And the Mountains Echoed

Amra says, dipping the brush into a bowl of water.
    â€œI hope that’s okay.”
    â€œWhy not,” she says.
    Idris clears his throat.
“Salaam, Roshi.”
    The girl looks to Amra for permission. Her voice is a tentative, high-pitched whisper.
“Salaam.”
    â€œI brought you a present.” Idris lowers the box and opens it. Roshi’s eyes come to life when Idris takes out the small TV and VCR. He shows her the four films he has bought. Most of the tapes at the store were Indian movies, or else action flicks, martial-arts films with Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, all of Steven Seagal’s pictures. But he was able to find
E.T
.,
Babe
,
Toy Story
, and
The Iron Giant
. He has watched them all with his own boys back home.
    In Farsi, Amra asks Roshi which one she wants to watch. Roshi picks
The Iron Giant
.
    â€œYou’ll love that one,” Idris says. He finds it difficult to look at her directly. His gaze keeps sliding toward the mess on her head, the shiny clump of brain tissue, the crisscrossing network of veins and capillaries.
    There is no electric outlet at the end of this hallway, and it takes Amra some time to find an extension cord, but when Idris plugs in the cord, and the picture comes on, Roshi’s mouth spreads into a smile. In her smile, Idris sees how little of the world he has known, even at thirty-five years of age, its savageness, its cruelty, the boundless brutality.
    When Amra excuses herself to go see other patients, Idris takes a seat beside Roshi’s bed and watches the movie with her.The uncle is a silent, inscrutable presence in the room. Halfway through the film, the power goes out. Roshi begins to cry, and the uncle leans over from his chair and roughly clutches her hand. He whispers a few quick, terse words in Pashto, which Idris does not speak. Roshi winces and tries to pull away. Idris looks at her small hand, lost in the uncle’s strong, white-knuckled grasp.
    Idris puts on his coat. “I’ll come back tomorrow, Roshi, and we can watch another tape if you like. You want that?”
    Roshi shrinks into a ball beneath the covers. Idris looks at the uncle, pictures what Timur would do to this man—Timur, who, unlike him, has no capacity to resist the easy emotion.
Give me ten minutes alone with him
, he’d say.
    The uncle follows him outside. On the steps, he stuns Idris by saying, “I am the real victim here, Sahib.” He must have seen the look on Idris’s face because he corrects himself and says, “Of course she is the victim. But, I mean, I am a victim too. You see that, of course, you are Afghan. But these foreigners, they don’t understand.”
    â€œI have to go,” Idris says.
    â€œI am a
mazdoor
, a simple laborer. I earn a dollar, maybe two, on a good day, Sahib. And I already have five children of my own. One of them blind. Now this.” He sighs. “I think to myself sometimes—God forgive me—I say to myself, maybe Allah should have let Roshi … well, you understand. It might have been better. Because I ask you, Sahib, what boy would marry her now? She will never find a husband. And then who will take care of her? I will have to. I will have to do it forever.”
    Idris knows he has been cornered. He reaches for his wallet.
    â€œWhatever you can spare, Sahib. Not for me, of course. For Roshi.”
    Idris hands him a pair of bills. The uncle blinks, looks up fromthe money. He begins to say, “Two—” then clamps his mouth shut as though worried that he will alert Idris to a mistake.
    â€œBuy her some decent shoes,” Idris says, walking down the steps.
    â€œAllah bless you, Sahib,” the uncle calls out behind him. “You are a good man. You are a kind and good man.”
    Idris visits the next day, and the day after that. Soon, it becomes a routine, and he is at Roshi’s side every day. He comes to know the orderlies by name, the male nurses who work the ground floor, the janitor, the underfed, tired-looking guards at the hospital gates. He keeps the visits as secret as possible. On his calls overseas, he has not told Nahil about Roshi. He does not tell Timur where he is going either, why he isn’t joining him on the trip to Paghman or for a meeting with an official at the Ministry of Interior. But Timur finds out anyway.
    â€œGood for you,” he says. “It’s a decent thing you’re doing.” He pauses before