And the Mountains Echoed

Abdullah narrates this chapter, and he makes note that his father had never hit Abdullah before. Seeing Abdullah being struck about the ears quite forcefully by her father makes Pari (Abdullah’s little sister) cry. The father tells Abdullah to head home and walks away with Pari, but Abdullah keeps following. They are walking to Kabul, and Abdullah does not give in, so the father eventually allows him to come along with them to Kabul. Pari likes to collect feathers, and so when she spots one, her father dusts it off for her and gives it to her. Her most prized feather is a peacock feather that Abdullah traded his shoes for.

They have a stepmother (Parwana) who Abdullah wishes he “could love her as he had his own mother” (21). His mother died from while giving birth to Pari. Parwana and Saboor lost a two-week-old baby Omar, due to the cold. She and Saboor have one child together, their youngest child, Iqbal. Abdullah believes that Parwana's kindness to him is more like obligation than real love, like she has for her biological son, Iqbal. Abdullah notes, “It couldn't be helped that he and his sister didn't belong to her.