Page 183 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

earrings that Baba jan brought her from Dubai. She spent hours sometimes

talking to her family down in Kabul. Only when her sister and parents visited for
a few days, once every two or three months, did Adel see his mother come alive.
She wore a long print dress and high-heeled shoes; she put on her makeup. Her
eyes shone, and her laughter could be heard around the house. And it was then
that Adel would catch a glimpse of the person that perhaps she had been before.
When Baba jan was away, Adel and his mother tried to be each other’s
reprieve. They pushed pieces of jigsaw puzzles around and played golf and
tennis on Adel’s Wii. But Adel’s favorite pastime with his mother was building
toothpick houses. His mother would draw a 3-D blueprint of the house on a sheet
of paper, complete with front porch, gabled roof, and with staircases inside and
walls separating the different rooms. They would build the foundation first, then
the interior walls and stairs, killing hours carefully applying glue to toothpicks,
setting sections to dry. Adel’s mother said that when she was younger, before
she had married Adel’s father, she had dreamed of becoming an architect.

It was while they were building a skyscraper once that she had told Adel the
story of how she and Baba jan had married.
He was actually supposed to marry my older sister, she said.
Aunt Nargis?

Yes. This was in Kabul. He saw her on the street one day and that was it. He
had to marry her. He showed up at our house the next day, him and five of his
men. They more or less invited themselves in. They were all wearing boots. She
shook her head and laughed like it was a funny thing Baba jan had done, but she
didn’t laugh the way she ordinarily did when she found something funny. You
should have seen the expression on your grandparents.
They had sat in the living room, Baba jan, his men, and her parents. She was
in the kitchen making tea while they talked. There was a problem, she said,
because her sister Nargis was already engaged, promised to a cousin who lived
in Amsterdam and was studying engineering. How were they supposed to break
off the engagement? her parents were asking.

And then I come in, carrying a platter of tea and sweets. I fill their cups and
put the food on the table, and your father sees me, and, as I turn to go, your
father, he says, “Maybe you’re right, sir. It’s not fair to break off an
engagement. But if you tell me this one is taken too, then I’m afraid I may have
no choice but to think you don’t care for me.” Then he laughs. And that was how
we got married.
She lifted a tube of glue.

Did you like him?