Page 340 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 329

the neatly arranged desk with his index finger, flicking it into the
trash can.
I gave him the version I had worked out in my head since I’d
hung up with Soraya. I had gone into Afghanistan to bring back
my half brother’s son. I had found the boy in squalid conditions,
wasting away in an orphanage. I had paid the orphanage director
a sum of money and withdrawn the boy. Then I had brought him
to Pakistan.
“You are the boy’s half uncle?”
“Yes.”
He checked his watch. Leaned and turned the tomato plants
on the sill. “Know anyone who can attest to that?”
“Yes, but I don’t know where he is now.”
He turned to me and nodded. I tried to read his face and
couldn’t. I wondered if he’d ever tried those little hands of his at
poker.
“I assume getting your jaws wired isn’t the latest fashion state-
ment,” he said. We were in trouble, Sohrab and I, and I knew it
then. I told him I’d gotten mugged in Peshawar.
“Of course,” he said. Cleared his throat. “Are you Muslim?”
“Yes.”
“Practicing?”
“Yes.” In truth, I didn’t remember the last time I had laid my
forehead to the ground in prayer. Then I did remember: the day
Dr. Amani gave Baba his prognosis. I had kneeled on the prayer
rug, remembering only fragments of verses I had learned in school.
“Helps your case some, but not much,” he said, scratching a
spot on the flawless part in his sandy hair.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I reached for Sohrab’s hand,
intertwined my fingers with his. Sohrab looked uncertainly from
me to Andrews.