Page 111 - Leadership in the Indian Army

parents were fighting. Again. Laila knew the routine: Mammy, ferocious,

indomitable, pacing and ranting; Babi, sitting, looking sheepish and
dazed, nodding obediently, waiting for the storm to pass. Laila closed her

door and changed. But she could still hear them. She could still hear her

Finally, a door slammed. Pounding footsteps. Mammy's bed creaked

loudly. Babi, it seemed, would survive to see another day.

"Laila!" he called now. "I'm going to be late for work!"

"One minute!"

Laila put on her shoes and quickly brushed her shoulder-length, blond

curls in the mirror. Mammy always told Laila that she had inherited her
hair color-as well as her thick-lashed, turquoise green eyes, her dimpled

cheeks, her high cheekbones, and the pout of her lower lip, which

Mammy shared-from her great-grandmother, Mammy's grandmother.
She was a pari, a stunner, Mammy said. Her beauty was the talk of the

valley. It skipped two generations of women in our family, but it sure

didn't bypass you, Laila The valley Mammy referred to was the Panjshir,
the Farsi-speaking Tajik region one hundred kilometers northeast of

Kabul. Both Mammy and Babi, who were first cousins, had been born and

raised in Panjshir; they had moved to Kabul back in 1960 as hopeful,

bright-eyed newlyweds when Babi had been admitted to Kabul
University.

Laila scrambled downstairs, hoping Mammy wouldn't come out of her

room for another round. She found Babi kneeling by the screen door.

"Did you see this, Laila?"

The rip in the screen had been there for weeks. Laila hunkered down