A thousand splendid suns (Khaled Hosseini)

MARIAM

"Look at me, Mariam"

Reluctantly, Mariam did.

Nana said, "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam."

. . .

"I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you'd live to be a hundred years old. I didn't know. I didn't know that you were ashamed of me."

Jalil looked down, and, like an overgrown child, dug at something with the toe of his shoe.

. . .

"Oh, Mariam jo".

He sat next to her and cupped her face in his hands. "You go on and cry, Mariam jo. Go on. There is no shame in it. But remember, my girl, what the Koran says, 'Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom, and He Who has power over all things, Who created death and life that He may try you'. The Koran speaks the truth, my girl. Behind every trial and every sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason".

But Mariam could not hear comfort in God's words (...) All she could do was cry and cry and let her tears fall on the spotted, paper-thin skin of Mullah Faizullah's hands.

. . .

She turned to Jalil again. "Tell them. Tell them you won't let them do this".

"Actually, your father has already given Rasheed his answer", Afsoon said. "Rasheed is here, in Herat; he has come all the way from Kabul. The nikka will be tomorrow morning, and then there is a bus leaving for Kabul at noon".

LAILA

I know you're still young, but I want you to understand and learn this now, he [Babi] said. Marriage can wait, education cannot (...). You can be anything you want, Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila. No chance.

. . .

Laila remembered the first time he'd shown her his stump. She'd been six. With one finger, she had poked the taut, shiny skin just below his left knee (...) She'd asked him if his stump hurt, and he said it got sore at the end of the day, when it swelled and didn't fit the prosthesis like it was supposed to, like a finger in a thimble. And sometimes it gets rubbed. Especially when it's hot. Then I get rashes and blisters, but my mother has creams that help. It's not so bad.

Laila had burst into tears.

. . .

"I wish there was something I could do", Laila said, meaning it. But it came out sounding broad, perfunctory, like the toke consolation of a kind stranger.

"You're a good daughter", Mammy said, after a deep sigh. "And I haven't been much of a mother to you".

. . .

They got out of the taxi. Babi pointed. "There they are. Look". Tariq gasped. Laila did too. And she knew then that she could live to be a hundred and she would never again see a thing as magnificent.

The two Buddhas wre enormous, soaring much higher than she had imagined from all the photos she'd seen of them.

. . .

And there was Tariq now, seated beside Laila on the couch, looking at the ground, hands between his knees. Saying that he was leaving. Not the neighborhood. Not Kabul. But Afghanistan altogether. Leaving.

. . .