Laila would have to tail him home, helpless, trembling with resentment and impotent rage.
Then one day he told Laila he wouldn't take her anymore. “I'm too tired from walking the streets all day,” he said, “looking for work.”
“Then I'll go by myself,” Laila said. “You can't stop me, Rasheed. Do you hear me? You can hit me all you want, but I'll keep going there.”
“Do as you wish. But you won't get past the Taliban. Don't say I didn't warn you.”
“I'm coming with you,” Mariam said. Laila wouldn't allow it. “You have to stay home with Zalmai. If we get stopped...I don't want him to see.”
And so Laila's life suddenly revolved around finding ways to see Aziza. Half the time, she never made it to the orphanage.
Crossing the street, she was spotted by the Taliban and riddled with questions—
“What is your name? Where are you going? Why are you alone? Where is your mahram?”—before she was sent home.
If she was lucky, she was given a tongue lashing or a single kick to the rear, a shove in the back.
Other times, she met with assortments of wooden clubs, fresh tree branches, short whips, slaps, often fists.
One day, a young Talib beat Laila with a radio antenna. When he was done, he gave a final whack to the back of her neck and said,
I see you again, I'll beat you until your mother's milk leaks out of your bones.
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