Page 275 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

“Non, non. It’s all right.” She brushes the picture absently with the side of her

thumb. “Maman was elegant and talented. She read books and had many strong
opinions and always she was telling them to people. But she had also very deep
sadness. All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of
me, Pari.”
I nod. I think I understand something of that.
“But I could not. And later, I did not want to. I did careless things. Reckless
things.” She sits back in the chair, her shoulders slumping, puts her thin white
hands in her lap. She considers for a minute before saying, “J’aurais dû être plus
gentille—I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never
regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not
good to that person. You will never think that.” For a moment, her face looks

stricken. She is like a helpless schoolgirl. “It would not have been so difficult,”
she says tiredly. “I should have been more kind. I should have been more like
you.”
She lets out a heavy breath and folds the photo album shut. After a pause, she
says brightly, “Ah, bon. Now I wish to ask something of you.”
“Of course.”

“Will you show me some of your paintings?”
We smile at each other.

Pari stays a month with Baba and me. In the mornings, we take
breakfast together in the kitchen. Black coffee and toast for Pari, yogurt for me,
and fried eggs with bread for Baba, something he has found a taste for in the last
year. I worried it was going to raise his cholesterol, eating all those eggs, and I
asked Dr. Bashiri during one of Baba’s appointments. Dr. Bashiri gave me one
of his tight-lipped smiles and said, Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. And that
reassured me—at least until a bit later when I was helping Baba buckle his seat
belt and it occurred to me that maybe what Dr. Bashiri had really meant was,
We’re past all that now.
After breakfast, I retreat into my office—otherwise known as my bedroom—

and Pari keeps Baba company while I work. At her request, I have written down
for her the schedule of the TV shows he likes to watch, what time to give him his
midmorning pills, which snacks he likes and when he’s apt to ask for them. It
was her idea I write it all down.