Page 206 - The Kite Runner

FIFTEEN

Three hours after my flight landed in Peshawar, I was sitting on
shredded upholstery in the backseat of a smoke-filled taxicab. My
driver, a chain-smoking, sweaty little man who introduced himself
as Gholam, drove nonchalantly and recklessly, averting collisions
by the thinnest of margins, all without so much as a pause in the
incessant stream of words spewing from his mouth:
“. . . terrible what is happening in your country, yar. Afghani
people and Pakistani people they are like brothers, I tell you.
Muslims have to help Muslims so . . .”
I tuned him out, switched to a polite nodding mode. I remem-
bered Peshawar pretty well from the few months Baba and I had
spent there in 1981. We were heading west now on Jamrud road,
past the Cantonment and its lavish, high-walled homes. The bus-
tle of the city blurring past me reminded me of a busier, more
crowded version of the Kabul I knew, particularly of the Kocheh-
Morgha, or Chicken Bazaar, where Hassan and I used to buy
chutney-dipped potatoes and cherry water. The streets were