And the Mountains Echoed

Markos narrates this chapter. He is arriving home from the clinic to hear a phone message from Thalia. He debates whether to obey Thalia's order to call his mother.

He met Thalia in 1967. Her mother, Madaline, was dear friends with his mother. He was 12 years old when they came to visit in Tinos. His mother warned him that Thalia had a scar from being bitten by a dog. When they arrived at the house, Thalia had on a mask to cover her face. They went up to a guest room to unpack, and Markos was to take up a tray of drinks and a snack. When he did, he saw Thalia without her mask on; when he saw her scar he shook and dropped the tray, “retching all over shards of broken porcelain” (286).

The narration moves back to the present, and Markos is speaking with his mother on the phone. She asks him about how the visit with the French woman (Pari) was. He begins to tell of her visit.

Pari stayed with Marko for a week in Kabul. When he gave her a tour of her former home, he was amazed at how much she remembered. She longed to have the little painted armoire sent to her in Paris, and Markos agreed: “In the end, other than the armoire […], which I had shipped a few days after her departure, Pari Wahdati returned to France with nothing but Suleiman Wahdati's sketch pads, Nabi's letter, and a few of her mother Nila's poems, which Nabi had saved” (289). He arranged a trip for her to visit Shadbagh as well.

Markos’s focus moves back into a flashback of when Madaline and Thalia stayed for in Tinos. He hated mealtime with them, watching Thalia slurp up her food from behind her mask. He enjoyed the stories of Madaline and all of her travels. He longed to live away from Tinos.

Madaline openly tells the story of the abuse she experienced at the hands of her father and how Markos's mother saved her by threatening her father with a shotgun. Odelia (Odie) turns to Thalia to try to involve her in the conversation and learns that she likes science. Odie offers to build something with her, and then Madaline begins chattering away again about her acting career.

Markos takes Thalia to the beach, despite severe reluctance to do so. Thalia hates it, too, and calls him an ass before they head back. Thalia lies to her mother on their return, saying they had a “grand time” but then this just means that they will have to spend more time together.

One afternoon out, Markos wanders into the town center, unaware that Thalia is close by. He admires a camera in a shop window, and Thalia talks about the model of it, aware of his desire to be a photographer because his mother told her. That afternoon, Thalia and Markos work together to make their own camera. The next day at the beach, Markos takes a picture of Thalia with the pinhole camera they made out of a shoebox. She reminds him to count to 120.

As the counting starts a rhythm, scenes of Markos's future invade the story. He travels a lot, using half of Thalia's inheritance money, ending up in India, and nearly dying of hepatitis. When he recovers, he volunteers to take special care of a young boy dying beside him because he took an interest in Markos's last possession—the picture he took on the beach of Thalia on the beach. He travels some more until finally filling out an application for medical school.

The story moves back to Markos’s past with Thalia. Madaline announces she is leaving town and that Thalia will be staying with Markos and his mother. She states it will only be for a few weeks while she works on her new film.

Markos's mother homeschools both of the children so Thalia will not be alone during the day, when Markos would usually go to school. They are constantly interrupted by curious townsfolk wanting to try to sneak a peek of the girl staying with them. It gets so bad that Odelia decides to take Thalia to school, firmly but gently telling her that she is not ashamed of her. On the way to school, people stared, point, and some scream. At the schoolyard, Odelia gives a firm announcement, exhorting everyone to treat Thalia with kindness and respect: “From that day forth, Thalia never again wore the mask, either in public or at home” (324).

After spending a year in Tinos, Thalia receives a letter from her stepfather about enrolling her in a private school in London. Madaline has eloped with the film's director, and she and Odelia both knew all along that she would never be back for Thalia.

Markos tells himself that he studied plastic surgery because of people like Thalia and the superficial cosmetic procedures he does pays well enough that he can travel for lengths at a time doing volunteer work—helping children with cleft palates, etc. It was this sort of work that led him to Afghanistan in 2002, and he has remained there since.

In the last portion of the chapter, Markos returns home to Tinos for a visit. He finds his mother frail and sick in her old age, with Thalia taking care of her. They watch an eclipse together the next day, and Odelia finally tells Markos that he has turned out well, and she is proud of him. He muses over the lost time, and the disillusionment at hearing this for the first time at 55 years old, but he remains quiet and watches his mother's joy at a shadow of the eclipse dancing on her hands.