The Kite Runner Page 0,121

in Pakistan."

"Why didn't you call earlier? I've been sick with tashweesh! My mother's praying and doing nazr every day."

"I'm sorry I didn't call. I'm fine now." I had told her I'd be away a week, two at the most. I'd been gone for nearly a month. I smiled. "And tell Khala Jamila to stop killing sheep."

"What do you mean `fine now'? And what's wrong with your voice?"

"Don't worry about that for now. I'm fine. Really. Soraya, I have a story to tell you, a story I should have told you a long time ago, but first I need to tell you one thing."

"What is it?" she said, her voice lower now, more cautious.

"I'm not coming home alone. I'm bringing a little boy with me." I paused. "I want us to adopt him."

"What?" I checked my watch. "I have fifty-seven minutes left on this stupid calling card and I have so much to tell you. Sit some where." I heard the legs of a chair dragged hurriedly across the wooden floor.

"Go ahead," she said.

Then I did what I hadn't done in fifteen years of marriage: I told my wife everything. Everything. I had pictured this moment so many times, dreaded it, but, as I spoke, I felt something lifting off my chest. I imagined Soraya had experienced something very similar the night of our khastegari, when she'd told me about her past.

By the time I was done with my story, she was weeping.

"What do you think?" I said.

"I don't know what to think, Amir. You've told me so much all at once."

"I realize that."

I heard her blowing her nose. "But I know this much: You have to bring him home. I want you to."

"Are you sure?" I said, closing my eyes and smiling.

"Am I sure?" she said. "Amir, he's your qaom, your family, so he's my qaom too. Of course I'm sure. You can't leave him to the streets." There was a short pause. "What's he like?"

I looked over at Sohrab sleeping on the bed. "He's sweet, in a solemn kind of way."

"Who can blame him?" she said. "I want to see him, Amir. I really do."

"Soraya?"

"Yeah."

"Dostet darum." I love you.

"I love you back," she said. I could hear the smile in her words. "And be careful."

"I will. And one more thing. Don't tell your parents who he is. If they need to know, it should come from me."

"Okay."

We hung up.THE LAWN OUTSIDE the American embassy in Islamabad was neatly mowed, dotted with circular clusters of flowers, bordered by razor-straight hedges. The building itself was like a lot of buildings in Islamabad: flat and white. We passed through several road blocks to get there and three different security officials conducted a body search on me after the wires in my jaws set off the metal detectors. When we finally stepped in from the heat, the airconditioning hit my face like a splash of ice water. The secretary in the lobby, a fifty-something, lean-faced blond woman, smiled when I gave her my name. She wore a beige blouse and black slacks--the first woman I'd seen in weeks dressed in something other than a burqa or a shalwar-kameez. She looked me up on the appointment list, tapping the eraser end of her pencil on the desk. She found my name and asked me to take a seat.

"Would you like some lemonade?" she asked.

"None for me, thanks," I said.

"How about your son?"

"Excuse me?"

"The handsome young gentleman," she said, smiling at Sohrab.

"Oh. That'd be nice, thank you."

Sohrab and I sat on the black leather sofa across the reception desk, next to a tall American flag. Sohrab picked up a magazine from the glass-top coffee table. He flipped the pages, not really looking at the pictures.

"What?" Sohrab said.

"Sorry?"

"You're smiling."

"I was thinking about you," I said.

He gave a nervous smile. Picked up another magazine and flipped through it in under thirty seconds.

"Don't be afraid," I said, touching his arm. "These people are friendly. Relax." I could have used my own advice. I kept shifting in my seat, untying and retying my shoelaces. The secretary placed a tall glass of lemonade with ice on the coffee table. "There you go." Sohrab smiled shyly. "Thank you very much," he said in English. It came out as "Tank you wery match." It was the only English he knew, he'd told me, that and "Have a nice day."

She laughed. "You're most welcome." She walked back to her desk, high heels clicking on the floor.

"Have a nice day," Sohrab said.RAYMOND ANDREWS was