Page 144 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

food fossilized onto them. A paper bag stuffed with empty wine bottles sits on

the table, precariously close to tipping over. Pari sees newspapers on the floor,
one of them soaking up the blood spill from earlier in the day, and, on it, a single
pink wool sock. It frightens Pari to see Maman’s living space in this state. And
she feels guilt as well. Which, knowing Maman, may have been the intended
effect. And then she hates that she had this last thought. It’s the sort of thing
Julien would think. She wants you to feel badly. He has said this to her several
times over the last year. She wants you to feel badly. When he first said it, Pari
felt relieved, understood. She was grateful to him for articulating what she could
not, or would not. She thought she had found an ally. But, these days, she
wonders. She catches in his words a glint of meanness. A troubling absence of
kindness.
The bedroom floor is littered with pieces of clothing, records, books, more
newspapers. On the windowsill is a glass half filled with water gone yellow from
the cigarette butts floating in it. She swipes books and old magazines off the bed

and helps Maman slip beneath the blankets.
Maman looks up at her, the back of one hand resting on her bandaged brow.
The pose makes her look like an actress in a silent film about to faint.
“Are you going to be all right, Maman?”
“I don’t think so,” she says. It doesn’t come out like a plea for attention.

Maman says this in a flat, bored voice. It sounds tired and sincere, and final.
“You’re scaring me, Maman.”
“Are you leaving now?”
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Yes.”

“Then I’ll stay.”
“Turn off the light.”
“Maman?”

“Yes.”
“Are you taking your pills? Have you stopped? I think you’ve stopped, and I
worry.”
“Don’t start in on me. Turn off the light.”
Pari does. She sits on the edge of the bed and watches her mother fall asleep.
Then she heads for the kitchen to begin the formidable task of cleaning up. She
finds a pair of gloves and starts with the dishes. She washes glasses reeking of
long-soured milk, bowls crusted with old cereal, plates with food spotted with

green fuzzy patches of fungus. She recalls the first time she had washed dishes at