“A gift,” he said. “From one of Sayyaf's commanders to three of his men. A gift. Ha!”
The three men were actually boys with suntanned, youthful faces.
Mariam would see them when she passed by, always dressed in their fatigues,
squatting by the front door of Tariq's house, playing cards and smoking, their Kalashnikovs leaning against the wall.
The brawny one, the one with the self-satisfied, scornful demeanor, was the leader.
The youngest was also the quietest, the one who seemed reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace his friends' air of impunity.
He had taken to smiling and tipping his head salaam when Mariam passed by.
When he did, some of his surface smugness dropped away, and Mariam caught a glint of humility as yet uncorrupted.
Then one morning rockets slammed into the house. They were rumored later to have been fired by the Hazaras of Wahdat.
For some time, neighbors kept finding bits and pieces of the boys. “They had it coming,” said Rasheed.
The girl was extraordinarily lucky, Mariam thought, to escape with relatively minor injuries,
considering the rocket had turned her house into smoking rubble.
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