Page 50 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

sister understood dimly that her beauty was a weapon. A loaded gun, with the

barrel pointed at her own head. Most days, however, the attention seemed to
please her. Most days, she relished her power to derail a man’s thoughts with a
single fleeting but strategic smile, to make tongues falter over words.
It blistered the eyes, beauty like hers.
And then there was Parwana, shuffling next to her, with her flat chest and
sallow complexion. Her frizzy hair, her heavy, mournful face, and her thick
wrists and masculine shoulders. A pathetic shadow, torn between her envy and
the thrill of being seen with Masooma, sharing in the attention as a weed would,
lapping up water meant for the lily upstream.

All her life, Parwana had made sure to avoid standing in front of a mirror
with her sister. It robbed her of hope to see her face beside Masooma’s, to see so
plainly what she had been denied. But in public, every stranger’s eye was a
mirror. There was no escape.

She carries Masooma outside. The two of them sit on the charpoy
Parwana has set up. She makes sure to stack cushions so Masooma can
comfortably lean her back against the wall. The night is quiet but for the
chirping crickets, and dark too, lit only by a few lanterns still shimmering in
windows and by the papery white light of the three-quarter moon.
Parwana fills the hookah’s vase with water. She takes two matchhead-sized
portions of opium flakes with a pinch of tobacco and drops the mix into the
hookah’s bowl. She lights the coal on the metal screen and hands the hookah to
her sister. Masooma takes a deep puff from the hose, reclines against the
cushions, and asks if she can rest her legs on Parwana’s lap. Parwana reaches
down and lifts the limp legs to rest across her own.

When she smokes, Masooma’s face slackens. Her lids droop. Her head tilts
unsteadily to the side and her voice takes on a sluggish, distant quality. A
whisper of a smile forms on the corners of her mouth, whimsical, indolent,
complacent rather than content. They say little to each other when Masooma is
like this. Parwana listens to the breeze, to the water gurgling in the hookah. She
watches the stars and the smoke drifting over her. The silence is pleasant, and
neither she nor Masooma feel an urge to fill it with needless words.
Until Masooma says, “Will you do something for me?”

Parwana looks at her.