Page 155 - The Kite Runner

144 Khaled Hosseini

cardboard boxes of yellowed encyclopedias, her heels white
against the asphalt, silver bracelets jingling around her slender
wrists. I’d think of the shadow her hair cast on the ground when it
slid off her back and hung down like a velvet curtain. Soraya.
Swap Meet Princess. The morning sun to my yelda.
I invented excuses to stroll down the aisle—which Baba
acknowledged with a playful smirk—and pass the Taheris’ stand. I
would wave at the general, perpetually dressed in his shiny over-
pressed gray suit, and he would wave back. Sometimes he’d get up
from his director’s chair and we’d make small talk about my writ-
ing, the war, the day’s bargains. And I’d have to will my eyes not to
peel away, not to wander to where Soraya sat reading a paperback.
The general and I would say our good-byes and I’d try not to
slouch as I walked away.
Sometimes she sat alone, the general off to some other row to
socialize, and I would walk by, pretending not to know her, but dying
to. Sometimes she was there with a portly middle-aged woman with
pale skin and dyed red hair. I promised myself that I would talk to
her before the summer was over, but schools reopened, the leaves
reddened, yellowed, and fell, the rains of winter swept in and wak-
ened Baba’s joints, baby leaves sprouted once more, and I still hadn’t
had the heart, the dil, to even look her in the eye.
The spring quarter ended in late May 1985. I aced all of my
general education classes, which was a minor miracle given how
I’d sit in lectures and think of the soft hook of Soraya’s nose.
Then, one sweltering Sunday that summer, Baba and I were at
the flea market, sitting at our booth, fanning our faces with news-
papers. Despite the sun bearing down like a branding iron, the
market was crowded that day and sales had been strong—it was
only 12:30 but we’d already made $160. I got up, stretched, and
asked Baba if he wanted a Coke. He said he’d love one.