The orphanage playground has a row of apple saplings now along the east facing wall.
Laila is planning to plant some on the south wall as well as soon as it is rebuilt. There is a
new swing set, new monkey bars, and a jungle gym.
Laila walks back inside through the screen door.
They have repainted both the exterior and the interior of the orphanage. Tariq and Zaman
have repaired all the roof leaks, patched the walls, replaced the windows, carpeted the
rooms where the children sleep and play. This past winter, Laila bought a few beds for the
children's sleeping quarters, pillows too, and proper wool blankets. She had cast iron stoves
installed for the winter.
Anis, one of Kabul's newspapers, had run a story the month before on the renovation of
the orphanage. They'd taken a photo too, of Zaman, Tariq, Laila, and one of the attendants,
standing in a row behind the children. When Laila saw the article, she'd thought of her
childhood friends Giti and Hasina, and Hasina saying, By the time we're twenty, Giti and I,
we'll have pushed out four, five kids each Bui you, Laila, you'll make us two dummies proud.
You 're going to be somebody. I know one day I'll pick up a newspaper and find your
picture on the frontpage. The photo hadn't made the front page, but there it was
nevertheless, as Hasina had predicted.
Laila takes a turn and makes her way down the same hallway where, two years before, she
and Mariam had delivered Aziza to Zaman. Laila still remembers how they had to pry
Aziza's fingers from her wrist. She remembers running down this hallway, holding back a
howl, Mariam calling after her, Aziza screaming with panic. The hallway's walls are
covered now with posters, of dinosaurs, cartoon characters, the Buddhas of Bamiyan, and
displays of artwork by the orphans. Many of the drawings depict tanks running over huts,
men brandishing AK 47s, refugee camp tents, scenes of jihad.
Laila turns a corner in the hallway and sees the children now, waiting outside the
classroom. She is greeted by their scarves, their shaved scalps covered by skullcaps, their
small, lean figures, the beauty of their drabness.
When the children spot Laila, they come running. They come running at full tilt. Laila is
swarmed. There is a flurry of high pitched greetings, of shrill voices, of patting, clutching,
tugging, groping, of jostling with one another to climb into her arms. There are outstretched
little hands and appeals for attention. Some of them call her Mother. Laila does not correct
them.
It takes Laila some work this morning to calm the children down, to get them to form a
proper queue, to usher them into the classroom.
It was Tariq and Zaman who built the classroom by knocking down the wall between two
adjacent rooms. The floor is still badly cracked and has missing tiles. For the time being, it
is covered with tarpaulin, but Tariq has promised to cement some new tiles and lay down
carpeting soon.
Nailed above the classroom doorway is a rectangular board, which Zaman has sanded and