Page 73 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

shoulder. On Nila’s face was the expression people have when they have been

startled by an abrupt loud noise, like a firecracker, or a door slammed by a
sudden draft of wind.
That night, she ate.
A few days later, Nila summoned me into the house and said she was going to
throw a party. We rarely, if ever, had parties at the house back when Mr.
Wahdati was single. After Nila moved in, she arranged them two or three times a
month. The day prior to the party, Nila would give me detailed instructions on
what appetizers and meals I was to prepare, and I would drive to the market to
purchase the necessary items. Chief among these necessary items was alcohol,
which I had never procured before, as Mr. Wahdati did not drink—though his
reasons had nothing to do with religion, he merely disliked its effects. Nila,

however, was well acquainted with certain establishments—pharmacies, as she
called them jokingly—where for the equivalent of double my monthly salary a
bottle of medicine could be purchased subversively. I had mixed feelings about
running this particular errand, playing the part of sin enabler, but, as always,
pleasing Nila superseded everything else.
You must understand, Mr. Markos, that when we had parties in Shadbagh, be
it for a wedding or to celebrate a circumcision, the proceedings took place at two
separate houses, one for women, the other for us men. At Nila’s parties, men and
women mingled with one another. Most of the women dressed as Nila did, in
dresses that showed the entire lengths of their arms and a good deal of their legs

as well. They smoked, and they drank too, their glasses half filled with colorless
or red- or copper-colored liquor, and they told jokes and laughed and freely
touched the arms of men I knew to be married to someone else in the room. I
carried small platters of bolani and lola kabob from one end of the smoke-filled
room to the other, from one cluster of guests to another, as a record played on
the turntable. The music was not Afghan but something Nila called jazz, a kind
of music that, I learned decades later, you appreciate as well, Mr. Markos. To
my ears, the random tinkling of piano and the strange wailing of horns sounded
an inharmonious mess. But Nila loved it, and I kept overhearing her telling
guests how they simply had to hear this recording or that. All night, she held a
glass and tended to it far more than the food I served.
Mr. Wahdati made limited effort to engage his guests. He made a token show
of mingling, but mostly he occupied a corner, with a remote expression on his
face, swirling a glass of soda, smiling a courteous, closemouthed smile when

someone talked to him. And, as was his habit, he excused himself when the
guests began asking Nila to recite her poetry.