A Thousand Splendid Suns

sound like dropping a rice bag to the floor. She hit him hard. The impact
actually made him stagger two steps backward.
From the other side of the room, a gasp, a yelp, and a scream. Laila
didn't know who had made which noise. At the moment, she was too
astounded to notice or care, waiting for her mind to catch up with what
her hand had done. When it did, she believed she might have smiled.
She might have grinned when, to her astonishment, Rasheed calmly
walked out of the room.
Suddenly, it seemed to Laila that the collective hardships of their
lives-hers, Aziza's, Mariam's-simply dropped away, vaporized like
Zalmai's palms from the TV screen. It seemed worthwhile, if absurdly so,
to have endured all they'd endured for this one crowning moment, for
this act of defiance that would end the suffering of all indignities.
Laila did not notice that Rasheed was back in the room. Until his hand
was around her throat. Until she was lifted off her feet and slammed
against the wall.
Up close, his sneering face seemed impossibly large. Laila noticed how
much puffier it was getting with age, how many more broken vessels
charted tiny paths on his nose. Rasheed didn't say anything. And, really,
what could be said, what needed saying, when you'd shoved the barrel of
your gun into your wife's mouth?
* * *
It was the raids, the reason they were in the yard digging. Sometimes
monthly raids, sometimes weekly. Of late, almost daily. Mostly, the
Taliban confiscated stuff, gave a kick to someone's rear, whacked the
back of a head or two. But sometimes there were public beatings,
lashings of soles and palms.