Page 156 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

was what I did mostly. Eventually, I got out of bed and slowly

resumed my daily routines, by which I mean the stringent
essentials a person must tend to in order to remain functional
and nominally civil. But I felt diminished. Like I had left
something vital of myself behind in India.

EB: Was your father concerned?

NW: Quite the contrary. He was encouraged. He thought that
my encounter with mortality had shaken me out of my
immaturity and waywardness. He didn’t understand that I
felt lost. I’ve read, Monsieur Boustouler, that if an avalanche
buries you and you’re lying there underneath all that snow,
you can’t tell which way is up or down. You want to dig
yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to

your own demise. That was how I felt, disoriented, suspended
in confusion, stripped of my compass. Unspeakably depressed
as well. And, in that state, you are vulnerable. Which is likely
why I said yes the following year, in 1949, when Suleiman
Wahdati asked my father for my hand.

EB: You were twenty.

NW: He was not.

She offers me another sandwich, which I decline, and a cup of
coffee, which I accept. As she sets water on to boil, she asks if
I am married. I tell her I am not and that I doubt I ever will
be. She looks at me over her shoulder, her gaze lingering, and
grins.

NW: Ah. I can usually tell.

EB: Surprise!

NW: Maybe it’s the concussion.

She points to the bandanna.