Page 359 - The Kite Runner

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