A Thousand Splendid Suns

(Nancy Kaufman) #1

For the first time that day, Mariam cried a little.




Thousands of eyes bore down on her. In the crowded bleachers, necks were craned for the
benefit of a better view. Tongues clucked. A murmuring sound rippled through the stadium
when Mariam was helped down from the truck. Mariam imagined heads shaking when the
loudspeaker announced her crime. But she did not look up to see whether they were
shaking with disapproval or charity, with reproach or pity. Mariam blinded herself to them
all.


Earlier that morning, she had been afraid that she would make a fool of herself, that she
would turn into a pleading, weeping spectacle. She had feared that she might scream or
vomit or even wet herself, that, in her last moments, she would be betrayed by animal
instinct or bodily disgrace. But when she was made to descend from the truck, Mariam's
legs did not buckle. Her arms did not flail. She did not have to be dragged. And when she
did feel herself faltering, she thought of Zalmai, from whom she had taken the love of his
life, whose days now would be shaped by the sorrow of his father's disappearance. And
then Mariam's stride steadied and she could walk without protest.


An armed man approached her and told her to walk toward the southern goalpost. Mariam
could sense the crowd tightening up with anticipation. She did not look up. She kept her
eyes to the ground, on her shadow, on her executioner's shadow trailing hers.


Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part
had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but
wish for more of it. She wished she could see Laila again, wished to hear the clangor of her
laugh, to sit with her once more for a pot of chai and leftover halwa under a starlit sky. She
mourned that she would never see Aziza grow up, would not see the beautiful young
woman that she would one day become, would not get to paint her hands with henna and
toss noqul candy at her wedding. She would never play with Aziza's children. She would
have liked that very much, to be old and play with Aziza's children.
Near the goalpost, the man behind her asked her to stop. Mariam did. Through the
crisscrossing grid of the burqa, she saw his shadow arms lift his shadow Kalashnikov.


Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not
regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of
her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a
pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who
had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A
mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she
should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate
beginnings.


Mariam's final thoughts were a few words from the Koran, which she muttered under her
breath.

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