A Thousand Splendid Suns(65)

"I'll throw up," Laila laughed. "I'm too excited."

"Me too."

"Thank you, Mariam."

"For what?"

"For this. For coming with us," Laila said. "I don't think I could do this alone."

"You won't have to."

"We're going to be all right, aren't we, Mariam, where we're going?"

Mariam's hand slid across the bench and closed over hers. "The Koran says Allah is the East and the West, therefore wherever you turn there is Allah's purpose."

"Bov!" Aziza cried, pointing to a bus. "Mayam, bov!"

"I see it, Aziza jo," Mariam said. "That's right, bov. Soon we're all going to ride on a bov. Oh, the things you're going to see."

Laila smiled. She watched a carpenter in his shop across the street sawing wood, sending chips flying. She watched the cars bolting past, their windows coated with soot and grime. She watched the buses growling idly at the curb, with peacocks, lions, rising suns, and glittery swords painted on their sides.

In the warmth of the morning sun, Laila felt giddy and bold. She had another of those little sparks of euphoria, and when a stray dog with yellow eyes limped by, Laila leaned forward and pet its back.

A few minutes before eleven, a man with a bullhorn called for all passengers to Peshawar to begin boarding. The bus doors opened with a violent hydraulic hiss. A parade of travelers rushed toward it, scampering past each other to squeeze through.

Wakil motioned toward Laila as he picked up his son.

"We're going," Laila said.

Wakil led the way. As they approached the bus, Laila saw faces appear in the windows, noses and palms pressed to the glass. All around them, farewells were yelled.

A young militia soldier was checking tickets at the bus door.

"Bov!" Aziza cried.

Wakil handed tickets to the soldier, who tore them in half and handed them back. Wakil let his wife board first. Laila saw a look pass between Wakil and the militiaman. Wakil, perched on the first step of the bus, leaned down and said something in his ear. The militiaman nodded.

Laila's heart plummeted.

"You two, with the child, step aside," the soldier said.

Laila pretended not to hear. She went to climb the steps, but he grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly pulled her out of the line. "You too," he called to Mariam. "Hurry up! You're holding up the line."

"What's the problem, brother?" Laila said through numb lips. "We have tickets. Didn't my cousin hand them to you?"

He made a Shh motion with his finger and spoke in a low voice to another guard. The second guard, a rotund fellow with a scar down his right cheek, nodded.

"Follow me," this one said to Laila.

"We have to board this bus," Laila cried, aware that her voice was shaking. "We have tickets. Why are you doing this?"

"You're not going to get on this bus. You might as well accept that. You will follow me. Unless you want your little girl to see you dragged."

As they were led to a truck, Laila looked over her shoulder and spotted Wakil's boy at the rear of the bus. The boy saw her too and waved happily.

AT THE POLICE STATION at Torabaz Khan Intersection, they were made to sit apart, on opposite ends of a long, crowded corridor, between them a desk, behind which a man smoked one cigarette after another and clacked occasionally on a typewriter. Three hours passed this way. Aziza tottered from Laila to Mariam, then back. She played with a paper clip that the man at the desk gave her. She finished the crackers. Eventually, she fell asleep in Mariam's lap.

At around three o'clock, Laila was taken to an interview room. Mariam was made to wait with Aziza in the corridor.

The man sitting on the other side of the desk in the interview room was in his thirties and wore civilian clothes - black suit, tie, black loafers. He had a neatly trimmed beard, short hair, and eyebrows that met. He stared at Laila, bouncing a pencil by the eraser end on the desk.

"We know," he began, clearing his throat and politely covering his mouth with a fist, "that you have already told one lie today, hamshira. The young man at the station was not your cousin. He told us as much himself. The question is whether you will tell more lies today. Personally, I advise you against it."

"We were going to stay with my uncle," Laila said.

"That's the truth."

The policeman nodded. "The hamshira in the corridor, she's your mother?"

"Yes."

"She has a Herati accent. You don't."

"She was raised in Herat, I was born here in Kabul."

"Of course. And you are widowed? You said you were. My condolences. And this uncle, this kaka, where does he live?"

"In Peshawar."

"Yes, you said that." He licked the point of his pencil and poised it over a blank sheet of paper. "But where in Peshawar? Which neighborhood, please? Street name, sector number."

Laila tried to push back the bubble of panic that was coming up her chest. She gave him the name of the only street she knew in Peshawar - she'd heard it mentioned once, at the party Mammy had thrown when the Mujahideen had first come to Kabul - "Jamrud Road."

"Oh, yes. Same street as the Pearl Continental Hotel. He might have mentioned it."