Page 242 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 231

Rahim Khan had wanted me to stay with him a few more days,
to plan more thoroughly. But I knew I had to leave as soon as pos-
sible. I was afraid I’d change my mind. I was afraid I’d deliberate,
ruminate, agonize, rationalize, and talk myself into not going. I
was afraid the appeal of my life in America would draw me back,
that I would wade back into that great, big river and let myself for-
get, let the things I had learned these last few days sink to the bot-
tom. I was afraid that I’d let the waters carry me away from what
I had to do. From Hassan. From the past that had come calling.
And from this one last chance at redemption. So I left before
there was any possibility of that happening. As for Soraya, telling
her I was going back to Afghanistan wasn’t an option. If I had, she
would have booked herself on the next flight to Pakistan.
We had crossed the border and the signs of poverty were every-
where. On either side of the road, I saw chains of little villages
sprouting here and there, like discarded toys among the rocks, bro-
ken mud houses and huts consisting of little more than four
wooden poles and a tattered cloth as a roof. I saw children dressed
in rags chasing a soccer ball outside the huts. A few miles later, I
spotted a cluster of men sitting on their haunches, like a row of
crows, on the carcass of an old burned-out Soviet tank, the wind
fluttering the edges of the blankets thrown around them. Behind
them, a woman in a brown burqa carried a large clay pot on her
shoulder, down a rutted path toward a string of mud houses.
“Strange,” I said.
“What?”
“I feel like a tourist in my own country,” I said, taking in a
goatherd leading a half-dozen emaciated goats along the side of
the road.
Farid snickered. Tossed his cigarette. “You still think of this
place as your country?”