A Thousand Splendid Suns

she had to retch.
"How long is she staying?" she asked Rasheed.
"Until she's better. Look at her. She's in no shape to go. Poor thing."
* * *
It was Rasheed who 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 Mariam'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 spread his thumb and index finger apart to show her, at least
doubling, in Mariam'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 nau socha. Good as new."
It was Rasheed who salvaged a handful of Hakim's books.
"Most of them were ash. The rest were looted, I'm afraid."
He helped Mariam watch over the girl that first week. One day, he
came home from work with a new blanket and pillow. Another day, a
bottle of pills.
"Vitamins," he said.
It was Rasheed who gave Laila the news that her friend Tariq's house
was occupied now.
"A gift," he said. "From one of Sayyaf s commanders to three of his
men. A gift. Ha!"
The three men were actually boys with suntanned, youthful faces.
Mariam would see them when she passed by, always dressed in their
fatigues, squatting by the front door of Tariq's house, playing cards and
smoking, their Kalashnikovs leaning against the wall. The brawny one,