And the Mountains Echoed

which he was very proud. Several acres of long parallel rows of pear trees and apple trees, apricots, cherries, figs, and loquats too. When Adel took long walks with his father in these orchards, Baba jan would lift him high up on his shoulders and Adel would pluck them a ripe pair of apples. Between the compound and the orchards was a clearing, mostly empty save for a shed where the gardeners stored their tools. The only other thing there was the flat stump of what had once been, by the looks of it, a giant old tree. Baba jan had once counted its rings with Adel and concluded that the tree had likely seen Genghis Khan’s army march past. He said, with a rueful shake of his head, that whoever had cut it down had been nothing but a fool.
    It was a hot day, the sun glaring in a sky as unblemished blue as the skies in the crayon pictures Adel used to draw when he was little. He put down the can of apple juice on the tree stump and practiced juggling his ball. His personal best was sixty-eight touches without the ball hitting the ground. He had set that record in the spring, and now it was midsummer and he was still trying to best it. Adel had reached twenty-eight when he became aware thatsomeone was watching him. It was the boy, the one with the old man who had tried to approach Baba jan at the school’s opening ceremony. He was squatting now in the shade of the brick shed.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Adel said, trying to bark the words like Kabir did when he spoke to strangers.
    â€œGetting some shade,” the boy said. “Don’t report me.”
    â€œYou’re not supposed to be here.”
    â€œNeither are you.”
    â€œWhat?”
    The boy chuckled. “Never mind.” He stretched his arms wide and rose to his feet. Adel tried to see if his pockets were full. Maybe he had come to steal fruit. The boy walked over to Adel and flipped up the ball with one foot, gave it a pair of quick juggles, and kicked it with his heel to Adel. Adel caught the ball and cradled it under his arm.
    â€œWhere your goon had us wait, over by the road, me and my father? There’s no shade. And not a damn cloud in the sky.”
    Adel felt a need to rise to Kabir’s defense. “He is not a goon.”
    â€œWell, he made sure we got an eyeful of his Kalashnikov, I can tell you that.” He looked at Adel, a lazy, amused grin on his lips. He dropped a wad of spit at his feet. “So I see you’re a fan of the head-butter.”
    It took Adel a moment to realize who he was referring to. “You can’t judge him by one mistake,” he said. “He was the best. He was a wizard in the midfield.”
    â€œI’ve seen better.”
    â€œYeah? Like who?”
    â€œLike Maradona.”
    â€œMaradona?” Adel said, outraged. He’d had this debate before with one of his half brothers in Jalalabad. “Maradona was a cheater! ‘Hand of God,’ remember?”
    â€œEveryone cheats and everyone lies.”
    The boy yawned and started to go. He was about the same height as Adel, maybe a hair taller, and probably just around his age too, Adel thought. But somehow he walked like he was older, without hurry and with a kind of air, as if he had seen everything there was to see and nothing surprised him.
    â€œMy name is Adel.”
    â€œGholam.” They shook hands. Gholam’s grip was strong, his palm dry and callused.
    â€œHow old are you anyway?”
    Gholam gave a shrug. “Thirteen, I guess. Could be fourteen by now.”
    â€œYou don’t know your own birthday?”
    Gholam grinned. “I bet you know yours. I bet you count down.”
    â€œI do not,” Adel said defensively. “I mean, I don’t count down.”
    â€œI should go. My father’s waiting alone.”
    â€œI thought that was your grandfather.”
    â€œYou thought wrong.”
    â€œDo you want to play a shoot-out?” Adel asked.
    â€œYou mean like a penalty shoot-out?”
    â€œFive each … best of.”
    Gholam spat again, squinted toward the road and back at Adel. Adel noticed that his chin was a bit small for his face and that he had overlapping extra canines in the front, one of them chipped badly and rotting. His left eyebrow was split in half by a short, narrow scar. Also, he smelled. But Adel hadn’t had a conversation—let alone played a game—with a boy his age in nearly two years, discounting the monthly