Chapter 30 Chapter Twenty Six

That day was the hottest day since the beginning of summer.The mountains surrounded the extremely hot air, and the whole city was so hot that it seemed to be smoking.The electricity has been out for several days.Electric fans in various places in Kabul stopped working, as if to mock the world. Laila lay quietly on the sofa in the living room, sweat soaking her blouse.Every exhalation makes the tip of the nose burn.She knew her parents were talking in Mom's room.The night before yesterday, and last night, she woke up in the middle of the night and vaguely heard their conversation downstairs.They had been talking every day since the gate had been shot through a new hole.

Outside, in the distance came the boom of cannon, then, nearer, a long series of machine-gun shots, followed by another. Inside, Laila was also waging a war: between the guilt that accompanied the shame and the conviction that Tariq and her were not guilty of what they did; , wonderful, even unavoidable things, they do it all because they know that they will never meet again in this life. Laila rolled over on the couch, trying to remember something: at some point, while they were lying on the floor, Tariq's forehead was pressed against hers.Then he gasped and said something, maybe I hurt you?That could be the case too. Do you feel pain?

Laila couldn't remember what he said. Did I hurt you? Does this hurt you? It had only been two weeks since he had been gone, and her memory was already beginning to fade.Time blunts the edges of those sharp memories.Lyra's mind was too tired to think.What did he say?Suddenly, knowing the answers became crucial to her. Laila closed her eyes.Think desperately. Over time, she will grow tired of this behavior.She would learn that it was an increasingly draining affair to conjure up a long-dead memory, dust it off, and make it resurface.In fact, years later, there would come a day when Lyra would never weep over his loss, or that she would never grieve so endlessly.Certainly not.A day would come when his face would no longer be clearly visible in her mind; a day would come when she would never be saddened to hear a mother calling her son by Tariq's name in the street.She will not miss him as much as now; but at this moment, the pain caused by his departure is like a maggot, gnawing at her soul without interruption.

But there are exceptions.When Laila was a grown woman, when she was ironing her shirt or pushing her child on the swing, little things, like the warmth of the rug under her feet on a hot day, or a strange The curve of a human forehead reminded her of an afternoon spent together.The memory will come flooding back at once.Completely out of Lyra's control.Their audacity.Their clumsiness.The pain that action brings, the joy it brings, and the sadness it brings.The heat of their entangled bodies. This memory will flood her heart and steal her breath. But then it will pass.That moment will pass.Leaving her deflated, she would feel nothing but a vague unease.

She remembered, did he mean that I hurt you?Yes.That's what he said.Lyra was glad she remembered. Then Dad came to the corridor and called her name from the top of the stairs, telling her to go up quickly. "She agreed!" He suppressed the excitement in his heart and said in a trembling voice. "We're leaving, Laila. All three of us. We're leaving Kabul." In Mom's room, the three of them sat on the bed.Outside, Gulbuddin's and Masood's forces exchanged constant fire, with many rockets flying in the sky.Lyra knew someone had just died somewhere in the city, and a puff of black smoke was billowing from a building that had been blown up into a cloud of flying dust.The next morning, some bodies will be found.Some bodies will be claimed.Some will not.Then the dogs in Kabul, accustomed to eating human flesh, will be feasting.

Meanwhile, Laila was tempted to hit the streets.She could hardly contain the joy in her heart.She had a hard time sitting down, not shaking with joy.Dad said they would go to Pakistan first and apply for visas there.Pakistan, Tariq is there!Tariq had only been gone for seventeen days, Laila counted excitedly.If only Mom had made this decision seventeen days ago, they could go together.Then she should be with Tariq now!But now it all becomes okay.They were going to Peshawar - her, mum and dad - where they could find Tariq and his parents.Surely they will find it.They will apply for the visa together.Then, who knows?Who knows?Europe?United States?Maybe somewhere near the sea, as Papa always said...

Mom was half lying down, with her upper body leaning against the headboard.Her eyes are puffy.She is pulling her hair. Three days earlier, Laila had gone outside to get some air.She was standing at the front door, leaning against the panel, when she heard a crackling sound and something passed past her right ear, sending tiny splinters of wood flying before her eyes.After Giti's death, after thousands of rounds of artillery fire, after countless rockets landed in the city of Kabul, a hole was finally pierced through the gate of her house.The hole was only three fingers' width from Lyra's head, and it woke Mama.Make her understand that there has been a war that took her two sons, and that this latest one will take her only remaining daughter.

Ahmed and Noor smile down the room walls.Laila noticed Mama's eyes flicking from one picture to another with guilt.As if asking for their permission.their blessing.As if asking for their forgiveness. "There's nothing left for us here," Pa said. "Our two sons are gone, but we still have Laila. We still have each other, Fariba. We can have a new life." Dad stretched out his hand on the bed.When he grabs Mom's hand, she lets him go.What hung on her face was an expression of concession.Submissive expression.They held each other's hands, gently, and then they hugged each other, shaking their bodies quietly.Mom buried her face in his neck.One of her hands gripped his shirt tightly.

For the next few hours that night, Laila was too excited to sleep.Lying on the bed, she watched orange and yellow cannon fire rise brilliantly in the distance.But despite her excitement and the sound of cannons outside, she fell asleep at some point. Still dreaming. The dream was a blue beach, and they were sitting on a quilt.It was cold and overcast, but she felt warm as she sat with Tariq, a blanket over her shoulders.She saw a low fence under a row of wind-bent palm trees, white with peeling paint, and cars parked behind it.The sea wind brought tears to her eyes, buried their shoes in the sand, and blew some dead grass from one curved dune to another.They watched the sailboat pitch and roll in the distance.Around them, seagulls chirped, their feathers quivering in the wind.The sea breeze whips up another burst of sand from those gentle, windward dunes.Then there was a sound like a hymn, and she told him Papa had told her the sand could sing, many years ago.

He wiped her brows, removing the grains of sand from them.She saw a gleam of light from the ring he was wearing.His ring was exactly like hers—gold, engraved with some kind of labyrinth pattern. Really, she told him, it was the sound of sand rubbing against sand.listen.He listened.He frowned.They waited for a while.They heard the voice again.When the wind is soft, it is a low hum; when the wind is strong, it becomes a weeping chorus. Dad said they only took the essential items.They will sell other things. "When we get to Peshawar, the money should sustain us until I get a job."

Over the next two days, they gathered items for sale.They stacked these things into several large piles. In her room, Laila put away her old clothes, shoes, books and toys.She looked under the bed and saw a small yellow glass cow that Hasina had given her at recess in fifth grade.There was also a keychain with a miniature football attached, a gift from Giti.A small wooden zebra with wheels under its four feet.A ceramic astronaut she and Farik had picked up in the gutter one day.She was six and he was eight.Lyra remembered their little argument over who had discovered it first. Mom packed her things too.She moved slowly, watching them in a daze.She gave up her beautiful plates, napkins, all her jewellery—her wedding ring—and most of her old clothes. "You're not going to sell this?" Laila said, holding up the dress her mother wore to her wedding.The skirt fell loose over her knees.She stroked the lace and ribbons around the neckline, and the hand-stitched pearls on the sleeves. Mom shrugged and took it out of her hands.She casually tossed it on top of a pile of clothes.Like ripping off a Band-Aid, Laila thought. It was Dad who was the most painful to clean up. Lyra found him standing in his study, looking at his bookshelves, sad.He was wearing a second-hand shirt with a photo of the red bridge in San Francisco printed on it.Fog rose from the spray and engulfed the bridge's towers. "You've heard the old story," he said, "that you're on a desert island. You can have five books. Which five would you choose? It never occurred to me that one day I really had to." "We'll have to go back and buy some new books, Dad." "Well," he laughed sadly, "I can't believe I'm leaving Kabul. I went to school here, I got my first job here, I became a father in this city. The thought that I'm going to be in another city soon I thought it was weird to sleep under the sky of a city." "It's weird to me too." “A poem about Kabul has been bouncing around in my head all day. I think it was written by Saib of Tabriz in the 17th century. I used to memorize it all, but now I can only recall it Two sentences: People can't count how many rounds of bright moons are on her roof, and they can't count the "behind her walls" Lyra looked up to find him wiping tears.She reached out a hand and hugged his waist. "Ah, Dad. We'll be back. When this war is over. We'll be back in Kabul, in the name of Allah. You'll see." On the third morning, Laila moved the piles out to the yard and set them up by the front door.They will hire a taxi and deliver all these items to a pawn shop. Laila kept walking in and out, back and forth, between the house and the yard, carrying piles of clothes and dishes, and Baba's books, box after box.By noon, the pile by the front door was waist-high, and she should have been exhausted.But she knew that every time she moved something, the reunion with Tariq would be a little closer, so the more she moved, the lighter her steps, and the more vigorous she moved her hands. "We have to go and hire a taxi." Lyra looked up.It turned out that Mom was yelling at her from the upstairs bedroom.Her body was stretched out of the window, her elbows resting on the ledge.The sun, bright and warm, shone down on her graying hair and flooded her long, thin face.Mom was wearing the same dark blue dress she had worn to the luncheon four months earlier.A youthful dress would make a woman look very young, but at that moment, in Laila's eyes, Mama looked very much like an old woman.An old woman with slender arms and sunken temples and dull eyes darkened by weariness was nothing like the radiant, buxom, round-faced woman in those yellowing wedding photographs. "Two big taxis will fit," Laila said. She also saw Dad, stacking boxes of books in the living room. "Come up when you're done with things over there," Mom said, "and we'll sit down and have lunch. Boiled eggs and leftover soybeans." "They're all my favorite things to eat," Lyra said. She suddenly remembered her dream.She and Tariq sat on a quilt.ocean.sea ​​breeze.hills. At this time, she wondered, what kind of voice is so similar to the singing of sand? She stopped what she was doing.She saw a gray lizard crawl out of a crack in the ground.Its head shakes from side to side.It blinked and rushed under a rock. Laila thought of the beach again.Only now the singing came from all directions.And it's getting louder.Every second it gets louder and louder.It poured into her ears.It drowns out all other sounds.The seagulls became feathered mimes, opening and closing their mouths without crowing;The sand sang a song.At this time the singing became very shrill.Sounds like a... crisp jingle? Not jingle.no.It's whistling. The book in Lyra's hand fell to her feet.She looked up at the sky.Put a hand out in front of your eyes. Then there was a loud bang. A white light flashed behind her. Something hot and violent came upon her from behind, knocking her feet off the ground.Lift her into the air.At this time she flew up, her body twisted and rotated in the air; she saw the sky, then the land, then the sky, then the land.A large flaming log flew past her.Also flying past her were a thousand shards of glass, and Laila felt as if she could see each shard flying around her, turning slowly, piece by piece, with each shard There is sunshine shining.Like a small but beautiful rainbow. Then Laila hits the wall.fell to the ground.A mass of dirt, gravel and glass poured over her face and arms.The last thing she remembers seeing was something crashing to the ground nearby.A big piece of bloody stuff.Above that thing, the spire of a large red bridge pierced through a puff of fog. Figures walk around.Fluorescent lights shone down on the ceiling.A woman's face appeared and swung above her face. Lyra passed out and returned to the darkness. Another face.This time it was a man's face.His face looked broad, with a little saggy skin.He moved his lips, but no sound came out.All Lyra heard was the ringing of a bell. The man waved at her.frown.His lips moved again. It hurts.It hurts to breathe.My whole body hurts. A cup of water.A pink pill. back into the dark. It was that woman again.The face is long and the distance between the eyes is narrow.She said a few words.Laila heard nothing but the tinkling of a bell.But she could see the words, like a thick black potion, coming from the woman's mouth. Her chest ached.Her arms and legs were sore. There are figures moving around. Where is Tariq? why is he not here dark.some stars. Dad and she sat somewhere high.He pointed to a field of wheat.An engine started. The long-faced woman stood by, looking down at her. It hurts to breathe. Somewhere there was the sound of an accordion. Thankfully, another pink pill.Then there was a deep silence.A deep silence covered everything.

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