Page 90 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

What shall I tell you, Mr. Markos, of the years that ensued? You
know well the recent history of this beleaguered country. I need not rehash for
you those dark days. I tire at the mere thought of writing it, and, besides, the
suffering of this country has already been sufficiently chronicled, and by pens
far more learned and eloquent than mine.
I can sum it up in one word: war. Or, rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many
wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed
heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old

villain. The names changed, as did the faces, and I spit on them equally for all
the petty feuds, the snipers, the land mines, bombing raids, the rockets, the
looting and raping and killing. Ah, enough! The task is both too great and too
unpleasant. I lived those days already, and I intend to relive them on these pages
as briefly as possible. The only good I took from that time was a measure of
vindication about little Pari, who by now must have grown into a young woman.
It eased my conscience that she was safe, far from all this killing.
The 1980s, as you know, Mr. Markos, were actually not so terrible in Kabul
since most of the fighting took place in the countryside. Still, it was a time of
exodus, and many families from our neighborhood packed their things and left
the country for either Pakistan or Iran, with hopes of resettling somewhere in the
West. I remember vividly the day Mr. Bashiri came to say good-bye. I shook his
hand and wished him well. I said my farewells also to his son, Idris, who had
grown into a tall, lanky fourteen-year-old with long hair and peach fuzz above

his lip. I told Idris I would miss very much the sight of him and his cousin Timur
flying kites and playing soccer on the street. You may recall that we met the
cousins many years later, you and I, Mr. Markos, when they were grown men, at
a party you threw at the house in the spring of 2003.
It was in the 1990s that fighting at last broke out within the city limits. Kabul
fell prey to men who looked like they had tumbled out of their mothers with
Kalashnikov in hand, Mr. Markos, vandals all of them, gun-toting thieves with
grandiose, self-given titles. When the rockets began to fly, Suleiman stayed in
the house and refused to leave. He stoutly declined information about what was
going on outside the walls of his house. He unplugged the television. He cast

aside the radio. He had no use for newspapers. He asked that I not bring home
any news of the fighting. He scarcely knew who was battling whom, who was
winning, who was losing, as though he hoped that by doggedly ignoring the war
it would return the favor.
Of course it did not. The street where we lived, once so quiet and pristine and