hey buried Nana in a corner of the cemetery in Gul Daman. Mariam stood beside Bibi
jo, with the women, as Mullah Faizullah recited prayers at the graveside and the men
lowered Nana's shrouded body into the ground Afterward, Jalil walked Mariam to the kolba,
where, in front of the villagers who accompanied them, he made a great show of tending to
Mariam. He collected a few of her things, put them in a suitcase. He sat beside her cot,
where she lay down, and fanned her face. He stroked her forehead, and, with a woebegone
expression on his face, asked if she needed anything? anything? he said it like that,
twice.
"I want Mullah Faizullah," Mariam said.
"Of course. He's outside. I'll get him for you."
It was when Mullah Faizullah's slight, stooping figure appeared in the kolba's doorway
that Mariam cried for the first time that day.
"Oh, Mariam jo."
He sat next to her and cupped her face in his hands. "You go on and cry, Mariam jo. Go
on. There is no shame in it. But remember, my girl, what the Koran says, 'Blessed is He in
Whose hand is the kingdom, and He Who has power over all things, Who created death and
life that He may try you.' The Koran speaks the truth, my girl.
Behind every trial and every sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason."
But Mariam could not hear comfort in God's words. Not that day. Not then. All she could
hear was Nana saying, I'll die if you go. I'll just die. All she could do was cry and cry and
let her tears fall on the spotted, paper thin skin of Mullah Faizullah's hands.
On the ride to his house, Jalil sat in the backseat of his car with Mariam, his arm draped
over her shoulder.
"You can stay with me, Mariam jo," he said. "I've asked them already to clean a room for
you. It's upstairs. You'll like it, I think. You'll have a view of the garden."
For the first time, Mariam could hear him with Nana's ears. She could hear so clearly now
the insincerity that had always lurked beneath, the hollow, false assurances. She could not
bring herself to look at him.
When the car stopped before Jalil's house, the driver opened the door for them and carried
Mariam's suitcase. Jalil guided her, one palm cupped around each of her shoulders, through
the same gates outside of which, two days before, Mariam had slept on the sidewalk
waiting for him. Two days before when Mariam could think of nothing in the world she
wanted more than to walk in this garden with Jalil felt like another lifetime. How could her