Page 310 - Leadership in the Indian Army

"I'm not a young man anymore," he said. "Not that you care. You'd run

me to the ground, if you had your way. But you don't, Laila. You don't
have your way."

They parted ways two blocks from the orphanage, and he never spared
them more than fifteen minutes. "A minute late," he said, "and I start

walking. I mean it."
Laila had to pester him, plead with him, in order to spin out the allotted

minutes with Aziza a bit longer. For herself, and for Mariam, who was
disconsolate over Aziza's absence, though, as always, Mariam chose to

cradle her own suffering privately and quietly. And for Zalmai too, who

asked for his sister every day, and threw tantrums that sometimes

dissolved into inconsolable fits of crying.

Sometimes, on the way to the orphanage, Rasheed stopped and

complained that his leg was sore. Then he turned around and started
walking home in long, steady strides, without so much as a limp. Or he

clucked his tongue and said, "It's my lungs, Laila. I'm short of breath.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better, or the day after. We'll see." He never
bothered to feign a single raspy breath. Often, as he turned back and

marched home, he lit a cigarette. 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