Page 38 - Leadership in the Indian Army

going to wait for him."

"Look at me," he said. "Jalil Khan says that I need to take you back

now. Right now. Do you understand? Jalil Khan says so."

He opened the rear passenger door to the car. "Bia Come on," he said
softly.

"I want to see him," Mariam said. Her eyes were tearing over.

The driver sighed. "Let me take you home. Come on, dokhtarjo."

Mariam stood up and walked toward him. But then, at the last moment,
she changed direction and ran to the front gates. She felt the driver's

fingers fumbling for a grip at her shoulder. She shed him and burst

through the open gates.

In the handful of seconds that she was in Jalil's garden, Mariam's eyes

registered seeing a gleaming glass structure with plants inside it, grape

vines clinging to wooden trellises, a fishpond built with gray blocks of

stone, fruit
trees, and bushes of brightly colored flowers everywhere. Her gaze

skimmed over all of these things before they found a face, across the

garden, in an upstairs window. The face was there for only an instant, a
flash, but long enough. Long enough for Mariam to see the eyes widen,

the mouth open. Then it snapped away from view. A hand appeared and

frantically pulled at a cord. The curtains fell shut.
Then a pair of hands buried into her armpits and she was lifted off the

ground. Mariam kicked. The pebbles spilled from her pocket. Mariam

kept kicking and crying as she was carried to the car and lowered onto