The Kite Runner Page 0,111

blushed a little. "Bas, it's not worthy of thanks," he said. I turned to Sohrab. He was wearing a new outfit, light brown pirhan-tumban that looked a bit big for him, and a black skullcap. He was looking down at his feet, toying with the IV line coiled on the bed.

"We were never properly introduced," I said. I offered him my hand. "I am Amir."

He looked at my hand, then to me. "You are the Amir agha Father told me about?" he said.

"Yes." I remembered the words from Hassan's letter. I have told much about you to Farzana jan and Sohrab, about us growing up together and playing games and running in the streets. They laugh at the stories of all the mischief you and I used to cause! "I owe you thanks too, Sohrab jan," I said. "You saved my life."

He didn't say anything. I dropped my hand when he didn't take it. "I like your new clothes," I mumbled.

"They're my son's," Farid said. "He has outgrown them. They fit Sohrab pretty well, I would say." Sohrab could stay with him, he said, until we found a place for him. "We don't have a lot of room, but what can I do? I can't leave him to the streets. Besides, my children have taken a liking to him. Ha, Sohrab?" But the boy just kept looking down, twirling the line with his finger.

"I've been meaning to ask," Farid said, a little hesitantly. "What happened in that house? What happened between you and the Talib?"

"Let's just say we both got what we deserved," I said.

Farid nodded, didn't push it. It occurred to me that somewhere between the time we had left Peshawar for Afghanistan and now, we had become friends. "I've been meaning to ask something too."

"What?" I didn't want to ask. I was afraid of the answer. "Rahim Khan," I said.

"He's gone."

My heart skipped. "Is he--"

"No, just... gone." He handed me a folded piece of paper and a small key. "The landlord gave me this when I went looking for him. He said Rahim Khan left the day after we did."

"Where did he go?"

Farid shrugged. "The landlord didn't know He said Rahim Khan left the letter and the key for you and took his leave." He checked his watch. "I'd better go. Bia, Sohrab."

"Could you leave him here for a while?" I said. "Pick him up later?" I turned to Sohrab. "Do you want to stay here with me for a little while?"

He shrugged and said nothing.

"Of course," Farid said. "I'll pick him up just before evening namaz."THERE WERE THREE OTHER PATIENTS in my room. Two older men, one with a cast on his leg, the other wheezing with asthma, and a young man of fifteen or sixteen who'd had appendix surgery. The old guy in the cast stared at us without blinking, his eyes switching from me to the Hazara boy sitting on a stool. My roommates' families--old women in bright shalwar-kameezes, children, men wearing skullcaps--shuffled noisily in and out of the room. They brought with them pakoras, naan, sa,nosas, biryani. Sometimes people just wandered into the room, like the tall, bearded man who walked in just before Farid and Sohrab arrived. He wore a brown blanket wrapped around him. Aisha asked him something in Urdu. He paid her no attention and scanned the room with his eyes. I thought he looked at me a little longer than necessary. When the nurse spoke to him again, he just spun around and left.

"How are you?" I asked Sohrab. He shrugged, looked at his hands.

"Are you hungry? That lady there gave me a plate of biryani, but I can't eat it," I said. I didn't know what else to say to him. "You want it?"

He shook his head.

"Do you want to talk?"

He shook his head again.

We sat there like that for a while, silent, me propped up in bed, two pillows behind my back, Sohrab on the three-legged stool next to the bed. I fell asleep at some point, and, when I woke up, daylight had dimmed a bit, the shadows had stretched, and Sohrab was still sitting next to me. He was still looking down at his hands.THAT NIGHT, after Farid picked up Sohrab, I unfolded Rahim Khan's letter. I had delayed reading it as long as possible. It read: Amirjan, Inshallah, you have reached this letter safely. I pray that I have not put you in harm's way and that Afghanistan has not been too unkind to you.