"Maybe I can say them with you tonight."
"You can't say them like he can."
She squeezed his little shoulder. Kissed the nape of his neck. "I can try."
"Where is Baba jan?"
"Baba jan has gone away," Laila said, her throat closing up again.
And there it was, spoken for the first time, the great, damning lie.How many more times
would this lie have to be told? Laila wondered miserably. How many more times would
Zalmai have to be deceived? She pictured Zalmai, his jubilant, running welcomes when
Rasheed came home and Rasheed picking him up by the elbows and swinging him round
and round until Zalmai's legs flew straight out, the two of them giggling afterward when
Zalmai stumbled around like a drunk. She thought of their disorderly games and their
boisterous laughs, their secretive glances.
A pall of shame and grief for her son fell over Laila.
"Where did he go?"
"I don't know, my love."
When was he coming back? Would Baba jan bring a present with him when he returned?
She did the prayers with Zalmai. Twenty one Bismallah-e-rahman erahims one for each
knuckle of seven fingers. She watched him cup his hands before his face and blow into
them, then place the back of both hands on his forehead and make a casting away motion,
whispering, Babaloo, be gone, do not come to Zalmai, he has no business with you.
Babaloo, be gone. Then, to finish off, they said Ailah u akbar three times. And later, much
later that night, Laila was startled by a muted voice: Did Babajan leave because of me?
Because of what I said, about you and the man downstairs?
She leaned over him, meaning to reassure, meaning to say It had nothing to do with you,
Zalmai. No. Nothing is your fault. But he was asleep, his small chest rising and sinking.
When Laila "went to bed, her mind was muffled up, clouded, incapable of sustained
rational thought. But when she woke up, to the muezzin's call for morning prayer, much of
the dullness had lifted.
She sat up and watched Zalmai sleep for a while, the ball of his fist under his chin. Laila
pictured Mariam sneaking into the room in the middle of the night as she and Zalmai had
slept, watching them, making plans in her head.
Laila slipped out of bed. It took effort to stand. She ached everywhere. Her neck, her
shoulders, her back, her arms, her thighs, all engraved with the cuts of Rasheed's belt