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