A Thousand Splendid Suns

friends who have two, three, four wives. Your own father had three.
Besides, what I'm doing now most men I know would have done long
ago. You know it's true."
"I won't allow it."
At this, Rasheed smiled sadly.
"There is another option," he said, scratching the sole of one foot with
the calloused heel of the other. "She can leave. I won't stand in her way.
But I suspect she won't get far. No food, no water, not a rupiah in her
pockets, bullets and rockets flying everywhere. How many days do you
suppose she'll last before she's abducted, raped, or tossed into some
roadside ditch with her throat slit? Or all three?"
He coughed and adjusted the pillow behind his back.
"The roads out there are unforgiving, Mariam, believe me. Bloodhounds
and bandits at every turn. I wouldn't like her chances, not at all. But let's
say that by some miracle she gets to Peshawar. What then? Do you have
any idea what those camps are like?"
He gazed at her from behind a column of smoke.
"People living under scraps of cardboard. TB, dysentery, famine, crime.
And that's before winter. Then it's frostbite season. Pneumonia. People
turning to icicles. Those camps become frozen graveyards.
"Of course," he made a playful, twirling motion with his hand, "she
could keep warm in one of those Peshawar brothels. Business is booming
there, I hear. A beauty like her ought to bring in a small fortune, don't
you think?"
He set the ashtray on the nightstand and swung his legs over the side of
the bed.
"Look," he said, sounding more conciliatory now, as a victor could
afford to. "I knew you wouldn't take this well. I don't really blame you.