Beneath Mammy's bed, Laila could see the corner of Ahmad's shoe box protruding. From
time to time, Mammy showed her the old, crumpled newspaper clippings in it, and
pamphlets that Ahmad had managed to collect from insurgent groups and resistance
organizations headquartered in Pakistan. One photo, Laila remembered, showed a man in a
long white coat handing a lollipop to a legless little boy. The caption below the photo read:
Children are the intended victims of Soviet land mine campaign. The article went on to say
that the Soviets also liked to hide explosives inside brightly colored toys. If a child picked it
up, the toy exploded, tore off fingers or an entire hand. The father could not join the jihad
then; he'd have to stay home and care for his child. In another article in Ahmad's box, a
young Mujahid was saying that the Soviets had dropped gas on his village that burned
people's skin and blinded them. He said he had seen his mother and sister running for the
stream, coughing up blood.
"Mammy."
The mound stirred slightly. It emitted a groan.
"Get up, Mammy. It's three o'clock."
Another groan. A hand emerged, like a submarine periscope breaking surface, and
dropped. The mound moved more discernibly this time. Then the rustle of blankets as
layers of them shifted over each other. Slowly, in stages, Mammy materialized: first the
slovenly hair, then the white, grimacing face, eyes pinched shut against the light, a hand
groping for the headboard, the sheets sliding down as she pulled herself up, grunting.
Mammy made an effort to look up, flinched against the light, and her head drooped over
her chest.
"How was school?" she muttered.
So it would begin. The obligatory questions, the perfunctory answers. Both pretending.
Unenthusiastic partners, the two of them, in this tired old dance.
"School was fine," Laila said.
"Did you learn anything?"
"The usual."
"Did you eat?"
"I did."
"Good."
Mammy raised her head again, toward the window. She winced and her eyelids fluttered
The right side of her face was red, and the hair on that side had flattened.