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страница 7

“Tariq: For you, Laila, I'd go all over the world”

“I stepped back and all I saw was rain through windowpanes that looked like melting silver.”

“But that's what I'm saying to you… That there are bad people in this world, and sometimes bad people stay bad. Sometimes you have to stand up to them.”

“Tariq (meeting Laila after ten years): It's good to see you, Laila.”

“Hasina: That's because you have a beard, my dear.”

“How could I of all people, chastise someone for their past?”

“Mariam is never very far, she is here, in these walls they've repainted, in the trees they've planted, in the blankets that keep the children warm, in these pillows and books and pencils. She is in the children's laughter. She is in the verses Aziza recites and in the prayers she mutters when she bows westward. But, mostly, Miriam is in Laila's own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.”

“You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is.. God help him.”

“Hassan slumps to the asphalt, his life of unrequited loyalty drifting from him like the windblown kites he used to chase.”

“Mariam: I can't beleive what you are now, if you were a Benz before.”

“It does not frighten me to leave this life that my only son left five years ago, this life that insists we bear sorrow upon sorrow long after we can bear no more. No, I believe I shall gladly take my leave when the time comes. What frightens me, hamshira, is the day God summons me before him and asks, Why did you not do as I said, Mullah? Why did you not obey my laws? How shall I explain myself to him, hamshira? What will be my defense for not heeding His commands? All I can do, all any of us can do, in the time we are granted, is to go on abiding by the laws He has set for us. The clearer I see my end, hamsira, the nearer I am to my day of reckoning, the more determined I grow to carry out His word. However painful it may prove.”

“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. And Mariam was afraid.”

“I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn't I? The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him.”

“Giti: Nobody ever came for my hand.”

“But coming close wasn't the same as winning, was it? … He had won because winners won and everyone else just went home.”

“I know you're still young, but I want you to understand and learn this now, he said. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You're a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You can be anything you want, Laila I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila No chance. -Babi”

“Women have always had it hard in this country, Laila, but they're probably more free now, under the communists, and have more rights than they've ever had before.”

“Hassan's not going anywhere. He's staying right here with us, where he belongs. This is his home and we're his family. Don't you ever ask me that question again!”

“Jalil: I think you look like a queen.”

“Mariam: What do you think?”

“Is this about you and Hassan? I know there's something going on between you two, but whatever it is, you have to deal with it, not me. I'm staying out of it.”

“Laila (at fourteen years): What would your mother say when she saw you smoke?”

“I dream of you too, Mariam jo. I miss you. I miss the sound of your voice, your laughter. I miss reading to you, and all the times we fished together. Do you remember all the times we fished together? You were a good daughter, Mariam jo, and I cannot ever think of you without feeling shame and regret. -Jalil's letter”

“Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.”

“A man … found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.”

“I am tired and I am dying, and I want to be merciful. I want to forgive you. But when God summons me and says, But it wasn't for you to forgive, Mullah, what shall I say?”

“Maybe it was senseless to want to be near a person so badly here in a country where bullets had shredded her own brothers to pieces. But all Laila had to do was picture Tariq going at Khadim with his leg and then nothing in the world seemed more sensible to her.”

“Tariq: They think its sexy”

“If America taught me anything, it's that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts' lemonade jar.”