And the Mountains Echoed

misconduct, his infidelity, his grotesque frat-boy antics.
    Timur smirks. “Remember, cousin, what happens in Kabul …”
    â€œPlease don’t finish that sentence.”
    Timur laughs.
    Somewhere in the back of the plane, there is a little party going on. Someone is singing in Pashto, someone tapping on a Styrofoam plate like a
tamboura
.
    â€œI can’t believe we ran into ol’ Nabi,” Timur mutters. “Jesus.”
    Idris fishes the sleeping pill he had been saving from his breast pocket and dry-swallows it.
    â€œSo I’m coming back next month,” Timur says, crossing his arms, shutting his eyes. “Probably take a couple more trips after that, but we should be good.”
    â€œYou trust this guy Farooq?”
    â€œFuck no. It’s why I’m coming back.”
    Farooq is the lawyer Timur has hired. His specialty is helping Afghans who have lived in exile reclaim their lost properties in Kabul. Timur goes on about the paperwork Farooq will file, the judge he is hoping will preside over the proceedings, a secondcousin of Farooq’s wife. Idris rests his temple once more against the window, waits for the pill to take effect.
    â€œIdris?” Timur says quietly.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSad shit we saw back there, huh?”
    You’re full of startling insight, bro
. “Yup,” Idris says.
    â€œA thousand tragedies per square mile, man.”
    Soon, Idris’s head begins to hum, and his vision blurs. As he drifts to sleep, he thinks of his farewell with Roshi, him holding her fingers, saying they would see each other again, her sobbing softly, almost silently, into his belly.
    On the ride home from SFO, Idris recalls with fondness the manic chaos of Kabul’s traffic. It’s strange now to guide the Lexus down the orderly, pothole-free southbound lanes of the 101, the always helpful freeway signs, everyone so polite, signaling, yielding. He smiles at the memory of all the daredevil adolescent cabbies with whom he and Timur entrusted their lives in Kabul.
    In the passenger seat, Nahil is all questions. Was Kabul safe? How was the food? Did he get sick? Did he take pictures and videos of everything? He does his best. He describes for her the shell-blasted schools, the squatters living in roofless buildings, the beggars, the mud, the fickle electricity, but it’s like describing music. He cannot bring it to life. Kabul’s vivid, arresting details—the bodybuilding gym amid the rubble, for instance, a painting of Schwarzenegger on the window. Such details escape him now, and his descriptions sound to him generic, insipid, like those of an ordinary AP story.
    In the backseat, the boys humor him and listen for a short while, or at least pretend to. Idris can sense their boredom. Then Zabi, who is eight, asks Nahil to start the movie. Lemar, who is two years older, tries to listen a little longer, but soon Idris hears the drone of a racing car from his Nintendo DS.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you boys?” Nahil scolds them. “Your father’s come back from Kabul. Aren’t you curious? Don’t you have questions for him?”
    â€œIt’s all right,” Idris says. “Let them.” But he
is
annoyed with their lack of interest, their blithe ignorance of the arbitrary genetic lottery that has granted them their privileged lives. He feels a sudden rift between himself and his family, even Nahil, most of whose questions about his trip revolve around restaurants and the lack of indoor plumbing. He looks at them accusingly now as the locals must have looked at him when he’d first arrived in Kabul.
    â€œI’m famished,” he says.
    â€œWhat do you feel like?” Nahil says. “Sushi, Italian? There’s a new deli over by Oakridge.”
    â€œLet’s get Afghan food,” he says.
    They go to Abe’s Kabob House over on the east side of San Jose near the old Berryessa Flea Market. The owner, Abdullah, is a gray-haired man in his early sixties, with a handlebar mustache and strong-looking hands. He is one of Idris’s patients, as is his wife. Abdullah waves from behind the register when Idris and his family enter the restaurant. Abe’s Kabob House is a small family business. There are only eight tables—sheathed by often sticky vinyl covers—laminated menus, posters of Afghanistan on the walls, an old soda machine, a “merchandiser,” in the corner.