need to speak to your parents, dokhiar jan" he said when Laila opened the door. He was
a stocky man, with a sharp, weather roughened face. He wore a potato colored coat, and
a brown wool pakol on his head
"Can I tell them who's here?"
Then Babi's hand was on Laila's shoulder, and he gently pulled her from the door.
"Why don't you go upstairs, Laila. Go on."
As she moved toward the steps, Laila heard the visitor say to Babi that he had news from
Panjshir. Mammy was in the room now too. She had one hand clamped over her mouth,
and her eyes were skipping from Babi to the man in the pakol.
Laila peeked from the top of the stairs. She watched the stranger sit down with her parents.
He leaned toward them. Said a few muted words. Then Babi's face was white, and getting
whiter, and he was looking at his hands, and Mammy was screaming, screaming, and
tearing at her hair.
The next morning, the day of the faiiha, a flock of neighborhood women descended on the
house and took charge of preparations for the khatm dinner that would take place after the
funeral Mammy sat on the couch the whole morning, her fingers working a handkerchief,
her face bloated. She was tended to by a pair of sniffling women who took turns patting
Mammy's hand gingerly, like she was the rarest and most fragile doll in the world. Mammy
did not seem aware of their presence.
Laila kneeled before her mother and took her hands. "Mammy."
Mammy's eyes drifted down. She blinked.
"We'll take care of her, Laila jan," one of the women said with an air of self importance.
Laila had been to funerals before where she had seen women like this, women who relished
all things that had to do with death, official consolers who let no one trespass on their self
appointed duties.
"It's under control. You go on now, girl, and do something else. Leave your mother be."
Shooed away, Laila felt useless. She bounced from one room to the next. She puttered
around the kitchen for a while. An uncharacteristically subdued Hasina and her mother
came. So did Giti and her mother. When Giti saw Laila, she hurried over, threw her bony
arms around her, and gave Laila a very long, and surprisingly strong, embrace. When she
pulled back, tears had pooled in her eyes. "I am so sorry, Laila," she said. Laila thanked her.
The three girls sat outside in the yard until one of the women assigned them the task of
washing glasses and stacking plates on the table.
Babi too kept walking in and out of the house aimlessly, looking, it seemed, for something
to do.