A Thousand Splendid Suns

money from the shop alone was no longer enough to sustain the five of
them. "I didn't tell you earlier to spare you the worrying."
"Besides," he said, "you'd be surprised how much they can bring in."
Laila said no again. They were in the living room. Mariam and the
children were in the kitchen. Laila could hear the clatter of dishes,
Zalmai's high-pitched laugh, Aziza saying something to Mariam in her
steady, reasonable voice.
"There will be others like her, younger even," Rasheed said. "Everyone
in Kabul is doing the same."
Laila told him she didn't care what other people did with their children.
"I'll keep a close eye on her," Rasheed said, less patiently now. "It's a
safe corner. There's a mosque across the street."
"I won't let you turn my daughter into a street beggar!" Laila snapped.
The slap made a loud smacking sound, the palm of his thick-fingered
hand connecting squarely with the meat of Laila's cheek. It made her
head whip around. It silenced the noises from the kitchen. For a moment,
the house was perfectly quiet. Then a flurry of hurried footsteps in the
hallway before Mariam and the children were in the living room, their
eyes shifting from her to Rasheed and back.
Then Laila punched him.
It was the first time she'd struck anybody, discounting the playful
punches she and Tariq used to trade. But those had been open-fisted,
more pats than punches, self-consciously friendly, comfortable
expressions of anxieties that were both perplexing and thrilling. They
would aim for the muscle that Tariq, in a professorial voice, called the
deltoid
Laila watched the arch of her closed fist, slicing through the air, felt the
crinkle of Rasheed's stubbly, coarse skin under her knuckles. It made a