And the Mountains Echoed

The narration for this chapter is from young Pari, the daughter of Abdullah, as she recalls how her father used to pluck out any bad dreams from her head before bedtime , and then insert good ones. He would tell the stories about these good dreams before she went to sleep. She was an only child, and longed desperately for a sibling, and so “adopted” Pari (Abdullah's sister) into her consciousness as her own. Pari told her father the same dream that he would have every night— - about napping with his little sister, Pari. She feels a special connection with this lost aunt, mostly because they share the same name, but there iwas something more to it. She listensed deeply to the re-telling of the loss of her aunt Pari, “and although she "couldn't wholly understand, linked beyond [their] names, beyond familial ties, as if, together, [they] completed a puzzle. [She] felt certain that if [she] listened closely enough to [this] story, [she] would discover something revealed about [herself]” (348).

Pari (Abdullah's daughter) picks up her Aaunt Pari Wahdati from the airport. They discuss the amazing opportunity it is to finally meet and put together the missing pieces of each of their life’s history. YIt is revealed that young Pari is her father’s caregiver.

In Pari's thoughts, she remembers the “saintly” descriptions many people have given her about the sacrifices she has made to take care of her parents. First her mother, and now her father:. “But [she] doesn't recognize [herself] in this version of the story” for “there are days when all [she wants] is to be free of him and his petulance and neediness” (357).

In a flashback, Pari reminisces of the struggle in being raisedgrowing up a Muslim girl in Western culture. Her father made her take Farsi lessons, but he would not allow her to try for the volleyball team citing work as his excuse. Pari was only unfettered in her mind, where she daydreamed about a blonde boy named Jeremy. However, she knew they could not be together.

Her parents owned and operated a restaurant, Abe's Kabob House, which she worked in during the summertime. As a child, she loved to help, feeling integral to the whole operation, but as she grew older, the magic dissipated.

She received a scholarship to attend art school, and her father made her feel guilty about attending it and leaving her parents behind. Baba worried about his wife and suggested she attend the local junior college as a compromise. Two weeks before she was to fly to Baltimore for a campus visit, it was discovered that her mother had a tumourtumor on her left ovary.

Young Pari brings Aunt Pari to see Abdullah, and he does not recognize her. They talk absently about Paris, and then Aunt Pari asks Abdullah why he chose the name he did for his daughter. He does not have an answer but hums a familiar tune, the song he used to sing to his sister Pari when she was little. Overjoyed, she sings back the other two lines. There is a slight, seemingly faint recognition on Abdullah’s face, but it disappears. Aunt Pari believes she has broken through to her brother, but young Pari knows she really has not. Her father is lost in his dementia.

In a flashback, young Pari recollects the time she spent with her mother while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment. One afternoon, she confesses to Pari that her father has a half-brother in Pakistan that he sends money to. She tells Pari it is time for her to know, as she will have to take over the finances soon. The pressure to give up her life for her parents mounts as Pari’s mother tells her: “Your father is like a child. Terrified of being abandoned. He would lose his way without you, Pari, and never find his way back” (376).

The narration shifts back to the present, and Aunt Pari tucks Abdullah in, as he has fallen asleep in the chair. The two women retire to the kitchen for coffee, and Aunt Pari shows young Pari pictures of where she and Abdullah were born. What's standing in the place of Old Shadbagh is the Narco Palace, “the house of a well-known criminal of war” (380). They come across a photo of Pari's mother, Nila, who Pari describes as having a “very deep sadness. All [her] life she gave [Pari] a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari” (382). We learn that Nila committed suicide in 1974.

Pari Wahdati stays with Pari and Abdullah for a month. She takes over the rituals and routines of caring for him that young Pari usually partook in because she “[wants] to know him” (384). One day during their afternoon walk, she asks Abdullah about his younger sister, and he weeps uncontrollably. Another afternoon, he flies into a rage believing that she has stolen his pills and scorns that she said she was his sister. Young Pari soothes him to sleep, and Aunt Pari feels awful for setting him off. She wants so desperately for him to understand who she is so they can forge some form of connection. She acknowledges that eventually, Pari will need to give him professional care., when he is totally unaware of who he is, etc.

Young Pari admits her fears in letting him go to a home. She has grown “accustomed to the glass” of the confines her father has created for her. She admits to her aunt that she had a relationship with her growing up, even though Aunt Pari did not know she existed. She shows her the postcards she sent to herself that were actually sent to her Aunt Pari, wishing she was there.

Later, Pari Wahdati is having a family reunion in France, and young Pari attendsgoes. Abdullah is now in a nursing home. When she visits her father, she reminds him of her trip, and she plucks away the bad dreams from around his head.

In Paris, young Pari has a package for her Aunt Pari that she found while cleaning out her parents' home. It is from her father. He wrote a note to his sister just as he was diagnosed: “They tell me I must wade into waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under” (400). In the package is a metal tin filled with the colourful feathers she collected when she was very young. Unfortunately, Pari does not know what it means, but she knows “it means he was thinking of [her]. For all these years. He remembered [her]” (401).