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One of the effects of Pari’s entrance was that for the first time the Wahdati household resembled a proper family. Bound now by their affection for Pari, Nila and her husband took all their meals together. They walked Pari to a nearby park and sat contentedly beside each other on a bench to watch her play. When I served them tea at night after I had cleared the table, I often found one or the other reading a children’s book to Pari as she reclined on their laps, she, with each pa.s.sing day, more forgetful of her past life in Shadbagh and of the people in it.

The other consequence of Pari’s arrival was one I had not antic.i.p.ated: I receded into the background. Judge me charitably, Mr. Markos, and remember that I was a young man, but I admit I had hopes, foolish as they might have been. I was the instrument of Nila’s becoming a mother, after all. I had uncovered the source of her unhappiness and delivered an antidote. Did I think we would become lovers now? I want to say I was not so foolish as that, Mr. Markos, but that wouldn’t be entirely truthful. I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

What I did not foresee was that I would fade away. Pari consumed Nila’s time now. Lessons, games, naps, walks, more games. Our daily chats went by the wayside. If the two of them were playing with building blocks or working on a puzzle, Nila would hardly notice that I had brought her coffee, that I was still in the room standing back on my heels. When we did speak, she seemed distracted, always eager to cut the conversation short. In the car, her expression was distant. For this, though it shames me, I will admit to feeling a shade of resentment toward my niece.

As part of the agreement with the Wahdatis, Pari’s family was not allowed to visit. They were not allowed any contact at all with her. I drove to Shadbagh one day soon after Pari moved in with the Wahdatis. I went there bearing a small present each for Abdullah and for my sister’s little boy, Iqbal, who was a toddler by then.

Saboor said pointedly, “You’ve given your gifts. Now it’s time to go.”

I told him I didn’t understand the reason for his cold reception, his gruff manner with me.

“You do understand,” he said. “And don’t feel like you have to come out and see us anymore.”

He was right, I did understand. A chill had grown between us. My visit had been awkward, tense, even contentious. It felt unnatural to sit together now, to sip tea and chat about the weather or that year’s grape harvest. We were feigning a normalcy, Saboor and I, that no longer was. Whatever the reason, I was, in the end, the instrument of his family’s rupture. Saboor did not want to set eyes on me again and I understood. I stopped my monthly visits. I never saw any of them again.

It was one day early in the spring of 1955, Mr. Markos, that the lives of all of us in the household changed forever. I remember it was raining. Not the galling kind that draws frogs out to croak, but an indecisive drizzle that had come and gone all morning. I remember because the gardener, Zahid, was there, being his habitual lazy self, leaning on a rake and saying how he might call it a day on account of the nasty weather. I was about to retreat to my shack, if only to get away from his drivel, when I heard Nila screaming my name from inside the main house.

I rushed across the yard to the house. Her voice was coming from upstairs, from the direction of the master bedroom.

I found Nila in a corner, back to the wall, palm clasped over her mouth. “Something’s wrong with him,” she said, not removing her hand.

Mr. Wahdati was sitting up in bed, dressed in a white unders.h.i.+rt. He was making strange guttural sounds. His face was pale and drawn, his hair disheveled. He was repeatedly trying, and failing, to perform some task with his right arm, and I noticed with horror that a line of spittle was streaking down from the corner of his mouth.

“Nabi! Do something!”

Pari, who was six by then, had come into the room, and now she scampered over to Mr. Wahdati’s bedside and pulled on his unders.h.i.+rt. “Papa? Papa?” He looked down at her, wide-eyed, his mouth opening and closing. She screamed.

I picked her up quickly and took her to Nila. I told Nila to take the child to another room because she must not see her father in this condition. Nila blinked, as if breaking a trance, looked from me to Pari before she reached for her. She kept asking me what was wrong with her husband. She kept saying that I must do something.

I summoned Zahid from the window and for once the good-for-nothing fool proved of some use. He helped me put a pair of pajama pants on Mr. Wahdati. We lifted him off the bed, carried him down the stairs, and lowered him into the backseat of the car. Nila climbed in next to him. I told Zahid to stay at the house and look after Pari. He started to protest, and I struck him, open-palmed, across the temple as hard as I could. I told him he was a donkey and that he must do as he was told.

And, with that, I backed out of the driveway and peeled out.

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