A Thousand Splendid Suns

names added to theshaheed list. Nor mine, to be honest. I'll be joining
them there very soon, inshallah.
"Anyway, I was supposed to be back in Kabul the Wednesday before
last. But, as luck would have it, I came down with an illness. I won't
bother you with it, hamshira, suffice it to say that when I went to do my
private business, the simpler of the two, it felt like passing chunks of
broken glass. I wouldn't wish it on Hekmatyar himself. My wife, Nadia
jan, Allah bless her, she begged me to see a doctor. But I thought I'd
beat it with aspirin and a lot of water. Nadia jan insisted and I said no,
back and forth we went. You know the saying^ stubborn ass needs a
stubborn driver. This time, I'm afraid, the ass won. That would be me."
He drank the rest of this water and extended the glass to Mariam. "If
it's not too much zahmat."
Mariam took the glass and went to fill it.
"Needless to say, I should have listened to her. She's always been the
more sensible one, God give her a long life. By the time I made it to the
hospital, I was burning with a fever and shaking like a beid tree in the
wind. I could barely stand. The doctor said I had blood poisoning. She
said two or three more days and I would have made my wife a widow.
"They put me in a special unit, reserved for really sick people, I
suppose. Oh, iashakor." He took the glass from Mariam and from his coat
pocket produced a large white pill. "The size of these things."
Laila watched him swallow his pill She was aware that her breathing
had quickened Her legs felt heavy, as though weights had been tethered
to them. She told herself that he wasn't done, that he hadn't told her
anything as yet. But he would go on in a second, and she resisted an
urge to get up and leave, leave before he told her things she didn't want
to hear.