On recovering she finds that she is with Tariq's child and the news of Tariq's death shatters her, though it didn't prevent her from eagerly accepting Rasheed's hand for her unborn child. A severely injured Laila is taken by Rasheed and Mariam. Laila'a family too decides to leave in the end but as they are packing, a rocket comes down destroying her house and killing her parents. Tariq leaves the city with her parents and their emotional farewell ends in the consumption of love. When the Soviet Union disintegrates at last, everyone anticipates peace, but now the Mujahideens are cutting each others throat. Laila and her friend Tariq also live in the vicinity she has lost her two brothers to the war between Mujahideens and Soviet Union. But when she fails to produce a heir, there begins the days of beatings and silent suffering. Jalil marries her off to Rasheed, a shoemaker from Kabul, who is thirty years her senior. She finds her mother hanging from the tree on returning home, thinking that her only daughter has deserted her. But on her fifteenth birthday she breeches this unwritten rules to go and see Jalil, and is fated to spend the night outside his home in cold. As a harami (illegitimate child), little Mariam is not acceptable to the outside world. Mariam lives in a kolba on the outskirts of Herat with her embittered mother and her rich father Jalil is in the city with his three wives and nine children. Novel revolves around two women - Mariam and Laila.
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