Page 227 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

window and hand it to him. He holds it close to his face, by the burnt corner, and

stares at it for a long time. I wonder if it is the ocean that draws him. I wonder if
he’s ever tasted salt water or got dizzy watching the tide pull away from his feet.
Or perhaps, though he can’t see her face, he senses a kin in Thalia, someone who
knows what pain feels like. He goes to hand the photo back to me. I shake my
head. Hold on to it, I say. A shadow of mistrust crosses his face. I smile. And, I
cannot be sure, but I think he smiles back.
Ninety-two … ninety-three … ninety-four …
I beat the hepatitis. Strange how I can’t tell if Gul is pleased or disappointed
at my having proved him wrong. But I know I’ve caught him by surprise when I
ask if I can stay on as a volunteer. He cocks his head, frowns. I end up having to
talk to one of the head nurses.

Ninety-seven … ninety-eight … ninety-nine …
The shower room smells like urine and sulfur. Every morning I carry Manaar
into it, holding his naked body in my arms, careful not to bounce him—I’d
watched one of the volunteers carry him before over the shoulder as if he were a
bag of rice. I gently lower him onto the bench and wait for him to catch his
breath. I rinse his small, frail body with warm water. Manaar always sits quietly,
patiently, palms on his knees, head hung low. He is like a fearful, bony old man.
I run the soapy sponge over his rib cage, the knobs of his spine, over shoulder

blades that jut out like shark fins. I carry him back to his bed, feed him his pills.
It soothes him to have his feet and calves massaged, so I do that for him, taking
my time. When he sleeps, it is always with the picture of Thalia half tucked
under his pillow.
One hundred one … one hundred two …
I go for long, aimless walks around the city, if only to get away from the
hospital, the collective breaths of the sick and dying. I walk in dusty sunsets
through streets lined with graffiti-stained walls, past tin-shed stalls packed
tightly against one another, crossing paths with little girls carrying basketfuls of
raw dung on their head, women covered in black soot boiling rags in huge
aluminum vats. I think a lot about Manaar as I meander down a cat’s cradle of

narrow alleyways, Manaar waiting to die in that room full of broken figures like
him. I think a lot about Thalia, sitting on the rock, looking out at the sea. I sense
something deep inside me drawing me in, tugging at me like an undertow. I want
to give in to it, be seized by it. I want to give up my bearings, slip out of who I
am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.
I am not saying Manaar changed everything. He didn’t. I stumble around the
world for still another year before I finally find myself at a corner desk in an