Page 246 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 235

bring me some tea. He asked about the ride from Peshawar, the
drive over the Khyber Pass.
“I hope you didn’t come across any dozds,” he said. The Khyber
Pass was as famous for its terrain as for the bandits who used that
terrain to rob travelers. Before I could answer, he winked and said
in a loud voice, “Of course no dozd would waste his time on a car
as ugly as my brother’s.”
Farid wrestled the smallest of the three boys to the floor and
tickled him on the ribs with his good hand. The kid giggled and
kicked. “At least I have a car,” Farid panted. “How is your donkey
these days?”
“My donkey is a better ride than your car.”
“Khar khara mishnassah,” Farid shot back. Takes a donkey to
know a donkey. They all laughed and I joined in. I heard female
voices from the adjoining room. I could see half of the room from
where I sat. Maryam and an older woman wearing a brown
hijab—presumably her mother—were speaking in low voices and
pouring tea from a kettle into a pot.
“So what do you do in America, Amir agha?” Wahid asked.
“I’m a writer,” I said. I thought I heard Farid chuckle at that.
“A writer?” Wahid said, clearly impressed. “Do you write about
Afghanistan?”
“Well, I have. But not currently,” I said. My last novel, A Sea-
son for Ashes, had been about a university professor who joins a
clan of gypsies after he finds his wife in bed with one of his stu-
dents. It wasn’t a bad book. Some reviewers had called it a “good”
book, and one had even used the word “riveting.” But suddenly I
was embarrassed by it. I hoped Wahid wouldn’t ask what it was
about.
“Maybe you should write about Afghanistan again,” Wahid