And the Mountains Echoed

The story moves its focus to Pari, Abdullah’s sister, as a young adult living in Paris. She reluctantly receives a call from her mother's doctor. She reveals that there has been a past of her mother having her mother has “accidents,” and each time she answers these calls she thinks, “This time, this is the time” (178). The injury is not serious, but she cancels her plans with her boyfriend and friends.

The narration then moves to an excerpt of a magazine interview with Nila. She opens the interview admitting that she wants to sever her ties with Afghanistan, and she discusses King Amanullah, the “visionary” who wanted to free women from the veil and allow them to attend school:. “The king made the earth move, you see, but he was surrounded by an ocean of zealots, and you well know what happens when the ocean floor trembles” (182). She wanted to move away from Afghanistan for her daughter, so she would not become “one of those diligent, sad women who are bent on a lifelong course of quiet servitude, forever in fear of showing, saying, or doing the wrong thing” (182). However, she ends the interview saying, “children are never everything you'd hoped for” (183).