A Thousand Splendid Suns

over her knuckles.
"There," he said.
"It's a pretty ring," one of the wives said. "It's lovely, Mariam."
"All that remains now is the signing of the contract," the mullah said.
Mariam signed her name-the meem, the reh, the 3^ and the meem
again-conscious of all the eyes on her hand. The next time Mariam
signed her name to a document, twenty-seven years later, a mullah
would again be present.
"You are now husband and wife," the mullah said. "Tabreek.
Congratulations."
* * *
Rasheed waited in the multicolored bus. Mariam could not see him from
where she stood with Jalil, by the rear bumper, only the smoke of his
cigarette curling up from the open window. Around them, hands shook
and farewells were said. Korans were kissed, passed under. Barefoot
boys bounced between travelers, their faces invisible behind their trays
of chewing gum and cigarettes.
Jalil was busy telling her that Kabul was so beautiful, the Moghul
emperor Babur had asked that he be buried there. Next, Mariam knew,
he'd go on about Kabul's gardens, and its shops, its trees, and its air,
and, before long, she would be on the bus and he would walk alongside
it, waving cheerfully, unscathed, spared.