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“This is a lovely carpet,” Nila said cheerfully, running her fingers over the rug. It was bright red with elephant-footprint patterns. It was the only object of any value that Saboor and Parwana owned—to be sold, as it turned out, that same winter.

“It belonged to my father,” Saboor said.

“Is it a Turkoman rug?”

“Yes.”

“I do love the sheep fleece they use. The craftsmans.h.i.+p is incredible.”

Saboor nodded his head. He didn’t look her way once even as he spoke to her.

The plastic sheeting flapped when Abdullah returned with a tray of teacups and lowered it to the ground before Nila. He poured her a cup and sat cross-legged opposite her. Nila tried speaking to him, lobbing him a few simple questions, but Abdullah only nodded his shaved head, muttered a one- or two-word answer, and stared back at her guardedly. I made a mental note to speak to the boy, gently chide him about his manners. I would do it in a friendly way for I liked the boy, who was serious and competent by nature.

“How far along are you?” Nila asked Parwana.

Her head down, my sister said the baby was due in the winter.

“You are blessed,” Nila said. “To be awaiting a baby. And to have such a polite young stepson.” She smiled at Abdullah, who remained expressionless.

Parwana muttered something that might have been Thank you.

“And there is a little girl too, if I recall?” Nila said. “Pari?”

“She’s asleep,” Abdullah said tersely.

“Ah. I hear she is lovely.”

“Go fetch your sister,” Saboor said.

Abdullah lingered, looking from his father to Nila, then rose with visible reluctance to bring his sister.

If I had any wish, even at this late hour, to somehow acquit myself, I would say that the bond between Abdullah and his little sister was an ordinary one. But it was not so. No one but G.o.d knows why those two had chosen each other. It was a mystery. I have never seen such affinity between two beings. In truth, Abdullah was as much father to Pari as sibling. When she was an infant, when she cried at night, it was he who sprung from the sleeping cot to walk her. It was he who took it upon himself to change her soiled linens, to bundle her up, to soothe her back to sleep. His patience with her was boundless. He carried her around the village, showing her off as though she were the world’s most coveted trophy.

When he carried a still-groggy Pari into the room, Nila asked to hold her. Abdullah handed her over with a cutting look of suspicion, as though some instinctive alarm inside him had been set off.

“Oh, she is darling,” Nila exclaimed, her awkward bounces betraying her inexperience with small children. Pari gazed with confusion at Nila, looked toward Abdullah, and began to cry. Quickly, he retrieved her from Nila’s hands.

“Look at those eyes!” Nila said. “Oh, and these cheeks! Isn’t she darling, Nabi?”

“That she is, Bibi Sahib,” I said.

“And she’s been given the perfect name: Pari. She is indeed as beautiful as a fairy.”

Abdullah watched Nila, rocking Pari in his arms, his face growing cloudy.

On the way back to Kabul, Nila slumped in the backseat with her head resting on the gla.s.s. For a long while, she didn’t say a word. And then, suddenly, she started to cry.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road.

She didn’t speak for a long time. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed into her hands. Finally, she blew her nose into a handkerchief. “Thank you, Nabi,” she said.

“For what, Bibi Sahib?”

“For taking me there. It was a privilege to meet your family.”