A Thousand Splendid Suns

Babi came out of the bathroom, his hair-peppered white with flour when
he'd come home-washed clean now and combed back.
"What are we having, Laila?"
"Leftover aush soup."
"Sounds good," he said, folding the towel with which he'd dried his hair.
"So what are we working on tonight? Adding fractions?"
"Actually, converting fractions to mixed numbers."
"Ah. Right."
Every night after dinner, Babi helped Laila with her homework and
gave her some of his own. This was only to keep Laila a step or two
ahead of her class, not because he disapproved of the work assigned by
the school-the propaganda teaching notwithstanding. In fact, Babi
thought that the one thing the communists had done right-or at least
intended to-ironically, was in the field of education, the vocation from
which they had fired him. More specifically, the education of women. The
government had sponsored literacy classes for all women. Almost
two-thirds of the students at Kabul University were women now, Babi
said, women who were studying law, medicine, engineering.
Women have always had it hard in this country, Laila, but they're
probably more free now, under the communists, and have more rights
than they've ever had before, Babi said, always lowering his voice,
aware of how intolerant Mammy was of even remotely positive talk of
the communists. But it's true, Babi said, it'sagood time to be a woman in
Afghanistan. And you can take advantage of that, Laila Of course,
women's freedom- here, he shook his head ruefully-is also one of the