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here, Halajan was as close as she’d ever get again, she feared, to freedom.
    She looked back on her life as a time line of the regimes that had run her beloved Afghanistan—in the burqa and out of the burqa, in miniskirts, back into long dresses—of the wars that took friends and family, of the droughts that caused famine and killed the roses and the trees of Kabul, and she realized she, like her country, had survived. The evils inflicted from the outside had been nowhere near as deadly as the poisons that had grown from within. One look into the black, cold eyes of a young Taliban warrior had taught her that.
    She dug into the pocket of her dress and pulled out Rashif’s most recent letter. She admired its lovely penmanship with the flourishes that surprised her on every page. She imagined him at his shop on a narrow alley in the Mondai-e waiting for her with a smile that made her body rush with warmth, her skin tingle with pleasure. She thought of him as he nodded a “ Salaam alaikum ” and then walked toward her to discreetly pass her a letter that she immediately hid in the folds of her chador. Tomorrow it would be Thursday, her market day, the beginning of the Muslim weekend that ran through Friday, and she would pass his way again. And there he’d be with another letter just as he had been every Thursday for the past six years.
    She had loved Rashif since she was a little girl, growing up in her father and mother’s house. He’d lived just a few houses away, and they had played after school in the empty lot that sat between their homes, exactly where the coffeehouse sat today. They often saw each other at family events and religious holidays. But as they grew up, they were more restricted by their culture, and like other teenagers throughout Kabul could no longer talk easily or even be in each other’s presence without many others present. Ultimately Rashif was married off by his family to Salima, and Halajan, at age fifteen, was married to Sunil, who would be her husband for the next thirty-six years.
    Those years had been filled with joy and worries, the births of two children—Ahmet and his sister, Aisha (who was now studying in Germany, living with others from Kabul, something Halajan encouraged her to do, as she had encouraged Ahmet, who wouldn’t go and leave his mother alone, much to her frustration)—and disagreement and compromise as all marriages are. Though she considered herself modern, there was one thing she would have never done: bring humiliation or harm to her family by choosing her own husband. So for thirty-six years, she made her marriage work. Sunil was a kind man but a simple man. He went to work, came home, prayed, studied the Koran, and maybe spoke ten words over the course of a week. He died of tuberculosis, as so many had, nine years before.
    And then, a few years later, Rashif’s wife died. And almost immediately the letters began. She looked forward each week to the thrill of the exchange, to the joy of seeing Rashif’s smile and twinkling eyes.
    She took a drag from her cigarette, folded the letter carefully, and stuck it deep in her pocket. She exhaled, watched the smoke wind its way up the house’s wall, dissipating into the air as it rose.
    If only she could read. Only then would she learn what he was trying to tell her.

A hmet leaned against the wall at the gate, watching the sky turn lavender over the hills that surrounded Kabul and the mountain peaks in the distance blur into the twilight. What was on the other side of those mountains? His sister knew; she’d left long ago. But he would never know because Kabul was his home and this was where he belonged. And yet, those mountains called to him like the muezzin’s song at sunrise. At times like this, when his chest tugged with uneasiness, he’d readjust the rifle on his shoulder and remind himself of his duty.
    Four men approached, chatting loudly in an Eastern European language. Ahmet stood straight, not taking his