Page 61 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

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One day, Mr. Wahdati came into the yard wearing a handsome pin-
striped suit, one I had never seen on him before, and requested that I drive him to
an affluent neighborhood of the city. When we arrived, he instructed me to park
on the street outside a beautiful high-walled house, and I watched him ring the
bell at the gates and enter when a servant answered. The house was huge, bigger
than Mr. Wahdati’s, and even more beautiful. Tall, slender cypresses adorned
the driveway, along with a densely packed array of bushes of a flower I did not
recognize. The backyard was at least twice the size of Mr. Wahdati’s, and the
walls stood tall enough that if a man climbed on the shoulders of another, he still
could hardly steal a peek. This was wealth of another magnitude, I recognized.
It was a bright early-summer day, and the sky was brilliant with sunshine.
Warm air wafted in through the windows, which I had rolled down. Though a
chauffeur’s job is to drive, he actually spends most of his time waiting. Waiting

outside stores, engine idling; waiting outside a wedding hall, listening to the
muffled sound of the music. To pass the time that day, I played a few games of
cards. When I tired of cards, I stepped out of the car and took a few steps in one
direction, then the other. I sat inside once more, thinking I might steal a nap
before Mr. Wahdati returned.
It was then that the front gates opened and a black-haired young woman
emerged. She wore sunglasses and a short-sleeved tangerine-colored dress that
fell short of the knees. Her legs were bare, and so were her feet. I did not know
whether she had noticed me sitting in the car, and, if she had, she offered no
indication. She rested the heel of one foot against the wall behind her and, when

she did, the hem of the dress pulled up slightly and thus revealed a bit of the
thigh beneath. I felt a burning spread down from my cheeks to my neck.
Allow me to make another confession here, Mr. Markos, one of a somewhat
distasteful nature, leaving little room for elegant handling. At the time, I must
have been in my late twenties, a young man at the prime of his desires for a
woman’s company. Unlike many of the men I grew up with in my village—
young men who had never seen the bare thigh of a grown woman and married, in
part, for the license to at last cast their gaze upon such a sight—I did have some
experience. I had found in Kabul, and on occasion visited, establishments where
a young man’s needs could be addressed with both discretion and convenience. I
mention this only to make the point that no whore I had ever lain with could