A Thousand Splendid Suns

PART THREE
27.
Madam
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.
Mariam leaned in closer.
"This ear," the girl breathed. "I can't hear."
* * *
For the first "week, the girl did little but sleep, with help from the pink
pills Rasheed paid for at the hospital. She murmured in her sleep.
Sometimes she spoke gibberish, cried out, called out names Mariam did
not recognize. She wept in her sleep, grew agitated, kicked the blankets
off, and then Mariam had to hold her down. Sometimes she retched and
retched, threw up everything Mariam fed her.
When she wasn't agitated, the girl was a sullen pair of eyes staring
from under the blanket, breathing out short little answers to Mariam and
Rasheed's questions. Some days she was childlike, whipped her head
side to side, when Mariam, then Rasheed, tried to feed her. She went
rigid when Mariam came at her with a spoon. But she tired easily and
submitted eventually to their persistent badgering. Long bouts of
weeping followed surrender.
Rasheed had Mariam 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. Mariam dressed them with bandages, which she
washed and recycled. She held the girl's hair back, out of her face, when