Page 359 - The Kite Runner
P. 359

348              Khaled Hosseini


          soaked razor sitting on the toilet tank—the same razor I had
          shaved with the day before—and his eyes, still half open but light-
          less. That more than anything. I want to forget the eyes.
              Soon, sleep comes and I let it take me. I dream of things I
          can’t remember later.


          Someone is tapping me  on the shoulder.  I open my eyes.
          There is a man kneeling beside me. He is wearing a cap like the
          men behind the swinging double doors and a paper surgical mask
          over his mouth—my heart sinks when I see a drop of blood on the
          mask. He has taped a picture of a doe-eyed little girl to his beeper.
          He unsnaps his mask and I’m glad I don’t have to look at Sohrab’s
          blood anymore. His skin is dark like the imported Swiss chocolate
          Hassan and I used to buy from the bazaar in Shar-e-Nau; he has
          thinning hair and hazel eyes topped with curved eyelashes. In a
          British accent, he tells me his name is Dr. Nawaz, and suddenly I
          want to be away from this man, because I don’t think I can bear to
          hear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself
          deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to
          mutter that prayer again:
              La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.
              They had to transfuse several units of red cells—
              How will I tell Soraya?
              Twice, they had to revive him—
              I will do namaz, I will do zakat.
              They would have lost him if his heart hadn’t been young and
          strong—
              I will fast.
              He is alive.
              Dr. Nawaz smiles. It takes me a moment to register what he
          has just said. Then he says more but I don’t hear him. Because I
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