And the Mountains Echoed

picture absently with the side of her thumb. “Maman was elegant and talented. She read books and had many strong opinions and always she was telling them to people. But she had also very deep sadness. All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said,
Fill these holes inside of me, Pari
.”
    I nod. I think I understand something of that.
    â€œBut I could not. And later, I did not want to. I did careless things. Reckless things.” She sits back in the chair, her shoulders slumping, puts her thin white hands in her lap. She considers for a minute before saying, “
J’aurais dû être plus gentille
—I should havebeen more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old,
Ah, I wish I was not good to that person
. You will never think that.” For a moment, her face looks stricken. She is like a helpless schoolgirl. “It would not have been so difficult,” she says tiredly. “I should have been more kind. I should have been more like you.”
    She lets out a heavy breath and folds the photo album shut. After a pause, she says brightly, “
Ah, bon
. Now I wish to ask something of you.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œWill you show me some of your paintings?”
    We smile at each other.
    Pari stays a month with Baba and me. In the mornings, we take breakfast together in the kitchen. Black coffee and toast for Pari, yogurt for me, and fried eggs with bread for Baba, something he has found a taste for in the last year. I worried it was going to raise his cholesterol, eating all those eggs, and I asked Dr. Bashiri during one of Baba’s appointments. Dr. Bashiri gave me one of his tight-lipped smiles and said,
Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it
. And that reassured me—at least until a bit later when I was helping Baba buckle his seat belt and it occurred to me that maybe what Dr. Bashiri had really meant was,
We’re past all that now
.
    After breakfast, I retreat into my office—otherwise known as my bedroom—and Pari keeps Baba company while I work. At her request, I have written down for her the schedule of the TV shows he likes to watch, what time to give him his midmorning pills, which snacks he likes and when he’s apt to ask for them. It was her idea I write it all down.
    You could just pop in and ask
, I said.
    I don’t want to disturb you
, she said.
And I want to know. I want to know him
.
    I don’t tell her that she will never know him the way she longs to. Still, I share with her a few tricks of the trade. For instance, how if Baba starts to get agitated I can usually, though not always, calm him down—for reasons that baffle me still—by quickly handing him a free home-shopping catalog or a furniture-sale flyer. I keep a steady supply of both.
    If you want him to nap, flip on the Weather Channel or anything to do with golf. And never let him watch cooking shows
.
    Why not?
    They agitate him for some reason
.
    After lunch, the three of us go out for a stroll. We keep it short for both their sakes—what with Baba tiring quickly and Pari’s arthritis. Baba has a wariness in his eyes, tottering anxiously along the sidewalk between Pari and me, wearing an old newsboy cap, his cardigan sweater, and wool-lined moccasins. There is a middle school around the block with an ill-manicured soccer field and, across that, a small playground where I often take Baba. We always find a young mother or two, strollers parked near them, a toddler stumbling around in the sandbox, now and then a teenage couple cutting school, swinging lazily and smoking. They rarely look at Baba—the teenagers—and then only with cold indifference, or even subtle disdain, as if my father should have known better than to allow old age and decay to happen to him.
    One day, I pause during dictation and go to the kitchen to refresh my coffee and I find the two of them watching a movie together. Baba on the recliner, his moccasins sticking out from under the shawl, his head bent forward, mouth gaping slightly, eyebrows drawn together in either concentration or confusion.And Pari sitting beside him, hands folded in her lap, feet crossed at the ankles.
    â€œWho’s this one?” Baba says.
    â€œThat is Latika.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œLatika, the little girl from the slums. The one who could not jump on the train.”
    â€œShe doesn’t look little.”
    â€œYes, but a lot of