A Thousand Splendid Suns

At the Kabul River, vendors moved into the parched riverbed. Soon,
from the river's sunbaked hollows, it was possible to buy Titanic carpets,
and Titanic cloth, from bolts arranged in wheelbarrows. There was Titanic
deodorant, Titanic toothpaste, Titanic perfume, Titanicpakora, even Titanic
burqas. A particularly persistent beggar began calling himself "Titanic
Beggar."
"Titanic City" was born.
It's the song, they said.
No, the sea. The luxury. The ship.
It's the sex, they whispered
Leo, said Aziza sheepishly. It's all about Leo.
"Everybody wants Jack," Laila said to Mariam. "That's what it is.
Everybody wants Jack to rescue them from disaster. But there is no Jack.
Jack is not coming back. Jack is dead."
* * *
Then, late that summer, a fabric merchant fell asleep and forgot to put
out his cigarette. He survived the fire, but his store did not. The fire took
the adjacent fabric store as well, a secondhand clothing store, a small
furniture shop, a bakery.
They told Rasheed later that if the winds had blown east instead of
west, his shop, which was at the corner of the block, might have been
spared.
* * *
They sold everything.
First to go were Mariam's things, then Laila's. Aziza's baby clothes, the