Page 280 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 269

town since I’d arrived, rode into the stadium through the gates.
The crowd rose to its feet. A woman dressed in a green burqa sat
in the cab of one truck, a blindfolded man in the other. The trucks
drove around the track, slowly, as if to let the crowd get a long
look. It had the desired effect: People craned their necks, pointed,
stood on tiptoes. Next to me, Farid’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and
down as he mumbled a prayer under his breath.
The red trucks entered the playing field, rode toward one end
in twin clouds of dust, sunlight reflecting off their hubcaps. A
third truck met them at the end of the field. This one’s cab was
filled with something and I suddenly understood the purpose of
those two holes behind the goalposts. They unloaded the third
truck. The crowd murmured in anticipation.
“Do you want to stay?” Farid said gravely.
“No,” I said. I had never in my life wanted to be away from a
place as badly as I did now. “But we have to stay.”
Two Talibs with Kalashnikovs slung across their shoulders
helped the blindfolded man from the first truck and two others
helped the burqa-clad woman. The woman’s knees buckled under
her and she slumped to the ground. The soldiers pulled her up
and she slumped again. When they tried to lift her again, she
screamed and kicked. I will never, as long as I draw breath, forget
the sound of that scream. It was the cry of a wild animal trying to
pry its mangled leg free from the bear trap. Two more Talibs
joined in and helped force her into one of the chest-deep holes.
The blindfolded man, on the other hand, quietly allowed them to
lower him into the hole dug for him. Now only the accused pair’s
torsos protruded from the ground.
A chubby, white-bearded cleric dressed in gray garments stood
near the goalposts and cleared his throat into a handheld micro-
phone. Behind him the woman in the hole was still screaming. He