Page 116 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

his eyes. “Probably take a couple more trips after that, but we should be good.”

“You trust this guy Farooq?”
“Fuck no. It’s why I’m coming back.”
Farooq is the lawyer Timur has hired. His specialty is helping Afghans who
have lived in exile reclaim their lost properties in Kabul. Timur goes on about
the paperwork Farooq will file, the judge he is hoping will preside over the
proceedings, a second cousin of Farooq’s wife. Idris rests his temple once more
against the window, waits for the pill to take effect.

“Idris?” Timur says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Sad shit we saw back there, huh?”
You’re full of startling insight, bro. “Yup,” Idris says.

“A thousand tragedies per square mile, man.”
Soon, Idris’s head begins to hum, and his vision blurs. As he drifts to sleep,
he thinks of his farewell with Roshi, him holding her fingers, saying they would
see each other again, her sobbing softly, almost silently, into his belly.

On the ride home from SFO, Idris recalls with fondness the manic
chaos of Kabul’s traffic. It’s strange now to guide the Lexus down the orderly,
pothole-free southbound lanes of the 101, the always helpful freeway signs,
everyone so polite, signaling, yielding. He smiles at the memory of all the
daredevil adolescent cabbies with whom he and Timur entrusted their lives in
Kabul.

In the passenger seat, Nahil is all questions. Was Kabul safe? How was the
food? Did he get sick? Did he take pictures and videos of everything? He does
his best. He describes for her the shell-blasted schools, the squatters living in
roofless buildings, the beggars, the mud, the fickle electricity, but it’s like
describing music. He cannot bring it to life. Kabul’s vivid, arresting details—the
bodybuilding gym amid the rubble, for instance, a painting of Schwarzenegger
on the window. Such details escape him now, and his descriptions sound to him
generic, insipid, like those of an ordinary AP story.
In the backseat, the boys humor him and listen for a short while, or at least
pretend to. Idris can sense their boredom. Then Zabi, who is eight, asks Nahil to
start the movie. Lemar, who is two years older, tries to listen a little longer, but