JANUARY 1989ne cold, overcast day in January 1989, three months before Laila turned eleven, she,
her parents, and Hasina went to watch one of the last Soviet convoys exit the city.
Spectators had gathered on both sides of the thoroughfare outside the Military Club near
Wazir Akbar Khan. They stood in muddy snow and watched the line of tanks, armored
trucks, and jeeps as light snow flew across the glare of the passing headlights. There were
heckles and jeers. Afghan soldiers kept people off the street. Every now and then, they had
to fire a warning shot.
Mammy hoisted a photo of Ahmad and Noor high over her head. It was the one of them
sitting back to back under the pear tree. There were others like her, women with pictures of
their shaheed husbands, sons, brothers held high.
Someone tapped Laila and Hasina on the shoulder. It was Tariq.
"Where did you get that thing?" Hasina exclaimed.
"I thought I'd come dressed for the occasion." Tariq said. He was wearing an enormous
Russian fur hat, complete with earflaps, which he had pulled down.
"How do I look?"
"Ridiculous," Laila laughed.
"That's the idea."
"Your parents came here with you dressed like this?"
"They're home, actually," he said.
The previous fall, Tariq's uncle in Ghazni had died of a heart attack, and, a few weeks
later, Tariq's father had suffered a heart attack of his own, leaving him frail and tired, prone
to anxiety and bouts of depression that overtook him for weeks at a time. Laila was glad to
see Tariq like this, like his old self again. For weeks after his father's illness, Laila had
watched him moping around, heavy faced and sullen.
The three of them stole away while Mammy and Babi stood watching the Soviets. From a
street vendor, Tariq bought them each a plate of boiled beans topped with thick cilantro
chutney. They ate beneath the awning of a closed rug shop, then Hasina went to find her
family.
On the bus ride home, Tariq and Laila sat behind her parents. Mammy was by the window,
staring out, clutching the picture against her chest. Beside her, Babi was impassively
listening to a man who was arguing that the Soviets might be leaving but that they would
send weapons to Najibullah in Kabul.