A Thousand Splendid Suns

As she leans back and watches Sayeed receding in the rear window of
the bus, Laila hears the voice of doubt whispering in her head. Are they
being foolish, she wonders, leaving behind the safety of Murree? Going
back to the land where her parents and brothers perished, where the
smoke of bombs is only now settling?
And then, from the darkened spirals of her memory, rise two lines of
poetry, Babi's farewell ode to Kabul:
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the
thousand splendid suns that hide behind her -walls.
Laila settles back in her seat, blinking the wetness from her eyes. Kabul
is waiting. Needing. This journey home is the right thing to do.
But first there is one last farewell to be said.
* * *
The wars in Afghanistan have ravaged the roads connecting Kabul,
Herat, and Kandahar. The easiest way to Herat now is through Mashad, in
Iran. Laila and her family are there only overnight. They spend the night
at a hotel, and, the next morning, they board another bus.
Mashad is a crowded, bustling city. Laila watches as parks, mosques,
and chelo kebab restaurants pass by. When the bus passes the shrine to
Imam Reza, the eighth Shi'a imam, Laila cranes her neck to get a better
view of its glistening tiles, the minarets, the magnificent golden dome,
all of it immaculately and lovingly preserved. She thinks of the Buddhas
in her own country. They are grains of dust now, blowing about the