The Kite Runner (8 page)

“Your father won’t find out,” Assef said. “And there’s nothing sinful about teaching a lesson to a disrespectful donkey.”

“I don’t know,” Wali muttered.

“Suit yourself,” Assef said. He turned to Kamal. “What about you?”

“I . . . well . . .”

“It’s just a Hazara,” Assef said. But Kamal kept looking away.

“Fine,” Assef snapped. “All I want you weaklings to do is hold him down. Can you manage that?”

Wali and Kamal nodded. They looked relieved.

Assef knelt behind Hassan, put his hands on Hassan’s hips and lifted his bare buttocks. He kept one hand on Hassan’s back
and undid his own belt buckle with his free hand. He unzipped his jeans. Dropped his underwear. He positioned himself behind
Hassan. Hassan didn’t struggle. Didn’t even whimper. He moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the
resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb.

T
OMORROW IS THE TENTH DAY
of
Dhul-Hijjah,
the last month of
the Muslim calendar, and the first of three days of
Eid Al-Adha,
or
Eid-e Qorban,
as Afghans call
it—
a day to celebrate how the prophet Ibrahim
almost sacrificed his own son for God. Baba has handpicked the sheep
again this year, a powder white one with crooked black ears.

We all stand in the backyard, Hassan, Ali, Baba, and I. The mullah
recites the prayer, rubs his beard. Baba mutters,
Get on with it,
under his
breath. He sounds annoyed with the endless praying, the ritual of making
the meat
halal.
Baba mocks the story behind this
Eid,
like he mocks everything
religious. But he respects the tradition of
Eid-e-Qorban.
The custom
is to divide the meat in thirds, one for the family, one for friends, and
one for the poor. Every year, Baba gives it all to the poor.
The rich are fat enough already,
he says.

The mullah finishes the prayer.
Ameen.
He picks up the kitchen knife
with the long blade. The custom is to not let the sheep see the knife. Ali
feeds the animal a cube of
sugar—
another custom, to make death sweeter.
The sheep kicks, but not much. The mullah grabs it under its jaw and
places the blade on its neck. Just a second before he slices the throat in
one expert motion, I see the
sheep’s
eyes. It is a look that will haunt my
dreams for weeks. I
don’t
know why I watch this yearly ritual in our backyard;
my nightmares persist long after the bloodstains on the grass have
faded. But I always watch. I watch because of that look of acceptance
in the
animal’s
eyes. Absurdly, I imagine the animal understands. I imagine
the animal sees that its imminent demise is for a higher purpose. This
is the look . . .

I STOPPED WATCHING, turned away from the alley. Something warm was running down my wrist. I blinked, saw I was still biting
down on my fist, hard enough to draw blood from the knuckles. I realized something else. I was weeping. From just around the
corner, I could hear Assef ’s quick, rhythmic grunts.

I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley,
stand up for Hassan—the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I
could run.

In the end, I ran.

I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what
I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. That’s what I made myself believe. I actually
aspired
to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world.
Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my
conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?

I ran back the way I’d come. Ran back to the all but deserted bazaar. I lurched to a cubicle and leaned against the padlocked
swinging doors. I stood there panting, sweating, wishing things had turned out some other way.

About fifteen minutes later, I heard voices and running footfalls. I crouched behind the cubicle and watched Assef and the
other two sprinting by, laughing as they hurried down the deserted lane. I forced myself to wait ten more minutes. Then I
walked back to the rutted track that ran along the snow-filled ravine. I squinted in the dimming light and spotted Hassan
walking slowly toward me. I met him by a leafless birch tree on the edge of the ravine.

He had the blue kite in his hands; that was the first thing I saw. And I can’t lie now and say my eyes didn’t scan it for
any rips. His
chapan
had mud smudges down the front and his shirt was ripped just below the collar. He stopped. Swayed on his feet like he was
going to collapse. Then he steadied himself. Handed me the kite.

“Where were you? I looked for you,” I said. Speaking those words was like chewing on a rock.

Hassan dragged a sleeve across his face, wiped snot and tears. I waited for him to say something, but we just stood there
in silence, in the fading light. I was grateful for the early-evening shadows that fell on Hassan’s face and concealed mine.
I was glad I didn’t have to return his gaze. Did he know I knew? And if he knew, then what would I see if I
did
look in his eyes? Blame? Indignation? Or, God forbid, what I feared most: guileless devotion? That, most of all, I couldn’t
bear to see.

He began to say something and his voice cracked. He closed his mouth, opened it, and closed it again. Took a step back. Wiped
his face. And that was as close as Hassan and I ever came to discussing what had happened in the alley. I thought he might
burst into tears, but, to my relief, he didn’t, and I pretended I hadn’t heard the crack in his voice. Just like I pretended
I hadn’t seen the dark stain in the seat of his pants. Or those tiny drops that fell from between his legs and stained the
snow black.

“Agha sahib will worry,” was all he said. He turned from me and limped away.

IT HAPPENED JUST THE WAY I’d imagined. I opened the door to the smoky study and stepped in. Baba and Rahim Khan were drinking
tea and listening to the news crackling on the radio. Their heads turned. Then a smile played on my father’s lips. He opened
his arms. I put the kite down and walked into his thick hairy arms. I buried my face in the warmth of his chest and wept.
Baba held me close to him, rocking me back and forth. In his arms, I forgot what I’d done. And that was good.

EIGHT

For a week, I barely saw Hassan. I woke up to find toasted bread, brewed tea, and a boiled egg already on the kitchen table.
My clothes for the day were ironed and folded, left on the cane-seat chair in the foyer where Hassan usually did his ironing.
He used to wait for me to sit at the breakfast table before he started ironing—that way, we could talk. Used to sing too,
over the hissing of the iron, sang old Hazara songs about tulip fields. Now only the folded clothes greeted me. That, and
a breakfast I hardly finished anymore.

One overcast morning, as I was pushing the boiled egg around on my plate, Ali walked in cradling a pile of chopped wood. I
asked him where Hassan was.

“He went back to sleep,” Ali said, kneeling before the stove. He pulled the little square door open.

Would Hassan be able to play today?

Ali paused with a log in his hand. A worried look crossed his face. “Lately, it seems all he wants to do is sleep. He does
his chores—I see to that—but then he just wants to crawl under his blanket. Can I ask you something?”

“If you have to.”

“After that kite tournament, he came home a little bloodied and his shirt was torn. I asked him what had happened and he said
it was nothing, that he’d gotten into a little scuffle with some kids over the kite.”

I didn’t say anything. Just kept pushing the egg around on my plate.

“Did something happen to him, Amir agha? Something he’s not telling me?”

I shrugged. “How should I know?”

“You would tell me, nay?
Inshallah,
you would tell me if something had happened?”

“Like I said, how should I know what’s wrong with him?” I snapped. “Maybe he’s sick. People get sick all the time, Ali. Now,
am I going to freeze to death or are you planning on lighting the stove today?”

THAT NIGHT I asked Baba if we could go to Jalalabad on Friday. He was rocking on the leather swivel chair behind his desk,
reading a newspaper. He put it down, took off the reading glasses I disliked so much—Baba wasn’t old, not at all, and he had
lots of years left to live, so why did he have to wear those stupid glasses?

“Why not!” he said. Lately, Baba agreed to everything I asked. Not only that, just two nights before,
he
’d asked
me
if I wanted to see
El Cid
with Charlton Heston at Cinema Aryana. “Do you want to ask Hassan to come along to Jalalabad?”

Why did Baba have to spoil it like that? “He’s
mareez,
” I said. Not feeling well.

“Really?” Baba stopped rocking in his chair. “What’s wrong with him?”

I gave a shrug and sank in the sofa by the fireplace. “He’s got a cold or something. Ali says he’s sleeping it off.”

“I haven’t seen much of Hassan the last few days,” Baba said. “That’s all it is, then, a cold?” I couldn’t help hating the
way his brow furrowed with worry.

“Just a cold. So are we going Friday, Baba?”

“Yes, yes,” Baba said, pushing away from the desk. “Too bad about Hassan. I thought you might have had more fun if he came.”

“Well, the two of us can have fun together,” I said. Baba smiled.

Winked. “Dress warm,” he said.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN just the two of us—that was the way I wanted it—but by Wednesday night, Baba had managed to invite another
two dozen people. He called his cousin Homayoun—he was actually Baba’s second cousin—and mentioned he was going to Jalalabad
on Friday, and Homayoun, who had studied engineering in France and had a house in Jalalabad, said he’d love to have everyone
over, he’d bring the kids, his two wives, and, while he was at it, cousin Shafiqa and her family were visiting from Herat,
maybe she’d like to tag along, and since she was staying with cousin Nader in Kabul, his family would have to be invited as
well even though Homayoun and Nader had a bit of a feud going, and if Nader was invited, surely his brother Faruq had to be
asked too or his feelings would be hurt and he might not invite them to his daughter’s wedding next month and . . .

We filled three vans. I rode with Baba, Rahim Khan, Kaka Homayoun—Baba had taught me at a young age to call any older male
Kaka,
or Uncle, and any older female,
Khala,
or Aunt. Kaka Homayoun’s two wives rode with us too—the pinch-faced older one with the warts on her hands and the younger
one who always smelled of perfume and danced with her eyes close—as did Kaka Homayoun’s twin girls. I sat in the back row,
carsick and dizzy, sandwiched between the seven-year-old twins who kept reaching over my lap to slap at each other. The road
to Jalalabad is a two-hour trek through mountain roads winding along a steep drop, and my stomach lurched with each hairpin
turn. Everyone in the van was talking, talking loudly and at the same time, nearly shrieking, which is how Afghans talk. I
asked one of the twins—Fazila or Karima, I could never tell which was which—if she’d trade her window seat with me so I could
get fresh air on account of my car sickness. She stuck her tongue out and said no. I told her that was fine, but I couldn’t
be held accountable for vomiting on her new dress. A minute later, I was leaning out the window. I watched the cratered road
rise and fall, whirl its tail around the mountainside, counted the multicolored trucks packed with squatting men lumbering
past. I tried closing my eyes, letting the wind slap at my cheeks, opened my mouth to swallow the clean air. I still didn’t
feel better. A finger poked me in the side. It was Fazila/Karima.

“What?” I said.

“I was just telling everyone about the tournament,” Baba said from behind the wheel. Kaka Homayoun and his wives were smiling
at me from the middle row of seats.

“There must have been a hundred kites in the sky that day?” Baba said. “Is that about right, Amir?”

“I guess so,” I mumbled.

“A hundred kites, Homayoun jan. No
laaf.
And the only one still flying at the end of the day was Amir’s. He has the last kite at home, a beautiful blue kite. Hassan
and Amir ran it together.”

“Congratulations,” Kaka Homayoun said. His first wife, the one with the warts, clapped her hands. “Wah wah, Amir jan, we’re
all so proud of you!” she said. The younger wife joined in. Then they were all clapping, yelping their praises, telling me
how proud I’d made them all. Only Rahim Khan, sitting in the passenger seat next to Baba, was silent. He was looking at me
in an odd way.

“Please pull over, Baba,” I said.

“What?”

“Getting sick,” I muttered, leaning across the seat, pressing against Kaka Homayoun’s daughters.

Fazila/Karima’s face twisted. “Pull over, Kaka! His face is yellow! I don’t want him throwing up on my new dress!” she squealed.

Baba began to pull over, but I didn’t make it. A few minutes later, I was sitting on a rock on the side of the road as they
aired out the van. Baba was smoking with Kaka Homayoun who was telling Fazila/Karima to stop crying; he’d buy her another
dress in Jalalabad. I closed my eyes, turned my face to the sun. Little shapes formed behind my eyelids, like hands playing
shadows on the wall. They twisted, merged, formed a single image: Hassan’s brown corduroy pants discarded on a pile of old
bricks in the alley.

KAKA HOMAYOUN’S WHITE, two-story house in Jalalabad had a balcony overlooking a large, walled garden with apple and persimmon
trees. There were hedges that, in the summer, the gardener shaped like animals, and a swimming pool with emerald-colored tiles.
I sat on the edge of the pool, empty save for a layer of slushy snow at the bottom, feet dangling in. Kaka Homayoun’s kids
were playing hide-and-seek at the other end of the yard. The women were cooking and I could smell onions frying already, could
hear the
phht-phht
of a pressure cooker, music, laughter. Baba, Rahim Khan, Kaka Homayoun, and Kaka Nader were sitting on the balcony, smoking.
Kaka Homayoun was telling them he’d brought the projector along to show his slides of France. Ten years since he’d returned
from Paris and he was still showing those stupid slides.

It shouldn’t have felt this way. Baba and I were finally friends. We’d gone to the zoo a few days before, seen Marjan the
lion, and I had hurled a pebble at the bear when no one was watching. We’d gone to Dadkhoda’s Kabob House afterward, across
from Cinema Park, had lamb kabob with freshly baked
naan
from the
tandoor.
Baba told me stories of his travels to India and Russia, the people he had met, like the armless, legless couple in Bombay
who’d been married forty-seven years and raised eleven children. That should have been fun, spending a day like that with
Baba, hearing his stories. I finally had what I’d wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, I felt as empty as this
unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into.

The wives and daughters served dinner—rice,
kofta,
and chicken
qurma
—at sundown. We dined the traditional way, sitting on cushions around the room, tablecloth spread on the floor, eating with
our hands in groups of four or five from common platters. I wasn’t hungry but sat down to eat anyway with Baba, Kaka Faruq,
and Kaka Homayoun’s two boys. Baba, who’d had a few scotches before dinner, was still ranting about the kite tournament, how
I’d outlasted them all, how I’d come home with the last kite. His booming voice dominated the room. People raised their heads
from their platters, called out their congratulations. Kaka Faruq patted my back with his clean hand. I felt like sticking
a knife in my eye.

Later, well past midnight, after a few hours of poker between Baba and his cousins, the men lay down to sleep on parallel
mattresses in the same room where we’d dined. The women went upstairs. An hour later, I still couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing
and turning as my relatives grunted, sighed, and snored in their sleep. I sat up. A wedge of moonlight streamed in through
the window.

“I watched Hassan get raped,” I said to no one. Baba stirred in his sleep. Kaka Homayoun grunted. A part of me was hoping
someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that
followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.

I thought about Hassan’s dream, the one about us swimming in the lake.
There is no monster,
he’d said,
just water.
Except he’d been wrong about that. There was a monster in the lake. It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the
murky bottom. I was that monster.

That was the night I became an insomniac.

I DIDN ’T SPEAK TO HASSAN until the middle of the next week. I had just half-eaten my lunch and Hassan was doing the dishes.
I was walking upstairs, going to my room, when Hassan asked if I wanted to hike up the hill. I said I was tired. Hassan looked
tired too—he’d lost weight and gray circles had formed under his puffed-up eyes. But when he asked again, I reluctantly agreed.

We trekked up the hill, our boots squishing in the muddy snow. Neither one of us said anything. We sat under our pomegranate
tree and I knew I’d made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come up the hill. The words I’d carved on the tree trunk with Ali’s kitchen
knife,
Amir and Hassan:
The Sultans of Kabul
. . . I couldn’t stand looking at them now.

He asked me to read to him from the
Shahnamah
and I told him I’d changed my mind. Told him I just wanted to go back to my room. He looked away and shrugged. We walked back
down the way we’d gone up: in silence. And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t wait for spring.

MY MEMORY OF THE REST of that winter of 1975 is pretty hazy. I remember I was fairly happy when Baba was home. We’d eat together,
go to see a film, visit Kaka Homayoun or Kaka Faruq. Sometimes Rahim Khan came over and Baba let me sit in his study and sip
tea with them. He’d even have me read him some of my stories. It was good and I even believed it would last. And Baba believed
it too, I think. We both should have known better. For at least a few months after the kite tournament, Baba and I immersed
ourselves in a sweet illusion, saw each other in a way that we never had before. We’d actually deceived ourselves into thinking
that a toy made of tissue paper, glue, and bamboo could somehow close the chasm between us.

But when Baba was out—and he was out a lot—I closed myself in my room. I read a book every couple of days, wrote stories,
learned to draw horses. I’d hear Hassan shuffling around the kitchen in the morning, hear the clinking of silverware, the
whistle of the teapot. I’d wait to hear the door shut and only then I would walk down to eat. On my calendar, I circled the
date of the first day of school and began a countdown.

To my dismay, Hassan kept trying to rekindle things between us. I remember the last time. I was in my room, reading an abbreviated
Farsi translation of
Ivanhoe,
when he knocked on my door.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to the baker to buy
naan,
” he said from the other side. “I was wondering if you . . . if you wanted to come along.”

“I think I’m just going to read,” I said, rubbing my temples. Lately, every time Hassan was around, I was getting a headache.

“It’s a sunny day,” he said.

“I can see that.”

“Might be fun to go for a walk.”

“You go.”

“I wish you’d come along,” he said. Paused. Something thumped against the door, maybe his forehead. “I don’t know what I’ve
done, Amir agha. I wish you’d tell me. I don’t know why we don’t play anymore.”

“You haven’t done anything, Hassan. Just go.”

“You can tell me, I’ll stop doing it.”

I buried my head in my lap, squeezed my temples with my knees, like a vice. “I’ll tell you what I want you to stop doing,”
I said, eyes pressed shut.

“Anything.”

“I want you to stop harassing me. I want you to go away,” I snapped. I wished he would give it right back to me, break the
door open and tell me off—it would have made things easier, better. But he didn’t do anything like that, and when I opened
the door minutes later, he wasn’t there. I fell on my bed, buried my head under the pillow, and cried.