laila could hardly move, as though cement had solidified inevery one of her joints. there was a conversation going on,and laila knew that she was at one end of it, but she feltremoved from it, as though she were merely eavesdropping. astariq talked, laila pictured her life as a rotted rope, snapping,unraveling, the fibers detaching, falling away.

it was a hot, muggy afternoon that august of 1992, and theywere in the living room of laila's house. mammy had had astomachache all day, and, minutes before, despite the rocketsthat hekmatyar was launching from the south, babi had takenher to see a doctor. and here was tariq now, seated besidelaila on the couch, looking at the ground, hands between hisknees.

saying that he was leaving.

not the neighborhood. not kabul. but afghanistan altogether.

leaving.

laila was struck blind.

"where? where will you go?""pakistan first. peshawar. then i don't know. maybehindustan. iran.""how long?""i don't know.""i mean, how long have you known?""a few days. i was going to tell you, laila, i swear, but icouldn't bring myself to. i knewhow upset you'd be.""when?""tomorrow.""tomorrow?""laila, look at me.""tomorrow.""it'smy father. his heartcan't take it anymore, all this fightingand killing."laila buried her face in her hands, a bubble of dread fillingher chest.

she should have seen this coming, she thought. almosteveryone she knew had packed their things and left. theneighborhood had been all but drained of familiar faces, andnow, only four months after fighting had broken out betweenthe mujahideen factions, laila hardly recognized anybody onthe streets anymore. hasina's family had fled in may, off totehran. wajma and her clan had gone to islamabad that samemonth. giti's parents and her siblings left in june, shortly aftergiti was killed. laila didn't know where they had gone-sheheard a rumor that they had headed for mashad, in iran.

after people left, their homes sat unoccupied for a few days,then either militiamen took them or strangers moved in.

everyone was leaving. and now tariq too.

"and my mother is not a young woman anymore," he wassaying. "they're so afraid all the time. laila, look at me.""you should have told me.""please look at me."a groan came out of laila. then a wail. and then she wascrying, and when he went to wipe her cheek with the pad ofhis thumb she swiped his hand away. it was selfish andirrational, but she was furious with him for abandoning her,tariq, who was like an extension of her, whose shadow sprungbeside hers in every memory. how could he leave her? sheslapped him. then she slapped him again and pulled at hishair, and he had to take her by the wrists, and he was sayingsomething she couldn't make out, he was saying it softly,reasonably, and, somehow, they ended up brow to brow, noseto nose, and she could feel the heat of his breath on her lipsagain.

and when, suddenly, he leaned in, she did too.

* * *in the coming days and weeks, laila would scramble franticallyto commit it all to memory, what happened next-like an artlover running out of a burning museum, she would grabwhatever she could-a look, a whisper, a moan-to salvage fromperishing, to preserve. but time is the most unforgiving of fires,and she couldn't, in the end, save it all still, she had these:

that first, tremendous pang of pain down below. the slant ofsunlight on the rug. her heel grazing the cold hardness of hisleg, lying beside them, hastily unstrapped. her hands cuppinghis elbows. the upside-down, mandolin-shaped birthmarkbeneath his collarbone, glowing red. his face hovering overhers. his black curls dangling, tickling her lips, her chin. theterror that they would be discovered. the disbelief at their ownboldness, their courage. the strange and indescribable pleasure,interlaced with the pain. and the look, the myriad oflooks, ontariq: of apprehension, tenderness, apology, embarrassment, butmostly, mostly, of hunger.

* * *there was frenzy after. shirts hurriedly buttoned, belts buckled,hair finger-combed. they sat, then, they sat beside each other,smelling of each other, faces flushed pink, both of themstunned, both of them speechless before the enormity of whathad just happened. what they had done.

laila saw three drops of blood on the rug,her blood, andpictured her parents sitting on this couch later, oblivious to thesin that she had committed. and now the shame set in, andthe guilt, and, upstairs, the clock ticked on, impossibly loud tolaila's ears. like a judge's gavel pounding again and again,condemning her.

then tariq said, "come with me."for a moment, laila almost believed that it could be done.

she, tariq, and his parents, setting out together-packing theirbags, climbing aboard a bus, leaving behind all this violence,going to find blessings, or trouble, and whichever came theywould face it together. the bleak isolation awaiting her, themurderous loneliness, it didn't have to be.

she could go. they could be together.

they would have more afternoons like this.

"i want to marry you, laila."for the first time since they were on the floor, she raised hereyes to meet his. she searched his face. there was noplayfulness this time. his look was one of conviction, of guilelessyet ironclad earnestness.

"tariq-""let me marry you, laila. today. we could get marriedtoday."he began to say more, about going to a mosque, finding amullah, a pair of witnesses, a quicknikka. …but laila was thinking of mammy, as obstinate anduncompromising as the mujahideen, the air around her chokedwith rancor and despair, and she was thinking of babi, whohad long surrendered, who made such a sad, patheticopponent to mammy.

sometimes…i feel like you 're all i have, laila.

these were the circumstances of her life, the inescapabletruths of it.

"i'll ask kaka hakim for your hand he'll give us his blessing,laila, i know it."he was right. babi would. but it would shatter him.

tariq was still speaking, his voice hushed, then high,beseeching, then reasoning; his face hopeful, then stricken.

"i can't," laila said.

"don't say that. i love you.""i'm sorry-""i love you."how long had she waited to hear those words from him?

how many times had she dreamed them uttered? therethey were, spoken at last, and the irony crushed her.

"it's my father i can't leave," laila said "i'm all he has left.

his heart couldn't take it either."tariq knew this. he knew she could not wipe away theobligations of her life any more than he could his, but it wenton, his pleadings and her rebuttals, his proposals and herapologies, his tears and hers.

in the end, laila had to make him leave.

at the door, she made him promise to go without good-byes.

she closed the door on him. laila leaned her back against it,shaking against his pounding fists, one arm gripping her bellyand a hand across her mouth, as he spoke through the doorand promised that he would come back, that he would comeback for her. she stood there until he tired, until he gave up,and then she listened to his uneven footsteps until they faded,until all was quiet, save for the gunfire cracking in the hills andher own heart thudding in her belly, her eyes, her bones.