Page 95 - Leadership in the Indian Army

"What kind of answer is that?" he said again. "That's what a mullah is

supposed to say. You pay a doctor his fee, you want a better answer than
'God's will.'"

Mariam curled up her knees beneath the quilt and said he ought to get

some rest.

"God's will," he simmered.

He sat in his room smoking cigarettes all day.
Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the
whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She

remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved

by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs

drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that
fell silently on the people below.

As a reminder of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we

endure all that falls upon us.

14.

The grief kept surprising Mariam. All it took to unleash it was her
thinking of the unfinished crib in the toolshed or the suede coat in

Rasheed's closet. The baby came to life then and she could hear it, could

hear its hungry grunts, its gurgles and jabbering- She felt it sniffing at
her breasts. The grief washed over her, swept her up, tossed her upside

down. Mariam was dumbfounded that she could miss in such a crippling

manner a being she had never even seen.

Then there were days when the dreariness didn't seem quite as

unrelenting to Mariam. Days when the mere thought of resuming the old