Page 393 - Leadership in the Indian Army

summon Mariam behind the lids of her eyes: the soft radiance of her

gaze, the long chin, the coarsened skin of her neck, the tight-lipped
smile. Here, Laila can lay her cheek on the softness of Mariam's lap

again, can feel Mariam swaying back and forth, reciting verses from the

Koran, can feel the words vibrating down Mariam's body, to her knees,

and into her own ears.

Then, suddenly, the weeds begin to recede, as if something is pulling

them by the roots from beneath the ground. They sink lower and lower

until the earth in the kolba has swallowed the last of their spiny leaves.
The spiderwebs magically unspin themselves. The bird's nest

self-disassembles, the twigs snapping loose one by one, flying out of the

kolba end over end. An invisible eraser wipes the Russian graffiti off the
wall.

The floorboards are back. Laila sees a pair of sleeping cots now, a
wooden table, two chairs, a cast-iron stove in the corner, shelves along

the walls, on which sit clay pots and pans, a blackened teakettle, cups

and spoons. She hears chickens clucking outside, the distant gurgling of

the stream.

A young Mariam is sitting at the table making a doll by the glow of an

oil lamp. She's humming something. Her face is smooth and youthful,

her hair washed, combed back. She has all her teeth.
Laila watches Mariam glue strands of yam onto her doll's head. In a few

years, this little girl will be a woman who will make small demands on

life, who will never burden others, who will never let on that she too has
had sorrows, disappointments, dreams that have been ridiculed. A

woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint,