A Thousand Splendid Suns

end, the curiosity proves too strong. She slides in the key. It takes some
rattling and shaking, but she opens the box.
In it, she finds three things: an envelope, a burlap sack, and a
videocassette.
Laila takes the tape and goes down to the reception desk. She learns
from the elderly clerk who had greeted them the day before that the
hotel has only one VCR, in its biggest suite. The suite is vacant at the
moment, and he agrees to take her. He leaves the desk to a
mustachioed young man in a suit who is talking on a cellular phone.
The old clerk leads Laila to the second floor, to a door at the end of a
long hallway. He works the lock, lets her in.
Laila's eyes find the TV in the corner. They register nothing else about
the suite-She turns on the TV, turns on the VCR. Puts the tape in and
pushes the play button. The screen is blank for a few moments, and Laila
begins to wonder why Jalil had gone to the trouble of passing a blank
tape to Mariam. But then there is music, and images begin to play on the
screen.
Laila frowns. She keeps watching for a minute or two. Then she pushes
stop, fast-forwards the tape, and pushes play again. It's the same film.
The old man is looking at her quizzically.
The film playing on the screen is Walt Disney's Pinocchio. Laila does not
understand.