And the Mountains Echoed

birdseed from the snare
.
    A Rumi poem, one from Mullah Shekib’s teachings.
    They’re getting more sophisticated
, Masooma said with a chuckle.
    Below the poem, the boy had written
I want to marry you
. And, below that, he had scribbled this addendum:
I’ve got a cousin for your sister. He’s a perfect match. They can graze my uncle’s field together
.
    Masooma tore the note in half.
Don’t mind them, Parwana
, she said.
They’re imbeciles
.
    Cretins
, Parwana agreed.
    Such effort it took to plaster a grin on her face. The note was bad enough, but what really stung was Masooma’s response. The boy hadn’t explicitly addressed his note to either one of them, but Masooma had casually assumed that he’d intended the poem for her and the cousin for Parwana. For the first time, Parwana saw herself through her sister’s eyes. She saw how her sister viewed her. Which was the same as how the rest of them did. It left her gutted, what Masooma said. It flattened her.
    Besides
, Masooma added with a shrug and a grin,
I’m already taken
.
    Nabi has come for his monthly visit. He is the family’s success story, perhaps the entire village’s too, on account of his working in Kabul, his driving into Shadbagh in his employer’s big shiny blue car with the gleaming eagle’s-head hood ornament, everyone gathering to watch his arrival, the village kids hollering and running alongside the car.
    â€œHow are things?” he asks.
    The three of them are inside the hut having tea and almonds. Nabi is very handsome, Parwana thinks, with his fine chiseled cheekbones, his hazel eyes, his sideburns, and the thick wall of black hair swept back from his forehead. He is dressed in his customary olive-colored suit that looks a size or so too big on him. Nabi is proud of the suit, Parwana knows, always tugging at the sleeves, straightening the lapel, pinching the crease of his pants, though he has never quite managed to eradicate its lingering whiff of burnt onions.
    â€œWell, we had Queen Homaira over for tea and cookies yesterday,”Masooma says. “She complimented our exquisite choice of décor.” She smiles amiably at her brother, revealing her yellowing teeth, and Nabi laughs, looking down at his cup. Before he found work in Kabul, Nabi had helped Parwana care for their sister. Or he had tried for a while. But he couldn’t do it. It was too much for him. Kabul was Nabi’s escape. Parwana envies her brother, but she does not entirely begrudge him even if he does—she knows that there is more than an element of penance in the monthly cash that he brings her.
    Masooma has brushed her hair and rimmed her eyes with a dash of kohl as she always does when Nabi visits. Parwana knows that she does it only partially for his benefit and more for the fact that he is her tie to Kabul. In Masooma’s mind, he connects her to glamour and luxury, to a city of cars and lights and fancy restaurants and royal palaces, regardless of how remote this link might be. Parwana remembers how, long ago, Masooma used to say to her that she was a city girl trapped in a village.
    â€œWhat about you? Have you found yourself a wife yet?” Masooma asks playfully.
    Nabi waves a hand and laughs her off, as he used to when their parents asked him the same question.
    â€œSo when are you going to show me around Kabul again, brother?” Masooma says.
    Nabi had taken them to Kabul once, the year before. He had picked them up from Shadbagh and driven them to Kabul, up and down the streets of the city. He had shown them all the mosques, the shopping districts, the cinemas, the restaurants. He had pointed out to Masooma the domed Bagh-e-Bala Palace sitting on a hill overlooking the city. At the gardens of Babur, he had lifted Masooma from the front seat of the car and carried her in his arms to the site of the Mughal emperor’s tomb. They hadprayed there, the three of them, at the Shah Jahan Mosque, and then, at the edge of a blue-tiled pool, they had eaten the meal Nabi had packed for them. It had been perhaps the happiest day of Masooma’s life since the accident, and for that Parwana was grateful to her older brother.
    â€œSoon,
Inshallah
,” Nabi says, tapping a finger against the cup.
    â€œWould you mind adjusting this cushion under my knees, Nabi? Ah, that’s much better. Thank you.” Masooma sighs. “I loved Kabul. If I could, I’d march all