Page 169 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

Pari finds herself, like Maman had, a widow.

One day, early in the spring of 2010, Pari receives a long-distance
phone call. The call is not unexpected. Pari, in fact, has been preparing for it all
morning. Prior to the call, Pari makes sure she has the apartment to herself. This
means asking Isabelle to leave earlier than she customarily does. Isabelle and her
husband, Albert, live just north of Île Saint-Denis, only a few blocks from Pari’s
one-bedroom apartment. Isabelle comes to see Pari in the morning every other

day, after she drops off her kids at school. She brings Pari a baguette, some fresh
fruit. Pari is not yet bound to the wheelchair, an eventuality for which she has
been preparing herself. Though her disease forced her into early retirement the
year before, she is still fully capable of going to the market on her own, of taking
a daily walk. It’s the hands—the ugly, twisted hands—that fail her most, hands
that on bad days feel like they have shards of crystal rattling around the joints.
Pari wears gloves, whenever she is out, to keep her hands warm, but mostly
because she is ashamed of them, the knobby knuckles, the unsightly fingers with
what her doctor calls swan neck deformity, the permanently flexed left pinkie.
Ah, vanity, she tells Collette.

This morning, Isabelle has brought her some figs, a few bars of soap,
toothpaste, and a Tupperware containerful of chestnut soup. Albert is thinking of
suggesting it as a new menu entry to the owners of the restaurant where he is the
sous-chef. As she unloads the bags, Isabelle tells Pari of the new assignment she
has landed. She writes musical scores for television shows now, commercials,
and is hoping to write for film one day soon. She says she will begin scoring a
miniseries that is shooting at the moment in Madrid.
“Will you be going there?” Pari asks. “To Madrid?”

“Non. The budget is too small. They won’t cover my travel cost.”
“That’s a pity. You could have stayed with Alain.”
“Oh, can you imagine, Maman? Poor Alain. He hardly has room to stretch his
legs.”
Alain is a financial consultant. He lives in a tiny Madrid apartment with his

wife, Ana, and their four children. He regularly e-mails Pari pictures and short
video clips of the children.
Pari asks if Isabelle has heard from Thierry, and Isabelle says she has not.
Thierry is in Africa, in the eastern part of Chad, where he works at a camp with