Whispers behind the veil

BOOK EXTRACT

When The Kite Runner was released to critical acclaim, it launched its author, Khaled Hosseini, into instant stardom. Even though the book was a sentimental evocation of nostalgia, it succeeded because it offered, perhaps for the first time to the Western world, a warm and humane insight into Afghanistan, a land that for many had become synonymous with the dreaded Taliban.

In this current work, Hosseini returns to Kabul in another saccharine-flavoured piece of fiction more suited to the likes of a celluloid weepie. Who knows, it might actually make it there!

When she'd at last worked up the nerve, Mariam went to his room.

Rasheed lit a cigarette, and said, "Why not?"

Mariam knew right then that she was defeated. She'd half expected, half hoped, that he would deny everything, feign surprise, maybe even outrage, at what she was implying. She might have had the upper hand then. She might have succeeded in shaming him. But it stole her grit, his calm acknowledgment, his matter-of-fact tone.

"Sit down," he said. He was lying on his bed, back to the wall, his thick, long legs splayed on the mattress. "Sit down before you faint and cut your head open."

Mariam felt herself drop onto the folding chair beside his bed.

"Hand me that ashtray, would you?" he said.
Obediently, she did.

Rasheed had to be sixty or more now "" though Mariam, and in fact Rasheed himself did not know his exact age. His hair had gone white, but it was thick and coarse as ever. There was a sag now to his eyelids and the skin of his neck, which was wrinkled and leathery.

His cheeks hung a bit more than they used to. In the mornings, he stooped just a tad. But he still had the stout shoulders, the thick torso, the strong hands, the swollen belly that entered the room before any other part of him did.

On the whole, Mariam thought that he had weathered the years considerably better than she.

"We need to legitimize this situation," he said now, balancing the ashtray on his belly. His lips scrunched up in a playful pucker. "People will talk. It looks dishonorable, an unmarried young woman living here. It's bad for my reputation. And hers. And yours. I might add."

"Eighteen years," Mariam said. "And I never asked you for a thing. Not one thing. I'm asking now."

He inhaled smoke and let it out slowly. "She can't just stay here, if that's what you're suggesting. I can't go on feeding her and clothing her and giving her a place to sleep. I'm not the Red Cross, Mariam."

"But this?"
"What of it? What? She's too young, you think? She's fourteen. Hardly a child. You were fifteen, remember? My mother was fourteen when she had me. Thirteen when she married."

"I ... I don't want this," Mariam said, numb with contempt and helplessness.

"It's not your decision. It's hers and mine."
"I'm too old."
"She's too young, you're too old. This is nonsense."

"I am too old. Too old for you to do this to me," Mariam said, balling up fistfuls of her dress so tight that her hands shook. "For you, after all these years, to make me an ambagh."

"Don't be so dramatic. It's a common thing and you know it. I have friends who have two, three, four wives. Your own father had three. Besides, what I'm doing now most men I know would have done long ago. You know it's true."

"I won't allow it."
At this, Rasheed smiled sadly.

"There is another option," he said, scratching the sole of one foot with the calloused heel of the other. "She can leave. I won't stand in her way. But I suspect she won't go far. No food, no water, not a rupiah in her pockets, bullets and rockets flying everywhere. How many days do you suppose she'll last before she's abducted, raped, or tossed into some roadside ditch with her throat slit? Or all three?"

He coughed and adjusted the pillow behind his back.

"The roads out there are unforgiving, Mariam, believe me. Blood-hounds and bandits at every turn. I wouldn't like her chances, not at all. But let's say that by some miracle she gets to Peshawar. What then? Do you have any idea what those camps are like?"

He gazed at her from behind a column of smoke.

"People living under scraps of cardboard. And that's before winter. Then it's frostbite season. Pneumonia. People turning to icicles. Those camps become frozen graveyards."

"Of course," he made a playful, twirling motion with his hand, "she could keep warm in one of those Peshawar brothels. Business is booming there, I hear. A beauty like her ought to bring in a small fortune, don't you think?"

He set the ashtray on the nightstand and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Look," he said, sounding more conciliatory now, as a victor could afford to. "I knew you wouldn't take this well. I don't really blame you. But this is for the best. You'll see. Think of it this way, Mariam. I'm giving you help around the house and her a sanctuary. A home and a husband. These days, times being what they are, a woman needs a husband. Haven't you noticed all the widows sleeping on the streets? They would kill for this chance. In fact, this is ... Well, I'd say this is downright charitable of me."

He smiled.
"The way I see it, I deserve a medal."

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A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Author Khaled Hosseini
Publisher Bloomsbury
PAGES 372
PRICE Rs 595