A Thousand Splendid Suns

parents were fighting. Again. Laila knew the routine: Mammy, ferocious,
indomitable, pacing and ranting; Babi, sitting, looking sheepish and
dazed, nodding obediently, waiting for the storm to pass. Laila closed her
door and changed. But she could still hear them. She could still hear her
Finally, a door slammed. Pounding footsteps. Mammy's bed creaked
loudly. Babi, it seemed, would survive to see another day.
"Laila!" he called now. "I'm going to be late for work!"
"One minute!"
Laila put on her shoes and quickly brushed her shoulder-length, blond
curls in the mirror. Mammy always told Laila that she had inherited her
hair color-as well as her thick-lashed, turquoise green eyes, her dimpled
cheeks, her high cheekbones, and the pout of her lower lip, which
Mammy shared-from her great-grandmother, Mammy's grandmother.
She was a pari, a stunner, Mammy said. Her beauty was the talk of the
valley. It skipped two generations of women in our family, but it sure
didn't bypass you, Laila The valley Mammy referred to was the Panjshir,
the Farsi-speaking Tajik region one hundred kilometers northeast of
Kabul. Both Mammy and Babi, who were first cousins, had been born and
raised in Panjshir; they had moved to Kabul back in 1960 as hopeful,
bright-eyed newlyweds when Babi had been admitted to Kabul
University.
Laila scrambled downstairs, hoping Mammy wouldn't come out of her
room for another round. She found Babi kneeling by the screen door.
"Did you see this, Laila?"
The rip in the screen had been there for weeks. Laila hunkered down