Page 151 - The Kite Runner

140 Khaled Hosseini

smile, heaved a sigh, and gently patted Baba’s shoulder. “Zendagi
migzara,” he said. Life goes on. He turned his eyes to me. “We
Afghans are prone to a considerable degree of exaggeration,
bachem, and I have heard many men foolishly labeled great. But
your father has the distinction of belonging to the minority who
truly deserves the label.” This little speech sounded to me the way
his suit looked: often used and unnaturally shiny.
“You’re flattering me,” Baba said.
“I am not,” the general said, tilting his head sideways and
pressing his hand to his chest to convey humility. “Boys and girls
must know the legacy of their fathers.” He turned to me. “Do you
appreciate your father, bachem? Do you really appreciate him?”
“Balay, General Sahib, I do,” I said, wishing he’d not call me
“my child.”
“Then congratulations, you are already halfway to being a
man,” he said with no trace of humor, no irony, the compliment of
the casually arrogant.
“Padar jan, you forgot your tea.” A young woman’s voice. She
was standing behind us, a slim-hipped beauty with velvety coal
black hair, an open thermos and Styrofoam cup in her hand. I
blinked, my heart quickening. She had thick black eyebrows that
touched in the middle like the arched wings of a flying bird, and
the gracefully hooked nose of a princess from old Persia—maybe
that of Tahmineh, Rostam’s wife and Sohrab’s mother from the
Shahnamah. Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned
lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away.
“You are so kind, my dear,” General Taheri said. He took the
cup from her. Before she turned to go, I saw she had a brown,
sickle-shaped birthmark on the smooth skin just above her left
jawline. She walked to a dull gray van two aisles away and put the