The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [118]
The old guy with the leg cast said something in Urdu. I gave him a shrug and shook my head. He pointed to his face, patted it, and grinned a wide, toothless grin. “Very good,” he said in English. “Inshallah.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Farid and Sohrab came in just as I put the mirror away. Sohrab took his seat on the stool, rested his head on the bed’s side rail.
“You know, the sooner we get you out of here the better,” Farid said.
“Dr. Faruqi says—”
“I don’t mean the hospital. I mean Peshawar.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think you’ll be safe here for long,” Farid said. He lowered his voice. “The Taliban have friends here. They will start looking for you.”
“I think they already may have,” I murmured. I thought suddenly of the bearded man who’d wandered into the room and just stood there staring at me.
Farid leaned in. “As soon as you can walk, I’ll take you to Islamabad. Not entirely safe there either, no place in Pakistan is, but it’s better than here. At least it will buy you some time.”
“Farid jan, this can’t be safe for you either. Maybe you shouldn’t be seen with me. You have a family to take care of.”
Farid made a waving gesture. “My boys are young, but they are very shrewd. They know how to take care of their mothers and sisters.” He smiled. “Besides, I didn’t say I’d do it for free.”
“I wouldn’t let you if you offered,” I said. I forgot I couldn’t smile and tried. A tiny streak of blood trickled down my chin. “Can I ask you for one more favor?”
“For you a thousand times over,” Farid said.
And, just like that, I was crying. I hitched gusts of air, tears gushing down my cheeks, stinging the raw flesh of my lips.
“What’s the matter?” Farid said, alarmed.
I buried my face in one hand and held up the other. I knew the whole room was watching me. After, I felt tired, hollow. “I’m sorry,” I said. Sohrab was looking at me with a frown creasing his brow.
When I could talk again, I told Farid what I needed. “Rahim Khan said they live here in Peshawar.”
“Maybe you should write down their names,” Farid said, eyeing me cautiously, as if wondering what might set me off next. I scribbled their names on a scrap of paper towel. “John and Betty Caldwell.”
Farid pocketed the folded piece of paper. “I will look for them as soon as I can,” he said. He turned to Sohrab. “As for you, I’ll pick you up this evening. Don’t tire Amir agha too much.”
But Sohrab had wandered to the window, where a half-dozen pigeons strutted back and forth on the sill, pecking at wood and scraps of old bread.
IN THE MIDDLE DRAWER of the dresser beside my bed, I had found an old National Geographic magazine, a chewed-up pencil, a comb with missing teeth, and what I was reaching for now, sweat pouring down my face from the effort: a deck of cards. I had counted them earlier and, surprisingly, found the deck complete. I asked Sohrab if he wanted to play. I didn’t expect him to answer, let alone play. He’d been quiet since we had fled Kabul. But he turned from the window and said, “The only game I know is panjpar.”
“I feel sorry for you already, because I am a grand master at panjpar. World renowned.”
He took his seat on the stool next to me. I dealt him his five cards. “When your father and I were your age, we used to play this game. Especially in the winter, when it snowed and we couldn’t go outside. We used to play until the sun went down.”
He played me a card and picked one up from the pile. I stole looks at him as he pondered his cards. He was his father in so many ways: the way he fanned out his cards with both hands, the way he squinted while reading them, the way he rarely looked a person in the eye.
We played in silence. I won the first game, let him win the next one, and lost the next five fair and square. “You’re as good as your father, maybe even better,” I said, after my last loss. “I used to beat him sometimes,