I peered into the parlor that had been Neelab’s favorite hiding place for games. An emerald-green settee was hacked in two. One leg had broken off the marble coffee table, making it look like the table had taken a nosedive into the carpet. A painting lay facedown on the floor.

Through this parlor, I could get to the south side of the palace, where high shrubs offered some cover. I dashed to the open window, throwing one leg over the ledge and then the other. The palace air, thick with destruction and sin, dissipated as I exited. Straining to see through the red smoke, I found a single star. It was all the light I needed to find my way.

I walked, sidestepping, with my back to the palace wall. If I could get to the road, I would somehow find refuge in Kabul.

But as I turned the corner, the twinkle of that star exploded into a blinding beam of light. Fingers dug into my arm, and a hand clapped over my mouth before I could shout. I tried to wrest free but stopped when I saw the subtle glint of metal, a revolver on a hip.

A gun. All I had to do was reach out and grab it.

What if Malalai had not been crying out to revive the battered soldiers? What if she had been shouting those words to ready herself for battle?

A chorus of voices erupted.

We are all soldiers of some kind. My mother’s voice summoned a crescendo of the drumbeat in my chest.

Go to your Gawd like a soldier.

You are the entire ocean in a drop.

The luminous laughter of an angelic little boy.

Sitara’s going to set you straight now.

Voices rose and collided in my head, drowning out the sizzle of burning grass and furniture and the distant rumble of tanks.

I filled my lungs with the smoky night air and made a single commitment to neither live nor die as a coward.

Chapter 8

April 28, 1978

“Act like you are asleep,” Shair whispered. But sleep wasn’t really what he wanted me to feign.

Every muscle of my body tensed as he carried me away from the palace, moving so briskly and anxiously that twice I thought I would fall to the ground. I turned my head away from his chest and the stench of sin.

He dropped me onto the floorboard of a car and tossed an old wool blanket over me—one that stank of cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes. I lifted a corner of the blanket, but the air in the car was just as stifling. Shair shifted gears, and we passed beneath the looming portico of the palace.

When I was sure we had turned onto the road, I threw the blanket off my head.

“Was it you?” I asked, my voice as gravelly as the road.

He did not answer.

“Was it you?” I repeated, louder.