A Thousand Splendid Suns

summon Mariam behind the lids of her eyes: the soft radiance of her
gaze, the long chin, the coarsened skin of her neck, the tight-lipped
smile. Here, Laila can lay her cheek on the softness of Mariam's lap
again, can feel Mariam swaying back and forth, reciting verses from the
Koran, can feel the words vibrating down Mariam's body, to her knees,
and into her own ears.
Then, suddenly, the weeds begin to recede, as if something is pulling
them by the roots from beneath the ground. They sink lower and lower
until the earth in the kolba has swallowed the last of their spiny leaves.
The spiderwebs magically unspin themselves. The bird's nest
self-disassembles, the twigs snapping loose one by one, flying out of the
kolba end over end. An invisible eraser wipes the Russian graffiti off the
wall.
The floorboards are back. Laila sees a pair of sleeping cots now, a
wooden table, two chairs, a cast-iron stove in the corner, shelves along
the walls, on which sit clay pots and pans, a blackened teakettle, cups
and spoons. She hears chickens clucking outside, the distant gurgling of
the stream.
A young Mariam is sitting at the table making a doll by the glow of an
oil lamp. She's humming something. Her face is smooth and youthful,
her hair washed, combed back. She has all her teeth.
Laila watches Mariam glue strands of yam onto her doll's head. In a few
years, this little girl will be a woman who will make small demands on
life, who will never burden others, who will never let on that she too has
had sorrows, disappointments, dreams that have been ridiculed. A
woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint,