A Thousand Splendid Suns: Part II: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

Over the next three years, Tariq’s father has a series of strokes, Tariq is issued a new leg by the Red Cross, and Hasina is made to marry a cousin in Lahore. Every few weeks, Babi comes home with news of the Soviet Union crumbling. Najibullah tries to claim he’s a devout Muslim, but the Mujahideen refuse to work with him.

In April 1992, when Laila turns fourteen, Najibullah finally surrenders and the jihad is over—the comrades of Ahmad and Noor have triumphed. Mammy knows the names of all the leaders of each faction, separated by ethnicity and alliance. Her hero is the Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, or the Lion of Panjshir. She nails up a poster of him in the house—a portrait that would soon become ubiquitous in Kabul.

The day after Najibullah’s surrender, Mammy stops wearing black, cleans the house, and invites all the neighbors over for a big lunch. As she prepares, she asks Laila how Tariq is doing—almost a man now, she says. She tells Lails it was charming when they were little kids running around, but now Laila needs to worry about her reputation. Laila claims they’re just friends, but she admits to herself that for the first time, she feels a bit strange when they’re in public together—scrutinized.

In fact, Laila has fallen head over heels in love with Tariq. She pictures them in bed together at night, though she feels guilty when she thinks of him that way. She knows the neighbors gossip: recently, Rasheed passed by and referred to them as Laili and Majnoon, the lovers of a twelfth-century romantic poem by Nezami, or a Farsi “Romeo and Juliet,” though written centuries earlier.

Nevertheless, it irritates Laila that Mammy has criticized her, when she’s been aloof and distant for so many years. Still, she doesn’t want to ruin the mood, so she tells Mammy that she sees her point.

At the party, the men discuss the Mujahideen’s plan: govern through an Islamic Jihad Council and then another leadership council for several months, as a loya jirga or grand council of leaders would form an interim government, leading up to democratic elections.

The women gather inside to chat, and Laila helps with the cooking with Giti. Giti is not as quiet as before—she’s been trying to catch the eye of an eighteen-year-old soccer player named Sabir. They’ve met secretly for tea a few times in another part of Kabul, and Giti says he’s going to ask for her hand. Laila asks about school, but Giti just looks at her. Hasina always said that she and Giti would be married by the time they’re twenty, but that they’d see Laila on the front page of the newspaper one day.

Every once in awhile, Tariq wanders in to taste the food before being shooed out by the women. Laila tries not to look at him so as not to add to the gossip, but she recalls a recent dream, in which their faces were together beneath a green veil. Tariq is taller than Laila now, with broad shoulders and muscular arms from lifting a pair of old, rusty weights in his backyard.

After lunch, Tariq motions to Laila discreetly and slips out the door. A few minutes later, she follows, finding him up the street humming an old Pashto song and smoking—a habit picked up from the cocky, self-sure friends of his whom Laila hates. Laila tells him his mother would kill him if she knew about his smoking, but he knows she won’t tell. Laila asks him to give one to her, but he refuses, saying it’s bad for her. He only does it to look good for girls, he says. “What girls anyway?” Laila replies, though she insists she’s not jealous. Tariq laughs that the neighbors are probably talking about them right at that moment.

Tariq tells Laila that her hair is getting longer, and looks nice. She teases him about the girls he’s chasing after, but he says he only has eyes for her. She can’t tell whether he’s mocking or being serious. She’s about to say something else when they hear screaming coming from the house. In the yard two men are wrestling on the ground, and a few others are trying to pull them apart. Apparently one of them, a Pashtun, had called Ahmad Shah Massoud a traitor for negotiating with the Soviets in the 1980s, and the other, a Tajik had demanded he apologize. A few others, including Tariq, join in, until the yard is a mass of arms and legs and punches.

Soon afterward, politics starts to unravel in Afghanistan. Several factions complain that they’re being excluded, and tensions begin to rise. The Mujahideen now lack a common enemy, and begin to turn on each other. Rockets begin to fall on Kabul, and Mammy changes back into black and retreats into her room.