And the Mountains Echoed

caused Mr. Wahdati uncharacteristic alarm.
    On the fourth day, there was a knock at the front gates. I opened them to a tall, elderly man in a crisply pressed suit and shiny loafers. There was something imposing and rather forbidding about him in the way he did not so much stand as loom, theway he looked right through me, the way he held his polished cane with both hands like it was a scepter. He had not said a word as yet, but I already sensed he was a man accustomed to being obeyed.
    â€œI understand my daughter is not well,” he said.
    So he was the father. I had never met him before. “Yes, Sahib. I’m afraid that is true,” I said.
    â€œThen move aside, young man.” He pushed past me.
    In the garden, I busied myself, chopping a block of wood for the stove. From where I worked, I had a good clear view of Nila’s bedroom window. Framed in it was the father, bent at the waist, leaning into Nila, one hand pressing on her shoulder. On Nila’s face was the expression people have when they have been startled by an abrupt loud noise, like a firecracker, or a door slammed by a sudden draft of wind.
    That night, she ate.
    A few days later, Nila summoned me into the house and said she was going to throw a party. We rarely, if ever, had parties at the house back when Mr. Wahdati was single. After Nila moved in, she arranged them two or three times a month. The day prior to the party, Nila would give me detailed instructions on what appetizers and meals I was to prepare, and I would drive to the market to purchase the necessary items. Chief among these necessary items was alcohol, which I had never procured before, as Mr. Wahdati did not drink—though his reasons had nothing to do with religion, he merely disliked its effects. Nila, however, was well acquainted with certain establishments—
pharmacies
, as she called them jokingly—where for the equivalent of double my monthly salary a bottle of
medicine
could be purchased subversively. I had mixed feelings about running this particular errand, playing the part of sin enabler, but, as always, pleasing Nila superseded everything else.
    You must understand, Mr. Markos, that when we had parties in Shadbagh, be it for a wedding or to celebrate a circumcision, the proceedings took place at two separate houses, one for women, the other for us men. At Nila’s parties, men and women mingled with one another. Most of the women dressed as Nila did, in dresses that showed the entire lengths of their arms and a good deal of their legs as well. They smoked, and they drank too, their glasses half filled with colorless or red- or copper-colored liquor, and they told jokes and laughed and freely touched the arms of men I knew to be married to someone else in the room. I carried small platters of
bolani
and
lola kabob
from one end of the smoke-filled room to the other, from one cluster of guests to another, as a record played on the turntable. The music was not Afghan but something Nila called
jazz
, a kind of music that, I learned decades later, you appreciate as well, Mr. Markos. To my ears, the random tinkling of piano and the strange wailing of horns sounded an inharmonious mess. But Nila loved it, and I kept overhearing her telling guests how they simply had to hear this recording or that. All night, she held a glass and tended to it far more than the food I served.
    Mr. Wahdati made limited effort to engage his guests. He made a token show of mingling, but mostly he occupied a corner, with a remote expression on his face, swirling a glass of soda, smiling a courteous, closemouthed smile when someone talked to him. And, as was his habit, he excused himself when the guests began asking Nila to recite her poetry.
    This was my favorite part, by far, of the evening. When she started, I always found some task that would keep me nearby. There I would be, frozen in place, towel in hand, straining to hear. Nila’s poems did not resemble any I had grown up with. As you well know, we Afghans love our poetry; even the most uneducatedamong us can recite verses of Hafez or Khayyám or Saadi. Do you recall, Mr. Markos, telling me last year how much you loved Afghans? And I asked you why, and you laughed and said,
Because even your graffiti artists spray Rumi on the walls
.
    But Nila’s poems defied tradition. They followed no preset meter or rhyming pattern. Nor did they deal with the usual things, trees and spring flowers and bulbul birds.