A Thousand Splendid Suns Read Online Free PDF Page A

Faizullah all about this film.
    “I want you to take me to your cinema,” Mariam said now. “I want to see the cartoon. I want to see the puppet boy.”
    With this, Mariam sensed a shift in the atmosphere. Her parents stirred in their seats. Mariam could feel them exchanging
     looks.
    “That’s not a good idea,” said Nana. Her voice was calm, had the controlled, polite tone she used around Jalil, but Mariam
     could feel her hard, accusing glare.
    Jalil shifted on his chair. He coughed, cleared his throat.
    “You know,” he said, “the picture quality isn’t that good. Neither is the sound. And the projector’s been malfunctioning recently.
     Maybe your mother is right. Maybe you can think of another present, Mariam jo.”
    “ Aneh,” Nana said. “You see? Your father agrees.”
    BUT LATER, at the stream, Mariam said, “Take me.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” Jalil said. “I’ll send someone to pick you up and take you. I’ll make sure they get you a good seat
     and all the candy you want.”
    “ Nay. I want you to take me.”
    “Mariam jo—”
    “And I want you to invite my brothers and sisters too. I want to meet them. I want us all to go, together. It’s what I want.”
    Jalil sighed. He was looking away, toward the mountains.
    Mariam remembered him telling her that on the screen a human face looked as big as a house, that when a car crashed up there
     you felt the metal twisting in your bones. She pictured herself sitting in the private balcony seats, lapping at ice cream,
     alongside her siblings and Jalil. “It’s what I want,” she said.
    Jalil looked at her with a forlorn expression.
    “Tomorrow. At noon. I’ll meet you at this very spot. All right? Tomorrow?”
    “Come here,” he said. He hunkered down, pulled her to him, and held her for a long, long time.
    AT FIRST, Nana paced around the kolba, clenching and unclenching her fists.
    “Of all the daughters I could have had, why did God give me an ungrateful one like you? Everything I endured for you! How
     dare you! How dare you abandon me like this, you treacherous little harami !”
    Then she mocked.
    “What a stupid girl you are! You think you matter to him, that you’re wanted in his house? You think you’re a daughter to
     him? That he’s going to take you in? Let me tell you something. A man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Mariam. It isn’t
     like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed, it won’t stretch to make room for you. I’m the only one who loves you. I’m all you have
     in this world, Mariam, and when I’m gone you’ll have nothing. You’ll have nothing. You are nothing!”
    Then she tried guilt.
    “I’ll die if you go. The jinn will come, and I’ll have one of my fits. You’ll see, I’ll swallow my tongue and die. Don’t leave me, Mariam jo. Please stay.
     I’ll die if you go.”
    Mariam said nothing.
    “You know I love you, Mariam jo.”
    Mariam said she was going for a walk.
    She feared she might say hurtful things if she stayed: that she knew the jinn was a lie, that Jalil had told her that what Nana had was a disease with a name and that pills could make it better. She might
     have asked Nana why she refused to see Jalil’s doctors, as he had insisted she do, why she wouldn’t take the pills he’d bought
     for her. If she could articulate it, she might have said to Nana that she was tired of being an instrument, of being lied
     to, laid claim to, used. That she was sick of Nana twisting the truths of their life and making her, Mariam, another of her
     grievances against the world.
    You’re afraid, Nana, she might have said. You’re afraid that I might find the happiness you never had. And you don’t want me to be happy. You don’t want a good life for me. You’re the one with the wretched heart.
    THERE WAS A LOOKOUT, on the edge of the clearing, where Mariam liked to go. She sat there now, on dry, warm grass. Herat was
     visible from here, spread below her like a child’s board game: