And the Mountains Echoed

Abdullah couldn’t hear. Father waved back.
    Pari said, “Abollah?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDo you think Shuja is sad?”
    â€œI think he’s fine.”
    â€œNo one will hurt him?”
    â€œHe’s a big dog, Pari. He can defend himself.”
    Shuja
was
a big dog. Father said he must have been a fighting dog at one point because someone had severed his ears and his tail. Whether he could, or would, defend himself was another matter. When the stray first turned up in Shadbagh, kids had hurled rocks at him, poked him with tree branches or rusted bicycle-wheel spokes. Shuja never fought back. With time, the village’s kids grew tired of tormenting him and left him alone, though Shuja’s demeanor was still cautious, suspicious, as if he’d not forgotten their past unkindness toward him.
    He avoided everyone in Shadbagh but Pari. It was for Pari that Shuja lost all composure. His love for her was vast and unclouded. She was his universe. In the mornings, when he saw Pari stepping out of the house, Shuja sprang up, and his entire body shivered. The stump of his mutilated tail wagged wildly, and he tap-danced like he was treading on hot coal. He pranced happy circles around her. All day the dog shadowed Pari, sniffing at her heels, and at night, when they parted ways, he lay outside the door, forlorn, waiting for morning.
    â€œAbollah?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhen I grow up, will I live with you?”
    Abdullah watched the orange sun dropping low, nudging the horizon. “If you want. But you won’t want to.”
    â€œYes I will!”
    â€œYou’ll want a house of your own.”
    â€œBut we can be neighbors.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œYou won’t live far.”
    â€œWhat if you get sick of me?”
    She jabbed his side with her elbow. “I wouldn’t!”
    Abdullah grinned to himself. “All right, fine.”
    â€œYou’ll be close by.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œUntil we’re old.”
    â€œVery old.”
    â€œFor always.”
    â€œYes, for always.”
    From the front of the wagon, she turned to look at him. “Do you promise, Abollah?”
    â€œFor always and always.”
    Later, Father hoisted Pari up on his back, and Abdullah was in the rear, pulling the empty wagon. As they walked, he fell into a thoughtless trance. He was aware only of the rise and fall of his own knees, of the sweat beads trickling down from the edge of his skullcap. Pari’s small feet bouncing against Father’s hips. Aware only of the shadow of his father and sister lengthening on the gray desert floor, pulling away from him if he slowed down.
    It was Uncle Nabi who had found this latest job for Father—Uncle Nabi was Parwana’s older brother and so he was really Abdullah’s stepuncle. Uncle Nabi was a cook and a chauffeur in Kabul. Once a month, he drove from Kabul to visit them in Shadbagh, his arrival announced by a staccato of honks and the hollering of a horde of village kids who chased the big blue car with the tan top and shiny rims. They slapped the fender and windows until he killed the engine and emerged grinning from the car, handsome Uncle Nabi with the long sideburns and wavy black hair combed back from his forehead, dressed in hisoversize olive-colored suit with white dress shirt and brown loafers. Everyone came out to see him because he drove a car, though it belonged to his employer, and because he wore a suit and worked in the big city, Kabul.
    It was on his last visit that Uncle Nabi had told Father about the job. The wealthy people he worked for were building an addition to their home—a small guesthouse in the backyard, complete with a bathroom, separate from the main building—and Uncle Nabi had suggested they hire Father, who knew his way around a construction site. He said the job would pay well and take a month to complete, give or take.
    Father did know his way around a construction site. He’d worked in enough of them. As long as Abdullah could remember, Father was out searching for work, knocking on doors for a day’s labor. He had overheard Father one time tell the village elder, Mullah Shekib,
If I had been born an animal, Mullah Sahib, I swear I would have come out a mule
. Sometimes Father took Abdullah along on his jobs. They had picked apples once in a town that was a full day’s walk away from Shadbagh. Abdullah remembered his father mounted on the