Free And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini Page A

and write, to memorize poetry. Shadbagh was fortunate to have such a wise man for a
malik
, the girls’ father told them.On the way home from these lessons, the twins often came across a group of boys sitting on a wall. As the girls passed, the boys sometimes heckled, sometimes threw pebbles. Parwana usually shouted back and answered their pebbles with rocks, while Masooma always pulled her elbow and told her in a sensible voice to walk faster, to not let them anger her. But she misunderstood. Parwana was angry not because they threw pebbles but because they threw them only at Masooma. Parwana knew: They made a show of the ribbing, and the bigger the show, the deeper their desire. She noticed the way their eyes ricocheted off her and trained themselves on Masooma, forlorn with wonder, helpless to pull away. She knew that behind their crass jokes and lascivious grins, they were terrified of Masooma.
    Then, one day, one of them hurled not a pebble but a rock. It rolled to the sisters’ feet. When Masooma picked it up, the boys snickered and elbowed one another. An elastic band held a sheet of paper wrapped around the rock. When they were at a safe distance, Masooma unrolled it. They both read the note.
    I swear, since seeing Your face
,
    the whole world is fraud and fantasy
.
    The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf or blossom
.
    The distracted birds can’t distinguish the birdseed from the snare
.
    A Rumi poem, one from Mullah Shekib’s teachings.
    They’re getting more sophisticated
, Masooma said with a chuckle.
    Below the poem, the boy had written
I want to marry you
. And, below that, he had scribbled this addendum:
I’ve got a cousin for your sister. He’s a perfect match. They can graze my uncle’s field together
.
    Masooma tore the note in half.
Don’t mind them, Parwana
, she said.
They’re imbeciles
.
    Cretins
, Parwana agreed.
    Such effort it took to plaster a grin on her face. The note was bad enough, but what really stung was Masooma’s response. The boy hadn’t explicitly addressed his note to either one of them, but Masooma had casually assumed that he’d intended the poem for her and the cousin for Parwana. For the first time, Parwana saw herself through her sister’s eyes. She saw how her sister viewed her. Which was the same as how the rest of them did. It left her gutted, what Masooma said. It flattened her.
    Besides
, Masooma added with a shrug and a grin,
I’m already taken
.
    Nabi has come for his monthly visit. He is the family’s success story, perhaps the entire village’s too, on account of his working in Kabul, his driving into Shadbagh in his employer’s big shiny blue car with the gleaming eagle’s-head hood ornament, everyone gathering to watch his arrival, the village kids hollering and running alongside the car.
    â€œHow are things?” he asks.
    The three of them are inside the hut having tea and almonds. Nabi is very handsome, Parwana thinks, with his fine chiseled cheekbones, his hazel eyes, his sideburns, and the thick wall of black hair swept back from his forehead. He is dressed in his customary olive-colored suit that looks a size or so too big on him. Nabi is proud of the suit, Parwana knows, always tugging at the sleeves, straightening the lapel, pinching the crease of his pants, though he has never quite managed to eradicate its lingering whiff of burnt onions.
    â€œWell, we had Queen Homaira over for tea and cookies yesterday,”Masooma says. “She complimented our exquisite choice of décor.” She smiles amiably at her brother, revealing her yellowing teeth, and Nabi laughs, looking down at his cup. Before he found work in Kabul, Nabi had helped Parwana care for their sister. Or he had tried for a while. But he couldn’t do it. It was too much for him. Kabul was Nabi’s escape. Parwana envies her brother, but she does not entirely begrudge him even if he does—she knows that