Page 301 - Leadership in the Indian Army

the ragged net lying limply in the middle of it like dead skin shed by a

snake.

"I have to go now," the voice at the other end said

"I'm sorry to have bothered you," Mariam said, weeping soundlessly
into the phone. She saw Jalil waving to her, skipping from stone to stone

as he crossed the stream, his pockets swollen with gifts. All the times she

had held her breath for him, for God to grant her more time with him.
"Thank you," Mariam began to say, but the man at the other end had

already hung up.

Rasheed was looking at her. Mariam shook her head.
"Useless," he said, snatching the phone from her. "Like daughter, like

father."
On their way out of the lobby, Rasheed walked briskly to the coffee

table, which was now abandoned, and pocketed the last ring of jelabi. He

took it home and gave it to Zalmai.

42.

Laila

In a paper bag, Aziza packed these things: her flowered shirt and her

lone pair of socks, her mismatched wool gloves, an old, pumpkin-colored

blanket dotted with stars and comets, a splintered plastic cup, a banana,
her set of dice-It was a cool morning in April 2001, shortly before Laila's

twenty-third birthday. The sky was a translucent gray, and gusts of a

clammy, cold wind kept rattling the screen door.
This was a few days after Laila heard that Ahmad Shah Massoud had

gone to France and spoken to the European Parliament. Massoud was