The Kite Runner Page 0,93

gave a lecture on the mystic Beydel. I remember how they all stood and clapped. Ha!" He shook his head. "But you saw those young men in the truck. What value do you think they see in Sufism?"

"My mother taught at the university," I said.

"And what was her name?"

"Sofia Akrami."

His eye managed to twinkle through the veil of cataracts. "The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.' Such grace, such dignity, such a tragedy."

"You knew my mother?" I asked, kneeling before the old man.

"Yes indeed," the old beggar said. "We used to sit and talk after class. The last time was on a rainy day just before final exams when we shared a marvelous slice of almond cake together. Almond cake with hot tea and honey. She was rather obviously pregnant by then, and all the more beautiful for it. I will never forget what she said to me that day."

"What? Please tell me." Baba had always described my mother to me in broad strokes, like, "She was a great woman." But what I had always thirsted for were the details: the way her hair glinted in the sunlight, her favorite ice cream flavor, the songs she liked to hum, did she bite her nails? Baba took his memories of her to the grave with him. Maybe speaking her name would have reminded him of his guilt, of what he had done so soon after she had died. Or maybe his loss had been so great, his pain so deep, he couldn't bear to talk about her. Maybe both.

"She said, `I'm so afraid.' And I said, `Why?,' and she said, `Because I'm so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.' I asked her why and she said, `They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you,' and I said, `Hush up, now. Enough of this silliness."

Farid took my arm. "We should go, Amir agha," he said softly. I snatched my arm away. "What else? What else did she say?"

The old man's features softened. "I wish I remembered for you. But I don't. Your mother passed away a long time ago and my memory is as shattered as these buildings. I am sorry."

"But even a small thing, anything at all."

The old man smiled. "I'll try to remember and that's a promise. Come back and find me."

"Thank you," I said. "Thank you so much." And I meant it. Now I knew my mother had liked almond cake with honey and hot tea, that she'd once used the word "profoundly," that she'd fretted about her happiness. I had just learned more about my mother from this old man on the street than I ever did from Baba.

Walking back to the truck, neither one of us commented about what most non-Afghans would have seen as an improbable coincidence, that a beggar on the street would happen to know my mother. Because we both knew that in Afghanistan, and particularly in Kabul, such absurdity was commonplace. Baba used to say, "Take two Afghans who've never met, put them in a room for ten minutes, and they'll figure out how they're related."

We left the old man on the steps of that building. I meant to take him up on his offer, come back and see if he'd unearthed any more stories about my mother. But I never saw him again.WE FOUND THE NEW ORPHANAGE in the northern part of Karteh-Seh, along the banks of the dried-up Kabul River. It was a flat, barracks-style building with splintered walls and windows boarded with planks of wood. Farid had told me on the way there that Karteh-Seh had been one of the most war-ravaged neighborhoods in Kabul, and, as we stepped out of the truck, the evidence was overwhelming. The cratered streets were flanked by little more than ruins of shelled buildings and abandoned homes. We passed the rusted skeleton of an overturned car, a TV set with no screen half-buried in rubble, a wall with the words ZENDA BAD TAL IRAN! (Long live the Taliban!) sprayed in black.

A short, thin, balding man with a shaggy gray beard opened the door. He wore a ragged tweed jacket, a skullcap, and a pair of eyeglasses with one chipped lens resting on the tip of his nose. Behind the glasses, tiny eyes like black peas flitted from me to Farid. "Salaam alaykum," he said.

"Salaam alaykum," I said. I showed him the Polaroid. "We're searching for this boy."

He gave