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course. He’s outside. I’ll get him for you.”
    It was when Mullah Faizullah’s slight, stooping figure appeared in the kolba ’s doorway that Mariam cried for the first time that day.
    â€œOh, Mariam jo.”
    He sat next to her and cupped her face in his hands. “You go on and cry, Mariam jo. Go on. There is no shame in it. But remember, my girl, what the Koran says, ‘Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom, and He Who has power over all things, Who created death and life that He may try you.’ The Koran speaks the truth, my girl. Behind every trial and every sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.”
    But Mariam could not hear comfort in God’s words. Not that day. Not then. All she could hear was Nana saying, I’ll die if you go. I’ll just die. All she could do was cry and cry and let her tears fall on the spotted, paper-thin skin of Mullah Faizullah’s hands.
    Â * * * 
    O N THE RIDE to his house, Jalil sat in the backseat of his car with Mariam, his arm draped over her shoulder.
    â€œYou can stay with me, Mariam jo,” he said. “I’ve asked them already to clean a room for you. It’s upstairs. You’ll like it, I think. You’ll have a view of the garden.”
    For the first time, Mariam could hear him with Nana’s ears. She could hear so clearly now the insincerity that had always lurked beneath, the hollow, false assurances. She could not bring herself to look at him.
    When the car stopped before Jalil’s house, the driver opened the door for them and carried Mariam’s suitcase. Jalil guided her, one palm cupped around each of her shoulders, through the same gates outside of which, two days before, Mariam had slept on the sidewalk waiting for him. Two days before—when Mariam could think of nothing in the world she wanted more than to walk in this garden with Jalil—felt like another lifetime. How could her life have turned upside down so quickly, Mariam asked herself. She kept her gaze to the ground, on her feet, stepping on the gray stone path. She was aware of the presence of people in the garden, murmuring, stepping aside, as she and Jalil walked past. She sensed the weight of eyes on her, looking down from the windows upstairs.
    Inside the house too, Mariam kept her head down. She walked on a maroon carpet with a repeating blue-and-yellow octagonal pattern, saw out of the corner of her eye the marble bases of statues, the lower halves of vases, the frayed ends of richly colored tapestries hanging from walls. The stairs she and Jalil took were wide and covered with asimilar carpet, nailed down at the base of each step. At the top of the stairs, Jalil led her to the left, down another long, carpeted hallway. He stopped by one of the doors, opened it, and let her in.
    â€œYour sisters Niloufar and Atieh play here sometimes,” Jalil said, “but mostly we use this as a guest room. You’ll be comfortable here, I think. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
    The room had a bed with a green-flowered blanket knit in a tightly woven, honeycomb design. The curtains, pulled back to reveal the garden below, matched the blanket. Beside the bed was a three-drawer chest with a flower vase on it. There were shelves along the walls, with framed pictures of people Mariam did not recognize. On one of the shelves, Mariam saw a collection of identical wooden dolls, arranged in a line in order of decreasing size.
    Jalil saw her looking. “ Matryoshka dolls. I got them in Moscow. You can play with them, if you want. No one will mind.”
    Mariam sat down on the bed.
    â€œIs there anything you want?” Jalil said.
    Mariam lay down. Closed her eyes. After a while, she heard him softly shut the door.
    Â * * * 
    E XCEPT FOR WHEN she had to use the bathroom down the hall, Mariam stayed in the room. The girl with the tattoo, the one who had opened the gates to her, brought her meals