The Dressmaker of Khair Khana Read Online Free PDF

little boy in her arms. “I need to rest for just a moment before carrying him home again.”
    Malika didn't want to talk about what she had just seen, but it weighed heavily on her mind. She needed to a make a plan to get them safely out of this situation.
    “Of course,” the doctor replied. “Stay as long as you wish.”
    Malika paced the waiting room floor and prayed for help. She could not go back out onto the street without a chadri, that much was certain. But she had no idea how she would get hold of one.
    Suddenly her heart leapt. Through the window she saw Soraya, her older son's elementary school teacher, walking down the street toward the doctor's office. Malika recognized the purposeful gait from a distance and then glimpsed the teacher's face peeking out from beneath her dark scarf. A small grocery sack dangled from each arm. Malika ran toward the door. After she had scanned the sidewalk to make certain the Taliban were no longer in sight, she took a furtive step out of the doctor's office.
    “Soraya Jan,” she called from the doorway. “It is Malika, Saeed's mother.”
    The startled teacher hurried over and Malika related what she had seen in the street.
    Soraya shook her head in amazement. She had spent the past hour buying what vegetables she could for her family's evening meal of pilau, Afghan aromatic rice, and naan bread, but food had become hard to find these days. A Taliban blockade now strangled the city, preventing trucks carrying food from reaching the capital's 1.2 million residents. Today Soraya had barely managed to get hold of a few potatoes and some onions. The market had been abuzz with rumors of the Taliban's arrival, but Malika was the first person she knew who had actually seen the capital's new soldiers up close.
    “My house is just around the corner,” Soraya told Malika, taking her hand. “You and Hossein will come with me, and we'll figure out how to get you a chadri to wear home. Don't worry; we'll find a way.”
    Malika smiled for the first time all day.
    “Thank you, Soraya Jan,” she said. “I am so grateful.”
    The women quickly walked the one block to Soraya's house, which stood behind a bright yellow gate. They didn't speak a word during the short trip, and Malika wondered if Soraya was praying as hard as she was that they wouldn't be stopped. She couldn't get the image of the woman in the street off her mind.
    A few minutes later they sat together in Soraya's small kitchen. Malika tightly gripped a glass of hot green tea and relaxed for the first time in hours. She was deeply thankful for the warmth of her friend's home and the fact that Hossein, who had taken a pill at the doctor's office, was already feeling a bit better.
    “I have a plan, Malika,” Soraya announced. She called for her son, Muhammad, who was in the other room. Once the little boy appeared, Soraya gave him his mission. “I need you to go to your aunt Orzala's house. Tell her we need to borrow one of her chadri for Auntie Malika; tell her we will return it to her in just a few days. This is very important. Okay?”
    The eight-year-old nodded.
    Just half an hour later young Muhammad bounded into the living room and solemnly handed Malika a white plastic shopping bag; the handles had been carefully tied together and inside was a blue chadri. “My aunt says you can borrow the chadri as long as you need it,” Muhammad said, beaming.
    Malika unfolded the fabric, which was really several panels of material that had been sewn together by hand. The front section, about a yard in length, was made of a light polyester with a finely embroidered border at the bottom and a cap at the top. The chadri's longer side and back panels formed an uninterrupted wave of intricate and meticulously pressed accordion pleats that hung close to the floor. Wearing the garment required getting underneath the billowy folds and making certain the cap was in just the right spot for maximum visibility through the webbed eye slit,