Page 149 - The Kite Runner

138 Khaled Hosseini

behavior among Afghans at the flea market: You greeted the guy
across the aisle, you invited him for a bite of potato bolani or a little
qabuli, and you chatted. You offered tassali, condolences, for the
death of a parent, congratulated the birth of children, and shook
your head mournfully when the conversation turned to Afghanistan
and the Roussis—which it inevitably did. But you avoided the
topic of Saturday. Because it might turn out that the fellow across
the isle was the guy you’d nearly blindsided at the freeway exit
yesterday in order to beat him to a promising garage sale.
The only thing that flowed more than tea in those aisles was
Afghan gossip. The flea market was where you sipped green tea
with almond kolchas, and learned whose daughter had broken off
an engagement and run off with her American boyfriend, who
used to be Parchami—a communist—in Kabul, and who had
bought a house with under-the-table money while still on welfare.
Tea, Politics, and Scandal, the ingredients of an Afghan Sunday at
the flea market.
I ran the stand sometimes as Baba sauntered down the aisle,
hands respectfully pressed to his chest, greeting people he knew
from Kabul: mechanics and tailors selling hand-me-down wool
coats and scraped bicycle helmets, alongside former ambassadors,
out-of-work surgeons, and university professors.
One early Sunday morning in July 1984, while Baba set up, I
bought two cups of coffee from the concession stand and
returned to find Baba talking to an older, distinguished-looking
man. I put the cups on the rear bumper of the bus, next to the
REAGAN/BUSH FOR ’84 sticker.
“Amir,” Baba said, motioning me over, “this is General Sahib,
Mr. Iqbal Taheri. He was a decorated general in Kabul. He
worked for the Ministry of Defense.”
Taheri. Why did the name sound familiar?