And the Mountains Echoed

Abdullah greets the guests, runs the register, cleans. His wife, Sultana, is in the back; she is the one responsible for the magic. Idris can see her now in the kitchen, stooped over something, her hair stuffedup under a net cap, her eyes narrowed against the steam. She and Abdullah had married in Pakistan in the late 1970s, they have told Idris, after the communist takeover back home. They were granted asylum in the U.S. in 1982, the year their daughter, Pari, was born.
    She is the one taking their orders now. Pari is friendly and courteous, has her mother’s fair skin, and the same shine of emotional sturdiness in her eyes. She also has a strangely disproportionate body, slim and dainty up top but weighed below the waist by wide hips, thick thighs, and big ankles. She is wearing now one of her customary loose skirts.
    Idris and Nahil order lamb with brown rice and
bolani
. The boys settle for
chapli kabobs
, the closest thing to hamburger meat they can find on the menu. As they wait for their food, Zabi tells Idris that his soccer team has made the finals. He plays right wing. The match is on Sunday. Lemar says he has a guitar recital on Saturday.
    â€œWhat are you playing?” Idris asks sluggishly, feeling jet lag kicking in.
    â€œ ‘Paint It Black.’ ”
    â€œVery cool.”
    â€œNot sure you’ve practiced enough,” Nahil says with cautious reprimand.
    Lemar drops the paper napkin he has been rolling. “Mom! Really? Do you see what I go through every day? I have so much to do!”
    Midway through the meal, Abdullah comes over to them to say hello, wiping his hands on the apron tied around his waist. He asks if they like the food, whether he can get them anything.
    Idris tells him that he and Timur have just returned from Kabul.
    â€œWhat is Timur jan up to?” Abdullah asks.
    â€œTo no good as always.”
    Abdullah grins. Idris knows how fond he is of Timur.
    â€œAnd how is the kabob business?”
    Abdullah sighs. “Dr. Bashiri, if I ever want to put a curse on someone I say, ‘May God give you a restaurant.’ ”
    They share a brief laugh with Abdullah.
    Later, as they are leaving the restaurant and climbing into the SUV, Lemar says, “Dad, does he give free food to everyone?”
    â€œOf course not,” Idris says.
    â€œThen why wouldn’t he take your money?”
    â€œBecause we’re Afghans, and because I’m his doctor,” Idris says, which is only partially true. The bigger reason, he suspects, is that he is Timur’s cousin, and it was Timur who had years earlier lent Abdullah the money to open the restaurant.
    At the house, Idris is surprised at first to find the carpets ripped from the family room and foyer, nails and wooden boards on the stairs exposed. Then he remembers that they were remodeling, replacing carpets with hardwood—wide planks of cherry in a color the flooring contractor had called
copper kettle
. The cabinet doors in the kitchen have been sanded down, and there is a gaping hole where the old microwave used to sit. Nahil tells him she is working a half day on Monday so she can meet in the morning with the flooring people and Jason.
    â€œJason?” Then he remembers, Jason Speer, the home-theater guy.
    â€œHe’s coming in to take measurements. He’s already got us the subwoofer and the projector at a discount. He’s sending three guys to start work on Wednesday.”
    Idris nods. The home theater had been his idea, something he had always wanted. But now it embarrasses him. He feels disconnectedfrom all of it, Jason Speer, the new cabinets and copper-kettle floors, his kids’ $160 high-tops, the chenille bedspreads in his room, the energy with which he and Nahil have pursued these things. The fruits of his ambitions strike him as frivolous now. They remind him only of the brutal disparity between his life and what he’d found in Kabul.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, honey?”
    â€œJet lag,” Idris says. “I need a nap.”
    On Saturday he makes it through the guitar recital, on Sunday through most of Zabi’s soccer match. During the second half he has to steal away to the parking lot, sleep for a half hour. To his relief, Zabi doesn’t notice. Sunday night, a few of the neighbors come over for dinner. They pass around pictures of Idris’s trip and sit politely through the hour of video of Kabul that, against Idris’s wishes, Nahil