Sparks Like Stars: A Novel

Tilly thinks she has allergies, as she is sniffling. Sitara feels guilty about how much Tilly and Antonia are doing for her, but Tilly says Antonia loves to help. At the embassy, a man named Leo says there are some complications with getting Aryana a passport. Sitara flinches when soldiers come through the door.

Sitara recalls stories her father told her of the legends of Afghanistan: how Alexander the Great fell in love with an Afghan woman, Rukhshana, or how the descendants of Genghis Khan, the ethnic Hazara, populated the country. There are shouts and gunfire outside, a protest getting out of hand, and the soldiers escort Tilly and Sitara to an inner room to shelter with others. The protesters break through the outer wall and set fire to the building. A wounded man is brought in, and fumes fill the room. They try to get to the roof, but something is stuck across the door and none of the adults can get through. Sitara squeezes through the opening and unbars the door. As they flee across the roof, Sitara wonders if what she is running toward is any better than what she is running from.

Leo helps Tilly, Sitara, and the others evacuate. Tilly reminds Leo that Sitara saved everyone’s life and should be sent to America even without a passport. As the plane takes off, Sitara feels “a buoyancy in my bones, as well as a heaviness in my chest” (175). She does not know if she is falling or flying, if she will soar or sink.

Sitara reads Eastern Bound to pass the time on the plane. Well into the flight, Tilly falls ill and has a seizure. Sitara panics. When the plane lands, Tilly is taken straight to the hospital, and Sitara is not allowed to go with her.

Sitara is held in a room while people try to figure out what to do with her. She feels for the ring, thinking of them as “twin survivors, […] the last vestiges of our respective empires” (181). She tells the men questioning her that her name is Aryana Zamani, and she was there when the embassy in Islamabad was attacked. The men try to intimidate her, and Sitara is upset to think of what Tilly might go through on her behalf. She tries to be honest in answering their questions, but Aryana would be two years older than Sitara, and she fears they will see through her lie. She speaks of the coup and how her family was killed and is surprised she does not collapse with the telling. The men tell her they must check out whether her story of the coup is true.

Sitara recalls an incident when she saw some boys tormenting a stray dog and she stopped them. The dog did not show gratitude to Sitara for rescuing it, and her father reminded her the dog was used to taking care of itself. She is sent with a woman named Ann who works with Child Protective Services. Ann takes Sitara to a hospital, where a doctor evaluates her. The doctor believes that Sitara has been sexually assaulted. Ann then takes her to a house. A man and a woman come outside, and Ann tells Sitara this family has agreed to take her in.

The woman is Janet and her husband is Everett. They sit at a table and Ann asks where the other children are. Janet says they are playing with friends in the neighborhood. As Ann explains Sitara’s situation, Sitara feels that everything she says is wrong. After Ann leaves, Janet locks Sitara in a bedroom upstairs. Sitara waits until she has to go to the bathroom, then calls out. Janet scolds her about being tidy, then takes all of Sitara’s clothes and washes them in a bucket outside.

Sitara meets the other two children. Shawna is a couple of years older than she is, and Gabriel is five or six. She tells them her name is Aryana and she is 12. They ask if this is her first foster home. Janet instructs Shawna to show Aryana how to take a bath, limiting her use of water. There is no lock on the bathroom door, and Aryana is nervous. At dinner, Janet and Everett pray, then eat delicious garden food. The children are only allowed to eat macaroni and cheese. Aryana thinks Shawna looks malnourished. Aryana wonders “why this place of salvation felt suffocating” (206).

Sitara recalls running races with Neelab and how the whole palace would prepare for the Nowruz celebrations. She recalls a time she tried to cheat in a race by jumping a row of shrubs and hurt her foot. Her father quoted a line from Rumi: “The wound is where the light enters you” (209). Aryana lies awake as Shawna sleeps, and Everett enters the room. He tells Janet he is tucking in the girls, but Aryana sees him put his hands beneath Shawna’s blanket. She does not understand if he is hurting the girl or soothing her. Shawna pretends to be asleep.

The next morning, they do not speak of it. Shawna makes breakfast for Janet and Everett while the children are given white bread. Sitara is curious when they go to a Christian church. Everett, who is dressed very neatly, is praised by the priest. Gabriel has to use the bathroom, but the children are made to stand quietly while Janet and Everett talk with others. On the way home, Everett stops the car and makes Gabriel urinate outdoors, honking the car horn at him. That afternoon, the children are sent outside to pull weeds in the backyard. Shawna and Aryana add some of their weeds to Gabriel’s pile because he is afraid he will get in trouble.

Shawna says she has been in this home for one year. Aryana is worried about Tilly, but no one will tell her anything. Shawna and Gabriel leave for school. Everett goes to the church, and Aryana wonders what his God will think of the scratches Aryana left on his arms. Aryana sits in her room and thinks of pieces of the Shahnameh which her father used to read to her. She opens the window and sits on the windowsill with her feet outside. She teeters, not hearing footsteps or the voice calling her. She imagines she is on a rooftop in Kabul, smelling smoke, “while my flailing arms sought both refuge and revenge” (223).