Page 52 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

Masooma began to speak, words pouring from her mouth at a frenzied pace,

but Parwana hardly heard any of it. She was picturing instead her sister’s
wedding to Saboor. Children in new clothes, carrying henna baskets overflowing
with flowers, trailed by shahnai and dohol players. Saboor, opening Masooma’s
fist, placing the henna in her palm, tying it with a white ribbon. The saying of
prayers, the blessing of the union. The offering of gifts. The two of them gazing
at each other beneath a veil embroidered with gold thread, feeding each other a
spoonful of sweet sherbet and malida.
And she, Parwana, would be there among the guests to watch this unfold. She
would be expected to smile, to clap, to be happy, even as her heart splintered and
cracked.
A wind swept through the tree, made the branches around them shake and the

leaves rattle. Parwana had to steady herself.
Masooma had stopped talking. She was grinning, biting her lower lip. You
asked how I know that he’s going to ask. I’ll tell you. No. I’ll show you.
She turned from Parwana and reached into her pocket.
And then the part that Masooma knew nothing about. While her sister was

facing away, searching her pocket, Parwana planted the heels of her hands on the
branch, lifted her bottom, and let it drop. The branch shook. Masooma gasped
and lost her balance. Her arms flailed wildly. She tipped forward. Parwana
watched her own hands move. What they did was not really push, but there was
contact between Masooma’s back and the pads of Parwana’s fingertips and there
was a brief moment of subtle shoving. But it lasted barely an instant before
Parwana was reaching for her sister, for the hem of her shirt, before Masooma
was calling her name in panic and Parwana hers. Parwana grabbed the shirt, and
it looked for just a moment as though she might have saved Masooma. But then
the cloth ripped as it slipped from her grip.
Masooma fell from the tree. It seemed to take forever, the fall. Her torso
slamming into branches on the way down, startling birds and shaking leaves
free, her body spinning, bouncing, snapping smaller branches, until a low, thick
branch, the one from which the swing was suspended, caught her lower back

with a sick, audible crunch. She folded backward, nearly in half.
A few minutes later, a circle had formed around her. Nabi and the girls’ father
crying over Masooma, trying to shake her awake. Faces peering down. Someone
took her hand. It was still closed into a tight fist. When they uncurled the fingers,
they found exactly ten crumbled little leaves in her palm.