A Thousand Splendid Suns

warn you."
"I'm coming with you," Mariam said.
Laila wouldn't allow it. "You have to stay home with Zalmai. If we get
stopped…Idon't want him to see."
And so Laila's life suddenly revolved around finding ways to see Aziza.
Half the time, she never made it to the orphanage. Crossing the street,
she was spotted by the Taliban and riddled with questions-What is your
name? Where are you going? Why are you alone? Where is your mahram
?-before she was sent home. If she was lucky, she was given a
tongue-lashing or a single kick to the rear, a shove in the back. Other
times, she met with assortments of wooden clubs, fresh tree branches,
short whips, slaps, often fists.
One day, a young Talib beat Laila with a radio antenna. When he was
done, he gave a final whack to the back of her neck and said, "I see you
again, I'll beat you until your mother's milk leaks out of your bones."
That time, Laila went home. She lay on her stomach, feeling like a
stupid, pitiable animal, and hissed as Mariam arranged damp cloths
across her bloodied back and thighs. But, usually, Laila refused to cave
in. She made as if she were going home, then took a different route
down side streets. Sometimes she was caught, questioned, scolded-two,
three, even four times in a single day. Then the whips came down and
the antennas sliced through the air, and she trudged home, bloodied,
without so much as a glimpse of Aziza. Soon Laila took to wearing extra
layers, even in the heat, two, three sweaters beneath the burqa, for