A Thousand Splendid Suns: Part III: Chapter 39 Summary & Analysis

It’s September 1997, and there is a crowd outside Malalai hospital, a women’s hospital, when the guard barks that it no longer serves women. The guard tells them the only place to go is Rabia Balkhi, but a young woman in the crowd says there’s no clean water, oxygen, or medicine there. The Talib fires his Kalashnikov into the air.

The waiting room at Rabia Balkhi is dirty and packed with women and children. Mariam claws her way to the front of the registration window, thinking of the sacrifices a mother makes—like the ones Nana had made, enduring the shame of bearing a harami. She wishes she’d been a better daughter to Nana.

Mariam finds herself at the window and tells the nurse that her daughter’s water broke, but the nurse says that the two doctors on staff are both operating on others at the moment. Much later, the nurse finally calls them in. The burqa-clad doctor is small and harried-looking. After examining Laila, she says the baby is in the breech position and they’ll have to perform a caesarian. Embarrassed, the doctor whispers to Mariam that she has no anesthetic. Mariam could try to cross the city to find medicine herself, but in that time they’d risk losing the baby. Laila tells the doctor to operate.

The doctor takes off her burqa to operate, saying that they’re supposed to operate in burqa, but a nurse keeps watch at the door. Mariam positions herself behind Laila’s head and holds her hands as she shivers, grits her teeth, and finally screams.