Page 140 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

Maman sighs, looks away. When the nurse yanks the needle out, Maman

winces and barks at the woman something unkind and undeserved.

FROM “AFGHAN SONGBIRD,” AN INTERVIEW WITH
NILA WAHDATI BY ÉTIENNE BOUSTOULER,
Parallaxe 84 (WINTER 1974), P. 36

I look around the apartment again and am drawn to a framed
photograph on one of the bookshelves. It is of a little girl

squatting in a field of wild bushes, fully absorbed in the act of
picking something, some sort of berry. She wears a bright
yellow coat, buttoned to the throat, which contrasts with the
dark gray overcast sky above. In the background, there is a
stone farmhouse with closed shutters and battered shingles. I
ask about the picture.

NW: My daughter, Pari. Like the city but no s. It means
“fairy.” That picture is from a trip to Normandy we took, the
two of us. Back in 1957, I think. She must have been eight.

EB: Does she live in Paris?

NW: She studies mathematics at the Sorbonne.

EB: You must be proud.

She smiles and shrugs.

EB: I am struck a bit by her choice of career, given that you
devoted yourself to the arts.

NW: I don’t know where she gets the ability. All those
incomprehensible formulas and theories. I guess they’re not
incomprehensible to her. I can hardly multiply, myself.

EB: Perhaps it’s her way of rebelling. You know a thing or
two about rebellion, I think.