"They're savages," Laila said.
"You think?" he said "Compared to what? The Soviets killed a million people. Do you
know how many people the Mujahideen killed in Kabul alone these last four years? Fifty
thousandFifty thousand! Is it so insensible, by comparison, to chop the hands off a few
thieves? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's in the Koran. Besides, tell me this: If someone
killed Aziza, wouldn't you want the chance to avenge her?"
Laila shot him a disgusted look.
"I'm making a point," he said.
"You're just like them."
"It's an interesting eye color she has, Aziza. Don't you think? It's neither yours nor mine."
Rasheed rolled over to face her, gently scratched her thigh with the crooked nail of his
index finger.
"Let me explain," he said. "If the fancy should strike me and I'm not saying it will, but it
could, it could I would be within my rights to give Aziza away. How would you like that?
Or I could go to the Taliban one day, just walk in and say that I have my suspicions about
you. That's all it would take. Whose word do you think they would believe? What do you
think they'd do to you?"
Laila pulled her thigh from him.
"Not that I would," he said. "I wouldn't. Nay. Probably not. You know me."
"You're despicable," Laila said.
"That's a big word," Rasheed said. "I've always disliked that about you. Even when you
were little, when you were running around with that cripple, you thought you were so
clever, with your books and poems. What good are all your smarts to you now? What's
keeping you off the streets, your smarts or me? I'm despicable? Half the women in this city
would kill to have a husband like me. They would kill for it."
He rolled back and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
"You like big words? I'll give you one: perspective. That's what I'm doing here, Laila.
Making sure you don't lose perspective."
What turned Laila's stomach the rest of the night was that every word Rasheed had uttered,
every last one, was true.
But, in the morning, and for several mornings after that, the queasiness in her gut persisted,
then worsened, became something dismayingly familiar.
One cold, overcast afternoon soon after, Laila lay on her back on the bedroom floor.
Mariam was napping with Aziza in her room.
In Laila's hands was a metal spoke she had snapped with a pair of pliers from an
abandoned bicycle wheel She'd found it in the same alley where she had kissed Tariq years
back. For a long time, Laila lay on the floor, sucking air through her teeth, legs parted
She'd adored Aziza from the moment when she'd first suspected her existence. There had
been none of this self doubt, this uncertainty. What a terrible thing it was, Laila thought
now, for a mother to fear that she could not summon love for her own child. What an