Page 371 - The Kite Runner

360 Khaled Hosseini

Sohrab took the sweater from her.
“Hello, young man,” was all the general said, leaning with
both hands on his cane, looking at Sohrab the way one might
study a bizarre decorative item at someone’s house.
I answered, and answered again, Khala Jamila’s questions
about my injuries—I’d asked Soraya to tell them I had been
mugged—reassuring her that I had no permanent damage, that
the wires would come out in a few weeks so I’d be able to eat her
cooking again, that, yes, I would try rubbing rhubarb juice and
sugar on my scars to make them fade faster.
The general and I sat in the living room and sipped wine while
Soraya and her mother set the table. I told him about Kabul and
the Taliban. He listened and nodded, his cane on his lap, and
tsk’ed when I told him of the man I had spotted selling his artifi-
cial leg. I made no mention of the executions at Ghazi Stadium
and Assef. He asked about Rahim Khan, whom he said he had met
in Kabul a few times, and shook his head solemnly when I told
him of Rahim Khan’s illness. But as we spoke, I caught his eyes
drifting again and again to Sohrab sleeping on the couch. As if we
were skirting around the edge of what he really wanted to know.
The skirting finally came to an end over dinner when the gen-
eral put down his fork and said, “So, Amir jan, you’re going to tell
us why you have brought back this boy with you?”
“Iqbal jan! What sort of question is that?” Khala Jamila said.
“While you’re busy knitting sweaters, my dear, I have to deal
with the community’s perception of our family. People will ask.
They will want to know why there is a Hazara boy living with our
daughter. What do I tell them?”
Soraya dropped her spoon. Turned on her father. “You can tell
them—”