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And the Mountains Echoed

And the Mountains Echoed

Titel: And the Mountains Echoed Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Khaled Hosseini , Hosseini
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look like you’re dying to be rescued.”
    He was wearing a tweed jacket over a sweater, jeans, a wool scarf. His hair was longer, and he had aged some, but elegantly, in a way that some women his age might find unfair and even infuriating. Still lean and fit, a couple of crow’s-feet, some more graying at the temples, his face set with just a light touch of weariness.
    â€œI am,” she said.
    They kissed on the cheek, and when he asked if she would have a coffee with him, she said yes.
    â€œYour friend looks angry. Homicidally angry.”
    Pari glanced behind her, saw Collette standing with Eric, still chanting and pumping her fist but also, absurdly, glaring at the two of them. Pari swallowed back laughter—that would have wrought irreparable damage. She shrugged apologetically and ducked away.
    They went to a small café and sat at a table by the window. He ordered them coffee and a custard
mille-feuille
each. Pari watched him speak to the waiter in the tone of genial authority that she recalled well and felt the same flutter in the gut that she had as a girl when he would come over to pick up Maman. She felt suddenly self-conscious, of her bitten fingernails, her unpowdered face, her hair hanging in limp curls—she wished now that she’d dried it after the shower, but she’d been late, and Collette had been pacing like a zoo animal.
    â€œI hadn’t pegged you as the protesting type,” Julien said, lighting her cigarette for her.
    â€œI’m not. That was more guilt than conviction.”
    â€œGuilt? Over seal hunting?”
    â€œOver Collette.”
    â€œAh. Yes. You know I think I may be a little frightened of her.”
    â€œWe all are.”
    They laughed. He reached across the table and touched her scarf. He dropped his hand. “It would be trite to say that you’re all grown up, so I won’t. But you do look ravishing, Pari.”
    She pinched the lapel of her raincoat. “What, in this Clouseau outfit?” Collette had told her it was a stupid habit, this self-deprecating clowning around with which Pari tried to mask her nervousness around men she was attracted to. Especially when they complimented her. Not for the first time, and far from the last, she envied Maman her naturally self-assured disposition.
    â€œNext you’ll say I’m living up to my name,” she said.
    â€œ
Ah, non
. Please. Too obvious. There is an art to complimenting a woman, you know.”
    â€œNo. But I’m certain you do.”
    The waiter brought the pastries and coffee. Pari focused on the waiter’s hands as he arranged the cups and plates on the table, the palms of her own hands blooming with sweat. She had had only four lovers in her lifetime—a modest number, she knew, certainly compared to Maman at her age, even Collette. She was too watchful, too sensible, too compromising and adaptable, on the whole steadier and less exhausting than either Maman or Collette. But these were not qualities that drew men in droves. And she hadn’t loved any of them—though she had lied to one and said she did—but pinned beneath each of them she had thoughts of Julien, of him and his beautiful face, which seemed to come with its own private lighting.
    As they ate, he talked about his work. He said he had quit teaching some time ago. He had worked on debt sustainability at the IMF for a few years. The best part of that had been the traveling, he said.
    â€œWhere to?”
    â€œJordan, Iraq. Then I took a couple of years to write a book on informal economies.”
    â€œWere you published?”
    â€œThat is the rumor.” He smiled. “I work for a private consulting firm now here in Paris.”
    â€œI want to travel too,” Pari said. “Collette keeps saying we should go to Afghanistan.”
    â€œI suspect I know why
she
would want to go.”
    â€œWell, I’ve been thinking about it. Going back there, I mean. I don’t care about the hashish, but I do want to travel the country, see where I was born. Maybe find the old house where my parents and I lived.”
    â€œI didn’t realize you had this compulsion.”
    â€œI’m curious. I mean, I remember so little.”
    â€œI think one time you said something about a family cook.”
    Pari was inwardly flattered that he recalled something she had told him so many years before. He must have thought of her, then, in the intervening time.

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