Page 142 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

NW: He was part of the Pashtun aristocracy in Kabul. Highly

educated, unimpeachable manners, appropriately sociable. A
great raconteur too. At least in public.

EB: And in private?

NW: Venture to guess, Monsieur Boustouler?

I pick up the photo and look at it again.

EB: Distant, I would say. Grave. Inscrutable.
Uncompromising.

NW: I really insist you have a glass with me. I hate—no, I
loathe—drinking alone.

She pours me a glass of the Chardonnay. Out of politeness, I
take a sip.

NW: He had cold hands, my father. No matter the weather.
His hands were always cold. And he always wore a suit, again

no matter the weather. Perfectly tailored, sharp creases. A
fedora too. And wingtips, of course, two-toned. He was
handsome, I suppose, though in a solemn way. Also—and I
understood this only much later—in a manufactured, slightly
ridiculous, faux-European way—complete, of course, with
weekly games of lawn bowling and polo and the coveted
French wife, all of it to the great approval of the young
progressive king.

She picks at her nail and doesn’t say anything for a while. I
flip the tape in my recorder.

NW: My father slept in his own room, my mother and I in

ours. Most days, he was out having lunch with ministers and
advisers to the king. Or else he was out riding horses, or
playing polo, or hunting. He loved to hunt.