samovar houses. And one day it will hit him, walking along some meandering river, or
gazing out at an untracked snowfield, that his father's disappearance is no longer an open,
raw wound. That it has become something else altogether, something more soft edged and
indolent. Like a lore. Something to be revered, mystified by.
Laila is happy here in Murree. But it is not an easy happiness. It is not a happiness without
cost.
On his days off, Tariq takes Laila and the children to the Mall, along which are shops that
sell trinkets and next to which is an Anglican church built in the mid nineteenth century.
Tariq buys them spicy chapli kebabs from street vendors. They stroll amid the crowds of
locals, the Europeans and their cellular phones and digital cameras, the Punjabis who come
here to escape the heat of the plains.
Occasionally, they board a bus to Kashmir Point. From there, Tariq shows them the valley
of the Jhelum River, the pine carpeted slopes, and the lush, densely wooded hills, where he
says monkeys can still be spotted hopping from branch to branch. They go to the maple
clad Nathia Gali too, some thirty kilometers from Murree, where Tariq holds Laila's hand
as they walk the tree shaded road to the Governor's House. They stop by the old British
cemetery, or take a taxi up a mountain peak for a view of the verdant, fog shrouded valley
below.
Sometimes on these outings, when they pass by a store window, Laila catches their
reflections in it. Man, wife, daughter, son. To strangers, she knows, they must appear like
the most ordinary of families, free of secrets, lies, and regrets.
Azizahas nightmares from which she wakes up shrieking. Laila has to lie beside her on the
cot, dry her cheeks with her sleeve, soothe her back to sleep.
Laila has her own dreams. In them, she's always back at the house in Kabul, walking the
hall, climbing the stairs.
She is alone, but behind the doors she hears the rhythmic hiss of an iron, bed sheets
snapped, then folded. Sometimes she hears a woman's low pitched humming of an old
Herati song. But when she walks in, the room is empty. There is no one there.
The dreams leave Laila shaken. She wakes from them coated in sweat, her eyes prickling
with tears. It is devastating. Every time, it is devastating.