wheelbarrows filled with stones. They stop and watch the car pass by. The driver takes a
turn, and they pass a cemetery with a weather worn mausoleum in the center of it. The
driver tells her that a village Sufi is buried there.
There is a windmill too. In the shadow of its idle, rust colored vanes, three little boys are
squatting, playing with mud. The driver pulls over and leans out of the window. The oldest
looking of the three boys is the one to answer. He points to a house farther up the road. The
driver thanks him, puts the car back in gear.
He parks outside the walled, one story house. Laila sees the tops of fig trees above the
walls, some of the branches spilling over the side.
"I won't be long," she says to the driver.
The middle aged man who opens the door is short, thin, russet haired. His beard is
streaked with parallel stripes of gray. He is wearing achapan over hispirhan tumban.
They exchange salaam alaykums.
"Is this Mullah Faizullah's house?" Laila asks.
"Yes. I am his son, Hamza. Is there something I can do for you, hamshireh? ”
"I've come here about an old friend of your father's, Mariam."
Hamza blinks. A puzzled look passes across his face. "Mariam..."
"Jalil Khan's daughter."
He blinks again. Then he puts a palm to his cheek and his face lights up with a smile that
reveals missing and rotting teeth. "Oh!" he says. It comes out sounding like Ohhhhhh, like
an expelled breath. "Oh! Mariam! Are you her daughter? Is she " He is twisting his neck
now, looking behind her eagerly, searching. "Is she here? It's been so long! Is Mariam
here?"
"She has passed on, I'm afraid."
The smile fades from Hamza's face.
For a moment, they stand there, at the doorway, Hamza looking at the ground. A donkey
brays somewhere.
"Come in," Hamza says. He swings the door open. "Please come in."
They sit on the floor in a sparsely furnished room. There is a Herati rug on the floor,