Page 54 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

“He loved you. He doesn’t love me.”

“He will, given time.”
“This is all my doing,” Parwana says. “My fault. All of it.”
“I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to. At this point, this is the
only thing I want. People will understand, Parwana. Mullah Shekib will have
told them. He’ll tell them that he gave me his blessing for this.”
Parwana raises her face to the darkened sky.

“Be happy, Parwana, please be happy. Do it for me.”
Parwana feels herself standing on the brink of telling her everything, telling
Masooma how wrong she is, how little she knows the sister with whom she
shared the womb, how for years now Parwana’s life has been one long unspoken
apology. But to what end? Her own relief once again at Masooma’s expense?
She bites down the words. She has inflicted enough pain on her sister.

“I want to smoke now,” Masooma says.
Parwana begins to protest, but Masooma cuts her off. “It’s time,” she says,
harder now, with finality.
From the bag slung around the saddle’s tip, Parwana fetches the hookah. With
trembling hands, she begins to prepare the usual mixture in the hookah’s bowl.
“More,” Masooma says. “Put in a lot more.”

Sniffling, her cheeks wet, Parwana adds another pinch, then another, and yet
more again. She lights the coal and places the hookah next to her sister.
“Now,” Masooma says, the orange glow of the flames shimmering on her
cheeks, in her eyes, “if you ever loved me, Parwana, if you were ever my true
sister, then leave. No kisses. No good-byes. Don’t make me beg.”
Parwana begins to say something, but Masooma makes a pained, choking

sound and rolls her head away.
Parwana slowly rises to her feet. She walks to the mule and tightens the
saddle. She grabs the reins to the animal. She suddenly realizes that she may not
know how to live without Masooma. She doesn’t know if she can. How will she
bear the days when Masooma’s absence feels like a far heavier burden than her
presence ever had? How will she learn to tread around the edges of the big
gaping hole where Masooma had once been?
Have heart, she almost hears Masooma saying.

Parwana pulls the reins, turns the mule around, and begins to walk.
She walks, slicing the dark, as a cool night wind rips across her face. She
keeps her head down. She turns around once only, later. Through the moisture in
her eyes, the campfire is a distant, dim, tiny blur of yellow. She pictures her twin