Текст книги "And the Mountains Echoed"

Автор книги: Khaled Hosseini

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

They watched the city stream by as Uncle Nabi drove. He said he would take a longer route so they could see a little of Kabul. He pointed to a ridge called Tapa Maranjan and to the dome-shaped mausoleum atop it overlooking the city. He said Nāder Shah, father to King Zahir Shah, was buried there. He showed them the Bala Hissar fort atop the Koh-e-Shirdawaza mountain, which he said the British had used during their second war against Afghanistan.

“What’s that, Uncle Nabi?” Abdullah tapped on the window, pointing to a big rectangular yellow building.

“That’s Silo. It’s the new bread factory.” Uncle Nabi drove with one hand and craned back to wink at him. “Compliments of our friends the Russians.”

A factory that makes bread, Abdullah marveled, picturing Parwana back in Shadbagh slapping slabs of dough against the sides of their mud tandoor.

Eventually, Uncle Nabi turned onto a clean, wide street lined with regularly spaced cypress trees. The homes here were elegant, and bigger than any Abdullah had ever seen. They were white, yellow, light blue. Most had a couple stories, were surrounded by high walls and closed off by double metal gates. Abdullah spotted several cars like Uncle Nabi’s parked along the street.

Uncle Nabi pulled up to a driveway decked by a row of neatly trimmed bushes. Beyond the driveway, the white-walled, two-story home loomed impossibly large.

“Your house is so big,” Pari breathed, eyes rolling wide with wonderment.

Uncle Nabi’s head rolled back on his shoulders as he laughed. “That would be something. No, this is my employers’ home. You’re about to meet them. Be on your best manners, now.”

The house proved even more impressive once Uncle Nabi led Abdullah, Pari, and Father inside. Abdullah estimated its size big enough to contain at least half the homes in Shadbagh. He felt as though he had stepped into the div’s palace. The garden, at the far back, was beautifully landscaped, with rows of flowers in all colors, neatly trimmed, with knee-high bushes and peppered with fruit trees—Abdullah recognized cherry, apple, apricot, and pomegranate. A roofed porch led into the garden from the house—Uncle Nabi said it was called a veranda—and was enclosed by a low railing covered with webs of green vines. On their way to the room where Mr. and Mrs. Wahdati awaited their arrival, Abdullah spied a bathroom with the porcelain toilet Uncle Nabi had told them about, as well as a glittering sink with bronze-colored faucets. Abdullah, who spent hours every week lugging buckets of water from Shadbagh’s communal well, marveled at a life where water was just a twist of the hand away.

Now they sat on a bulky couch with gold tassels, Abdullah, Pari, and Father. The soft cushions at their backs were dotted with tiny octagonal mirrors. Across from the couch, a single painting took up most of the wall. It showed an elderly stone carver, bent over his workbench, pounding a block of stone with a mallet. Pleated burgundy drapes dressed the wide windows that opened onto a balcony with a waist-high iron railing. Everything in the room was polished, free of dust.

Abdullah had never in his life been so conscious of his own dirtiness.

Uncle Nabi’s boss, Mr. Wahdati, sat on a leather chair, arms crossed over his chest. He was looking at them with an expression that was not quite unfriendly but remote, impenetrable. He was taller than Father; Abdullah had seen that as soon as he had stood to greet them. He had narrow shoulders, thin lips, and a high shiny forehead. He was wearing a white suit, tapered at the waist, with an open-collared green shirt whose cuffs were held together by oval-shaped lapis stones. The whole time, he hadn’t said more than a dozen words.

Pari was looking down at the plate of cookies on the glass table before them. Abdullah had never imagined such a variety of them existed. Finger-shaped chocolate cookies with swirls of cream, small round ones with orange filling in the center, green cookies shaped like leaves, and more.

“Would you like one?” Mrs. Wahdati said. She was the one doing all the talking. “Go ahead. Both of you. I put them out for you.”

Abdullah turned to Father for permission, and Pari followed suit. This seemed to charm Mrs. Wahdati, who tented her eyebrows, tilted her head, and smiled.

Father nodded lightly. “One each,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh, that won’t do,” Mrs. Wahdati said. “I had Nabi go to a bakery halfway across Kabul for these.”

Father flushed, averted his eyes. He was sitting on the edge of the couch, holding his battered skullcap with both hands. He had angled his knees away from Mrs. Wahdati and kept his eyes on her husband.

Abdullah plucked two cookies and gave one to Pari.

“Oh, take another. We don’t want Nabi’s troubles to go to waste,” Mrs. Wahdati said with cheerful reproach. She smiled at Uncle Nabi.

“It was no trouble at all,” Uncle Nabi said, blushing.

Uncle Nabi was standing near the door, beside a tall wooden cabinet with thick glass doors. On the shelves inside, Abdullah saw silver-framed photos of Mr. and Mrs. Wahdati. There they were, alongside another couple, dressed in thick scarves and heavy coats, a river flowing foamily behind them. In another picture, Mrs. Wahdati, holding a glass, laughing, her bare arm around the waist of a man who, unthinkably to Abdullah, was not Mr. Wahdati. There was a wedding photo as well, he tall and trim in a black suit, she in a flowing white dress, both of them smiling with their mouths closed.

Abdullah stole a glance at her, at her thin waist, her small, pretty mouth and perfectly arched eyebrows, her pink toenails and matching lipstick. He remembered her now from a couple of years earlier, when Pari was almost two. Uncle Nabi had brought her to Shadbagh because she had said she wanted to meet his family. She had worn a peach dress without sleeves—he remembered the look of astonishment on Father’s face—and dark sunglasses with thick white rims. She smiled the whole time, asking questions about the village, their lives, asking after the children’s names and ages. She acted like she belonged there in their low-ceilinged mud house, her back against a wall black with soot, sitting next to the flyspecked window and the cloudy plastic sheet that separated the main room from the kitchen, where Abdullah and Pari also slept. She had made a show of the visit, insisting on taking off her high-heeled shoes at the door, choosing the floor when Father had sensibly offered her a chair. Like she was one of them. He was only eight then, but Abdullah had seen through it.

What Abdullah remembered most about the visit was how Parwana—who had been pregnant with Iqbal then—had remained a shrouded figure, sitting in a corner in stiff silence, shriveled up into a ball. She had sat with her shoulders gathered, feet tucked beneath her swollen belly, like she was trying to disappear into the wall. Her face was shielded from view with a soiled veil. She held a knotted clump of it under her chin. Abdullah could almost see the shame rising from her, like steam, the embarrassment, how small she felt, and he had felt a surprising swell of sympathy for his stepmother.

Mrs. Wahdati reached for the pack next to the cookie plate and lit herself a cigarette.

“We took a long detour on the way, and I showed them a little of the city,” Uncle Nabi said.

“Good! Good,” Mrs. Wahdati said. “Have you been to Kabul before, Saboor?”

Father said, “Once or twice, Bibi Sahib.”

“And, may I ask, what is your impression?”

Father shrugged. “It’s very crowded.”

“Yes.”

Mr. Wahdati picked at a speck of lint on the sleeve of his jacket and looked down at the carpet.

“Crowded, yes, and at times tiresome as well,” his wife said.

Father nodded as if he understood.

“Kabul is an island, really. Some say it’s progressive, and that may be true. It’s true enough, I suppose, but it’s also out of touch with the rest of this country.”

Father looked down at the skullcap in his hands and blinked.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” she said. “I would wholeheartedly support any progressive agenda coming out of the city. God knows this country could use it. Still, the city is sometimes a little too pleased with itself for my taste. I swear, the pomposity in this place.” She sighed. “It does grow tiresome. I’ve always admired the countryside myself. I have a great fondness for it. The distant provinces, the qarias, the small villages. The realAfghanistan, so to speak.”

Father nodded uncertainly.

“I may not agree with all or even most of the tribal traditions, but it seems to me that, out there, people live more authentic lives. They have a sturdiness about them. A refreshing humility. Hospitality too. And resilience. A sense of pride. Is that the right word, Suleiman? Pride?”

“Stop it, Nila,” her husband said quietly.

A dense silence followed. Abdullah watched Mr. Wahdati drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, and his wife, smiling tightly, the pink smudge on the butt end of her cigarette, her feet crossed at the ankles, her elbow resting on the arm of the chair.

“Probably not the right word,” she said, breaking the silence. “ Dignity, perhaps.” She smiled, revealing teeth that were straight and white. Abdullah had never seen teeth like these. “That’s it. Much better. People in the countryside carry a sense of dignity. They wear it, don’t they? Like a badge? I’m being genuine. I see it in you, Saboor.”

“Thank you, Bibi Sahib,” Father muttered, shifting on the couch, still looking down at his skullcap.

Mrs. Wahdati nodded. She turned her gaze to Pari. “And, may I say, you are so lovely.” Pari nudged closer to Abdullah.

Slowly, Mrs. Wahdati recited, “Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face that I was looking for.” She smiled. “Rumi. Have you heard of him? You’d think he’d composed it just for you, my dear.”

“Mrs. Wahdati is an accomplished poet,” Uncle Nabi said.

Across the room, Mr. Wahdati reached for a cookie, split it in half, and took a small bite.

“Nabi is being kind,” Mrs. Wahdati said, casting him a warm glance. Abdullah again caught a flush creeping up Uncle Nabi’s cheeks.

Mrs. Wahdati crushed her cigarette, giving the butt a series of sharp taps against the ashtray. “Maybe I could take the children somewhere?” she said.

Mr. Wahdati let out a breath huffily, slapped both palms against the arms of his chair, and made as if to get up, though he didn’t.

“I’ll take them to the bazaar,” Mrs. Wahdati said to Father now. “If that’s all right with you, Saboor. Nabi will drive us. Suleiman can show you to the work site out back. So you can see it for yourself.”

Father nodded.

Mr. Wahdati’s eyes slowly fell shut.

They got up to go.

Suddenly, Abdullah wished Father would thank these people for their cookies and tea, take his hand and Pari’s, and leave this house and its paintings and drapes and overstuffed luxury and comfort. They could refill their water bag, buy bread and a few boiled eggs, and go back the way they had come. Back through the desert, the boulders, the hills, Father telling them stories. They would take turns pulling Pari in the wagon. And in two, maybe three, days’ time, though there would be dust in their lungs and tiredness in their limbs, they would be back in Shadbagh again. Shuja would see them coming and he would hurry over, prance circles around Pari. They would be home.

Father said, “Go on, children.”

Abdullah took a step forward, meaning to say something, but then Uncle Nabi’s thick hand was on his shoulder, turning him around, Uncle Nabi leading him down the hallway, saying, “Wait ’til you see the bazaars in this place. You’ve not seen the likes of it, you two.”

Mrs. Wahdati sat in the backseat with them, the air filled with the thick weight of her perfume and something Abdullah didn’t recognize, something sweet, a little pungent. She peppered them with questions as Uncle Nabi drove. Who were their friends? Did they go to school? Questions about their chores, their neighbors, games they played. The sun fell on the right half of her face. Abdullah could see the fuzzy little hairs on her cheek and the faint line below her jaw where the makeup ended.

“I have a dog,” Pari said.

“Do you?”

“He’s quite the specimen,” Uncle Nabi said from the front seat.

“His name is Shuja. He knows when I’m sad.”

“Dogs are like that,” Mrs. Wahdati said. “They’re better at it than some people I’ve come across.”

They drove past a trio of schoolgirls skipping down the sidewalk. They wore black uniforms with white scarves tied under their chins.

“I know what I said earlier, but Kabul isn’t that bad.” Mrs. Wahdati toyed with her necklace absently. She was looking out the window, a heaviness set on her features. “I like it best here at the end of spring, after the rains. The air so clean. That first burst of summer. The way the sun hits the mountains.” She smiled wanly. “It will be good to have a child around the house. A little noise, for a change. A little life.”

Abdullah looked at her and sensed something alarming in the woman, beneath the makeup and the perfume and the appeals for sympathy, something deeply splintered. He found himself thinking of the smoke of Parwana’s cooking, the kitchen shelf cluttered with her jars and mismatched plates and smudged pots. He missed the mattress he shared with Pari, though it was dirty, and the jumbles of springs forever threatened to poke through. He missed all of it. He had never before ached so badly for home.

Mrs. Wahdati slumped back into the seat with a sigh, hugging her purse the way a pregnant woman might hold her swollen belly.

Uncle Nabi pulled up to a crowded curbside. Across the street, next to a mosque with soaring minarets, was the bazaar, composed of congested labyrinths of both vaulted and open alleyways. They strolled through corridors of stalls that sold leather coats, rings with colored jewels and stones, spices of all kinds, Uncle Nabi in the rear, Mrs. Wahdati and the two of them in the lead. Now that they were outside, Mrs. Wahdati wore a pair of dark glasses that made her face look oddly catlike.

Hagglers’ calls echoed everywhere. Music blared from virtually every stall. They walked past open-fronted shops selling books, radios, lamps, and silver-colored cooking pots. Abdullah saw a pair of soldiers in dusty boots and dark brown greatcoats, sharing a cigarette, eyeing everyone with bored indifference.

They stopped by a shoe stall. Mrs. Wahdati rummaged through the rows of shoes displayed on boxes. Uncle Nabi wandered over to the next stall, hands clasped behind his back, and gave a down-the-nose look at some old coins.

“How about these?” Mrs. Wahdati said to Pari. She was holding up a new pair of yellow sneakers.

“They’re so pretty,” Pari said, looking at the shoes with disbelief.

“Let’s try them on.”

Mrs. Wahdati helped Pari slip on the shoes, working the strap and buckle for her. She peered up at Abdullah over her glasses. “You could use a pair too, I think. I can’t believe you walked all the way from your village in those sandals.”

Abdullah shook his head and looked away. Down the alleyway, an old man with a ragged beard and two clubfeet begged passersby.

“Look, Abollah!” Pari raised one foot, then the other. She stomped her feet on the ground, hopped. Mrs. Wahdati called Uncle Nabi over and told him to walk Pari down the alley, see how the shoes felt. Uncle Nabi took Pari’s hand and led her up the lane.

Mrs. Wahdati looked down at Abdullah.

“You think I’m a bad person,” she said. “The way I spoke earlier.”

Abdullah watched Pari and Uncle Nabi pass by the old beggar with the clubfeet. The old man said something to Pari, Pari turned her face up to Uncle Nabi and said something, and Uncle Nabi tossed the old man a coin.

Abdullah began to cry soundlessly.

“Oh, you sweet boy,” Mrs. Wahdati said, startled. “You poor darling.” She fetched a handkerchief from her purse and offered it.

Abdullah swiped it away. “Please don’t do it,” he said, his voice cracking.

She hunkered down beside him now, her glasses pushed up on her hair. There was wetness in her eyes too, and when she dabbed at them with the handkerchief, it came away with black smudges. “I don’t blame you if you hate me. It’s your right. But—and I don’t expect you to understand, not now—this is for the best. It really is, Abdullah. It’s for the best. One day you’ll see.”

Abdullah turned his face up to the sky and wailed just as Pari came skipping back to him, her eyes dripping with gratitude, her face shining with happiness.

One morning that winter, Father fetched his ax and cut down the giant oak tree. He had Mullah Shekib’s son, Baitullah, and a few other men help him. No one tried to intervene. Abdullah stood alongside other boys and watched the men. The very first thing Father did was take down the swing. He climbed the tree and cut the ropes with a knife. Then he and the other men hacked away at the thick trunk until late afternoon, when the old tree finally toppled with a massive groan. Father told Abdullah they needed the firewood for winter. But he had swung his ax at the old tree with violence, with his jaw firmly set and a cloud over his face like he couldn’t bear to look at it any longer.

Now, beneath a stone-colored sky, men were striking at the felled trunk, their noses and cheeks flushed in the cold, their blades echoing hollowly when they hit the wood. Farther up the tree, Abdullah snapped small branches off the big ones. The first of the winter snow had fallen two days before. Not heavy, not yet, only a promise of things to come. Soon, winter would descend on Shadbagh, winter and its icicles and weeklong snowdrifts and winds that cracked the skin on the back of hands in a minute flat. For now, the white on the ground was scant, pocked from here to the steep hillsides with pale brown blotches of earth.

Abdullah gathered an armful of slim branches and carried them to a growing communal pile nearby. He was wearing his new snow boots, gloves, and winter coat. It was secondhand, but other than the broken zipper, which Father had fixed, it was as good as new—padded, dark blue, with orange fur lining inside. It had four deep pockets that snapped open and shut and a quilted hood that tightened around Abdullah’s face when he drew its cords. He pushed back the hood from his head now and let out a long foggy breath.

The sun was dropping into the horizon. Abdullah could still make out the old windmill, looming stark and gray over the village’s mud walls. Its blades gave a creaky groan whenever a nippy gust blew in from the hills. The windmill was home mainly to blue herons in the summer, but now that winter was here the herons had gone and the crows had moved in. Every morning, Abdullah awoke to their squawks and harsh croaks.

Something caught his eye, off to his right, on the ground. He walked over to it and knelt down.

A feather. Small. Yellow.

He took off one glove and picked it up.

Tonight they were going to a party, he, his father, and his little half brother Iqbal. Baitullah had a new infant boy. A motrebwould sing for the men, and someone would tap on a tambourine. There would be tea and warm, freshly baked bread, and shorwasoup with potatoes. Afterward, Mullah Shekib would dip his finger in a bowl of sweetened water and let the baby suckle it. He would produce his shiny black stone and his double-edged razor, lift the cloth from the boy’s midriff. An ordinary ritual. Life rolling on in Shadbagh.

Abdullah turned the feather over in his hand.

I won’t have any crying, Father had said. No crying. I won’t have it.

And there hadn’t been any. No one in the village asked after Pari. No one even spoke her name. It astonished Abdullah how thoroughly she had vanished from their lives.

Only in Shuja did Abdullah find a reflection of his own grief. The dog turned up at their door every day. Parwana threw rocks at him. Father went at him with a stick. But he kept returning. Every night he could be heard whimpering mournfully and every morning they found him lying by the door, chin on his front paws, blinking up at his assailants with melancholy, unaccusing eyes. This went on for weeks until one morning Abdullah saw him hobbling toward the hills, head hung low. No one in Shadbagh had seen him since.

Abdullah pocketed the yellow feather and began walking toward the windmill.

Sometimes, in unguarded moments, he caught Father’s face clouding over, drawn into confusing shades of emotion. Father looked diminished to him now, stripped of something essential. He loped sluggishly about the house or else sat in the heat of their big new cast-iron stove, little Iqbal on his lap, and stared unseeingly into the flames. His voice dragged now in a way that Abdullah did not remember, as though something weighed on each word he spoke. He shrank into long silences, his face closed off. He didn’t tell stories anymore, had not told one since he and Abdullah had returned from Kabul. Maybe, Abdullah thought, Father had sold the Wahdatis his muse as well.

Gone.

Vanished.

Nothing left.

Nothing said.

Other than these words from Parwana: It had to be her. I am sorry, Abdullah. She had to be the one.

The finger cut, to save the hand.

He knelt on the ground behind the windmill, at the base of the decaying stone tower. He took off his gloves and dug at the ground. He thought of her heavy eyebrows and her wide rounded forehead, her gap-toothed smile. He heard in his head the tinkle of her laughter rolling around the house like it used to. He thought of the scuffle that had broken out when they had come back from the bazaar. Pari panicking. Shrieking. Uncle Nabi quickly whisking her away. Abdullah dug until his fingers struck metal. Then he maneuvered his hands underneath and lifted the tin tea box from the hole. He swiped cold dirt off the lid.

Lately, he thought a lot about the story Father had told them the night before the trip to Kabul, the old peasant Baba Ayub and the div. Abdullah would find himself on a spot where Pari had once stood, her absence like a smell pushing up from the earth beneath his feet, and his legs would buckle, and his heart would collapse in on itself, and he would long for a swig of the magic potion the divhad given Baba Ayub so he too could forget.

But there was no forgetting. Pari hovered, unbidden, at the edge of Abdullah’s vision everywhere he went. She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent at the house, silences that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell. Some nights he dreamed that he was in the desert again, alone, surrounded by the mountains, and in the distance a single tiny glint of light flickering on, off, on, off, like a message.

He opened the tea box. They were all there, Pari’s feathers, shed from roosters, ducks, pigeons; the peacock feather too. He tossed the yellow feather into the box. One day, he thought.

Hoped.

His days in Shadbagh were numbered, like Shuja’s. He knew this now. There was nothing left for him here. He had no home here. He would wait until winter passed and the spring thaw set in, and he would rise one morning before dawn and he would step out the door. He would choose a direction and he would begin to walk. He would walk as far from Shadbagh as his feet would take him. And if one day, trekking across some vast open field, despair should take hold of him, he would stop in his tracks and shut his eyes and he would think of the falcon feather Pari had found in the desert. He would picture the feather coming loose from the bird, up in the clouds, half a mile above the world, twirling and spinning in violent currents, hurled by gusts of blustering wind across miles and miles of desert and mountains, to finally land, of all places and against all odds, at the foot of that one boulder for his sister to find. It would strike him with wonder, then, and hope too, that such things happened. And though he would know better, he would take heart, and he would open his eyes, and walk.