A Thousand Splendid Suns

tree. Another woman cried that she was passing bloody stools.
"Does she have a fever?" the nurse asked. It took Mariam a moment to
realize she was being spoken to.
"No," Mariam said.
Bleeding?
"No."
"Where is she?"
Over the covered heads, Mariam pointed to where Laila was sitting with
Rasheed.
"We'll get to her," the nurse said
"How long?" Mariam cried Someone had grabbed her by the shoulders
and was pulling her back.
"I don't know," the nurse said. She said they had only two doctors and
both were operating at the moment.
"She's in pain," Mariam said.
"Me too!" the woman with the bloodied scalp cried. "Wait your turn!"
Mariam was being dragged back. Her view of the nurse was blocked
now by shoulders and the backs of heads. She smelled a baby's milky
burp.
"Take her for a walk," the nurse yelled. "And wait."
* * *
It was dark outside when a nurse finally called them in. The delivery
room had eight beds, on which women moaned and twisted tended to by
fully covered nurses. Two of the women were in the act of delivering.
There were no curtains between the beds. Laila was given a bed at the
far end, beneath a window that someone had painted black. There was a
sink nearby, cracked and dry, and a string over the sink from which hung
stained surgical gloves. In the middle of the room Mariam saw an