Page 104 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 93

smeared in red like he’d been shot by a firing squad. I fell to my
knees, tired, spent, frustrated.
Then Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked toward
me. He opened it and crushed it against his own forehead.
“There,” he croaked, red dripping down his face like blood. “Are
you satisfied? Do you feel better?” He turned around and started
down the hill.
I let the tears break free, rocked back and forth on my knees.
“What am I going to do with you, Hassan? What am I going to do
with you?” But by the time the tears dried up and I trudged down
the hill, I knew the answer to that question.

I turned thirteen that summer of 1976, Afghanistan’s
next to last summer of peace and anonymity. Things between
Baba and me were already cooling off again. I think what started
it was the stupid comment I’d made the day we were planting
tulips, about getting new servants. I regretted saying it—I really
did—but I think even if I hadn’t, our happy little interlude would
have come to an end. Maybe not quite so soon, but it would have.
By the end of the summer, the scraping of spoon and fork against
the plate had replaced dinner table chatter and Baba had resumed
retreating to his study after supper. And closing the door. I’d gone
back to thumbing through Hãfez and Khayyám, gnawing my nails
down to the cuticles, writing stories. I kept the stories in a stack
under my bed, keeping them just in case, though I doubted Baba
would ever again ask me to read them to him.
Baba’s motto about throwing parties was this: Invite the whole
world or it’s not a party. I remember scanning over the invitation
list a week before my birthday party and not recognizing at least