A Thousand Splendid Suns

was always trimming bushes, watering plants in the greenhouse. Cars
with long, sleek hoods pulled up on the street. From them emerged men
in suits, in chapcms and caracul hats, women in hijabs, children with
neatly combed hair. And as Mariam watched Jalil shake these strangers'
hands, as she saw him cross his palms on his chest and nod to their
wives, she knew that Nana had spoken the truth. She did not belong
here.
But where do I belong? What am I going to do now?
I'm all you have in this world, Mariam, and when I'm gone you'll have
nothing. You'll have nothing. You are nothing!
Like the wind through the willows around the kolba, gusts of an
inexpressible blackness kept passing through Mariam.
On Mariam's second full day at Jalil's house, a little girl came into the
room.
"I have to get something," she said.
Mariam sat up on the bed and crossed her legs, pulled the blanket on
her lap.
The girl hurried across the room and opened the closet door. She
fetched a square-shaped gray box.
"You know what this is?" she said. She opened the box. "It's called a
gramophone. Gramo. Phone. It plays records. You know, music. A
gramophone."
"You're Niloufar. You're eight."
The little girl smiled. She had Jalil's smile and his dimpled chin. "How
did you know?"