1990

1990 stands as a year of profound personal transformation and fragile hope within the besieged household in Kabul. It is the year Sohrab, the son of Hassan and Farzana, is born, an event that reshapes the lives of those who have taken refuge in Baba's old house. The year also witnesses the unexpected return of Sanaubar, Hassan's mother, whose arrival forces a reckoning with the past and the forging of new, tentative bonds. Amid the escalating violence of the civil war, 1990 becomes a testament to the resilience of family and the possibility of redemption, even as the shadows of future tragedy gather.

The Birth of Sohrab and the Return of Sanaubar

In the winter of 1990, Sanaubar, who had abandoned Hassan shortly after his birth in 1964, delivers her grandson. She emerges from the hut holding the newborn, wrapped in a wool blanket, beaming under a dull gray sky, tears streaming down her cheeks. She hands the baby to Hassan, who then passes him to Rahim Khan, who sings the prayer of Ayat-ul-kursi in the boy's ear. The child is named Sohrab, after the tragic hero from the Shahnamah, Hassan's favorite story. This birth becomes a catalyst for Sanaubar's transformation; she becomes the center of the boy's existence, sewing clothes for him, building him toys from scraps, and staying up all night when he catches a fever. She burns isfand to cast off the evil eye, and by the time Sohrab is two, he calls her "Sasa." The two become inseparable, a stark contrast to the woman who had once refused to even hold her own son.

The Return of a Mother

Earlier in the summer of 1990, a woman covered in a sky-blue burqa collapses at the front gates of the house. When Rahim Khan and Hassan bring her inside and remove her burqa, they find a toothless, scarred woman whose face has been slashed with a knife, one cut reaching from her cheekbone to her hairline and destroying her left eye. This is Sanaubar, who had eloped with a band of singers and dancers in 1964. She whispers to Hassan, asking him to smile for her, and when he does, she weeps, confessing that she had refused to hold him at birth. Hassan initially bolts from the house, running to the hill where he and Amir used to play, but returns the next morning. He takes her hand and tells her she is home now, with her family. He and Farzana nurse her back to health, and she is given a guest room upstairs. Rahim Khan observes them kneeling together in the garden, picking tomatoes or trimming rosebushes, catching up on lost years. Hassan never asks where she has been or why she left, and she never tells.

Life in the Walled Haven

Throughout 1990, the three inhabitants of the house—Rahim Khan, Hassan, and Farzana—create a small haven from the war raging outside. Rahim Khan's vision begins to fail, so Hassan reads to him from the books of Amir's mother, including the Masnawi and Khayyám, while Farzana cooks in the kitchen. Every morning, Hassan places a flower on the small mound in the backyard where his stillborn daughter was buried the previous fall. The year is marked by a quiet, domestic rhythm, a stark contrast to the violence that defines the world beyond the walls. This fragile peace is embodied in the birth of Sohrab, who becomes the center of this new family, a symbol of continuity and hope in a time of relentless destruction.

The Shadow of the Future

Despite the personal joys of 1990, the political landscape of Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. The Soviet withdrawal is complete, but the country is plunged into a brutal civil war between the Mujahedin factions. The infighting is fierce, and Kabul becomes a hellish landscape of falling shells and gunfire. The Wazir Akbar Khan area, where the house is located, is not attacked as much as other neighborhoods, but the threat is ever-present. The seeds of future tragedy are also sown in this year. The Taliban, who will later massacre the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998 and eventually murder Hassan and Farzana, are not yet in power, but the ethnic and sectarian tensions that will fuel their rise are already deeply entrenched. The happiness of 1990 is thus a fragile, fleeting thing, a brief respite before the darkness closes in.