Page 161 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

Perhaps, Pari thinks, this is Maman’s retribution. Not only for Julien but also

for the disappointment that Pari has always been. Pari, who was maybe supposed
to bring an end to all the drinking, the men, the years squandered making
desperate lunges at happiness. All the dead ends pursued and abandoned. Each
lash of disappointment leaving Maman more damaged, more derailed, and
happiness more illusory. What was I, Maman? Pari thinks. What was I supposed
to be, growing in your womb—assuming it was even in your womb that I was
conceived? A seed of hope? A ticket purchased to ferry you from the dark? A
patch for that hole you carried in your heart? If so, then I wasn’t enough. I
wasn’t nearly enough. I was no balm to your pain, only another dead end,
another burden, and you must have seen that early on. You must have realized it.
But what could you do? You couldn’t go down to the pawnshop and sell me.
Perhaps this interview was Maman’s last laugh.

Pari steps beneath the awning of a brasserie to take refuge from the rain a few
blocks west of the hospital where Zahia does part of her training. She lights a
cigarette. She should call Collette, she thinks. They have spoken only once or
twice since the memorial. When they were young, they used to chew mouthfuls
of gum until their jaws ached, and they would sit before Maman’s dresser mirror
and brush each other’s hair, pin it up. Pari spots an old woman across the street,
wearing a plastic rain bonnet, laboring up the sidewalk trailed by a small tan
terrier. Not for the first time, a little puff breaks rank from the collective fog of
Pari’s memories and slowly takes the shape of a dog. Not a little toy like the old
woman’s, but a big mean specimen, furry, dirty, with a severed tail and ears. Pari
is unsure whether this, in fact, is a memory or the ghost of one or neither. She
had asked Maman once if they had ever owned a dog in Kabul and Maman said,

You know I don’t like dogs. They have no self-respect. You kick them and they
still love you. It’s depressing.
Something else Maman said:
I don’t see me in you. I don’t know who you are.
Pari tosses her cigarette. She decides she will call Collette. Make plans to
meet somewhere for tea. See how she is doing. Who she’s seeing. Go window-
shopping like they used to.

See if her old friend is still up for that trip to Afghanistan.

Pari does meet Collette. They meet at a popular bar with a Moroccan