Page 64 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

would push the screen door that opened from the living room out onto the

veranda. I would play games in my head, guessing at her appearance that
particular day. Would her hair be up, I wondered, tied in a bun at the back of her
neck, or would I see it loose, tumbling down over her shoulders? Would she
wear sunglasses? Would she opt for sandals? Would she choose the blue silk
robe with the belt or the magenta one with the big round buttons?
When she made her entrance at last, I would busy myself in the yard,
pretending the hood of the car needed wiping, or else I would find a sweetbriar
bush to water, but the whole time I watched. I watched when she pushed up her
sunglasses to rub her eyes, or when she removed the elastic band from her hair
and threw back her head to let the dark lustrous curls fall loose, and I watched
when she sat with her chin resting on her knees, staring into the yard, taking
languid drags of her cigarette, or when she crossed her legs and bobbed one foot
up and down, a gesture that suggested to me boredom or restlessness or perhaps
heedless mischief barely held in check.

Mr. Wahdati was, on occasion, at her side, but often not. He spent most of his
days as he had before, reading in his upstairs study, doing his sketches, his daily
routines more or less unaltered by the fact of marriage. Nila wrote most days,
either in the living room or else on the veranda, pencil in hand, sheets of paper
spilling from her lap, and always the cigarettes. At night, I served them dinner,
and they each received the meal in pointed silence, gaze lowered to the platter of
rice, the quiet broken only by a muttered Thank you and the tinkling of spoon
and fork against china.

Once or twice a week, I had to drive Nila when she needed a pack of
cigarettes or a fresh set of pens, a new notepad, makeup. If I knew ahead of time
that I would be driving her, I always made sure to comb my hair and brush my
teeth. I washed my face, rubbed a sliced lemon against my fingers to rid them of
the scent of onions, patted the dust off my suit, and polished my shoes. The suit,
which was olive colored, was in fact a hand-me-down from Mr. Wahdati, and I
hoped that he hadn’t told this to Nila—though I suspected he may have. Not out
of malice, but because people in Mr. Wahdati’s position often cannot appreciate
how small, trivial things like this could bring shame to a man like me.
Sometimes, I even wore the lambskin cap that had belonged to my late father. I
would stand there before the mirror, tilting the cap this way and that on my head,
so absorbed in the act of rendering myself presentable to Nila that if a wasp had
landed on my nose it would have had to sting me to make its presence known.

Once we were on the road, I looked for minor detours to our destination, if
possible, detours designed to prolong the trip by a minute—or maybe two, but