Page 325 - The Kite Runner

314 Khaled Hosseini

gray. He smelled vaguely of some tropical fruit I couldn’t quite
recognize.
“Boys, they like to run around,” he said, sighing. “I have three
of them. All day they are running around, troubling their mother.”
He fanned his face with the newspaper, staring at my jaws.
“I don’t think he’s out running around,” I said. “And we’re not
from here. I’m afraid he might get lost.”
He bobbed his head from side to side. “Then you should have
kept an eye on the boy, mister.”
“I know,” I said. “But I fell asleep and when I woke up, he was
gone.”
“Boys must be tended to, you know.”
“Yes,” I said, my pulse quickening. How could he be so oblivi-
ous to my apprehension? He shifted the newspaper to his other
hand, resumed the fanning. “They want bicycles now.”
“Who?”
“My boys,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Daddy, Daddy, please buy
us bicycles and we’ll not trouble you. Please, Daddy!’” He gave a
short laugh through his nose. “Bicycles. Their mother will kill me,
I swear to you.”
I imagined Sohrab lying in a ditch. Or in the trunk of some car,
bound and gagged. I didn’t want his blood on my hands. Not his
too. “Please . . .” I said. I squinted. Read his name tag on the lapel of
his short-sleeve blue cotton shirt. “Mr. Fayyaz, have you seen him?”
“The boy?”
I bit down. “Yes, the boy! The boy who came with me. Have
you seen him or not, for God’s sake?”
The fanning stopped. His eyes narrowed. “No getting smart
with me, my friend. I am not the one who lost him.”
That he had a point did not stop the blood from rushing to my
face. “You’re right. I’m wrong. My fault. Now, have you seen him?”