Page 277 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

She’d barely finished her sentence when Baba began to weep. Pari pressed his

head into her chest, saying, I am sorry, I am so sorry, over and over in a panicky
way, wiping his cheeks with her hands, but Baba kept seizing with sobs, so
violently he started to choke.
“And do you know who this is, Abdullah?”
Baba grunts.
“He is Jamal. The boy from the game show.”

“He is not,” Baba says roughly.
“You don’t think?”
“He’s serving tea!”
“Yes, but that was—what do you call it?—it was from the past. From before.
It was a …”

Flashback, I mouth into my coffee cup.
“The game show is now, Abdullah. And when he was serving tea, that was
before.”
Baba blinks vacantly. On the screen, Jamal and Salim are sitting atop a
Mumbai high-rise, their feet dangling over the side.
Pari watches him as though waiting for a moment when something will open

in his eyes. “Let me ask you something, Abdullah,” she says. “If one day you
win a million dollars, what would you do?”
Baba grimaces, shifting his weight, then stretches out farther in the recliner.
“I know what I would do,” Pari says.
Baba looks at her blankly.

“If I win a million dollars, I buy a house on this street. That way, we can be
neighbors, you and me, and every day I come here and we watch TV together.”
Baba grins.
But it’s only minutes later, when I am back in my room wearing earphones
and typing, that I hear a loud shattering sound and Baba screaming something in
Farsi. I rip the earphones off and rush to the kitchen. I see Pari backed up against
the wall where the microwave is, hands bunched protectively under her chin, and
Baba, wild-eyed, jabbing her in the shoulder with his cane. Broken shards of a

drinking glass glitter at their feet.
“Get her out of here!” Baba cries when he sees me. “I want this woman out of
my house!”
“Baba!”
Pari’s cheeks have gone pale. Tears spring from her eyes.

“Put down the cane, Baba, for God’s sake! And don’t take a step. You’ll cut