lailalaila was aware of the face over her, all teeth and tobaccoand foreboding eyes. she was dimly aware, too, of mariam, apresence beyond the face, of her fists raining down. abovethem was the ceiling, and it was the ceiling laila was drawnto, the dark markings of mold spreading across it like ink on adress, the crack in the plaster that was a stolid smile or afrown, depending on which end of the room you looked at itfrom. laila thought of all the times she had tied a rag aroundthe end of a broom and cleaned cobwebs from this ceiling.

the three times she and mariam had put coats of white painton it. the crack wasn't a smile any longer now but a mockingleer. and it was receding. the ceiling was shrinking, lifting,rising away from her and toward some hazy dimness beyond.

it rose until it shrank to the size of a postage stamp, whiteand bright, everything around it blotted out by the shuttereddarkness. in the dark, rasheed's face was like a sunspot.

brief little bursts of blinding light before her eyes now, likesilver stars exploding. bizarre geometric forms in the light,worms, egg-shaped things, moving up and down, sideways,melting into each other, breaking apart, morphing intosomething else, then fading, giving way to blackness.

voices muffled and distant.

behind the lids of her eyes, her children's faces flared andfizzled. aziza, alert and burdened, knowing, secretive. zalmai,looking up at his father with quivering eagerness.

it would end like this, then, laila thought. what a pitiableend-but then the darkness began to lift. she had a sensationof rising up, of being hoisted up. the ceiling slowly came back,expanded, and now laila could make out the crack again, andit was the same old dull smile.

she was being shaken.are you all right? answer me, are youall right? mariam's face, engraved with scratches, heavy withworry, hovered over laila.

laila tried a breath. it burned her throat. she tried another. itburned even more this time, and not just her throat but herchest too. and then she was coughing, and wheezing. gasping.

but breathing. her good ear rang.

* * *the first thing she saw when she sat up was rasheed. hewas lying on his back, staring at nothing with an unblinking,fish-mouthed expression. a bit of foam, lightly pink, haddribbled from his mouth down his cheek. the front of hispants was wet. she saw his forehead.

then she saw the shovel.

a groan came out of her. "oh," she said, tremulously, barelyable to make a voice, "oh, mariam."* * *laila paced, moaning and banging her hands together, asmariam sat near rasheed, her hands in her lap, calm andmotionless. mariam didn't say anything for a long time.

laila's mouth was dry, and she was stammering her words,trembling all over. she willed herself not to look at rasheed, atthe rictus of his mouth, his open eyes, at the blood congealingin the hollow of his collarbone.

outside, the light was fading, the shadows deepening. mariam'sface looked thin and drawn in this light, but she did notappear agitated or frightened, merely preoccupied, thoughtful, soself-possessed that when a fly landed on her chin she paid itno attention. she just sat there with her bottom lip stuck out,the way she did when she was absorbed in thought.

at last, she said, "sit down, laila jo."laila did, obediently.

"we have to move him. zalmai can't see this."* * *mariam fished the bedroom key from rasheed's pocket beforethey wrapped him in a bedsheet. laila took him by the legs,behind the knees, and mariam grabbed him under the arms.

they tried lifting him, but he was too heavy, and they endedup dragging him. as they were passing through the front doorand into the yard, rasheed's foot caught against the doorframeand his leg bent sideways. they had to back up and try again,and then something thumped upstairs and laila's legs gave out.

she dropped rasheed. she slumped to the ground, sobbingand shaking, and mariam had to stand over her, hands onhips, and say that she had to get herself together. that whatwas done was done-after a time, laila got up and wiped herface, and they carried rasheed to the yard without furtherincident. they took him into the toolshed. they left him behindthe workbench, on which sat his saw, some nails, a chisel, ahammer, and a cylindrical block of wood that rasheed hadbeen meaning to carve into something for zalmai but hadnever gotten around to doing-then they went back inside.

mariam washed her hands, ran them through her hair, took adeep breath and let it out. "let me tend to your wounds now.

you're all cut up, laila jo."* * *mahiam said she needed the night to think things over. toget her thoughts together and devise a plan.

"there is a way," she said, "and i just have to find it.""we have to leave! we can't stay here," laila said in abroken, husky voice. she thought suddenly of the sound theshovel must have made striking rasheed's head, and her bodypitched forward. bile surged up her chest.

mariam waited patiently until laila felt better. then she hadlaila lie down, and, as she stroked laila's hair in her lap,mariam said not to worry, that everything would be fine. shesaid that they would leave-she, laila, the children, and tariqtoo. they would leave this house, and this unforgiving city.

they would leave this despondent country altogether, mariamsaid, running her hands through laila's hair, and go someplaceremote and safe where no one would find them, where theycould disown their past and find shelter.

"somewhere with trees," she said. "yes. lots of trees."they would live in a small house on the edge of some townthey'd never heard of, mariam said, or in a remote villagewhere the road was narrow and unpaved but lined with allmanner of plants and shrubs. maybe there would be a path totake, a path that led to a grass field where the children couldplay, or maybe a graveled road that would take them to aclear blue lake where trout swam and reeds poked through thesurface. they would raise sheep and chickens, and they wouldmake bread together and teach the children to read. theywould make new lives for themselves-peaceful, solitary lives-andthere the weight of all that they'd endured would lift fromthem, and they would be deserving of all the happiness andsimple prosperity they would find.

laila murmured encouragingly. it would be an existence rifewith difficulties, she saw, but of a pleasurable kind, difficultiesthey could take pride in, possess, value, as one would a familyheirloom. mariam's soft maternal voice went on, brought adegree of comfort to her.there is a way, she'd said, and, inthe morning, mariam would tell her what needed to be doneand they would do it, and maybe by tomorrow this time theywould be on their way to this new life, a life luxuriant withpossibility and joy and welcomed difficulties. laila was gratefulthat mariam was in charge, unclouded and sober, able to thinkthis through for both of them. her own mind was a jittery,muddled mess.

mariam got up. "you should tend to your son now." on herwas the most stricken expression laila had ever seen on ahuman face.

* * *laila found him in the dark, curled up on rasheed'sside ofthe mattress. she slipped beneath the covers beside him andpulled the blanket over them.

"are you asleep?"without turning around to face her, he said, "can't sleep yet.

baba jan hasn't said thebabaloo prayers with me.""maybe i can say them with you tonight.""you can't say them like he can."she squeezed his little shoulder. kissed the nape of his neck.

"i can try.""where is baba jan?""baba jan has gone away," laila said, her throat closing upagain.

and there it was, spoken for the first time, the great, damninglie.how many more times would this lie have to be told? lailawondered miserably. how many more times would zalmai haveto be deceived? she pictured zalmai, his jubilant, runningwelcomes when rasheed came home and rasheed picking himup by the elbows and swinging him round and round untilzalmai's legs flew straight out, the two of them gigglingafterward when zalmai stumbled around like a drunk. shethought of their disorderly games and their boisterous laughs,their secretive glances.

a pall of shame and grief for her son fell over laila.

"where did he go?""i don't know, my love."when was he coming back? would baba jan bring a presentwith him when he returned?

she did the prayers with zalmai.

twenty-onebismallah-e-rahman-erahims -one for each knuckle ofseven fingers. she watched him cup his hands before his faceand blow into them, then place the back of both hands on hisforehead and make a casting-away motion, whispering,babaloo,be gone, do not come to zalmai, he has no businesswith you. babaloo,be gone. then, to finish off, theysaidailah-u-akbar three times. and later, much later that night,laila was startled by a muted voice:did babajan leave becauseof me? because of what i said, about you and the mandownstairs?

she leaned over him, meaning to reassure, meaning to sayithad nothing to do with you, zalmai. no. nothing is your fault.

but he was asleep, his small chest rising and sinking.

* * *when laila "went to bed, her mind was muffled up, clouded,incapable of sustained rational thought. but when she woke up,to the muezzin's call for morning prayer, much of the dullnesshad lifted.

she sat up and watched zalmai sleep for a while, the ball ofhis fist under his chin. laila pictured mariam sneaking into theroom in the middle of the night as she and zalmai had slept,watching them, making plans in her head.

laila slipped out of bed. it took effort to stand. she achedeverywhere. her neck, her shoulders, her back, her arms, herthighs, all engraved with the cuts of rasheed's belt buckle.

wincing, she quietly left the bedroom.

in mariam's room, the light was a shade darker than gray,the kind of light laila had always associated with crowingroosters and dew rolling off blades of grass. mariam was sittingin a corner, on a prayer rug facing the window. slowly, lailalowered herself to the ground, sitting down across from her.

"you should go and visit aziza this morning," mariam said.

"i know what you mean to do.""don't walk. take the bus, you'll blend in. taxis are tooconspicuous. you're sure to get stopped for riding alone.""what you promised last night…"laila could not finish. the trees, the lake, the nameless village.

a delusion, she saw. a lovely lie meant to soothe. like cooingto a distressed child.

"i meant it," mariam said. "i meant it foryou, laila jo.""i don't want any of it without you," laila croaked.

mariam smiled wanly.

"i want it to be just like you said, mariam, all of us goingtogether, you, me, the children. tariq has a place in pakistan.

we can hide out there for a while, wait for things to calmdown-""that's not possible," mariam said patiently, like a parent to awell-meaning but misguided child.

"we'll take care of each other," laila said, choking on thewords, her eyes wet with tears. "like you said. no. i'll takecareof you for a change.""oh, laila jo."laila went on a stammering rant. she bargained. shepromised. she would do all the cleaning, she said, and all thecooking. "you won't have to do a thing. ever again. you rest,sleep in, plant a garden. whatever you want, you ask and i'llget it for you. don't do this, mariam. don't leave me. don'tbreak aziza's heart.""they chop off hands for stealing bread," mariam said "whatdo you think they'll do when they find a dead husband andtwo missing wives?""no one will know," laila breathed. "no one will find us.""they will. sooner or later. they're bloodhounds." mariam'svoice was low, cautioning; it made laila's promises soundfantastical, trumped-up, foolish.

"mariam, please-""when they do, they'll find you as guilty as me. tariq too. iwon't have the two of you living on the run, like fugitives.

what will happen to your children if you're caught?"laila's eyes brimming, stinging.

"who will take care of them then? the taliban? think like amother, laila jo. think like a mother. i am.""i can't.""you have to.""it isn't fair," laila croaked.

"but itis. come here. come lie here."laila crawled to her and again put her head on mariam's lap.

she remembered all the afternoons they'd spent together,braiding each other's hair, mariam listening patiently to herrandom thoughts and ordinary stories with an air of gratitude,with the expression of a person to whom a unique andcoveted privilege had been extended "itis fair," mariam said.

"i've killed our husband. i've deprived your son of his father. itisn't right that i run. ican't. even if they never catch us, i'llnever…" her lips trembled. "i'll never escape your son's griefhow do i look at him? how do i ever bring myself to look athim, laila jo?"mariam twiddled a strand of laila's hair, untangled a stubborncurl.

"for me, it ends here. there's nothing more i want.

everything i'd ever wished for as a little girl you've alreadygiven me. you and your children have made me so veryhappy. it's all right, laila jo. this is all right. don't be sad."laila could find no reasonable answer for anything mariamsaid. but she rambled on anyway, incoherently, childishly, aboutfruit trees that awaited planting and chickens that awaitedraising. she went on about small houses in unnamed towns,and walks to trout-filled lakes. and, in the end, when thewords dried up, the tears did not, and all laila could do wassurrender and sob like a child over-whelmed by an adult'sunassailable logic. all she could do was roll herself up and buryher face one last time in the welcoming warmth of mariam'slap.

* * *later that morning, mariam packed zalmai a small lunch ofbread and dried figs. for aziza too she packed some figs, anda few cookies shaped like animals. she put it all in a paperbag and gave it to laila.

"kiss aziza for me," she said. "tell her she is thenoor of myeyes and the sultan of my heart. will you do that for me?"laila nodded, her lips pursed together.

"take the bus, like i said, and keep your head low.""when will i see you, mariam? i want to see you before itestify. i'll tell them how it happened. i'll explain that it wasn'tyour fault. that you had to do it. they'll understand, won'tthey, mariam? they'll understand."mariam gave her a soft look.

she hunkered down to eye level with zalmai. he was wearinga red t-shirt, ragged khakis, and a used pair of cowboy bootsrasheed had bought him from mandaii. he was holding hisnew basketball with both hands. mariam planted a kiss on hischeek.

"you be a good, strong boy, now," she said. "you treat yourmother well." she cupped his face. he pulled back but sheheld on. "i am so sorry, zalmai jo. believe me that i'm sovery sorry for all your pain and sadness."laila held zalmai's hand as they walked down the roadtogether. just before they turned the corner, laila lookedback and saw mariam at the door. mariam was wearing awhite scarf over her head, a dark blue sweater buttoned in thefront, and white cotton trousers. a crest of gray hair had fallenloose over her brow. bars of sunlight slashed across her faceand shoulders. mariam waved amiably.

they turned the corner, and laila never saw mariam again.