Page 375 - The Kite Runner

364 Khaled Hosseini

Jamila to join him in a few months once he had settled. She
missed him terribly—and worried about his health there—and we
had insisted she stay with us for a while.
The previous Thursday, the first day of spring, had been the
Afghan New Year’s Day—the Sawl-e-Nau—and Afghans in the
Bay Area had planned celebrations throughout the East Bay and
the peninsula. Kabir, Soraya, and I had an additional reason to
rejoice: Our little hospital in Rawalpindi had opened the week
before, not the surgical unit, just the pediatric clinic. But it was a
good start, we all agreed.
It had been sunny for days, but Sunday morning, as I swung
my legs out of bed, I heard raindrops pelting the window. Afghan
luck, I thought. Snickered. I prayed morning namaz while Soraya
slept—I didn’t have to consult the prayer pamphlet I had
obtained from the mosque anymore; the verses came naturally
now, effortlessly.
We arrived around noon and found a handful of people taking
cover under a large rectangular plastic sheet mounted on six poles
spiked to the ground. Someone was already frying bolani; steam
rose from teacups and a pot of cauliflower aush. A scratchy old
Ahmad Zahir song was blaring from a cassette player. I smiled a
little as the four of us rushed across the soggy grass field, Soraya
and I in the lead, Khala Jamila in the middle, Sohrab behind us,
the hood of his yellow raincoat bouncing on his back.
“What’s so funny?” Soraya said, holding a folded newspaper
over her head.
“You can take Afghans out of Paghman, but you can’t take
Paghman out of Afghans,” I said.
We stooped under the makeshift tent. Soraya and Khala
Jamila drifted toward an overweight woman frying spinach bolani.