And the Mountains Echoed

movie.”
    It’s true, what he told her. He has not read the book and doubts he ever will. He does not think he has the stomach to revisit himself on its pages. But others will read it. And when they do, he will be exposed. People will know. Nahil, his sons, his colleagues. He feels sick at the thought of it.
    He opens the book again, flips past the acknowledgments, past the bio of the coauthor, who has done the actual writing. He looks again at the photo on the book flap. There is no sign of the injury. If she bears a scar, which she must, the long, wavy black hair conceals it. Roshi is wearing a blouse with little gold beads, an Allah necklace, lapis ear studs. She is leaning against a tree, looking straight at the camera, smiling. He thinks of the stick figures she had drawn him.
Don’t go. Don’t leave, Kaka
. He does not detect in this young woman even a scrap of the tremulous little creature he had found behind a curtain six years before.
    Idris glances at the dedication page.
    To the two angels in my life: my mother Amra, and my Kaka Timur. You are my saviors. I owe you everything
.
    The line moves. The woman with the short blond hair gets her book signed. She moves aside, and Idris, heart stammering, steps forward. Roshi looks up. She is wearing an Afghan shawl over a pumpkin-colored long-sleeved blouse and little oval-shaped silver earrings. Her eyes are darker than he remembers, and her body is filling out with female curves. She looks at him without blinking, and though she gives no overt indication that she has recognized him, and though her smile is polite, there is something amused and distant about her expression, playful, sly, unintimidated. It steam-rolls him, and suddenly all the words that he had composed—even written down, rehearsed in his head on the way here—dry up. He cannot bring himself to say a thing. He can only stand there, looking vaguely foolish.
    The salesclerk clears her throat. “Sir, if you’ll give me your book I’ll flip to the title page and Roshi will autograph it for you.”
    The book. Idris looks down, finds it clutched tightly in his hands. He has not come here to get it signed, of course. That would be galling—grotesquely galling—after everything. Still, he sees himself handing it over, the salesclerk expertly flipping to the correct page, Roshi’s hand scrawling something beneath the title. He has seconds left now to say something, not that it would mitigate the indefensible but because he thinks he owes it to her. But when the clerk hands him back his book, he cannot summon the words. He wishes now for even a scrap of Timur’s courage. He looks again at Roshi. She is already gazing past him at the next person in line.
    â€œI am—” he begins.
    â€œWe have to keep the line moving now, sir,” the clerk says.
    He drops his head and leaves the queue.
    He has parked in the lot behind the store. The walk to the car feels like the longest of his life. He opens the car door, pauses before entering. With hands that have not stopped shaking, he flipsthe book open again. The scrawling is not a signature. In English, she has written him two sentences.
    He closes the book, his eyes too. He supposes he should be relieved. But part of him wishes for something else. Perhaps if she had grimaced at him, said something infantile, full of loathing and hate. An eruption of rancor. Perhaps that might have been better. Instead, a clean, diplomatic dismissal. And this note.
Don’t worry. You’re not in it
. An act of kindness. Perhaps, more accurately, an act of charity. He should be relieved. But it hurts. He feels the blow of it, like an ax to the head.
    There is a bench nearby, beneath an elm tree. He walks over and leaves the book on it. He returns to the car and sits behind the wheel. And it is a while before he trusts himself to turn the key and drive away.

Six
February 1974
    EDITOR’S NOTE,
Parallaxe
84 (WINTER 1974), P. 5
    Dear Readers:
    Five years ago, when we began our quarterly issues featuring interviews with little-known poets, we could not have anticipated how popular they would prove. Many of you asked for more, and, indeed, your enthusiastic letters paved the way for these issues to become an annual tradition here at
Parallaxe
. The profiles have now become our staff writers’ personal favorites as well. The features have led to the discovery, or rediscovery, of some valuable poets, and an