a fine sheen of sweat filming his brow.
Slowly, where she lowered his arm the girl's feet touched the 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 a muck a fool in my own house he threw miriam one last murderous stare and gave the girl a shove in the back on the way out three times that night miriam was awakened from her sleep Finally, it was the thirst that pulled her out of bed. Downstairs, the living room was dark, save for a bar of moonlight slipping through the window. Miriam 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, Miriam 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 the quilt. The girl was sleeping on her side, snoring.
The baby was awake. Miriam lit the kerosene lamp on the table and hungered down. In the light, she had her first real up-close look at the baby.
The tough to dark hair, the thick-lashed hazel eyes, the pink cheeks, and lips the color of ripe pomegranate. Miriam had the impression that the baby, too, was examining her. She was lying on her back, her head tilted sideways.
looking at miriam intently with a mixture of amusement confusion and suspicion miriam wondered if her face might frighten her but then the baby squealed happily and miriam knew that a favorable judgment had been passed on her behalf miriam whispered you'll wake up your mother half deaf as she is the baby's hand balled into a fist it rose and fell and found a plastic path to its mouth around a mouthful of its own hand The baby gave Miriam a grin, little bubbles of spittle shining on her lip. 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. Miriam pulled the blanket off the baby, was horrified to find a second one beneath, and clucked her tongue, and pulled that one off too. The baby giggled with relief. She flapped her arms like a bird. Better, nay?
As Miriam was pulling back, the baby grabbed her pinky. The tiny fingers curled themselves tightly around, and they felt warm and soft. Moist with drool. Gnaw, the baby said. All right, miss, let go.
The baby hung on, kicked her legs again. Miriam pulled her finger free. The baby smiled and made a series of gurgling sounds.
The knuckles went back to her mouth. What are you so happy about, huh? What are you smiling at? You're not so clever as your mother says. You have a brute of a father and a fool for a mother.
You wouldn't smile so much if you knew. No, you wouldn't. Go to sleep now. Go on. Miriam rose to her feet and walked a few steps before the baby started making nyeh, nyeh, nyeh sounds that Miriam knew was a signal onset for a hearty cry.
She retraced her steps. What is it? What do you want from me? The baby grinned toothlessly.
Miriam sighed. She sat down and let her little finger be grabbed. looked at the baby on as the baby squeaked as she flexed her plump legs at the hips and kicked air miriam sat there watching until the baby stopped moving and began soaring softly two days later layla woke up in the morning and found a stack of baby clothes neatly folded outside her bedroom door there was a twirl dress with little pink fishes sewn around the bondus A blue floral wool dress with matching socks and mittens, yellow pajamas with carrot-colored polka dots, and green cotton pants with a dotted ruffle on the cuff. Layla slipped out of the bedroom and found Miriam in the kitchen squatting, cleaning a pair of trout. A pot of rice was already soaking beside her.
The kitchen smelled of cumin, smoke, browned onions, and fish. Layla sat in a corner and draped her knees on the hem of her dress. Thank you, she said.
The clothes are lovely. I had no use for them, Mary muttered. She dropped the fish in the newspaper, smudged with slimy gray juice, and sliced off its head.
It was either your daughter or the moths. Layla watched her cut the gutted trout into thirds. Did you sell the clothes yourself? Miriam nodded. When?
Miriam rinsed off sections of the fish in a bowl. When I was pregnant the first time, or maybe the second time, 18, 19 years ago. Long time, anyhow. Like I said, I'd never had any use for them.
You're a really good kaji. Maybe you can teach me. Miriam placed the rinsed chunks of trout into a clean bowl, drops of water dripping from her fingertips. She raised her head and looked at Layla, looked at her. as if for the first time.
The other night when he, nobody's ever stood up for me before, she said. Layla examined Miriam's drooping cheeks, the eyelids that sagged in tired folds, the deep lines that framed her mouth, and she saw things as though she too was looking at someone for the first time. And for the first time, it was not an adversary's face Layla saw, but a face of grievances unspoken, burdens gone unprotested.
A destiny submitted to and endured. If she had stayed, would this be her own face, Layla wondered, twenty years from now? I couldn't let him, Layla said. I wasn't raised in a household where people did things like that.
This is your household now. You ought to get used to it. No, I won't.
He'll turn on you too, you know. Miriam said, wiping her hands dry with a rag. Soon enough, and you gave him a daughter. so you see your sin is even less forgettable than mine.
Layla rose to her feet. I know it's chilly outside, but what do you say we sinners have us a cup of chai in the yard? Ram looks surprised. I can't.
I still have to cut and wash the beans. I'll help you do it in the morning, and I have to clean up there. We'll do it together.
If I'm not mistaken, there's some halal left over. Awfully good with the chat. They sat on the folding chairs outside, ate halal. with their fingers from a common bowl they had a second cup and when leila asked her if she wanted a third miriam said she did as gunfire cracked in the hills they watched the clouds slide over the moon and the last of the season's fireflies charting bright yellow arcs in the dark and when aziza woke up crying and rashid yelled for leila to come up and shut her up a look passed between leila and miriam an unguarded knowing look and in that fleeting wordless exchange with miriam Layla knew they were not enemies any longer.