Page 293 - The Kite Runner

282 Khaled Hosseini

“Why?”
“I’ll pay you for him,” I said. “I can have money wired.”
“Money?” Assef said. He tittered. “Have you ever heard of
Rockingham? Western Australia, a slice of heaven. You should see
it, miles and miles of beach. Green water, blue skies. My parents
live there, in a beachfront villa. There’s a golf course behind the
villa and a little lake. Father plays golf every day. Mother, she
prefers tennis—Father says she has a wicked backhand. They own
an Afghan restaurant and two jewelry stores; both businesses are
doing spectacularly.” He plucked a red grape. Put it, lovingly, in
Sohrab’s mouth. “So if I need money, I’ll have them wire it to me.”
He kissed the side of Sohrab’s neck. The boy flinched a little,
closed his eyes again. “Besides, I didn’t fight the Shorawi for
money. Didn’t join the Taliban for money either. Do you want to
know why I joined them?”
My lips had gone dry. I licked them and found my tongue had
dried too.
“Are you thirsty?” Assef said, smirking.
“No.”
“I think you’re thirsty.”
“I’m fine,” I said. The truth was, the room felt too hot sud-
denly—sweat was bursting from my pores, prickling my skin. And
was this really happening? Was I really sitting across from Assef?
“As you wish,” he said. “Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, how I
joined the Taliban. Well, as you may remember, I wasn’t much of
a religious type. But one day I had an epiphany. I had it in jail. Do
you want to hear?”
I said nothing.
“Good. I’ll tell you,” he said. “I spent some time in jail, at
Poleh-Charkhi, just after Babrak Karmal took over in 1980. I