Page 314 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 303

sion of a hut; maybe in America, when Baba looked at me, he saw
a little bit of Hassan.
Your father, like you, was a tortured soul, Rahim Khan had
written. Maybe so. We had both sinned and betrayed. But Baba
had found a way to create good out of his remorse. What had I
done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I had
betrayed, and then try to forget it all? What had I done, other
than become an insomniac?
What had I ever done to right things?
When the nurse—not Aisha but a red-haired woman whose
name escapes me—walked in with a syringe in hand and asked me
if I needed a morphine injection, I said yes.

They removed the chest tube early the next morning,
and Armand gave the staff the go-ahead to let me sip apple juice.
I asked Aisha for a mirror when she placed the cup of juice on the
dresser next to my bed. She lifted her bifocals to her forehead as
she pulled the curtain open and let the morning sun flood the
room. “Remember, now,” she said over her shoulder, “it will look
better in a few days. My son-in-law was in a moped accident last
year. His handsome face was dragged on the asphalt and became
purple like an eggplant. Now he is beautiful again, like a Lolly-
wood movie star.”
Despite her reassurances, looking in the mirror and seeing the
thing that insisted it was my face left me a little breathless. It
looked like someone had stuck an air pump nozzle under my skin
and had pumped away. My eyes were puffy and blue. The worst of
it was my mouth, a grotesque blob of purple and red, all bruise
and stitches. I tried to smile and a bolt of pain ripped through my
lips. I wouldn’t be doing that for a while. There were stitches