Read Online A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - Free Book Online

us—see?—and, to the left, is the Ali Abad mountain. The university is at the foot of it. Behind us, east, you can’t see from here, is the Shir Darwaza mountain. Every day, at noon, they shoot a cannon from it. Stop your crying, now. I mean it.”
    Mariam dabbed at her eyes.
    â€œThat’s one thing I can’t stand,” he said, scowling, “the sound of a woman crying. I’m sorry. I have no patience for it.”
    â€œI want to go home,” Mariam said.
    Rasheed sighed irritably. A puff of his smoky breath hit Mariam’s face. “I won’t take that personally. This time.”
    Again, he took her by the elbow, and led her upstairs.
    There was a narrow, dimly lit hallway there and two bedrooms. The door to the bigger one was ajar. Through it Mariam could see that it, like the rest of the house, was sparsely furnished: bed in the corner, with a brown blanket and a pillow, a closet, a dresser. The walls were bare except for a small mirror. Rasheed closed the door.
    â€œThis is my room.”
    He said she could take the guest room. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m accustomed to sleeping alone.”
    Mariam didn’t tell him how relieved she was, at least about this.
    The room that was to be Mariam’s was much smaller than the room she’d stayed in at Jalil’s house. It had a bed, an old, gray-brown dresser, a small closet. The window looked into the yard and, beyond that, the street below. Rasheed put her suitcase in a corner.
    Mariam sat on the bed.
    â€œYou didn’t notice,” he said. He was standing in the doorway, stooping a little to fit. “Look on the windowsill. You know what kind they are? I put them there before leaving for Herat.”
    Only now Mariam saw a basket on the sill. White tuberoses spilled from its sides.
    â€œYou like them? They please you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou can thank me then.”
    â€œThank you. I’m sorry. Tashakor— ”
    â€œYou’re shaking. Maybe I scare you. Do I scare you? Are you frightened of me?”
    Mariam was not looking at him, but she could hear something slyly playful in these questions, like a needling. She quickly shook her head in what she recognized as her first lie in their marriage.
    â€œNo? That’s good, then. Good for you. Well, this is your home now. You’re going to like it here. You’ll see. Did I tell you we have electricity? Most days and every night?”
    He made as if to leave. At the door, he paused, took a long drag, crinkled his eyes against the smoke. Mariam thought he was going to say something. But he didn’t. He closed the door, left her alone with her suitcase and her flowers.

10.
    T he first few days, Mariam hardly left her room. She was awakened every dawn for prayer by the distant cry of azan, after which she crawled back into bed. She was still in bed when she heard Rasheed in the bathroom, washing up, when he came into her room to check on her before he went to his shop. From her window, she watched him in the yard, securing his lunch in the rear carrier pack of his bicycle, then walking his bicycle across the yard and into the street. She watched him pedal away, saw his broad, thick-shouldered figure disappear around the turn at the end of the street.
    For most of the days, Mariam stayed in bed, feeling adrift and forlorn. Sometimes she went downstairs to the kitchen, ran her hands over the sticky, grease-stained counter, the vinyl, flowered curtains that smelled like burned meals. She looked through the ill-fitting drawers, at the mismatched spoons and knives, the colander and chipped, wooden spatulas, these would-be instruments of her new daily life, all of it reminding her of the havoc that had struck her life, making her feel uprooted, displaced, like an intruder on someone else’s life.
    At the kolba, her appetite had been predictable. Here, her stomach rarely growled for food. Sometimes she took a plate of