kabul, spring1987jn ine-year-old laila rose from bed, as she did mostmornings, hungry for the sight of her friend tariq. thismorning, however, she knew there would be no tariq sighting.

"how long will you be gone?" she'd asked when tariq hadtold her that his parents were taking him south, to the city ofghazni, to visit his paternal uncle.

"thirteen days.""thirteen days?""it's not so long. you're making a face, laila.""i am not.""you're not going to cry, are you?""i am not going to cry! not over you. not in a thousandyears."she'd kicked at his shin, not his artificial but his real one, andhe'd playfully whacked the back of her head.

thirteen days. almost two weeks. and, just five days in, lailahad learned a fundamental truth about time: like the accordionon which tariq's father sometimes played old pashto songs,time stretched and contracted depending on tariq's absence orpresence-downstairs, her parents were fighting. again. lailaknew the routine: mammy, ferocious, indomitable, pacing andranting; babi, sitting, looking sheepish and dazed, noddingobediently, waiting for the storm to pass. laila closed her doorand changed. but she could still hear them. she could stillhearher finally, a door slammed. pounding footsteps. mammy'sbed creaked loudly. babi, it seemed, would survive to seeanother day.

"laila!" he called now. "i'm going to be late for work!""one minute!"laila put on her shoes and quickly brushed hershoulder-length, blond curls in the mirror. mammy always toldlaila that she had inherited her hair color-as well as herthick-lashed, turquoise green eyes, her dimpled cheeks, her highcheekbones, and the pout of her lower lip, which mammyshared-from her great-grandmother, mammy's grandmother.shewas a pari,a stunner, mammy said.her beauty was the talk ofthe valley. it skipped two generations of women in our family,but it sure didn't bypass you, laila the valley mammy referredto was the panjshir, the farsi-speaking tajik region onehundred kilometers northeast of kabul. both mammy and babi,who were first cousins, had been born and raised in panjshir;they had moved to kabul back in 1960 as hopeful, bright-eyednewlyweds when babi had been admitted to kabul university.

laila scrambled downstairs, hoping mammy wouldn't come outof her room for another round. she found babi kneeling bythe screen door.

"did you see this, laila?"the rip in the screen had been there for weeks. lailahunkered down beside him. "no. must be new.""that's what i told fariba." he looked shaken, reduced, as healways did after mammy was through with him. "she says it'sbeen letting in bees."laila's heart went out to him. babi was a small man, withnarrow shoulders and slim, delicate hands, almost like awoman's. at night, when laila walked into babi's room, shealways found the downward profile of his face burrowing into abook, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. sometimes hedidn't even notice that she was there. when he did, hemarked his page, smiled a close-lipped, companionable smile.

babi knew most of rumi's and hafez'sghazals by heart. hecould speak at length about the struggle between britain andczarist russia over afghanistan. he knew the differencebetween a stalactite and a stalagmite, and could tell you thatthe distance between the earth and the sun was the same asgoing from kabul to ghazni one and a half million times. but iflaila needed the lid of a candy jar forced open, she had to goto mammy, which felt like a betrayal. ordinary tools befuddledbabi. on his watch, squeaky door hinges never got oiled.

ceilings went on leaking after he plugged them. mold thriveddefiantly in kitchen cabinets. mammy said that before he leftwith noor to join the jihad against the soviets, back in 1980, itwas ahmad who had dutifully and competently minded thesethings.

"but if you have a book that needs urgent reading," she said,"then hakim is your man."still, laila could not shake the feeling that at one time, beforeahmad and noor had gone to war against the soviets-beforebabi hadlet them go to war-mammy too had thought babi'sbookishness endearing, that, once upon a time, she too hadfound his forgetfulness and ineptitude charming.

"so what is today?" he said now, smiling coyly. "day five? oris it six?""what do i care? i don't keep count," laila lied, shrugging,loving him for remembering- mammy had no idea that tariqhad left.

"well, his flashlight will be going off before you know it," babisaid, referring to laila and tariq's nightly signaling game. theyhad played it for so long it had become a bedtime ritual, likebrushing teeth.

babi ran his finger through the rip. "i'll patch this as soon asi get a chance. we'd better go." he raised his voice and calledover his shoulder, "we're going now, fariba! i'm taking laila toschool. don't forget to pick her up!"outside, as she was climbing on the carrier pack of babi'sbicycle, laila spotted a car parked up the street, across fromthe house where the shoemaker, rasheed, lived with hisreclusive wife. it was a benz, an unusual car in thisneighborhood, blue with a thick white stripe bisecting the hood,the roof, and the trunk. laila could make out two men sittinginside, one behind the wheel, the other in the back.

"who are they?" she said.

"it's not our business," babi said. "climb on, you'll be late forclass."laila remembered another fight, and, that time, mammy hadstood over babi and said in a mincing way,that's yourbusiness, isn't it, cousin? to make nothing your business. evenyour own sons going to war. howl pleaded with you. bui youburied your nose in those cursed books and let our sons golike they were a pair of haramis.

babi pedaled up the street, laila on the back, her armswrapped around his belly. as they passed the blue benz, lailacaught a fleeting glimpse of the man in the backseat: thin,white-haired, dressed in a dark brown suit, with a whitehandkerchief triangle in the breast pocket. the only other thingshe had time to notice was that the car had herat licenseplates.

they rode the rest of the way in silence, except at the turns,where babi braked cautiously and said, "hold on, laila. slowingdown. slowing down. there."* * *in class that day, laila found it hard to pay attention,between tariq's absence and her parents' fight. so when theteacher called on her to name the capitals of romania andcuba, laila was caught off guard.

the teacher's name was shanzai, but, behind her back, thestudents called her khala rangmaal, auntie painter, referring tothe motion she favored when she slapped students-palm, thenback of the hand, back and forth, like a painter working abrush. khala rangmaal was a sharp-faced young woman withheavy eyebrows. on the first day of school, she had proudlytold the class that she was the daughter of a poor peasantfrom khost. she stood straight, and wore her jet-black hairpulled tightly back and tied in a bun so that, when khalarangmaal turned around, laila could see the dark bristles onher neck. khala rangmaal did not wear makeup or jewelry.

she did not cover and forbade the female students from doingit. she said women and men were equal in every way andthere was no reason women should cover if men didn't.

she said that the soviet union was the best nation in theworld, along with afghanistan. it was kind to its workers, andits people were all equal. everyone in the soviet union washappy and friendly, unlike america, where crime made peopleafraid to leave their homes. and everyone in afghanistan wouldbe happy too, she said, once the antiprogressives, the backwardbandits, were defeated.

"that's why our soviet comrades came here in 1979. to lendtheir neighbor a hand. to help us defeat these brutes whowant our country to be a backward, primitive nation. and youmust lend your own hand, children. you must report anyonewho might know about these rebels. it's your duty. you mustlisten, then report. even if it's your parents, your uncles oraunts. because none of them loves you as much as yourcountry does. your country comes first, remember! i will beproud of you, and so will your country."on the wall behind khala rangmaal's desk was a map of thesoviet union, a map of afghanistan, and a framed photo ofthe latest communist president, najibullah, who, babi said, hadonce been the head of the dreaded khad, the afghan secretpolice. there were other photos too, mainly of young sovietsoldiers shaking hands with peasants, planting apple saplings,building homes, always smiling genially.

"well," khala rangmaal said now, "have i disturbed yourdaydreaming,inqilabi girl?"this was her nickname for laila, revolutionary girl, becauseshe'd been born the night of the april coup of 1978-exceptkhala rangmaal became angry if anyone in her class used thewordcoup. what had happened, she insisted, was aninqilab, arevolution, an uprising of the working people againstinequality.jihad was another forbidden word. according to her,there wasn't even a war out there in the provinces, justskirmishes against troublemakers stirred by people she calledforeign provocateurs. and certainly no one,no one, dared repeatin her presence the rising rumors that, after eight years offighting, the soviets were losing this war. particularly now thatthe american president, reagan, had started shipping themujahideen stinger missiles to down the soviet helicopters, nowthat muslims from all over the world were joining the cause:

egyptians, pakistanis, even wealthy saudis, who left their millionsbehind and came to afghanistan to fight the jihad.

"bucharest. havana," laila managed.

"and are those countries our friends or not?""they are,moolim sahib. they are friendly countries."khala rangmaal gave a curt nod.

* * *when school let out. mammy again didn't show up like shewas supposed to. laila ended up walking home with two ofher classmates, giti and hasina.

giti was a tightly wound, bony little girl who wore her hair intwin ponytails held by elastic bands. she was always scowling,and walking with her books pressed to her chest, like a shield.

hasina was twelve, three years older than laila and giti, buthad failed third grade once and fourth grade twice. what shelacked in smarts hasina made up for in mischief and a mouththat, giti said, ran like a sewing machine. it was hasina whohad come up with the khala rangmaal nickname-today, hasinawas dispensing advice on how to fend off unattractive suitors.

"foolproof method, guaranteed to work. i give you my word.""this is stupid. i'm too young to have a suitor!" giti said.

"you're not too young.""well, no one's come to ask formy hand.""that's because you have a beard, my dear."giti's hand shot up to her chin, and she looked with alarm tolaila, who smiled pityingly-giti was the most humorless personlaila had ever met-and shook her head with reassurance.

"anyway, you want to know what to do or not, ladies?""go ahead," laila said.

"beans. no less than four cans. on the evening the toothlesslizard comes to ask for your hand. but the timing, ladies, thetiming is everything- you have to suppress the fireworks 'til it'stime to serve him his tea.""i'll remember that," laila said.

"so will he."laila could have said then that she didn't need this advicebecause babi had no intention of giving her away anytimesoon. though babi worked at silo, kabul's gigantic breadfactory, where he labored amid the heat and the hummingmachinery stoking the massive ovens and mill grains all day, hewas a university-educated man. he'd been a high schoolteacher before the communists fired him-this was shortly afterthe coup of 1978, about a year and a half before the sovietshad invaded. babi had made it clear to laila from ayoung agethat the most important thing in his life, after her safety, washer schooling.

i know you're still young, bull waniyou to understand andlearn this now,he said.marriage can wait, education cannotyou're a very, very bright girl. truly, you are. you can beanything you want, laila i know this about you. and i alsoknow that when this war is over, afghanistan is going to needyou as much as its men, maybe even more. because a societyhas no chance of success if its women are uneducated, lailano chance.

but laila didn't tell hasina that babi had said these things, orhow glad she was to have a father like him, or how proudshe was of his regard for her, or how determined she was topursue her education just as he had his. for the last twoyears, laila had received theawal numra certificate, given yearlyto the top-ranked student in each grade.

she said nothing of these things to hasina, though, whoseown father was an ill-tempered taxi driver who in two or threeyears would almost certainly give her away. hasina had toldlaila, in one of her infrequent serious moments, that it hadalready been decided that she would marry a first cousin whowas twenty years older than her and owned an auto shop inlahore.i've seen him twice, hasina had said.both times he atewith his mouth open.

"beans, girls," hasina said. "you remember that. unless, ofcourse"-here she flashed an impish grin and nudged laila withan elbow-"it's your young handsome, one-legged prince whocomes knocking- then…"laila slapped the elbow away. she would have taken offense ifanyone else had said that about tariq. but she knew thathasina wasn't malicious. she mocked-it was what she did-andher mocking spared no one, least of all herself.

"you shouldn't talk that way about people!" giti said.

"what people is that?""people who've been injured because of war," giti saidearnestly, oblivious to hasina's toying.

"i think mullah giti here has a crush on tariq. i knew it! ha!

but he's already spoken for, don't you know? isn't he, laila?""i do not have a crush. on anyone!"they broke off from laila, and, still arguing this way, turnedin to their street.

laila walked alone the last three blocks. when she was onher street, she noticed that the blue benz was still parkedthere, outside rasheed and mariam's house. the elderly man inthe brown suit was standing by the hood now, leaning on acane, looking up at the house.

that was when a voice behind laila said, "hey. yellow hair.

look here."laila turned around and was greeted by the barrel of a gun.