The Kite Runner (19 page)

“As you can see, the cancer’s metastasized,” he said. “He’ll have to take steroids to reduce the swelling in his brain and antiseizure medications. And I’d recommend palliative radiation. Do you know what that means?”

I said I did. I’d become conversant in cancer talk.

“All right, then,” he said. He checked his beeper. “I have to go, but you can have me paged if you have any questions.”

“Thank you.”

I spent the night sitting on a chair next to Baba’s bed.

THE NEXT MORNING, the waiting room down the hall was jammed with Afghans. The butcher from Newark. An engineer who’d worked with Baba on his orphanage. They filed in and paid Baba their respects in hushed tones. Wished him a swift recovery.

Baba was awake then, groggy and tired, but awake.

Midmorning, General Taheri and his wife came. Soraya followed. We glanced at each other, looked away at the same time. “How are you, my friend?” General Taheri said, taking Baba’s hand.

Baba motioned to the IV hanging from his arm. Smiled thinly. The general smiled back.

“You shouldn’t have burdened yourselves. All of you,” Baba croaked.

“It’s no burden,” Khanum Taheri said.

“No burden at all. More importantly, do you need anything?” General Taheri said.

“Anything at all? Ask me like you’d ask a brother.”

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I remembered something Baba had said about Pashtuns once. We may be hardheaded and I know we’re far too proud, but, in the hour of need, believe me that there’s no one you’d rather have at your side than a Pashtun.

Baba shook his head on the pillow. “Your coming here has brightened my eyes.” The general smiled and squeezed Baba’s hand. “How are you, Amir jan? Do you need anything?”

The way he was looking at me, the kindness in his eyes... “Nay thank you, General Sahib. I’m...“ A lump shot up in my throat and my eyes teared over. I bolted out of the room.

I wept in the hallway, by the viewing box where, the night before, I’d seen the killer’s face.

Baba’s door opened and Soraya walked out of his room. She stood near me. She was wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans. Her hair was down. I wanted to find comfort in her arms.

“I’m so sorry, Amir,” she said. “We all knew something was wrong, but we had no idea it was this.”

I blotted my eyes with my sleeve. “He didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No.” I tried to smile. She put her hand on mine. Our first touch. I took it. Brought it to my face. My eyes. I let it go. “You’d better go back inside. Or your father will come after me.”

She smiled and nodded. “I should.” She turned to go. “Soraya?”

“Yes?”

“I’m happy you came, It means... the world to me.”

THEY DISCHARGED BABA two days later. They brought in a specialist called a radiation oncologist to talk Baba into getting radiation treatment. Baba refused. They

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tried to talk me into talking him into it. But I’d seen the look on Baba’s face. I thanked them, signed their forms, and took Baba home in my Ford Torino.

That night, Baba was lying on the couch, a wool blanket covering him. I brought him hot tea and roasted almonds. Wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him up much too easily. His shoulder blade felt like a bird’s wing under my fingers. I pulled the blanket back up to his chest where ribs stretched his thin, sallow skin.

“Can I do anything else for you, Baba?”

“Nay, bachem. Thank you.”

I sat beside him. “Then I wonder if you’ll do something for me. If you’re not too exhausted.”

“What?”

“I want you to go khastegari. I want you to ask General Taheri for his daughter’s hand.”

Baba’s dry lips stretched into a smile. A spot of green on a wilted leaf. “Are you sure?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”

“You’ve thought it over?”

“Balay, Baba.”

“Then give me the phone. And my little notebook.”

I blinked. “Now?”

“Then when?”

I smiled. “Okay.” I gave him the phone and the little black notebook where Baba had scribbled his Afghan friends’ numbers.

He looked up the Taheris. Dialed. Brought the receiver to his ear. My heart was doing pirouettes in my chest.

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“Jamila jan? Salaam alaykum,” he said. He introduced himself. Paused. “Much better, thank you. It was so gracious of you to come.” He listened for a while. Nodded. “I’ll remember that, thank you. Is General Sahib home?” Pause. “Thank you.”

His eyes flicked to me. I wanted to laugh for some reason. Or scream. I brought the ball of my hand to my mouth and bit on it. Baba laughed softly through his nose.

“General Sahib, Salaam alaykum... Yes, much much better... Balay... You’re so kind.

General Sahib, I’m calling to ask if I may pay you and Khanum Taheri a visit tomorrow morning. It’s an honorable matter... Yes... Eleven o’clock is just fine. Until then. Khoda hãfez.”

He hung up. We looked at each other. I burst into giggles. Baba joined in.

BABA WET HIS HAIR and combed it back. I helped him into a clean white shirt and knotted his tie for him, noting the two inches of empty space between the collar button and Baba’s neck. I thought of all the empty spaces Baba would leave behind when he was gone, and I made myself think of something else. He wasn’t gone. Not yet. And this was a day for good thoughts. The jacket of his brown suit, the one he’d worn to my graduation, hung over him--too much of Baba had melted away to fill it anymore. I had to roll up the sleeves. I stooped and tied his shoelaces for him.

The Taheris lived in a flat, one-story house in one of the residential areas in Fremont known for housing a large number of Afghans. It had bay windows, a pitched roof, and an enclosed front porch on which I saw potted geraniums. The general’s gray van was parked in the driveway.

I helped Baba out of the Ford and slipped back behind the wheel. He leaned in the passenger window. “Be home, I’ll call you in an hour.”

“Okay, Baba,” I said. “Good luck.”

He smiled.

I drove away. In the rearview mirror, Baba was hobbling up the Taheris’ driveway for one last fatherly duty.

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I PACED THE LIVING ROOM of our apartment waiting for Baba’s call. Fifteen paces long. Ten and a half paces wide. What if the general said no? What if he hated me? I kept going to the kitchen, checking the oven clock.

The phone rang just before noon. It was Baba.

“Well?”

“The general accepted.”

I let out a burst of air. Sat down. My hands were shaking. “He did?”

“Yes, but Soraya jan is upstairs in her room. She wants to talk to you first.”

“Okay.”

Baba said something to someone and there was a double click as he hung up.

“Amir?” Soraya’s voice. “Salaam.”

“My father said yes.”

“I know,” I said. I switched hands. I was smiling. “I’m so happy I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m happy too, Amir. I... can’t believe this is happening.”

I laughed. “I know.”

“Listen,” she said, “I want to tell you something. Something you have to know before...”

“I don’t care what it is.”

“You need to know. I don’t want us to start with secrets. And I’d rather you hear it from me.”

“If it will make you feel better, tell me. But it won’t change anything.”

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There was a long pause at the other end. “When we lived in Virginia, I ran away with an Afghan man. I was eighteen at the time... rebellious... stupid, and... he was into drugs...

We lived together for almost a month. All the Afghans in Virginia were talking about it.

“Padar eventually found us. He showed up at the door and... made me come home. I was hysterical. Yelling. Screaming. Saying I hated him...

“Anyway, I came home and--” She was crying. “Excuse me.” I heard her put the phone down. Blow her nose. “Sorry,” she came back on, sounding hoarse. “When I came home, I saw my mother had had a stroke, the right side of her face was paralyzed and...

I felt so guilty. She didn’t deserve that.

“Padar moved us to California shortly after.” A silence followed.

“How are you and your father now?” I said.

“We’ve always had our differences, we still do, but I’m grateful he came for me that day.

I really believe he saved me.” She paused. “So, does what I told you bother you?”

“A little,” I said. I owed her the truth on this one. I couldn’t lie to her and say that my pride, my iftikhar, wasn’t stung at all that she had been with a man, whereas I had never taken a woman to bed. It did bother me a bit, but I had pondered this quite a lot in the weeks before I asked Baba to go khastegari. And in the end the question that always came back to me was this: How could I, of all people, chastise someone for their past?

“Does it bother you enough to change your mind?”

“No, Soraya. Not even close,” I said. “Nothing you said changes anything. I want us to marry.”

She broke into fresh tears.

I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her how I’d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didn’t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them.

THIRTEEN

When we arrived at the Taheris’ home the next evening--for lafz, the ceremony of

“giving word”--I had to park the Ford across the street. Their driveway was already

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jammed with cars. I wore a navy blue suit I had bought the previous day, after I had brought Baba home from _khastegari_. I checked my tie in the rearview mirror.

“You look khoshteep,” Baba said. Handsome.

“Thank you, Baba. Are you all right? Do you feel up to this?”

“Up to this? It’s the happiest day of my life, Amir,” he said, smiling tiredly.

I COULD HEAR CHATTER from the other side of the door, laughter, and Afghan music playing softly--it sounded like a classical ghazal by Ustad Sarahang. I rang the bell. A face peeked through the curtains of the foyer window and disappeared. “They’re here!” I heard a woman’s voice say. The chatter stopped. Someone turned off the music.

Khanum Taheri opened the door. “_Salaam alaykum_,” she said, beaming. She’d permed her hair, I saw, and wore an elegant, ankle-length black dress. When I stepped into the foyer, her eyes moistened. “You’re barely in the house and I’m crying already, Amir jan,” she said. I planted a kiss on her hand, just as Baba had instructed me to do the night before.

She led us through a brightly lit hallway to the living room. On the wood-paneled walls, I saw pictures of the people who would become my new family: A young bouffant-haired Khanum Taheri and the general--Niagara Falls in the background; Khanum Taheri in a seamless dress, the general in a narrow-lapelled jacket and thin tie, his hair full and black; Soraya, about to board a wooden roller coaster, waving and smiling, the sun glinting off the silver wires in her teeth. A photo of the general, dashing in full military outfit, shaking hands with King Hussein of Jordan. A portrait of Zahir Shah.

The living room was packed with about two dozen guests seated on chairs placed along the walls. When Baba entered, everybody stood up. We went around the room, Baba leading slowly, me behind him, shaking hands and greeting the guests. The general--still in his gray suit--and Baba embraced, gently tapping each other on the back. They said their Salaams in respectful hushed tones.

The general held me at arm’s length and smiled knowingly, as if saying, “Now, this is the right way--the Afghan way--to do it, _bachem_.” We kissed three times on the cheek.

We sat in the crowded room, Baba and I next to each other, across from the general and his wife. Baba’s breathing had grown a little ragged, and he kept wiping sweat off his forehead and scalp with his handkerchief. He saw me looking at him and managed a strained grin. I’m all right,” he mouthed.

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In keeping with tradition, Soraya was not present.

A few moments of small talk and idle chatter followed until the general cleared his throat. The room became quiet and everyone looked down at their hands in respect.

The general nodded toward Baba.

Baba cleared his own throat. When he began, he couldn’t speak in complete sentences without stopping to breathe. “General Sahib, Khanum Jamila jan... it’s with great humility that my son and I... have come to your home today. You are... honorable people... from distinguished and reputable families and... proud lineage. I come with nothing but the utmost ihtiram... and the highest regards for you, your family names, and the memory...

of your ancestors.” He stopped. Caught his breath. Wiped his brow. “Amirjan is my only son... my only child, and he has been a good son to me. I hope he proves... worthy of your kindness. I ask that you honor Amir jan and me... and accept my son into your family.”

The general nodded politely.

“We are honored to welcome the son of a man such as yourself into our family,” he said.

“Your reputation precedes you. I was your humble admirer in Kabul and remain so today. We are honored that your family and ours will be joined.

“Amirjan, as for you, I welcome you to my home as a son, as the husband of my daughter who is the noor of my eye. Your pain will be our pain, your joy our joy. I hope that you will come to see your Khala Jamila and me as a second set of parents, and I pray for your and our lovely Soraya jan’s happiness. You both have our blessings.”

Everyone applauded, and with that signal, heads turned toward the hallway. The moment I’d waited for.

Soraya appeared at the end. Dressed in a stunning winecolored traditional Afghan dress with long sleeves and gold trimmings. Baba’s hand took mine and tightened.