1992

1992 was the year the Mujahideen finally defeated the communist regime of President Najibullah and entered Kabul, ending a decade of jihad against the Soviets. But the victory was immediately poisoned by infighting among the victorious factions, who turned their weapons on each other and unleashed a devastating civil war on the city. For the characters of A Thousand Splendid Suns, this year marks the shattering of hope, the death of parents, and the beginning of a new, more intimate era of violence and loss.

The Fall of Najibullah and the Mujahideen Victory

In April 1992, after years of war, Najibullah surrendered and was given sanctuary in the UN compound near Darulaman Palace. The Mujahideen, the heroes of the jihad against the Soviets, were finally coming to Kabul. For Laila's mother, Fariba, this was the day she had longed for, the culmination of all her years of waiting and grief since her sons Ahmad and Noor had been killed fighting the jihad. She rose from her bed a new woman, put on a blue dress with white polka dots, and declared a party. She sent Laila to invite the neighbors, and began cooking with an unsettling, manic energy, moving pots and pans around as if reclaiming her territory. The party was a dazzling, cloudless affair, with men discussing the Mujahideen's plan for a new government and women gossiping in the kitchen. But the celebration was short-lived. A fight broke out in the yard when a Pashtun man called Ahmad Shah Massoud a traitor, and a Tajik man took offense. The melee that followed, with men toppling over each other and a grimacing Tariq trying to crawl out, was a grim omen of the chaos to come.

The Outbreak of Civil War

The leadership council was formed prematurely and elected Rabbani president, a move that incensed other factions, particularly Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Hazaras, with their long history of oppression, seethed. The Mujahideen, armed to the teeth but lacking a common enemy, had found the enemy in each other. Kabul's day of reckoning had come. Rockets began to rain down on the city, and people ran for cover. Fariba, who had been so full of life just days before, changed back into black, went to her room, shut the curtains, and pulled the blanket over her head. The city became a patchwork of treacherous, shifting boundaries controlled by different warlords. Laila learned from Tariq that one road belonged to one warlord, the next four blocks to another, and that crossing a certain street could make her fair game for sniper fire. The word "Mujahideen" itself became an insult, spoken with a sneer of deep aversion and scorn. The war that had been a rumor in the provinces was now a daily reality in Kabul.

The Death of Giti and the Escalation of Violence

In June of 1992, the fighting intensified. Laila's friend Giti was walking home from school with two classmates when a stray rocket struck them. Giti was killed instantly, blown to pieces. Her mother, Nila, ran up and down the street collecting pieces of her daughter's flesh in an apron. Giti's decomposing right foot, still in its purple sneaker, was found on a rooftop two weeks later. This was the first time someone Laila had known and loved had died, and the grief was overwhelming. The violence became so pervasive that Babi, Laila's father, did the unthinkable and pulled her out of school. He took over her teaching himself, discussing poetry and mathematics in his study as Hekmatyar launched rockets at Massoud from the southern outskirts of the city. But even Babi's lessons could not distract Laila from the terror of the whistling rockets, the seconds between the start of the sound and the impact, the feeling of being suspended, like a defendant about to hear a verdict.

Tariq's Departure and Laila's Loss

In August of 1992, Tariq came to Laila's house with devastating news: he was leaving Afghanistan. His father's heart could not take the war anymore. Laila was struck blind with grief. She slapped him, pulled his hair, and then, in a desperate, passionate act, they made love for the first and only time. Tariq begged her to come with him, to marry him, but Laila could not leave her father, who had already lost so much. She made Tariq promise to go without goodbyes, and she closed the door on him, listening to his uneven footsteps fade away. The next day, Babi announced that Fariba had finally agreed to leave Kabul. Laila was overjoyed, calculating that Tariq had only been gone seventeen days. But before they could leave, a rocket slammed into their house. Laila was thrown through the air, and when she came to, she saw a bloody chunk of something nearby: on it, the tip of a red bridge poking through thick fog. Her parents were dead. The year 1992, which had begun with such hope, ended with Laila orphaned, alone, and pregnant with Tariq's child, setting the stage for her desperate marriage to Rasheed.