Page 113 - The Kite Runner

102 Khaled Hosseini

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 suffer-
ing. 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