Page 311 - The Kite Runner

300 Khaled Hosseini

biryani. Sometimes people just wandered into the room, like the
tall, bearded man who walked in just before Farid and Sohrab
arrived. He wore a brown blanket wrapped around him. Aisha
asked him something in Urdu. He paid her no attention and
scanned the room with his eyes. I thought he looked at me a little
longer than necessary. When the nurse spoke to him again, he just
spun around and left.
“How are you?” I asked Sohrab. He shrugged, looked at his
hands.
“Are you hungry? That lady there gave me a plate of biryani,
but I can’t eat it,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say to him.
“You want it?”
He shook his head.
“Do you want to talk?”
He shook his head again.
We sat there like that for a while, silent, me propped up in
bed, two pillows behind my back, Sohrab on the three-legged
stool next to the bed. I fell asleep at some point, and, when I woke
up, daylight had dimmed a bit, the shadows had stretched, and
Sohrab was still sitting next to me. He was still looking down at
his hands.

That night, after Farid picked up Sohrab, I unfolded Rahim
Khan’s letter. I had delayed reading it as long as possible. It read:

Amir jan,
Inshallah, you have reached this letter safely. I pray that I
have not put you in harm’s way and that Afghanistan has
not been too unkind to you. You have been in my prayers
since the day you left.