Page 191 - The Kite Runner

180 Khaled Hosseini

She smiled and took my hand. “I’m so lucky to have found
you. You’re so different from every Afghan guy I’ve met.”
“Let’s never talk about this again, okay?”
“Okay.”
I kissed her cheek and pulled away from the curb. As I drove, I
wondered why I was different. Maybe it was because I had been
raised by men; I hadn’t grown up around women and had never
been exposed firsthand to the double standard with which Afghan
society sometimes treated them. Maybe it was because Baba had
been such an unusual Afghan father, a liberal who had lived by his
own rules, a maverick who had disregarded or embraced societal
customs as he had seen fit.
But I think a big part of the reason I didn’t care about
Soraya’s past was that I had one of my own. I knew all about
regret.

Shortly after Baba’s death, Soraya and I moved into a
one-bedroom apartment in Fremont, just a few blocks away from
the general and Khala Jamila’s house. Soraya’s parents bought us
a brown leather couch and a set of Mikasa dishes as housewarm-
ing presents. The general gave me an additional present, a brand-
new IBM typewriter. In the box, he had slipped a note written in
Farsi:

Amir jan,
I hope you discover many tales on these keys.
General Iqbal Taheri

I sold Baba’s VW bus and, to this day, I have not gone back to
the flea market. I would drive to his gravesite every Friday, and,