Page 18 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

Two

Fall 1952

Father had never before hit Abdullah. So when he did, when he whacked the
side of his head, just above the ear—hard, suddenly, and with an open palm—
tears of surprise sprung to Abdullah’s eyes. He quickly blinked them back.

“Go home,” Father said through gritted teeth.
From up ahead, Abdullah heard Pari burst into sobs.
Then Father hit him again, harder, and this time across the left cheek.
Abdullah’s head snapped sideways. His face burned, and more tears leaked. His
left ear rang. Father stooped down, leaning in so close his dark creased face
eclipsed the desert and the mountains and the sky altogether.

“I told you to go home, boy,” he said with a pained look.
Abdullah didn’t make a sound. He swallowed hard and squinted at his father,
blinking into the face shading his eyes from the sun.
From the small red wagon up ahead, Pari cried out his name, her voice high,
shaking with apprehension. “Abollah!”

Father held him with a cutting look, and trudged back to the wagon. From its
bed, Pari reached for Abdullah with outstretched hands. Abdullah allowed them
a head start. Then he wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, and followed.
A little while later, Father threw a rock at him, the way children in Shadbagh
would do to Pari’s dog, Shuja—except they meant to hit Shuja, to hurt him.
Father’s rock fell harmlessly a few feet from Abdullah. He waited, and when
Father and Pari got moving again Abdullah tailed them once more.
Finally, with the sun just past its peak, Father pulled up again. He turned back
in Abdullah’s direction, seemed to consider, and motioned with his hand.

“You won’t give up,” he said.
From the bed of the wagon, Pari’s hand quickly slipped into Abdullah’s. She
was looking up at him, her eyes liquid, and she was smiling her gap-toothed
smile like no bad thing would ever befall her so long as he stood at her side. He
closed his fingers around her hand, the way he did each night when he and his
little sister slept in their cot, their skulls touching, their legs tangled.
“You were supposed to stay home,” Father said. “With your mother and

Iqbal. Like I told you to.”