Page 129 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

fifth grade, she was in the middle of a geography exam, and the teacher had to

interrupt, walk her out to the hallway, and explain in a hushed voice what had
happened. These calls are familiar to Pari, but repetition has not led to
insouciance on her part. With each one she thinks, This time, this is the time, and
each time she hangs up and rushes to Maman. In the parlance of economics,
Julien has said to Pari that if she cut off the supply of attention, perhaps the
demands for it would cease as well.
“She’s had an accident,” Dr. Delaunay says.
Pari stands by the window and listens as the doctor explains. She coils and
uncoils the phone cord around her finger as he recounts her mother’s hospital
visit, the forehead laceration, the sutures, the precautionary tetanus injection, the
aftercare of peroxide, topical antibiotics, dressings. Pari’s mind flashes to when

she was ten, when she’d come home one day from school and found twenty-five
francs and a handwritten note on the kitchen table. I’ve gone to Alsace with
Marc. You remember him. Back in a couple of days. Be a good girl. (Don’t stay
up late!) Je t’aime. Maman. Pari had stood shaking in the kitchen, eyes filling
up, telling herself two days wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t so long.
The doctor is asking her a question.
“Pardon?”

“I was saying will you be coming to take her home, mademoiselle? The
injury is not serious, you understand, but it’s probably best that she not go home
alone. Or else we could call her a taxi.”
“No. No need. I should be there in half an hour.”
She sits on the bed. Julien will be annoyed, probably embarrassed as well in
front of Christian and Aurelie, whose opinions seem to matter a great deal to
him. Pari doesn’t want to go out in the hallway and face Julien. She doesn’t want
to go to Courbevoie and face her mother either. What she would rather do is lie
down, listen to the wind hurl pellets of rain at the glass until she falls asleep.

She lights a cigarette, and when Julien enters the room behind her and says,
“You’re not coming, are you?” she doesn’t answer.

EXCERPT FROM “AFGHAN SONGBIRD,” AN INTERVIEW
WITH NILA WAHDATI BY ÉTIENNE BOUSTOULER,
Parallaxe 84 (WINTER 1974), P. 33

EB: So I understand you are, in fact, half Afghan, half French?

NW: My mother was French, yes. She was a Parisian.