Microsoft Word the kite runner docx

party Baba's friend Del-­‐Muhammad, who owned a kabob house in Shar-­‐e-­‐Nau,
came to the house with his bags of spices. Like the butcher, Del-­‐Muhammad-­‐-­‐or
Dello, as Baba called him-­‐-­‐refused payment for his services. He said Baba had
done enough for his family already. It was Rahim Khan who whispered to me, as
Dello marinated the meat, that Baba had lent Dello the money to open his
restaurant. Baba had refused repayment until Dello had shown up one day in our
driveway in a Benz and insisted he wouldn't leave until Baba took his money.
I guess in most ways, or at least in the ways in which parties are judged,
my birthday bash was a huge success. I'd never seen the house so packed. Guests
with drinks in hand were chatting in the hallways, smoking on the stairs, leaning
against doorways. They sat where they found space, on kitchen counters, in the
foyer, even under the stairwell. In the backyard, they mingled under the glow of
blue, red, and green lights winking in the trees, their faces illuminated by the
light of kerosene torches propped everywhere. Baba had had a stage built on the
balcony that overlooked the garden and planted speakers throughout the yard.
Ahmad Zahir was playing an accordion and singing on the stage over masses of
dancing bodies.
I had to greet each of the guests personally-­‐-­‐Baba made sure of that; no
one was going to gossip the next day about how he'd raised a son with no
manners. I kissed hundreds of cheeks, hugged total strangers, thanked them for
their gifts. My face ached from the strain of my plastered smile.

---

I was standing with Baba in the yard near the bar when someone said,
"Happy birthday, Amir." It was Assef, with his parents. Assef's father, Mahmood,
was a short, lanky sort with dark skin and a narrow face. His mother, Tanya, was
a small, nervous woman who smiled and blinked a lot. Assef was standing
between the two of them now, grinning, looming over both, his arms resting on
their shoulders. He led them toward us, like he had brought them here. Like he
was the parent, and they his children. A wave of dizziness rushed through me.
Baba thanked them for coming.
"I picked out your present myself," Assef said. Tanya's face twitched and
her eyes flicked from Assef to me. She smiled, unconvincingly, and blinked. I
wondered if Baba had noticed.
"Still playing soccer, Assef jan?" Baba said. He'd always wanted me to be
friends with Assef.
Assef smiled. It was creepy how genuinely sweet he made it look. "Of
course, Kaka jan."
"Right wing, as I recall?"
"Actually, I switched to center forward this year," Assef said. "You get to
score more that way. We're playing the Mekro-­‐Rayan team next week. Should be
a good match. They have some good players."
Baba nodded. "You know, I played center forward too when I was young."
"I'll bet you still could if you wanted to," Assef said. He favored Baba with
a good-­‐natured wink.
Baba returned the wink. "I see your father has taught you his world-­‐
famous flattering ways." He elbowed Assef's father, almost knocked the little
fellow down. Mahmood's laughter was about as convincing as Tanya's smile, and
suddenly I wondered if maybe, on some level, their son frightened them. I tried
to fake a smile, but all I could manage was a feeble up-­‐turning of the corners of
my mouth-­‐-­‐my stomach was turning at the sight of my father bonding with Assef.

---

Assef shifted his eyes to me. "Wali and Kamal are here too. They wouldn't
miss your birthday for anything," he said, laughter lurking just beneath the
surface. I nodded silently.
"We're thinking about playing a little game of volleyball tomorrow at my
house," Assef said. "Maybe you'll join us. Bring Hassan if you want to."
"That sounds fun," Baba said, beaming. "What do you think, Amir?"
"I don't really like volleyball," I muttered. I saw the light wink out of
Baba's eyes and an uncomfortable silence followed.
"Sorry, Assef jan," Baba said, shrugging. That stung, his apologizing for
me.
"Nay, no harm done," Assef said. "But you have an open invitation, Amir
jan.
Anyway, I heard you like to read so I brought you a book. One of my
favorites."
He extended a wrapped birthday gift to me. "Happy birthday."
He was dressed in a cotton shirt and blue slacks, a red silk tie and shiny
black loafers. He smelled of cologne and his blond hair was neatly combed back.
On the surface, he was the embodiment of every parent's dream, a strong, tall,
well-­‐dressed and well-­‐mannered boy with talent and striking looks, not to
mention the wit to joke with an adult. But to me, his eyes betrayed him. When I
looked into them, the facade faltered, revealed a glimpse of the madness hiding
behind them.
"Aren't you going to take it, Amir?" Baba was saying. "Huh?"
"Your present," he said testily. "Assef jan is giving you a present."

---

"Oh," I said. I took the box from Assef and lowered my gaze. I wished I
could be alone in my room, with my books, away from these people.
"Well?" Baba said.
"What?"
Baba spoke in a low voice, the one he took on whenever I embarrassed
him in public. "Aren't you going to thank Assef jan? That was very considerate of
him."
I wished Baba would stop calling him that. How often did he call me "Amir
jan"? "Thanks," I said. Assef's mother looked at me like she wanted to say
something, but she didn't, and I realized that neither of Assef's parents had said a
word. Before I could embarrass myself and Baba anymore-­‐-­‐but mostly to get
away from Assef and his grin-­‐-­‐I stepped away. "Thanks for coming," I said.
I squirmed my way through the throng of guests and slipped through the
wrought-­‐iron gates. Two houses down from our house, there was a large, barren
dirt lot. I'd heard Baba tell Rahim Khan that a judge had bought the land and that
an architect was working on the design. For now, the lot was bare, save for dirt,
stones, and weeds.
I tore the wrapping paper from Assef's present and tilted the book cover
in the moonlight. It was a biography of Hitler. I threw it amid a tangle of weeds.
I leaned against the neighbor's wall, slid down to the ground. I just sat in
the dark for a while, knees drawn to my chest, looking up at the stars, waiting for
the night to be over.
"Shouldn't you be entertaining your guests?" a familiar voice said. Rahim
Khan was walking toward me along the wall.
"They don't need me for that. Baba's there, remember?" I said. The ice in
Rahim Khan's drink clinked when he sat next to me. "I didn't know you drank."

---

"Turns out I do," he said. Elbowed me playfully. "But only on the most
important occasions."
I smiled. "Thanks."
He tipped his drink to me and took a sip. He lit a cigarette, one of the
unfiltered Pakistani cigarettes he and Baba were always smoking. "Did I ever tell
you I was almost married once?"
"Really?" I said, smiling a little at the notion of Rahim Khan getting
married. I'd always thought of him as Baba's quiet alter ego, my writing mentor,
my pal, the one who never forgot to bring me a souvenir, a saughat, when he
returned from a trip abroad. But a husband? A father? He nodded. "It's true. I was
eighteen. Her name was Homaira. She was a Hazara, the daughter of our
neighbor's servants. She was as beautiful as a pari, light brown hair, big hazel
eyes... she had this laugh... I can still hear it sometimes." He twirled his glass. "We
used to meet secretly in my father's apple orchards, always after midnight when
everyone had gone to sleep. We'd walk under the trees and I'd hold her hand...
Am I embarrassing you, Amir jan?"
"A little," I said.
"It won't kill you," he said, taking another puff. "Anyway, we had this
fantasy. We'd have a great, fancy wedding and invite family and friends from
Kabul to Kandahar. I would build us a big house, white with a tiled patio and
large windows. We would plant fruit trees in the garden and grow all sorts of
flowers, have a lawn for our kids to play on. On Fridays, after _namaz_ at the
mosque, everyone would get together at our house for lunch and we'd eat in the
garden, under cherry trees, drink fresh water from the well. Then tea with candy
as we watched our kids play with their cousins..."
He took a long gulp of his scotch. Coughed. "You should have seen the look
on my father's face when I told him. My mother actually fainted. My sisters
splashed her face with water. They fanned her and looked at me as if I had slit
her throat. My brother Jalal actually went to fetch his hunting rifle before my
father stopped him." Rahim Khan barked a bitter laughter. "It was Homaira and
me against the world. And I'll tell you this, Amir jan: In the end, the world always
wins. That's just the way of things."

---

"So what happened?"
"That same day, my father put Homaira and her family on a lorry and sent
them off to Hazarajat. I never saw her again."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Probably for the best, though," Rahim Khan said, shrugging. "She would
have suffered. My family would have never accepted her as an equal. You don't
order someone to polish your shoes one day and call them 'sister' the next." He
looked at me. "You know, you can tell me anything you want, Amir jan. Anytime."
"I know," I said uncertainly. He looked at me for a long time, like he was
waiting, his black bottomless eyes hinting at an unspoken secret between us. For
a moment, I almost did tell him. Almost told him everything, but then what
would he think of me? He'd hate me, and rightfully.
"Here." He handed me something. "I almost forgot. Happy birthday." It
was a brown leather-­‐bound notebook. I traced my fingers along the gold-­‐colored
stitching on the borders. I smelled the leather. "For your stories," he said. I was
going to thank him when something exploded and bursts of fire lit up the sky.
"Fireworks!"
We hurried back to the house and found the guests all standing in the
yard, looking up to the sky. Kids hooted and screamed with each crackle and
whoosh. People cheered, burst into applause each time flares sizzled and
exploded into bouquets of fire. Every few seconds, the backyard lit up in sudden
flashes of red, green, and yellow.
In one of those brief bursts of light, I saw something I'll never forget:
Hassan serving drinks to Assef and Wali from a silver platter. The light winked
out, a hiss and a crackle, then another flicker of orange light: Assef grinning,
kneading Hassan in the chest with a knuckle.

---

Then, mercifully, darkness.
NINE
Sitting in the middle of my room the next morning, I ripped open box after box of
presents. I don't know why I even bothered, since I just gave them a joyless
glance and pitched them to the corner of the room. The pile was growing there: a
Polaroid camera, a transistor radio, an elaborate electric train set-­‐-­‐and several
sealed envelopes containing cash. I knew I'd never spend the money or listen to
the radio, and the electric train would never trundle down its tracks in my room.
I didn't want any of it-­‐-­‐it was all blood money; Baba would have never thrown
me a party like that if I hadn't won the tournament.
Baba gave me two presents. One was sure to become the envy of every kid
in the neighborhood: a brand new Schwinn Stingray, the king of all bicycles. Only
a handful of kids in all of Kabul owned a new Stingray and now I was one of
them. It had high-­‐rise handlebars with black rubber grips and its famous banana
seat.
The spokes were gold colored and the steel-­‐frame body red, like a candy
apple. Or blood. Any other kid would have hopped on the bike immediately and
taken it for a full block skid. I might have done the same a few months ago.
"You like it?" Baba said, leaning in the doorway to my room. I gave him a
sheepish grin and a quick "Thank you." I wished I could have mustered more.
"We could go for a ride," Baba said. An invitation, but only a halfhearted
one.

---

"Maybe later. I'm a little tired," I said.
"Sure," Baba said.
"Baba?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks for the fireworks," I said. A thank-­‐you, but only a halfhearted one.
"Get some rest," Baba said, walking toward his room.
The other present Baba gave me-­‐-­‐and he didn't wait around for me to
open this one-­‐-­‐was a wristwatch. It had a blue face with gold hands in the shape
of lightning bolts. I didn't even try it on. I tossed it on the pile of toys in the
corner. The only gift I didn't toss on that mound was Rahim Khan's leather-­‐
bound notebook. That was the only one that didn't feel like blood money.
I sat on the edge of my bed, turned the notebook in my hands, thought
about what Rahim Khan had said about Homaira, how his father's dismissing her
had been for the best in the end. She would have suffered. Like the times Kaka
Homayoun's projector got stuck on the same slide, the same image kept flashing
in my mind over and over: Hassan, his head downcast, serving drinks to Assef
and Wali. Maybe it would be for the best. Lessen his suffering. And mine too.
Either way, this much had become clear: One of us had to go.
Later that afternoon, I took the Schwinn for its first and last spin. I
pedaled around the block a couple of times and came back. I rolled up the
driveway to the backyard where Hassan and Ali were cleaning up the mess from
last night's party. Paper cups, crumpled napkins, and empty bottles of soda
littered the yard. Ali was folding chairs, setting them along the wall. He saw me
and waved.
"Salaam, Ali," I said, waving back.

---

He held up a finger, asking me to wait, and walked to his living quarters. A
moment later, he emerged with something in his hands. "The opportunity never
presented itself last night for Hassan and me to give you this," he said, handing
me a box. "It's modest and not worthy of you, Amir agha. But we hope you like it
still. Happy birthday."
A lump was rising in my throat. "Thank you, Ali," I said. I wished they
hadn't bought me anything. I opened the box and found a brand new
_Shahnamah_, a hardback with glossy colored illustrations beneath the passages.
Here was Ferangis gazing at her newborn son, Kai Khosrau. There was Afrasiyab
riding his horse, sword drawn, leading his army. And, of course, Rostam inflicting
a mortal wound onto his son, the warrior Sohrab. "It's beautiful," I said.
"Hassan said your copy was old and ragged, and that some of the pages
were missing," Ali said. "All the pictures are hand-­‐drawn in this one with pen and
ink," he added proudly, eyeing a book neither he nor his son could read.
"It's lovely," I said. And it was. And, I suspected, not inexpensive either. I
wanted to tell Ali it was not the book, but I who was unworthy. I hopped back on
the bicycle. "Thank Hassan for me," I said.
I ended up tossing the book on the heap of gifts in the corner of my room.
But my eyes kept going back to it, so I buried it at the bottom. Before I went to
bed that night, I asked Baba if he'd seen my new watch anywhere.
THE NEXT MORNING, I waited in my room for Ali to clear the breakfast table in
the kitchen. Waited for him to do the dishes, wipe the counters. I looked out my
bedroom window and waited until Ali and Hassan went grocery shopping to the
bazaar, pushing the empty wheelbarrows in front of them.
Then I took a couple of the envelopes of cash from the pile of gifts and my
watch, and tiptoed out. I paused before Baba's study and listened in. He'd been in
there all morning, making phone calls. He was talking to someone now, about a
shipment of rugs due to arrive next week. I went downstairs, crossed the yard,
and entered Ali and Hassan's living quarters by the loquat tree. I lifted Hassan's
mattress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it.

---

I waited another thirty minutes. Then I knocked on Baba's door and told
what I hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies.
THROUGH MY BEDROOM WINDOW, I watched Ali and Hassan push the
wheelbarrows loaded with meat, _naan_, fruit, and vegetables up the driveway. I
saw Baba emerge from the house and walk up to Ali. Their mouths moved over
words I couldn't hear. Baba pointed to the house and Ali nodded. They separated.
Baba came back to the house; Ali followed Hassan to their hut.
A few moments later, Baba knocked on my door. "Come to my office," he
said.
"We're all going to sit down and settle this thing."
I went to Baba's study, sat in one of the leather sofas. It was thirty
minutes or more before Hassan and Ali joined us.
THEY'D BOTH BEEN CRYING; I could tell from their red, puffed up eyes. They
stood before Baba, hand in hand, and I wondered how and when I'd become
capable of causing this kind of pain.
Baba came right out and asked. "Did you steal that money? Did you steal
Amir's watch, Hassan?"
Hassan's reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: "Yes."
I flinched, like I'd been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out
the truth. Then I understood: This was Hassan's final sacrifice for me. If he'd said
no, Baba would have believed him because we all knew Hassan never lied. And if

---

Baba believed him, then I'd be the accused; I would have to explain and I would
be revealed for what I really was. Baba would never, ever forgive me. And that
led to another understanding: Hassan knew He knew I'd seen everything in that
alley, that I'd stood there and done nothing. He knew I had betrayed him and yet
he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved him in that
moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell them
all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of
this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. And I would have told, except that a