A Thousand Splendid Suns

feared that she might scream or vomit or even wet herself, that, in her
last moments, she would be betrayed by animal instinct or bodily
disgrace. But when she was made to descend from the truck, Mariam's
legs did not buckle. Her arms did not flail. She did not have to be
dragged. And when she did feel herself faltering, she thought of Zalmai,
from whom she had taken the love of his life, whose days now would be
shaped by the sorrow of his father's disappearance. And then Mariam's
stride steadied and she could walk without protest.
An armed man approached her and told her to walk toward the
southern goalpost. Mariam could sense the crowd tightening up with
anticipation. She did not look up. She kept her eyes to the ground, on
her shadow, on her executioner's shadow trailing hers.
Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life
for the most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final
twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it. She wished she
could see Laila again, wished to hear the clangor of her laugh, to sit with
her once more for a pot of chai and leftover halwa under a starlit sky.
She mourned that she would never see Aziza grow up, would not see the
beautiful young woman that she would one day become, would not get to
paint her hands with henna and toss noqul candy at her wedding. She
would never play with Aziza's children. She would have liked that very
much, to be old and play with Aziza's children.
Near the goalpost, the man behind her asked her to stop. Mariam did.
Through the crisscrossing grid of the burqa, she saw his shadow arms lift
his shadow Kalashnikov.
Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed