And the Mountains Echoed

She must have been on his mind.
    â€œYes. His name was Nabi. He was the chauffeur too. He drove my father’s car, a big American car, blue with a tan top. I remember it had an eagle’s head on the hood.”
    Later, he asked, and she told him, about her studies and her focus on complex variables. He listened in a way that Maman never did—Maman, who seemed bored by the subject and mystified by Pari’s passion for it. Maman couldn’t even feign interest. She made lighthearted jokes that, on the surface, appeared to poke fun at her own ignorance.
Oh là là
, she would say, grinning,
my head! My head! Spinning like a totem! I’ll make you a deal, Pari. I’ll pour us some tea, and you return to the planet
, d’accord? She would chuckle, and Pari would humor her, but she sensed an edge to these jokes, anoblique sort of chiding, a suggestion that her knowledge had been judged esoteric and her pursuit of it frivolous.
Frivolous
. Which was rich, Pari thought, coming from a poet, though she would never say so to her mother.
    Julien asked what she saw in mathematics and she said she found it comforting.
    â€œI might have chosen ‘daunting’ as a more fitting adjective,” he said.
    â€œIt is that too.”
    She said there was comfort to be found in the permanence of mathematical truths, in the lack of arbitrariness and the absence of ambiguity. In knowing that the answers may be elusive, but they could be found. They were there, waiting, chalk scribbles away.
    â€œNothing like life, in other words,” he said. “There, it’s questions with either no answers or messy ones.”
    â€œAm I that transparent?” She laughed and hid her face with a napkin. “I sound like an idiot.”
    â€œNot at all,” he said. He plucked away the napkin. “Not at all.”
    â€œLike one of your students. I must remind you of your students.”
    He asked more questions, through which Pari saw that he had a working knowledge of analytic number theory and was, at least in passing, familiar with Carl Gauss and Bernhard Riemann. They spoke until the sky darkened. They drank coffee, and then beer, which led to wine. And then, when it could not be delayed any longer, Julien leaned in a bit and said in a polite, dutiful tone, “And, tell me, how is Nila?”
    Pari puffed her cheeks and let the air out slowly.
    Julien nodded knowingly.
    â€œShe may lose the bookstore,” Pari said.
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that.”
    â€œBusiness has been declining for years. She may have to shut itdown. She wouldn’t admit to it, but that would be a blow. It would hit her hard.”
    â€œIs she writing?”
    â€œShe hasn’t been.”
    He soon changed the subject. Pari was relieved. She didn’t want to talk about Maman and her drinking and the struggle to get her to keep taking her pills. Pari remembered all the awkward gazes, all the times when they were alone, she and Julien, Maman getting dressed in the next room, Julien looking at Pari and her trying to think of something to say. Maman must have sensed it. Could it be the reason she had ended it with Julien? If so, Pari had an inkling she’d done so more as a jealous lover than a protective mother.
    A few weeks later, Julien asked Pari to move in with him. He lived in a small apartment on the Left Bank in the 7th arrondissement. Pari said yes. Collette’s prickly hostility made for an untenable atmosphere at the apartment now.
    Pari remembers her first Sunday with Julien at his place. They were reclined on his couch, pressed against each other. Pari was pleasantly half awake, and Julien was drinking tea, his long legs resting on the coffee table. He was reading an opinion piece on the back page of the newspaper. Jacques Brel played on the turntable. Every now and then, Pari would shift her head on his chest, and Julien would lean down and place a small kiss on her eyelid, or her ear, or her nose.
    â€œWe have to tell Maman.”
    She could feel him tightening. He folded the paper, removed his reading glasses and put them on the arm of the couch.
    â€œShe needs to know.”
    â€œI suppose,” he said.
    â€œYou ‘suppose’?”
    â€œNo, of course. You’re right. You should call her. But be careful.Don’t ask for permission or blessing, you’ll get neither. Just tell her. And make sure she knows this is not a