They had been to Herat. They had flown over its mosques, its bazaars.
Maybe they had landed on the walls of Jalil's home, on the front steps of his cinema.
She picked up ten pebbles and arranged them vertically, in three columns.
This was a game that she played privately from time to time when Nana wasn't looking.
She put four pebbles in the first column, for Khadija's children, three for Afsoon's, and three in the third column for Nargis's children.
Then she added a fourth column. A solitary, eleventh pebble.
The next morning, Mariam wore a cream-colored dress that fell to her knees, cotton trousers, and a green hijab over her hair.
She agonized a bit over the hijab, its being green and not matching the dress, but it would have to do--moths had eaten holes into her white one.
She checked the clock. It was an old hand wound clock with black numbers on a mint green face, a present from Mullah Faizullah.
It was nine o'clock. She wondered where Nana was.
She thought about going outside and looking for her, but she dreaded the confrontation, the aggrieved looks.
Nana would accuse her of betrayal. She would mock her for her mistaken ambitions.
전체재생
다음페이지
문장검색