Page 286 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 275

think at all, because a sober part of me knew that what I had
managed to get myself into was insanity. I was thousands of
miles from my wife, sitting in a room that felt like a holding cell,
waiting for a man I had seen murder two people that same day. It
was insanity. Worse yet, it was irresponsible. There was a very
realistic chance that I was going to render Soraya a biwa, a
widow, at the age of thirty-six. This isn’t you, Amir, part of me
said. You’re gutless. It’s how you were made. And that’s not such a
bad thing because your saving grace is that you’ve never lied to
yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice
as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops
remembering who he is . . . God help him.
There was a coffee table by the sofa. The base was X-shaped,
walnut-sized brass balls studding the ring where the metallic legs
crossed. I’d seen a table like that before. Where? And then it came
to me: at the crowded tea shop in Peshawar, that night I’d gone for
a walk. On the table sat a bowl of red grapes. I plucked one and
tossed it in my mouth. I had to preoccupy myself with something,
anything, to silence the voice in my head. The grape was sweet. I
popped another one in, unaware that it would be the last bit of
solid food I would eat for a long time.
The door opened and the two armed men returned, between
them the tall Talib in white, still wearing his dark John Lennon
glasses, looking like some broad-shouldered, New Age mystic guru.
He took a seat across from me and lowered his hands on the
armrests. For a long time, he said nothing. Just sat there, watching
me, one hand drumming the upholstery, the other twirling
turquoise blue prayer beads. He wore a black vest over the white
shirt now, and a gold watch. I saw a splotch of dried blood on his
left sleeve. I found it morbidly fascinating that he hadn’t changed
clothes after the executions earlier that day.