The Kite Runner

ular flight. "Do they have them where you live?"

"San Francisco? I guess so. I can't say I've seen too many, though."

"Oh," he said. I was hoping he'd ask more, but he dealt another hand and asked if we could eat. I opened the paper bag and gave him his meatball sandwich. My lunch consisted of yet another cup of blended bananas and oranges--I'd rented Mrs. Fayyaz's blender for the week. I sucked through the straw and my mouth filled with the sweet, blended fruit. Some of it dripped from the corner of my lips. Sohrab handed me a napkin and watched me dab at my lips. I smiled and he smiled back.

"Your father and I were brothers," I said. It just came out. I had wanted to tell him the night we had sat by the mosque, but I hadn't. But he had a right to know; I didn't want to hide anything anymore. "Half brothers, really. We had the same father."

Sohrab stopped chewing. Put the sandwich down. "Father never said he had a brother."

"That's because he didn't know."

"Why didn't he know?"

"No one told him," I said. "No one told me either. I just found out recently."

Sohrab blinked. Like he was looking at me, really looking at me, for the very first time. "But why did people hide it from Father and you?"

"You know, I asked myself that same question the other day. And there's an answer, but not a good one. Let's just say they didn't tell us because your father and I . . . we weren't supposed to be brothers."

"Because he was a Hazara?"

I willed my eyes to stay on him. "Yes."

"Did your father," he began, eyeing his food, "did your father love you and my father equally?"

I thought of a long ago day at Ghargha Lake, when Baba had allowed himself to pat Hassan on the back when Hassan's stone had out-skipped mine. I pictured Baba in the hospital room, beaming as they removed the bandages from Hassan's lips. "I think he loved us equally but differently."

"Was he ashamed of my father?"

"No," I said. "I think he was ashamed of himself."

He picked up his sandwich and nibbled at it silently.

WE LEFT LATE THAT AFTERNOON, tired from the heat, but tired in a pleasant way. All the way back, I felt Sohrab watching me. I had the driver pull over at a store that sold calling cards. I gave him the money and a tip for running in and buying me one.

That night, we were lying on our beds, watching a talk show on TV. Two clerics with pepper gray long beards and white turbans were taking calls from the faithful all over the world. One caller from Finland, a guy named Ayub, asked if his teenaged son could go to hell for wearing his baggy pants so low the seam of his underwear showed.

"I saw a picture of San Francisco once," Sohrab said.

"Really?"

"There was a red bridge and a building with a pointy top."

"You should see the streets," I said.

"What about them?" He was looking at me now. On the TV screen, the two mullahs were consulting each other.

"They're so steep, when you drive up all you see is the hood of your car and the sky," I said.

"It sounds scary," he said. He rolled to his side, facing me, his back to the TV.

"It is the first few times," I said. "But you get used to it."

"Does it snow there?"

"No, but we get a lot of fog. You know that red bridge you saw?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes the fog is so thick in the morning, all you see is the tip of the two towers poking through."

There was wonder in his smile. "Oh."

"Sohrab?"

"Yes."

"Have you given any thought to what I asked you before?"

His smiled faded. He rolled to his back. Laced his hands under his head. The mullahs decided that Ayub's son would go to hell after all for wearing his pants the way he did. They claimed it was in the Haddith. "I've thought about it," Sohrab said.

"And?"

"It scares me."

"I know it's a little scary," I said, grabbing onto that loose thread of hope. "But you'll learn English so fast and you'll get used to--"

"That's not what I mean. That scares me too, but . . ."

"But what?"

He rolled toward me again. Drew his knees up. "What if you get tired of me? What if your wife doesn't like me?"

I struggled out of bed and crossed the space between us. I sat beside him. "I won't ever get tired of you, Sohrab," I said. "Not ever. That's a promise. You're my nephew, remember? And Soraya jan, she's a very kind woman. Trust me, she's going to love you. I promise that too." I chanced something. Reached down and took his hand. He tightened up a little but let me hold it.

"I don't want to go to another orphanage," he said.

"I won't ever let that happen. I promise you that." I cupped his hand in both of mine. "Come home with me."

His tears were soaking the pillow. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then his hand squeezed mine back. And he nodded. He nodded.

THE CONNECTION WENT THROUGH on the fourth try. The phone rang three times before she picked it up. "Hello?" It was 7:30 in the evening in Islamabad, roughly about the same time in the morning in California. That meant Soraya had been up for an hour, getting ready for school.

"It's me," I said. I was sitting on my bed, watching Sohrab sleep.

"Amir!" she almost screamed. "Are you okay? Where are you?"

"I'm in Pakistan."

"Why didn't you call earlier? I've been sick with tashweesh! My mother's praying and doing nazr every day."

"I'm sorry I didn't call. I'm fine now." I had told her I'd be away a week, two at the most. I'd been gone for nearly a month. I smiled. "And tell Khala Jamila to stop killing sheep."

"What do you mean 'fine now'? And what's wrong with your voice?"

"Don't worry about that for now. I'm fine. Really. Soraya, I have a story to tell you, a story I should have told you a long time ago, but first I need to tell you one thing."

"What is it?" she said, her voice lower now, more cautious.

"I'm not coming home alone. I'm bringing a little boy with me." I paused. "I want us to adopt him."

"What?"

I checked my watch. "I have fifty-seven minutes left on this stupid calling card and I have so much to tell you. Sit somewhere." I heard the legs of a chair dragged hurriedly across the wooden floor.

"Go ahead," she said.

Then I did what I hadn't done in fifteen years of marriage: I told my wife everything. Everything. I had pictured this moment so many times, dreaded it, but, as I spoke, I felt something lifting off my chest. I imagined Soraya had experienced something very similar the night of our khastegari, when she'd told me about her past.

By the time I was done with my story, she was weeping.

"What do you think?" I said.

"I don't know what to think, Amir. You've told me so much all at once."

"I realize that."

I heard her blowing her nose. "But I know this much: You have to bring him home. I want you to."

"Are you sure?" I said, closing my eyes and smiling.

"Am I sure?" she said. "Amir, he's your qaom, your family, so he's my qaom too. Of course I'm sure. You can't leave him to the streets." There was a short pause. "What's he like?"

I looked over at Sohrab sleeping on the bed. "He's sweet, in a solemn kind of way."

"Who can blame him?" she said. "I want to see him, Amir. I really do."

"Soraya?"

"Yeah."

"Dostet darum." I love you.

"I love you back," she said. I could hear the smile in her words. "And be careful."

"I will. And one more thing. Don't tell your parents who he is. If they need to know, it should come from me."

"Okay."

We hung up.

THE LAWN OUTSIDE the American embassy in Islamabad was neatly mowed, dotted with circular clusters of flowers, bordered by razor-straight hedges. The building itself was like a lot of buildings in Islamabad: flat and white. We passed through several roadblocks to get there and three different security officials conducted a body search on me after the wires in my jaws set off the metal detectors. When we finally stepped in from the heat, the air-conditioning hit my face like a splash of ice water. The secretary in the lobby, a fifty-something, lean-faced blond woman, smiled when I gave her my name. She wore a beige blouse and black slacks--the first woman I'd seen in weeks dressed in something other than a burqa or a shalwar-kameez. She looked me up on the appointment list, tapping the eraser end of her pencil on the desk. She found my name and asked me to take a seat.

"Would you like some lemonade?" she asked.

"None for me, thanks," I said.

"How about your son?"

"Excuse me?"

"The handsome young gentleman," she said, smiling at Sohrab.

"Oh. That'd be nice, thank you."

Sohrab and I sat on the black leather sofa across the reception desk, next to a tall American flag. Sohrab picked up a magazine from the glass-top coffee table. He flipped the pages, not really looking at the pictures.

"What?" Sohrab said.

"Sorry?"

"You're smiling."

"I was thinking about you," I said.

He gave a nervous smile. Picked up another magazine and flipped through it in under thirty seconds.

"Don't be afraid," I said, touching his arm. "These people are friendly. Relax." I could have used my own advice. I kept shifting in my seat, untying and retying my shoelaces. The secretary placed a tall glass of lemonade with ice on the coffee table. "There you go."

Sohrab smiled shyly. "Thank you very much," he said in English. It came out as "Tank you wery match." It was the only English he knew, he'd told me, that and "Have a nice day."

She laughed. "You're most welcome." She walked back to her desk, high heels clicking on the floor.

"Have a nice day," Sohrab said.

RAYMOND ANDREWS was a short fellow with small hands, nails perfectly trimmed, wedding band on the ring finger. He gave me a curt little shake; it felt like squeezing a sparrow. Those are the hands that hold our fates, I thought as Sohrab and I seated ourselves across from his desk. A Les Miserables poster was nailed to the wall behind Andrews next to a topographical map of the U.S. A pot of tomato plants basked in the sun on the windowsill.

"Smoke?" he asked, his voice a deep baritone that was at odds with his slight stature.

"No thanks," I said, not caring at all for the way Andrews's eyes barely gave Sohrab a glance, or the way he didn't look at me when he spoke. He pulled open a desk drawer and lit a cigarette from a half-empty pack. He also produced a bottle of lotion from the same drawer. He looked at his tomato plants as he rubbed lotion into his hands, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Then he closed the drawer, put his elbows on the desktop, and exhaled. "So," he said, crinkling his gray eyes against the smoke, "tell me your story."

I felt like Jean Valjean sitting across from Javert. I reminded myself that I was on American soil now, that this guy was on my side, that he got paid for helping people like me. "I want to adopt this boy, take him back to the States with me," I said.

"Tell me your story," he repeated, crushing a flake of ash on the neatly arranged desk with his index finger, flicking it into the trash can.

I gave him the version I had worked out in my head since I'd hung up with Soraya. I had gone into Afghanistan to bring back my half brother's son. I had found the boy in squalid conditions, wasting away in an orphanage. I had paid the orphanage director a sum of money and withdrawn the boy. Then I had brought him to Pakistan.

"You are the boy's half uncle?"

"Yes."

He checked his watch. Leaned and turned the tomato plants on the sill. "Know anyone who can attest to that?"

"Yes, but I don't know where he is now."

He turned to me and nodded. I tried to read his face and couldn't. I wondered if he'd ever tried those little hands of his at poker.

"I assume getting your jaws wired isn't the latest fashion statement,"

he said. We were in trouble, Sohrab and I, and I knew it then. I told him I'd gotten mugged in Peshawar.

"Of course," he said. Cleared his throat. "Are you Muslim?"

"Yes."

"Practicing?"

"Yes." In truth, I didn't remember the last time I had laid my forehead to the ground in prayer. Then I did remember: the day Dr. Amani gave Baba his prognosis. I had kneeled on the prayer rug, remembering only fragments of verses I had learned in school.

"Helps your case some, but not much," he said, scratching a spot on the flawless part in his sandy hair.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I reached for Sohrab's hand, intertwined my fingers with his. Sohrab looked uncertainly from me to Andrews.

"There's a long answer and I'm sure I'll end up giving it to you. You want the short one first?"

"I guess," I said.

Andrews crushed his cigarette, his lips pursed. "Give it up."

"I'm sorry?"

"Your petition to adopt this young fellow. Give it up. That's my advice to you."

"Duly noted," I said. "Now, perhaps you'll tell me why."

"That means you want the long answer," he said, his voice impassive, not reacting at all to my curt tone. He pressed his hands palm to palm, as if he were kneeling before the Virgin Mary. "Let's assume the story you gave me is true, though I'd bet my pension a good deal of it is either fabricated or omitted. Not that I care, mind you. You're here, he's here, that's all that matters. Even so, your petition faces significant obstacles, not the least of which is that this child is not an orphan."

"Of course he is."

"Not legally he isn't."

"His parents were executed in the street. The neighbors saw it," I said, glad we were speaking in English.

"You have death certificates?"

"Death certificates? This is Afghanistan we're talking about. Most people there don't have birth certificates."

His glassy eyes didn't so much as blink. "I don't make the laws, sir.

Your outrage notwithstanding, you still need to prove the parents are deceased. The boy has to be declared a legal orphan."

"But--"

"You wanted the long answer and I'm giving it to you. Your next problem is that you need the cooperation of the child's country of origin. Now, that's difficult under the best of circumstances, and, to quote you, this is Afghanistan we're talking about. We don't have an American embassy in Kabul. That makes things extremely complicated. Just about impossible."

"What are you saying, that I should throw him back on the streets?" I said.

"I didn't say that."

"He was sexually abused," I said, thinking of the bells around Sohrab's ankles, the mascara on his eyes.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Andrews's mouth said. The way he was looking at me, though, we might as well have been talking about the weather. "But that is not going to make the INS issue this young fellow a visa."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if you want to help, send money to a reputable relief organization. Volunteer at a refugee camp. But at this point in time, we strongly discourage U.S. citizens from attempting to adopt Afghan children."

I got up. "Come on, Sohrab," I said in Farsi. Sohrab slid next to me, rested his head on my hip. I remembered the Polaroid of him and Hassan standing that same way. "Can I ask you something, Mr. Andrews?"

"Yes."

"Do you have children?"

For the first time, he blinked.

"Well, do you? It's a simple question."

He was silent.

"I thought so," I said, taking Sohrab's hand. "They ought to put someone in your chair who knows what it's like to want a child." I turned to go, Sohrab trailing me.

"Can I ask you a question?" Andrews called.

"Go ahead."

"Have you promised this child you'll take him with you?"

"What if I have?"

He shook his head. "It's a dangerous business, making promises to kids." He sighed and opened his desk drawer again. "You mean to pursue this?" he said, rummaging through papers.

"I mean to pursue this."

He produced a business card. "Then I advise you to get a good immigration lawyer. Omar Faisal works here in Islamabad. You can tell him I sent you."

I took the card from him. "Thanks," I muttered.

"Good luck," he said. As we exited the room, I glanced over my shoulder. Andrews was standing in a rectangle of sunlight, absently staring out the window, his hands turning the potted tomato plants toward the sun, petting them lovingly.

"TAKE CARE," the secretary said as we passed her desk.

"Your boss could use some manners," I said. I expected her to roll her eyes, maybe nod in that "I know, everybody says that," kind of way. Instead, she lowered her voice. "Poor Ray. He hasn't been the same since his daughter died."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Suicide," she whispered.

ON THE TAXI RIDE back to the hotel, Sohrab rested his head on the window, kept staring at the passing buildings, the rows of gum trees. His breath fogged the glass, cleared, fogged it again. I waited for him to ask me about the meeting but he didn't.

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the closed bathroom door the water was running. Since the day we'd checked into the hotel, Sohrab took a long bath every night before bed. In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity. Now Sohrab spent almost an hour a night in the bath, soaking in the soapy water, scrubbing. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I called Soraya. I glanced at the thin line of light under the bathroom door. Do you feel clean yet, Sohrab?

I passed on to Soraya what Raymond Andrews had told me. "So what do you think?" I said.

"We have to think he's wrong." She told me she had called a few adoption agencies that arranged international adoptions. She hadn't yet found one that would consider doing an Afghan adoption, but she was still looking.

"How are your parents taking the news?"

"Madar is happy for us. You know how she feels about you, Amir, you can do no wrong in her eyes. Padar . . . well, as always, he's a little harder to read. He's not saying much."

"And you? Are you happy?"

I heard her shifting the receiver to her other hand. "I think we'll be good for your nephew, but maybe that little boy will be good for us too."

"I was thinking the same thing."

"I know it sounds crazy, but I find myself wondering what his favorite qurma will be, or his favorite subject in school. I picture myself helping him with homework . . ." She laughed. In the bathroom, the water had stopped running. I could hear Sohrab in there, shifting in the tub, spilling water ove