The connection between Mariam and Pinocchio. It’s about a puppet who wants to become a real boy. Mariam, who is a harami (illegitimate child) wants more than anything to be a part of her father’s family and wishes she were his 'real' daughter. In the end, when she's preparing for her execution, Mariam thinks to herself that her life will have a "legitimate" end even if she started out as a harami, because, she's known love and family, and is willing to give up her life to protect them...rather like how Pinocchio becomes a real boy in the end by proving himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish" and sacrificing himself for Gepetto.
There are several hints that the orphanage Aziza is sent to is the same one that Sohrab was placed in in The Kite Runner. The orphanages are mentioned as being in the same area and the director has the same name in both books, Zaman. In The Kite Runner, it's revealed that the Taliban come by the orphanage every so often and pay Zaman so that they can take a child away, and Zaman is forced to put up with it because he has no other way to get money for the children's food. This is the fate that befalls Sohrab in The Kite Runner. When telling Amir this, Zaman mentions that the officers usually choose to take a girl. And, if you do the math, Aziza and Sohrab's respective times at the orphanage overlap a bit. What if that had happened to Aziza? What if Laila had gotten through the Taliban to the orphanage only to find out that her daughter wasn't even there anymore?
What would have happened if Mariam didn't kill Rasheed at the climactic part of the book? Tariq would have returned the next day only to learn that by coming back, he'd unwittingly caused Laila to be killed by Rasheed. Alternatively, Rasheed would spare Laila, but certainly have orchestrated Tariq's death instead, either by getting him arrested or flat out murdering him himself once he returned. Mariam truly saved the lives of both Laila and Tariq by doing what she did, even as she tragically signed her own death warrant for it too.
