Summary

The narrative opens with the acknowledgment that Miss Jebeen would become one of the youngest martyrs of the Kashmiri movement, when both she and her mother are shot. They are buried alongside 15 others in the Mazar-e-Shohadda, or Martyrs’ Graveyard. Rumors have suggested that the first martyr buried there, its “founder-corpse” (317 ) was actually an empty duffel bag. Whatever the truth, the graveyard is continuing to fill up because, at this time in Kashmir, “Death was everywhere” (320).

Miss Jebeen and her mother are buried alongside one another. The inscription of the grave reveals that the mother’s name is Arifa Yeswi; she is Musa’s wife, making Miss Jebeen Musa’s three-year-old daughter. As Musa positions their gravestones, he thinks about how Miss Jebeen asked him one night to tell her a “a real story.” Musa tells his...