Babi said they would hold birthday parties at the restaurant, engagement ceremonies, New
Year's get-togethers. It would turn into a gathering place for other Afghans who, like them,
had fled the war. And, late at night, after everyone had left and the place was cleaned up,
they would sit for tea amid the empty tables, the three of them, tired but thankful for their
good fortune.
When Babi was done speaking, he grew quiet. They both did. They knew that Mammy
wasn't going anywhere. Leaving Afghanistan had been unthinkable to her while Ahmad and
Noor were still alive. Now that they were shaheed, packing up and running was an even
worse affront, a betrayal, a disavowal of the sacrifice her sons had made.
How can you think of it? Laila could hear her saying. Does their dying mean nothing to
you, cousin? The only solace I find is in knowing that I walk the same ground that soaked
up their blood. No. Never.
And Babi would never leave without her, Laila knew, even though Mammy was no more
a wife to him now than she was a mother to Laila. For Mammy, he would brush aside this
daydream of his the way he flicked specks of flour from his coat when he got home from
work. And so they would stay. They would stay until the war ended And they would stay
for whatever came after war.
Laila remembered Mammy telling Babi once that she had married a man who had no
convictions. Mammy didn't understand. She didn't understand that if she looked into a
mirror, she would find the one unfailing conviction of his life looking right back at her.
Later, after they'd eaten a lunch of boiled eggs and potatoes with bread, Tariq napped
beneath a tree on the banks of a gurgling stream. He slept with his coat neatly folded into a
pillow, his hands crossed on his chest. The driver went to the village to buy almonds. Babi
sat at the foot of a thick trunked acacia tree reading a paperback. Laila knew the book; he'd
read it to her once. It told the story of an old fisherman named Santiago who catches an
enormous fish. But by the time he sails his boat to safety, there is nothing left of his prize
fish; the sharks have torn it to pieces.
Laila sat on the edge of the stream, dipping her feet into the cool water. Overhead,
mosquitoes hummed and cottonwood seeds danced. A dragonfly whirred nearby. Laila
watched its wings catch glints of sunlight as it buzzed from one blade of grass to another.
They flashed purple, then green, orange. Across the stream, a group of local Hazara boys
were picking patties of dried cow dung from the ground and stowing them into burlap sacks
tethered to their backs. Somewhere, a donkey brayed. A generator sputtered to life.
Laila thought again about Babi's little dream. Somewhere near the sea
There was something she hadn't told Babi up there atop the Buddha: that, in one important
way, she was glad they couldn't go. She would miss Giti and her pinch faced earnestness,
yes, and Hasina too, with her wicked laugh and reckless clowning around But, mostly,
Laila remembered all too well the inescapable drudgery of those four weeks without Tariq