And the Mountains Echoed

years have passed,” Pari says. “She is older now, you see.”
    One day the week before, at the playground, we were sitting on a park bench, the three of us, and Pari said,
Abdullah, do you remember that when you were a boy you had a little sister?
    She’d barely finished her sentence when Baba began to weep. Pari pressed his head into her chest, saying,
I am sorry
,
I am so sorry
, over and over in a panicky way, wiping his cheeks with her hands, but Baba kept seizing with sobs, so violently he started to choke.
    â€œAnd do you know who this is, Abdullah?”
    Baba grunts.
    â€œHe is Jamal. The boy from the game show.”
    â€œHe is not,” Baba says roughly.
    â€œYou don’t think?”
    â€œHe’s serving tea!”
    â€œYes, but that was—what do you call it?—it was from the past. From before. It was a …”
    Flashback
, I mouth into my coffee cup.
    â€œThe game show is now, Abdullah. And when he was serving tea, that was before.”
    Baba blinks vacantly. On the screen, Jamal and Salim are sitting atop a Mumbai high-rise, their feet dangling over the side.
    Pari watches him as though waiting for a moment when somethingwill open in his eyes. “Let me ask you something, Abdullah,” she says. “If one day you win a million dollars, what would you do?”
    Baba grimaces, shifting his weight, then stretches out farther in the recliner.
    â€œI know what
I
would do,” Pari says.
    Baba looks at her blankly.
    â€œIf I win a million dollars, I buy a house on this street. That way, we can be neighbors, you and me, and every day I come here and we watch TV together.”
    Baba grins.
    But it’s only minutes later, when I am back in my room wearing earphones and typing, that I hear a loud shattering sound and Baba screaming something in Farsi. I rip the earphones off and rush to the kitchen. I see Pari backed up against the wall where the microwave is, hands bunched protectively under her chin, and Baba, wild-eyed, jabbing her in the shoulder with his cane. Broken shards of a drinking glass glitter at their feet.
    â€œGet her out of here!” Baba cries when he sees me. “I want this woman out of my house!”
    â€œBaba!”
    Pari’s cheeks have gone pale. Tears spring from her eyes.
    â€œPut down the cane, Baba, for God’s sake! And don’t take a step. You’ll cut your feet.”
    I wrestle the cane from his hand but not before he gives me a good fight for it.
    â€œI want this woman gone! She’s a thief!”
    â€œWhat is he saying?” Pari says miserably.
    â€œShe stole my pills!”
    â€œThose are hers, Baba,” I say. I put a hand on his shoulder and guide him out of the kitchen. He shivers under my palm. As wepass by Pari, he almost lunges at her again, and I have to restrain him. “All right, that’s enough of that, Baba. And those are her pills, not yours. She takes them for her hands.” I grab a shopping catalog from the coffee table on the way to the recliner.
    â€œI don’t trust that woman,” Baba says, flopping into the recliner. “You don’t know. But I know. I know a thief when I see one!” He pants as he grabs the catalog from my hand and starts violently flipping the pages. Then he slams it in his lap and looks up at me, his eyebrows shot high. “And a damn liar too. You know what she said to me, this woman? You know what she said? That she was my sister!
My sister!
Wait ’til Sultana hears about this one.”
    â€œAll right, Baba. We’ll tell her together.”
    â€œCrazy woman.”
    â€œWe’ll tell Mother, and then us three will laugh the crazy woman right out the door. Now, you go on and relax, Baba. Everything is all right. There.”
    I flip on the Weather Channel and sit beside him, stroking his shoulder, until his shaking ceases and his breathing slows. Less than five minutes pass before he dozes off.
    Back in the kitchen, Pari sits slumped on the floor, back against the dishwasher. She looks shaken. She dabs at her eyes with a paper napkin.
    â€œI am very sorry,” she says. “That was not prudent of me.”
    â€œIt’s all right,” I say, reaching under the sink for the dustpan and brush. I find little pink-and-orange pills scattered on the floor among the broken glass. I pick them up one by one and sweep the glass off the linoleum.
    â€œ
Je suis une imbécile
. I wanted to