The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [111]
“Like what?”
Assef ’s brow twitched. “Like pride in your people, your customs, your language. Afghanistan is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage, and someone has to take out the garbage.”
“That’s what you were doing in Mazar, going door-to-door? Taking out the garbage?”
“Precisely.”
“In the west, they have an expression for that,” I said. “They call it ethnic cleansing.”
“Do they?” Assef ’s face brightened. “Ethnic cleansing. I like it. I like the sound of it.”
“All I want is the boy.”
“Ethnic cleansing,” Assef murmured, tasting the words.
“I want the boy,” I said again. Sohrab’s eyes flicked to me. They were slaughter sheep’s eyes. They even had the mascara—I remembered how, on the day of Eid of qorban, the mullah in our backyard used to apply mascara to the eyes of the sheep and feed it a cube of sugar before slicing its throat. I thought I saw pleading in Sohrab’s eyes.
“Tell me why,” Assef said. He pinched Sohrab’s earlobe between his teeth. Let go. Sweat beads rolled down his brow.
“That’s my business.”
“What do you want to do with him?” he said. Then a coy smile. “Or to him.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said.
“How would you know? Have you tried it?”
“I want to take him to a better place.”
“Tell me why.”
“That’s my business,” I said. I didn’t know what had emboldened me to be so curt, maybe the fact that I thought I was going to die anyway.
“I wonder,” Assef said. “I wonder why you’ve come all this way, Amir, come all this way for a Hazara? Why are you here? Why are you really here?”
“I have my reasons,” I said.
“Very well then,” Assef said, sneering. He shoved Sohrab in the back, pushed him right into the table. Sohrab’s hips struck the table, knocking it upside down and spilling the grapes. He fell on them, face first, and stained his shirt purple with grape juice. The table’s legs, crossing through the ring of brass balls, were now pointing to the ceiling.
“Take him, then,” Assef said. I helped Sohrab to his feet, swatted the bits of crushed grape that had stuck to his pants like barnacles to a pier.
“Go, take him,” Assef said, pointing to the door.
I took Sohrab’s hand. It was small, the skin dry and calloused. His fingers moved, laced themselves with mine. I saw Sohrab in that Polaroid again, the way his arm was wrapped around Hassan’s leg, his head resting against his father’s hip. They’d both been smiling. The bells jingled as we crossed the room.
We made it as far as the door.
“Of course,” Assef said behind us, “I didn’t say you could take him for free.”
I turned. “What do you want?”
“You have to earn him.”
“What do you want?”
“We have some unfinished business, you and I,” Assef said. “You remember, don’t you?”
He needn’t have worried. I would never forget the day after Daoud Khan overthrew the king. My entire adult life, whenever I heard Daoud Khan’s name, what I saw was Hassan with his slingshot pointed at Assef ’s face, Hassan saying that they’d have to start calling him One-Eyed Assef instead of Assef Goshkhor. I remember how envious I’d been of Hassan’s bravery. Assef had backed down, promised that in the end he’d get us both. He’d kept that promise with Hassan. Now it was my turn.
“All right,” I said, not knowing what else there was to say. I wasn’t about to beg; that would have only sweetened the moment for him.
Assef called the guards back into the room. “I want you to listen to me,” he said to them. “In a moment, I’m going to close the door. Then he and I are going to finish an old bit of business. No matter what you hear, don’t come in! Do you hear me? Don’t come in!”
The guards nodded. Looked from Assef to me. “Yes, Agha sahib.”
“When it’s all done, only one of us will walk out of this room alive,” Assef said. “If it’s him, then he’s earned his freedom and you let him pass, do you understand?”
The older guard shifted on his feet. “But Agha sahib—”
“If it’s him, you let him pass!” Assef screamed. The two men flinched but nodded again. They turned to go. One of them reached