74 pages • 2 hours read
A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Chapters 26-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26 Summary
In the middle of a heatwave and power outage in Kabul, Laila remembers Tariq. She feels equally guilty and convinced that what the two of them did was inevitable, “spurred by the knowledge that they might never see each other again” (181). She is troubled by the fact that she cannot remember exactly what he said in two weeks after his departure. At present she is aching, but in the future, time will dull the pain and she will only be triggered at random moments to think of their imprudent afternoon, so that “it would flood her, steal her breath” (183).
Hakim interrupts her reverie and says that Fariba has agreed that they can leave Kabul. Laila excitedly imagines that if they go to Pakistan for visas, they can find Tariq. Kabul is full of rubble, from where rockets have fallen. She dreams that night that she and Tariq are together on the beach, wearing wedding bands. They pack and it is painful to go through objects that spark old memories and especially painful for Hakim to leave his books.
Then there is a “giant roar,” a “flash of white,” and she is hurled off her feet and knocked unconscious (188). She is presided over by a woman with a long face and narrow-set eyes, a man with a broad and droopy face. They administer pink pills to her.
Chapter 27 Summary
It is Mariam and Rasheed who have found Laila. Mariam is nursing her back to health, while Rasheed boasts that he rescued her. “I dug you out with my own hands” he says, exaggerating the size of the scrap of metal he pulled out of her shoulder (194). He plays the hero, salvaging some of Hakim’s books and buying her a new blanket, a pillow and vitamin pills. He also gives her the news that “your friend Tariq’s” house has been taken over by the men of the Sayyaf warlords (195). Mariam knows that he is exaggerating and that the men are in fact boys.
Slowly, Laila gets betterenough to wash herself, but she still has flashbacks and nightmares. Like Mariam, Laila feels guilty for the death of a parent. By a different turn of events, she might have been the one killed. Drawing on her own experience, Mariam knows how few comforting words she can offer.
A day after the blast that kills Laila’s parents, a man Abdul Sharif asks to speak to her.
Chapter 28 Summary
Abdul Sharif is a loquacious businessman who travels between his warehouse in Peshawar, Pakistan and Afghanistan. On his travels during these treacherous times, he ends up with blood poisoning and in the hospital, where he meets Tariq. From one of the nurses, Abdul Sharif learns that Tariq was in a lorry full of refugees on the Peshawar border and they were caught in a crossfire, and that a rocket hit the lorry. Tariq was one of six survivors admitted to the same unit of the hospital. He was in the bed next to Abdul Sharif. He was very injured, tubes coming out of his throat, had lost his other leg, and was badly burned. Tariq and Abdul Sharif talked and Tarik, with great difficulty, told him about Laila, that he did not want her seeing him like that. He said that as Abdul Sharif was coming through Kabul, he should find Laila and tell her that Tariq was thinking of her. Abdul Sharif finally reveals that Tariq died in the bed next to him. It is now with a stranger bringing her news of Tariq’s loss that Laila “understood the awfulness of her mother’s loss,” when her brothers died (204). She wonders if she’s being punished for being aloof to her mother’s suffering. Laila escapes into her mind and daydreams of better times.
Chapter 29 Summary
While they are at dinner, Rasheed says he is sorry for Laila’s loss. Mariam notices that his table manners have improved; he is using a spoon and talking “spiritedly and incessantly” (206). He pretends to have been friendly with Laila’s father, saying that they talked about books and politics. Mariam is less concerned by Rasheed’s blatant lies and contrived empathy, than “his staged delivery,” a performance that is “nothing less than a courtship” (207).
Mariam works up the nerve to go to Rasheed’s room and ask him what his intentions are. He makes a case to “legitimize this situation” and make Laila his second wife (208). When Mariam protests, Rasheed claims that having more than one wife is fine and expected. The only other option is to turn Laila out of the house, where the streets are dangerous and the refugee camps around Peshawar breed disease. He sees his mission as “charitable” (210).
Mariam asks Laila and tells her Rasheed’s proposal. Laila immediately answers that she will marry him.
Chapter 30 Summary
Laila is still in bed when Rasheed comes in with his new pinstripe suit and the wedding band he has traded for Mariam’s old wedding ring. Laila refuses it, claiming she does not want much of a ceremony and that she prefers they “just as soon […] get it done” (212). She is repulsed when Rasheed touches her, but he assumes that she is eager to marry him.
Laila’s original plan was to leave for Pakistan, even after Abdul Sharif had come bearing his news. However, she realizes that leaving is no longer an option, because she is displaying symptoms of pregnancy and does not want to jeopardizethe “only thing she had left” of Tariq (213). She realizes that she is being dishonorable to hide out at Rasheed’s and “spectacularly unfair” to Mariam, but her loyalties are to her unborn baby (213).
Laila only remembers the wedding night in patches and asks Rasheed to turn out the lights. Later, when she is certain that Rasheed is asleep, she punctures the pad of her index finger with a knife and lets it bleed on the sheet to imply the loss of virginity.
Chapters 26-30 Analysis
Chapters 26-30 see the loss of Laila’s parents, the reported death of Tariq, and Laila becoming part of a polygamous marriage, as Rasheed’s second wife. Hosseini shows Laila’s old life and hopes dissolve before her, blow by blow, and she has to make a new plan, which is less about happiness and fulfilment than it is about survival. The plan of leaving Kabul and perhaps finding Tariq in Pakistan is thwarted first by the death of her parents, then by the alleged death of Tariq, and finally by her discovery that she is pregnant. By marrying Rasheed with the motive of ensuring Tariq’s child’s safety, and faking the loss of her virginity to deceive Rasheed, Laila has to also sacrifice her trademark “virtue” (213). At this stage, Laila thinks her plan is foolproof and is completely unaware of the danger that might befall her if conservative, authoritarian Rasheed discovers that she is trying to pass off Tariq’s child as his own.
Rasheed wastes no time in boasting about his heroism in saving Laila and enacting a staged courtship of lies and flattery. Though Rasheed himself is over 60 years old, in Laila he sees the opportunity for the heir that Mariam could not provide him with and therefore the survival of his lineage. There is also the sense that he can indulge his virility and boost his reputation by legitimizing his connection with Laila and indulging in her youthful good looks and his notions of saving her.
Finally, Mariam, who sees through Rasheed’s plan, though she protests, has no choice but to go along with it. Cruelly, Rasheed gives her the choice between him having another wife or her being responsible for Layla’s inevitable death when he turns her out of the house and into a warzone.
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By Khaled Hosseini
