Page 141 - The Kite Runner

130 Khaled Hosseini

the day manager at the gas station. But I’d seen the way he winced
and rubbed his wrists on damp days. The way sweat erupted on
his forehead as he reached for his bottle of antacids after meals.
“Besides, I didn’t bring us here for me, did I?”
I reached across the table and put my hand on his. My student
hand, clean and soft, on his laborer’s hand, grubby and calloused.
I thought of all the trucks, train sets, and bikes he’d bought me in
Kabul. Now America. One last gift for Amir.
Just one month after we arrived in the U.S., Baba found a job
off Washington Boulevard as an assistant at a gas station owned
by an Afghan acquaintance—he’d started looking for work the
same week we arrived. Six days a week, Baba pulled twelve-hour
shifts pumping gas, running the register, changing oil, and wash-
ing windshields. I’d bring him lunch sometimes and find him look-
ing for a pack of cigarettes on the shelves, a customer waiting on
the other side of the oil-stained counter, Baba’s face drawn and
pale under the bright fluorescent lights. The electronic bell over
the door would ding-dong when I walked in, and Baba would look
over his shoulder, wave, and smile, his eyes watering from fatigue.
The same day he was hired, Baba and I went to our eligibility
officer in San Jose, Mrs. Dobbins. She was an overweight black
woman with twinkling eyes and a dimpled smile. She’d told me
once that she sang in church, and I believed her—she had a voice
that made me think of warm milk and honey. Baba dropped the
stack of food stamps on her desk. “Thank you but I don’t want,”
Baba said. “I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I
work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don’t like it free
money.”
Mrs. Dobbins blinked. Picked up the food stamps, looked
from me to Baba like we were pulling a prank, or “slipping her a
trick” as Hassan used to say. “Fifteen years I been doin’ this job