whatever Jalil had intended remain a secret. But, in the end, the curiosity proves too strong.
She slides in the key. It takes some rattling and shaking, but she opens the box.
In it, she finds three things: an envelope, a burlap sack, and a videocassette.
Laila takes the tape and goes down to the reception desk. She learns from the elderly clerk
who had greeted them the day before that the hotel has only one VCR, in its biggest suite.
The suite is vacant at the moment, and he agrees to take her. He leaves the desk to a
mustachioed young man in a suit who is talking on a cellular phone.
The old clerk leads Laila to the second floor, to a door at the end of a long hallway. He
works the lock, lets her in.
Laila's eyes find the TV in the corner. They register nothing else about the suite She turns
on the TV, turns on the VCR. Puts the tape in and pushes the play button. The screen is
blank for a few moments, and Laila begins to wonder why Jalil had gone to the trouble of
passing a blank tape to Mariam. But then there is music, and images begin to play on the
screen.
Laila frowns. She keeps watching for a minute or two. Then she pushes stop, fast forwards
the tape, and pushes play again. It's the same film.
The old man is looking at her quizzically.
The film playing on the screen is Walt Disney's Pinocchio. Laila does not understand.
Tariq and the children come back to the hotel just after six o'clock. Aziza runs to Laila and
shows her the
earrings Tariq has bought for her, silver with an enamel butterfly on each. Zalmai is
clutching an inflatable dolphin that squeaks when its snout is squeezed.
"How are you?" Tariq asks, putting his arm around her shoulder.
"I'm fine," Laila says. "I'll tell you later."
They walk to a nearby kebab house to eat. It's a small place, with sticky, vinyl tablecloths,
smoky and loud But the lamb is tender and moist and the bread hot. They walk the streets
for a while after. Tariq buys the children rosewater ice cream from a street side kiosk. They
eat, sitting on a bench, the mountains behind them silhouetted against the scarlet red of
dusk. The air is warm, rich with the fragrance of cedar.
Laila had opened the envelope earlier when she'd come back to the room after viewing the
videotape. In it was a letter, handwritten in blue ink on a yellow, lined sheet of paper.
It read: