Page 365 - The Kite Runner

354 Khaled Hosseini

He was shaking his head.
“What, Sohrab?”
He winced when he spoke again in that husky voice, barely
above a whisper. “Tired of everything.”
I sighed and slumped in my chair. There was a band of sun-
light on the bed between us, and, for just a moment, the ashen
gray face looking at me from the other side of it was a dead ringer
for Hassan’s, not the Hassan I played marbles with until the mul-
lah belted out the evening azan and Ali called us home, not the
Hassan I chased down our hill as the sun dipped behind clay
rooftops in the west, but the Hassan I saw alive for the last time,
dragging his belongings behind Ali in a warm summer downpour,
stuffing them in the trunk of Baba’s car while I watched through
the rain-soaked window of my room.
He gave a slow shake of his head. “Tired of everything,” he
repeated.
“What can I do, Sohrab? Please tell me.”
“I want—” he began. He winced again and brought his hand to
his throat as if to clear whatever was blocking his voice. My eyes
were drawn again to his wrist wrapped tightly with white gauze
bandages. “I want my old life back,” he breathed.
“Oh, Sohrab.”
“I want Father and Mother jan. I want Sasa. I want to play
with Rahim Khan sahib in the garden. I want to live in our house
again.” He dragged his forearm across his eyes. “I want my old life
back.”
I didn’t know what to say, where to look, so I gazed down at
my hands. Your old life, I thought. My old life too. I played in the
same yard, Sohrab. I lived in the same house. But the grass is dead
and a stranger’s jeep is parked in the driveway of our house, piss-
ing oil all over the asphalt. Our old life is gone, Sohrab, and