The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [91]
I nodded. “I grew up in Afghanistan.”
Farid snickered again.
“Why do you do that?”
“Never mind,” he murmured.
“No, I want to know. Why do you do that?”
In his rearview mirror, I saw something flash in his eyes. “You want to know?” he sneered. “Let me imagine, Agha sahib. You probably lived in a big two- or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I would bet my first son’s eyes that this is the first time you’ve ever worn a pakol.” He grinned at me, revealing a mouthful of prematurely rotting teeth. “Am I close?”
“Why are you saying these things?” I said.
“Because you wanted to know,” he spat. He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. “That’s the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.”
Rahim Khan had warned me not to expect a warm welcome in Afghanistan from those who had stayed behind and fought the wars. “I’m sorry about your father,” I said. “I’m sorry about your daughters, and I’m sorry about your hand.”
“That means nothing to me,” he said. He shook his head. “Why are you coming back here anyway? Sell off your Baba’s land? Pocket the money and run back to your mother in America?”
“My mother died giving birth to me,” I said.
He sighed and lit another cigarette. Said nothing.
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over, goddamn it!” I said. “I’m going to be sick.” I tumbled out of the truck as it was coming to a rest on the gravel alongside the road.
BY LATE AFTERNOON, the terrain had changed from one of sun-beaten peaks and barren cliffs to a greener, more rural landscape. The main pass had descended from Landi Kotal through Shinwari territory to Landi Khana. We’d entered Afghanistan at Torkham. Pine trees flanked the road, fewer than I remembered and many of them bare, but it was good to see trees again after the arduous drive through the Khyber Pass. We were getting closer to Jalalabad, where Farid had a brother who would take us in for the night.
The sun hadn’t quite set when we drove into Jalalabad, capital of the state of Nangarhar, a city once renowned for its fruit and warm climate. Farid drove past the buildings and stone houses of the city’s central district. There weren’t as many palm trees there as I remembered, and some of the homes had been reduced to roofless walls and piles of twisted clay.
Farid turned onto a narrow unpaved road and parked the Land Cruiser along a dried-up gutter. I slid out of the truck, stretched, and took a deep breath. In the old days, the winds swept through the irrigated plains around Jalalabad where farmers grew sugarcane, and impregnated the city’s air with a sweet scent. I closed my eyes and searched for the sweetness. I didn’t find it.
“Let’s go,” Farid said impatiently. We walked up the dirt road past a few leafless poplars along a row of broken mud walls. Farid led me to a dilapidated one-story house and knocked on the wood-plank door.
A young woman with ocean-green eyes and a white scarf draped around her face peeked out. She saw me first, flinched, spotted Farid and her eyes lit up. “Salaam alaykum, Kaka Farid!”
“Salaam, Maryam jan,” Farid replied and gave her something he’d denied me all day: a warm smile. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. The young woman stepped out of the way, eyeing me a little apprehensively as I followed Farid into the small house.
The adobe ceiling was low, the dirt walls entirely bare, and the only light came from a pair of lanterns set in a corner. We took off our shoes and stepped on the straw mat that covered the floor. Along one of the walls sat three young boys, cross-legged, on a mattress covered with