And the Mountains Echoed

Abdullah said tersely.
    â€œAh. I hear she is lovely.”
    â€œGo fetch your sister,” Saboor said.
    Abdullah lingered, looking from his father to Nila, then rose with visible reluctance to bring his sister.
    If I had any wish, even at this late hour, to somehow acquit myself, I would say that the bond between Abdullah and his little sister was an ordinary one. But it was not so. No one but God knows why those two had chosen each other. It was a mystery. I have never seen such affinity between two beings. In truth, Abdullah was as much father to Pari as sibling. When she was an infant, when she cried at night, it was he who sprung from the sleeping cot to walk her. It was he who took it upon himself to change her soiled linens, to bundle her up, to soothe her back to sleep. His patience with her was boundless. He carried her around the village, showing her off as though she were the world’s most coveted trophy.
    When he carried a still-groggy Pari into the room, Nila asked to hold her. Abdullah handed her over with a cutting look of suspicion, as though some instinctive alarm inside him had been set off.
    â€œOh, she is darling,” Nila exclaimed, her awkward bounces betraying her inexperience with small children. Pari gazed with confusion at Nila, looked toward Abdullah, and began to cry. Quickly, he retrieved her from Nila’s hands.
    â€œLook at those eyes!” Nila said. “Oh, and these cheeks! Isn’t she darling, Nabi?”
    â€œThat she is, Bibi Sahib,” I said.
    â€œAnd she’s been given the perfect name: Pari. She is indeed as beautiful as a fairy.”
    Abdullah watched Nila, rocking Pari in his arms, his face growing cloudy.
    On the way back to Kabul, Nila slumped in the backseat with her head resting on the glass. For a long while, she didn’t say a word. And then, suddenly, she started to cry.
    I pulled the car over to the side of the road.
    She didn’t speak for a long time. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed into her hands. Finally, she blew her nose into a handkerchief. “Thank you, Nabi,” she said.
    â€œFor what, Bibi Sahib?”
    â€œFor taking me there. It was a privilege to meet your family.”
    â€œThe privilege was all theirs. And mine. We were honored.”
    â€œYour sister’s children are beautiful.” She removed her sunglasses and dabbed at her eyes.
    I considered for a moment what to do, at first opting to remain quiet. But she had wept in my presence, and the intimacy of the moment called for kind words. Softly I said, “You will have your own soon, Bibi Sahib.
Inshallah
, God will see to it. You wait.”
    â€œI don’t think He will. Even He can’t see to this.”
    â€œOf course He can, Bibi Sahib. You’re so very young. If He wishes it, it will happen.”
    â€œYou don’t understand,” she said tiredly. I had never seen her look so exhausted, so drained. “It’s gone. They scooped it all out of me in India. I’m hollow inside.”
    To this I could think of nothing to say. I longed to climb intothe backseat beside her and pull her into my arms, to soothe her with kisses. Before I knew what I was doing, I had reached behind me and taken her hand into mine. I thought she would withdraw, but her fingers squeezed my hand gratefully, and we sat there in the car, not looking at each other but at the plains around us, yellow and withering from horizon to horizon, furrowed with dried-up irrigation ditches, pocked with shrubs and rocks and stirrings of life here and there. Nila’s hand in mine, I looked at the hills and the power poles. My eyes traced a cargo truck lumbering along in the distance, trailed by a puff of dust, and I would have happily sat there until dark.
    â€œTake me home,” she said at last, releasing my hand. “I’m going to turn in early tonight.”
    â€œYes, Bibi Sahib.” I cleared my throat and dropped the shift into first gear with a slightly unsteady hand.
    She went into her bedroom and didn’t leave it for days. This was not the first time. On occasion, she would pull up a chair to the window of her upstairs bedroom and plant herself there, smoking cigarettes, shaking one foot, staring out the window with a blank expression. She would not speak. She would not change out of her sleeping gown. She would not bathe or brush her teeth or hair. This time, she would not eat either, and this particular development