Page 143 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

EB: So you didn’t see much of him. He was an absentee

figure.

NW: Not entirely. He made it a point every couple of days to
spend a few minutes with me. He would come into my room
and sit on my bed, which was my signal to climb into his lap.
He would bounce me on his knees for a while, neither one of
us saying much, and finally he would say, “Well, what shall
we do now, Nila?” Sometimes he would let me take the
handkerchief from his breast pocket and let me fold it. Of
course I would just ball it up and stuff it back into his pocket,
and he would feign an expression of mock surprise, which I
found highly comical. And we’d keep doing this until he tired
of it, which was soon enough. And then he would stroke my
hair with his cold hands and say, “Papa has to go now, my
fawn. Run along.”

She takes the photograph back to the other room and returns,
fetches a new pack of cigarettes from a drawer and lights one.

NW: That was his nickname for me. I loved it. I used to hop
around the garden—we had a very large garden—chanting,
“I am Papa’s fawn! I am Papa’s fawn!” It wasn’t until much
later that I saw how sinister the nickname was.

EB: I’m sorry?

She smiles.

NW: My father shot deer, Monsieur Boustouler.

They could have walked the few blocks to Maman’s apartment, but the rain has
picked up considerably. In the taxi, Maman sits balled up in the backseat, draped
by Pari’s raincoat, wordlessly staring out the window. She looks old to Pari at
this instant, far older than her forty-four years. Old and fragile and thin.

Pari has not been to Maman’s apartment in a while. When she turns the key
and lets them in, she finds the kitchen counter cluttered with dirty wineglasses,
open bags of chips and uncooked pasta, plates with clumps of unrecognizable