Page 195 - Leadership in the Indian Army

wedding band-and most of her old clothes.

"You're not selling this, are you?" Laila said, lifting Mammy's wedding
dress. It cascaded open onto her lap. She touched the lace and ribbon

along the neckline, the hand-sewn seed pearls on the sleeves.

Mammy shrugged and took it from her. She tossed it brusquely on a

pile of clothes. Like ripping off a Band-Aid in one stroke, Laila thought.
It was Babi who had the most painful task.

Laila found him standing in his study, a rueful expression on his face as

he surveyed his shelves. He was wearing a secondhand T-shirt with a

picture of San Francisco's red bridge on it. Thick fog rose from the
whitecapped waters and engulfed the bridge's towers.

"You know the old bit," he said. "You're on a deserted island. You can
have five books. Which do you choose? I never thought I'd actually have

to."

"We'll have to start you a new collection, Babi."
"Mm." He smiled sadly. "I can't believe I'm leaving Kabul. I went to

school here, got my first job here, became a father in this town. It's

strange to think that I'll be sleeping beneath another city's skies soon."

"It's strange for me too."
"All day, this poem about Kabul has been bouncing around in my head.

Saib-e-Tabrizi wrote it back in the seventeenth century, I think. I used to

know the whole poem, but all I can remember now is two lines:
"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the

thousand splendid suns that hide behind her -walls."

Laila looked up, saw he was weeping. She put an arm around his waist.

"Oh, Babi. We'll come back. When this war is over. We'll come back to
Kabul, inshallah. You'll see."