The Chinese say it's better to be deprived of food for three days than tea for one. - Khaled Hosseini

In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble frantically to commit it all to memory, what happened next. Like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could — a look, a whisper, a moan — to salvage from perishing to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn't, in the end, save it all.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ''For you a thousand times over!'' he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner.