A Thousand Splendid Suns

legs felt heavy, as though weights had been tethered to them. She told herself that he wasn't
done, that he hadn't told her anything as yet. But he would go on in a second, and she
resisted an urge to get up and leave, leave before he told her things she didn't want to hear.
Abdul Sharif set his glass on the table.
"That's where I met your friend, Mohammad Tariq Walizai."
Laila's heart sped up. Tariq in a hospital? A special unit? For really sick people?
She swallowed dry spit. Shifted on her chair. She had to steel herself. If she didn't, she
feared she would come unhinged. She diverted her thoughts from hospitals and special
units and thought instead about the fact that she hadn't heard Tariq called by his full name
since the two of them had enrolled in a Farsi winter course years back. The teacher would
call roll after the bell and say his name like that Mohammad Tariq Walizai. It had struck
her as comically officious then, hearing his full name uttered.
"What happened to him I heard from one of the nurses," Abdul Sharif resumed, tapping
his chest with a fist as if to ease the passage of the pill. "With all the time I've spent in
Peshawar, I've become pretty proficient in Urdu. Anyway, what I gathered was that your
friend was in a lorry full of refugees, twenty three of them, all headed for Peshawar. Near
the border, they were caught in cross fire. A rocket hit the lorry. Probably a stray, but you
never know with these people, you never know. There were only six survivors, all of them
admitted to the same unit. Three died within twenty four hours. Two of them lived sisters,
as I understood it and had been discharged.
Your friend Mr. Walizai was the last. He'd been there for almost three weeks by the time I
arrived."
So he was alive. But how badly had they hurt him? Laila wondered frantically. How badly?
Badly enough to be put in a special unit, evidently. Laila was aware that she had started
sweating, that her face felt hot. She tried to think of something else, something pleasant,
like the trip to Bamiyan to see the Buddhas with Tariq and Babi. But instead an image of
Tariq's parents presented itself: Tariq's mother trapped in the lorry, upside down, screaming
for Tariq through the smoke, her arms and chest on fire, the wig melting into her scalp...
Laila had to take a series of rapid breaths.
"He was in the bed next to mine. There were no walls, only a curtain between us. So I
could see him pretty well."
Abdul Sharif found a sudden need to toy with his wedding band. He spoke more slowly
now.
"Your friend, he was badly very badly injured, you understand. He had rubber tubes
coming out of him everywhere. At first " He cleared his throat. "At first, I thought he'd lost
both legs in the attack, but a nurse said no, only the right, the left one was on account of an
old injury. There were internal injuries too. They'd operated three times already. Took out
sections of intestines, I don't remember what else. And he was burned. Quite badly. That's
all I'll say about that. I'm sure you have your fair share of nightmares, hamshira. No sense
in me adding to them."
Tariq was legless now. He was a torso with two stumps. Legless. Laila thought she might
collapse. With deliberate, desperate effort, she sent the tendrils of her mind out of this room,
out the window, away from this man, over the street outside, over the city now, and its flat
topped houses and bazaars, its maze of narrow streets turned to sand castles.
"He was drugged up most of the time. For the pain, you understand. But he had moments
when the drugs were wearing off when he was clear. In pain but clear of mind I would talk