Page 166 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 155

bargained the three weeks down to one for the CAT scan, two to
see the doctor.
The visit with the pulmonologist, Dr. Schneider, was going
well until Baba asked him where he was from. Dr. Schneider said
Russia. Baba lost it.
“Excuse us, Doctor,” I said, pulling Baba aside. Dr. Schneider
smiled and stood back, stethoscope still in hand.
“Baba, I read Dr. Schneider’s biography in the waiting room.
He was born in Michigan. Michigan! He’s American, a lot more
American than you and I will ever be.”
“I don’t care where he was born, he’s Roussi,” Baba said, gri-
macing like it was a dirty word. “His parents were Roussi, his
grandparents were Roussi. I swear on your mother’s face I’ll break
his arm if he tries to touch me.”
“Dr. Schneider’s parents fled from Shorawi, don’t you see?
They escaped!”
But Baba would hear none of it. Sometimes I think the only
thing he loved as much as his late wife was Afghanistan, his late
country. I almost screamed with frustration. Instead, I sighed and
turned to Dr. Schneider. “I’m sorry, Doctor. This isn’t going to
work out.”
The next pulmonologist, Dr. Amani, was Iranian and Baba
approved. Dr. Amani, a soft-spoken man with a crooked mustache
and a mane of gray hair, told us he had reviewed the CAT scan
results and that he would have to perform a procedure called a
bronchoscopy to get a piece of the lung mass for pathology. He
scheduled it for the following week. I thanked him as I helped
Baba out of the office, thinking that now I had to live a whole
week with this new word, “mass,” an even more ominous word
than “suspicious.” I wished Soraya were there with me.
It turned out that, like Satan, cancer had many names. Baba’s