A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

Nana said, “Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

“Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure.” “Endure what, Nana?” “Oh, don’t you fret about that,” Nana said. “There won’t be any shortage of things.”

All she could hear was Nana saying, I’ll die if you go. I’ll just die.

For the first time, Mariam could hear him with Nana’s ears. She could hear so clearly now the insincerity that had always lurked beneath, the hollow, false assurances. She could not bring herself to look at him.

The earlier pleasure over his approval of her cooking had evaporated. In its stead, a sensation of shrinking. This man’s will felt to Mariam as imposing and immovable as the Safid-koh mountains looming over Gul Daman.

It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat. But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid.

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion.

“Everybody wants Jack,” Laila said to Mariam. “That’s what it is. Everybody wants Jack to rescue them from disaster. But there is no Jack. Jack is not coming back. Jack is dead.”

And, with that, Mariam brought down the shovel. This time, she gave it everything she had.

Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.

sobbing on the floor

One last time, Mariam did as she was told.

screaming crying throwing up

I was not a dutiful father to you in life. Perhaps in death I can be.

Weak heart, the doctors say. It is a fitting manner of death, I think, for a weak man.

But, mostly, Mariam is in Laila’s own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.

But the game involves only male names. Because, if it’s a girl, Laila has already named her.