Page 124 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

of the heartbreak that is in store for him with his boys. In a year, two at the

outside, he will be replaced. The boys will become enamored with other things,
other people, embarrassed by him and Nahil. Idris thinks longingly of when they
were small and helpless, so wholly dependent on him. He remembers how
terrified Zabi was of manholes when he was little, walking wide, clumsy circles
around them. Once, watching an old film, Lemar had asked Idris if he had been
alive back when the world was in black and white. The memory brings a smile.
He kisses his sons’ cheeks.
He sits back in the dark, watching Lemar sleep. He had judged his boys
hastily, he sees now, and unfairly. And he had judged himself harshly too. He is
not a criminal. Everything he owns he has earned. In the nineties, while half the
guys he knew were out clubbing and chasing women, he had been buried in
study, dragging himself through hospital corridors at two in the morning,
forgoing leisure, comfort, sleep. He had given his twenties to medicine. He has
paid his dues. Why should he feel badly? This is his family. This is his life.

In the last month, Roshi has become something abstract to him, like a
character in a play. Their connection has frayed. The unexpected intimacy he
had stumbled upon in that hospital, so urgent and acute, has eroded into
something dull. The experience has lost its power. He recognizes the fierce
determination that had seized him for what it really was, an illusion, a mirage.
He had fallen under the influence of something like a drug. The distance
between him and the girl feels vast now. It feels infinite, insurmountable, and his
promise to her misguided, a reckless mistake, a terrible misreading of the
measures of his own powers and will and character. Something best forgotten.
He isn’t capable of it. It is that simple. In the last two weeks, he has received

three more e-mails from Amra. He read the first and didn’t answer. He deleted
the next two without reading.

The line in the bookstore is about twelve or thirteen people long. It
stretches from the makeshift stage to the magazine stand. A tall, broad-faced
woman passes out little yellow Post-its to those in line to write their names on

and any personal message they want inscribed in the book. A saleswoman at the
head of the line helps people flip to the title page.
Idris is near the head of the line, holding a copy in his hand. The woman in
front of him, in her fifties and with short-clipped blond hair, turns and says to