Page 160 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 149

because I had won at the genetic lottery that had determined
my sex.
I could never read the thoughts in the general’s eyes, but I
knew this much about his wife: If I was going to have an adversary
in this—whatever this was—it would not be her.
“Sit down, Amir jan,” she said. “Soraya, get him a chair,
bachem. And wash one of those peaches. They’re sweet and
fresh.”
“Nay, thank you,” I said. “I should get going. My father’s
waiting.”
“Oh?” Khanum Taheri said, clearly impressed that I’d done the
polite thing and declined the offer. “Then here, at least have this.”
She threw a handful of kiwis and a few peaches into a paper bag
and insisted I take them. “Carry my Salaam to your father. And
come back to see us again.”
“I will. Thank you, Khala jan,” I said. Out of the corner of my
eye, I saw Soraya looking away.

“I thought you were getting Cokes,” Baba said,
taking the bag of peaches from me. He was looking at me in a
simultaneously serious and playful way. I began to make some-
thing up, but he bit into a peach and waved his hand. “Don’t
bother, Amir. Just remember what I said.”

That night in bed, I thought of the way dappled sunlight
had danced in Soraya’s eyes, and of the delicate hollows above her
collarbone. I replayed our conversation over and over in my head.
Had she said I heard you write or I heard you’re a writer? Which