grade once and fourth grade twice. What she lacked in smarts Hasina made up for in
mischief and a mouth that, Giti said, ran like a sewing machine. It was Hasina who had
come up with the Khala Rangmaal nickname Today, Hasina was dispensing advice on how
to fend off unattractive suitors. "Foolproof method, guaranteed to work. I give you my
word."
"This is stupid. I'm too young to have a suitor!" Giti said.
"You're not too young."
"Well, no one's come to ask for my hand."
"That's because you have a beard, my dear."
Giti's hand shot up to her chin, and she looked with alarm to Laila, who smiled pityingly
Giti was the most humorless person Laila had ever met and shook her head with
reassurance.
"Anyway, you want to know what to do or not, ladies?"
"Go ahead," Laila said.
"Beans. No less than four cans. On the evening the toothless lizard comes to ask for your
hand. But the timing, ladies, the timing is everything You have to suppress the fireworks
'til it's time to serve him his tea."
"I'll remember that," Laila said.
"So will he."
Laila could have said then that she didn't need this advice because Babi had no intention
of giving her away anytime soon. Though Babi worked at Silo, Kabul's gigantic bread
factory, where he labored amid the heat and the humming machinery stoking the massive
ovens and mill grains all day, he was a university educated man. He'd been a high school
teacher before the communists fired him this was shortly after the coup of 1978, about a
year and a half before the Soviets had invaded. Babi had made it clear to Laila from ayoung
age that the most important thing in his life, after her safety, was her schooling.
I know you're still young, but I want you to understand and learn this now, he said.
Marriage can wait, education cannot You're a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You
can be anything you want, Laila I know this about you. And I also know that when this war
is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a
society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila No chance.
But Laila didn't tell Hasina that Babi had said these things, or how glad she was to have a
father like him, or how proud she was of his regard for her, or how determined she was to
pursue her education just as he had his. For the last two years, Laila had received the awal
numra certificate, given yearly to the top ranked student in each grade.