Page 54 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 43

me.” He turned to me. “This isn’t the end for you either, Amir.
Someday, I’ll make you face me one on one.” Assef retreated a
step. His disciples followed.
“Your Hazara made a big mistake today, Amir,” he said. They
then turned around, walked away. I watched them walk down the
hill and disappear behind a wall.
Hassan was trying to tuck the slingshot in his waist with a
pair of trembling hands. His mouth curled up into something that
was supposed to be a reassuring smile. It took him five tries to tie
the string of his trousers. Neither one of us said much of anything
as we walked home in trepidation, certain that Assef and his
friends would ambush us every time we turned a corner. They
didn’t and that should have comforted us a little. But it didn’t. Not
at all.

For the next couple of years, the words economic devel-
opment and reform danced on a lot of lips in Kabul. The constitu-
tional monarchy had been abolished, replaced by a republic, led
by a president of the republic. For a while, a sense of rejuvenation
and purpose swept across the land. People spoke of women’s
rights and modern technology.
And for the most part, even though a new leader lived in Arg—
the royal palace in Kabul—life went on as before. People went to
work Saturday through Thursday and gathered for picnics on Fri-
days in parks, on the banks of Ghargha Lake, in the gardens of
Paghman. Multicolored buses and lorries filled with passengers
rolled through the narrow streets of Kabul, led by the constant
shouts of the driver assistants who straddled the vehicles’ rear
bumpers and yelped directions to the driver in their thick Kabuli
accent. On Eid, the three days of celebration after the holy month