Page 49 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

me the baby’s name. I forget now.”

“Pari,” Parwana says.
He nods. “I didn’t ask, but he told me he’s looking to marry again.”
Parwana looks away, trying to pretend she doesn’t care, but her heart is
thumping in her ears. She feels a film of sweat blooming on her skin.
“Like I said, I didn’t ask. Saboor was the one who brought it up. He pulled
me aside. He pulled me aside and told me.”

Parwana suspects that Nabi knows what she has carried with her for Saboor
all these years. Masooma is her twin, but it is Nabi who has always understood
her. But Parwana doesn’t see why her brother is telling her this news. What good
does it do? What Saboor needs is a woman unanchored, a woman who won’t be
held down, who is free to devote herself to him, to his boy, his newborn
daughter. Parwana’s time is already consumed. Accounted for. Her whole life is.
“I’m sure he’ll find someone,” Parwana says.

Nabi nods. “I’ll be by again next month.” He crushes his cigarette underfoot
and takes his leave.
When Parwana enters the hut, she is surprised to see Masooma awake. “I
thought you were napping.”
Masooma drags her gaze to the window, blinking slowly, tiredly.

When the girls were thirteen, they sometimes went to the crowded
bazaars of nearby towns for their mother. The smell of freshly sprayed water
rose from the unpaved street. The two of them strolled down the lanes, past stalls
that sold hookahs, silk shawls, copper pots, old watches. Slaughtered chickens
hung by their feet, tracing slow circles over hunks of lamb and beef.

In every corridor Parwana would see men’s eyes snapping to attention when
Masooma passed by. She saw their efforts to behave matter-of-factly, but their
gazes lingered, helpless to tear away. If Masooma glanced in their direction, they
looked idiotically privileged. They imagined they had shared a moment with her.
She interrupted conversations midsentence, smokers mid-drag. She was the
trembler of knees, the spiller of teacups.
Some days it was all too much for Masooma, as if she was almost ashamed,
and she told Parwana she wanted to stay inside all day, wanted not to be looked
at. On those days, Parwana thought it was as though, somewhere deep inside, her