A Thousand Splendid Suns

jihad then; he'd have to stay home and care for his child. In another
article in Ahmad's box, a young Mujahid was saying that the Soviets had
dropped gas on his village that burned people's skin and blinded them.
He said he had seen his mother and sister running for the stream,
coughing up blood.
"Mammy."
The mound stirred slightly. It emitted a groan.
"Get up, Mammy. It's three o'clock."
Another groan. A hand emerged, like a submarine periscope breaking
surface, and dropped. The mound moved more discernibly this time.
Then the rustle of blankets as layers of them shifted over each other.
Slowly, in stages, Mammy materialized: first the slovenly hair, then the
white, grimacing face, eyes pinched shut against the light, a hand
groping for the headboard, the sheets sliding down as she pulled herself
up, grunting. Mammy made an effort to look up, flinched against the
light, and her head drooped over her chest.
"How was school?" she muttered.
So it would begin. The obligatory questions, the perfunctory answers.
Both pretending. Unenthusiastic partners, the two of them, in this tired
old dance.
"School was fine," Laila said.
"Did you learn anything?"