Page 123 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

ray, sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“Thanks, Joan.” He gets up to go, pauses at the door. “Oh. Something I’ve
been meaning to discuss with you.”
“Sure. Sure. Sit.”
He sits down again. He tells her about Roshi, describes the injury, the lack of
resources at Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital. He confides in her the commitment he
has made to Amra and Roshi. Saying it aloud, he feels weighed down by his
promise in a way he had not in Kabul, standing in the hallway with Amra, when
she’d kissed his cheek. He is troubled to find that it feels like buyer’s remorse.

“My God, Idris,” Joan says, shaking her head, “I commend you. But how
dreadful. The poor child. I can’t imagine.”
“I know,” he says. He asks if the group would be willing to cover her
procedure. “Or procedures. My sense is, she’ll need more than one.”
Joan sighs. “I wish. But, frankly, I doubt the board of directors would approve
it, Idris. I doubt it very much. You know we’ve been in the red for the last five

years. And there would be legal issues as well, complicated ones.”
She waits for him, maybe prepared for him, to challenge this, but he doesn’t.
“I understand,” he says.
“You should be able to find a humanitarian group that does this sort of thing,
no? It would take some work, but …”

“I’ll look into it. Thanks, Joan.” He gets up again, surprised that he is feeling
lighter, almost relieved by her response.

The home theater takes another month to be built, but it is a marvel.
The picture, shot from the projector mounted on the ceiling, is sharp, the
movements on the 102-inch screen strikingly fluid. The 7.1 channel surround
sound, the graphic equalizers, and the bass traps they have put in the four
corners, have done wonders for the acoustics. They watch Pirates of the
Caribbean, the boys, delighted by the technology, sitting on either side of him,
eating from the communal bucket of popcorn on his lap. They fall asleep before
the final, drawn-out battle scene.
“I’ll put them to bed,” Idris says to Nahil.
He lifts one, then the other. The boys are growing, their lean bodies
lengthening with alarming speed. As he tucks each into bed, an awareness sets in