A Thousand Splendid Suns

heads of some, as he passed by, said a cordial word or two to them,
tousled their hair, without condescension. The children welcomed his
touch. They all looked at him, Laila thought, in hope of approval.
He showed them into his office, a room with only three folding chairs,
and a disorderly desk with piles of paper scattered atop it.
"You're from Herat," Zaman said to Mariam. "I can tell from your
accent."
He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands over his belly, and said
he had a brother-in-law who used to live there. Even in these ordinary
gestures, Laila noted a laborious quality to his movements. And though
he was smiling faintly, Laila sensed something troubled and wounded
beneath, disappointment and defeat glossed over with a veneer of good
humor.
"He was a glassmaker," Zaman said. "He made these beautiful, jade
green swans. You held them up to sunlight and they glittered inside, like
the glass was filled with tiny jewels. Have you been back?"
Mariam said she hadn't.
"I'm from Kandahar myself. Have you ever been to Kandahar,
hamshira 1 ? No? It's lovely. What gardens! And the grapes! Oh, the
grapes. They bewitch the palate."
A few children had gathered by the door and were peeking in. Zaman
gently shooed them away, in Pashto.
"Of course I love Herat too. City of artists and writers, Sufis and
mystics. You know the old joke, that you can't stretch a leg in Herat
without poking a poet in the rear."