and already thickening into a starless, chilly night He set it down on the living room table.
He said he'd bought it on the black market. "Another loan?" Laila asked. "It's a Magnavox."
Aziza came into the room. When she saw the TV, she ran to it. "Careful, Aziza jo," said
Mariam. "Don't touch."
Aziza's hair had become as light as Laila's. Laila could see her own dimples on her cheeks.
Aziza had turned into a calm, pensive little girl, with a demeanor that to Laila seemed
beyond her six years. Laila marveled at her daughter's manner of speech, her cadence and
rhythm, her thoughtful pauses and intonations, so adult, so at odds with the immature body
that housed the voice. It was Aziza who with lightheaded authority had taken it upon
herself to wake Zalmai every day, to dress him, feed him his breakfast, comb his hair. She
was the one who put him down to nap, who played even tempered peacemaker to her
volatile sibling. Around him, Aziza had taken to giving an exasperated, queerly adult
headshake.
Aziza pushed the TV's power button. Rasheed scowled, snatched her wrist and set it on
the table, not gently at all.
"This is Zalmai's TV," he said.
Aziza went over to Mariam and climbed in her lap. The two of them were inseparable now.
Of late, with Laila's blessing, Mariam had started teaching Aziza verses from the Koran.
Aziza could already recite by heart the surah of ikhlas, the surah of fatiha, and already
knew how to perform the four ruqats of morning prayer.
It's oil I have to give her, Mariam had said to Laila, this knowledge, these prayers. They're
the only true possession I've ever had.
Zalmai came into the room now. As Rasheed watched with anticipation, the way people
wait the simple tricks of street magicians, Zalmai pulled on the TV's wire, pushed the
buttons, pressed his palms to the blank screen. When he lifted them, the condensed little
palms faded from the glass. Rasheed smiled with pride, watched as Zalmai kept pressing
his palms and lifting them, over and over.
The Taliban had banned television. Videotapes had been gouged publicly, the tapes ripped
out and strung on fence posts. Satellite dishes had been hung from lampposts. But Rasheed
said just because things were banned didn't mean you couldn't find them.
"I'll start looking for some cartoon videos tomorrow," he said. "It won't be hard. You can
buy anything in underground bazaars."
"Then maybe you'll buy us a new well," Laila said, and this won her a scornful gaze from
him.
It was later, after another dinner of plain white rice had been consumed and tea forgone
again on account of the drought, after Rasheed had smoked a cigarette, that he told Laila
about his decision.
"No," Laila said.
He said he wasn't asking.
"I don't care if you are or not."
"You would if you knew the full story."
He said he had borrowed from more friends than he let on, that the money from the shop
alone was no longer enough to sustain the five of them. "I didn't tell you earlier to spare
you the worrying."