Page 333 - The Kite Runner

322 Khaled Hosseini

Fayyaz’s blender for the week. I sucked through the straw and my
mouth filled with the sweet, blended fruit. Some of it dripped
from the corner of my lips. Sohrab handed me a napkin and
watched me dab at my lips. I smiled and he smiled back.
“Your father and I were brothers,” I said. It just came out. I
had wanted to tell him the night we had sat by the mosque, but I
hadn’t. But he had a right to know; I didn’t want to hide anything
anymore. “Half brothers, really. We had the same father.”
Sohrab stopped chewing. Put the sandwich down. “Father
never said he had a brother.”
“That’s because he didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t he know?”
“No one told him,” I said. “No one told me either. I just found
out recently.”
Sohrab blinked. Like he was looking at me, really looking at
me, for the very first time. “But why did people hide it from Father
and you?”
“You know, I asked myself that same question the other day.
And there’s an answer, but not a good one. Let’s just say they
didn’t tell us because your father and I . . . we weren’t supposed to
be brothers.”
“Because he was a Hazara?”
I willed my eyes to stay on him. “Yes.”
“Did your father,” he began, eyeing his food, “did your father
love you and my father equally?”
I thought of a long ago day at Ghargha Lake, when Baba had
allowed himself to pat Hassan on the back when Hassan’s stone
had outskipped mine. I pictured Baba in the hospital room, beam-
ing as they removed the bandages from Hassan’s lips. “I think he
loved us equally but differently.”
“Was he ashamed of my father?”