Page 124 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 113

remark to the tailor while getting fitted for a suit might land you
in the dungeons of Poleh-charkhi. Complain about the curfew to
the butcher and next thing you knew, you were behind bars staring
at the muzzle end of a Kalashnikov. Even at the dinner table, in
the privacy of their home, people had to speak in a calculated
manner—the rafiqs were in the classrooms too; they’d taught chil-
dren to spy on their parents, what to listen for, whom to tell.
What was I doing on this road in the middle of the night? I
should have been in bed, under my blanket, a book with dog-eared
pages at my side. This had to be a dream. Had to be. Tomorrow
morning, I’d wake up, peek out the window: No grim-faced Rus-
sian soldiers patrolling the sidewalks, no tanks rolling up and
down the streets of my city, their turrets swiveling like accusing
fingers, no rubble, no curfews, no Russian Army Personnel Carri-
ers weaving through the bazaars. Then, behind me, I heard Baba
and Karim discussing the arrangement in Jalalabad over a smoke.
Karim was reassuring Baba that his brother had a big truck of
“excellent and first-class quality,” and that the trek to Peshawar
would be very routine. “He could take you there with his eyes
closed,” Karim said. I overheard him telling Baba how he and his
brother knew the Russian and Afghan soldiers who worked the
checkpoints, how they had set up a “mutually profitable” arrange-
ment. This was no dream. As if on cue, a MiG suddenly screamed
past overhead. Karim tossed his cigarette and produced a hand-
gun from his waist. Pointing it to the sky and making shooting
gestures, he spat and cursed at the MiG.
I wondered where Hassan was. Then the inevitable. I vomited
on a tangle of weeds, my retching and groaning drowned in the
deafening roar of the MiG.

...