Page 42 - Leadership in the Indian Army

When the car stopped before Jalil's house, the driver opened the door
for them and carried Mariam's suitcase. Jalil guided her, one palm

cupped around each of her shoulders, through the same gates outside of

which, two days before, Mariam had slept on the sidewalk waiting for

him. Two days before-when Mariam could think of nothing in the world
she wanted more than to walk in this garden with Jalil-felt like another

lifetime. How could her life have turned upside down so quickly, Mariam

asked herself. She kept her gaze to the ground, on her feet, stepping on

the gray stone path. She was aware of the presence of people in the
garden, murmuring, stepping aside, as she and Jalil walked past. She

sensed the weight of eyes on her, looking down from the windows

upstairs.

Inside the house too, Mariam kept her head down. She walked on a

maroon carpet with a repeating blue-and-yellow octagonal pattern, saw
out of the corner of her eye the marble bases of statues, the lower

halves of vases, the frayed ends of richly colored tapestries hanging from

walls. The stairs she and Jalil took were wide and covered with asimilar

carpet, nailed down at the base of each step. At the top of the stairs, Jalil
led her to the left, down another long, carpeted hallway. He stopped by

one of the doors, opened it, and let her in.

"Your sisters Niloufar and Atieh play here sometimes," Jalil said, "but
mostly we use this as a guest room. You'll be comfortable here, I think.

It's nice, isn't it?"

The room had a bed with a green-flowered blanket knit in a tightly
woven, honeycomb design. The curtains, pulled back to reveal the

garden below, matched the blanket. Beside the bed was a three-drawer