By:Khaled Hosseini
First published: 2003
SETTING
The story takes place in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States from 1975 until the present day.THEMES
Strength of CharacterThe theme of strength of character is the most prevalent theme. Amir commits terrible sins against his friend and half-brother, Hassan. The story of what he does and how he seeks and finds atonement is a lesson for everyone who wants to do find a way to be good again.
The Resilience of the Human Spirit
The theme of the resilience of the human spirit is also an important idea. Even though Amir has committed these sins, the inner strength that he had all along, but thought was somehow missing from his character, breaks though to allow him to find Sohrab and free him from the clutches of Assef. In this same way, when Sohrab falls into a great inner depression and tries to commit suicide, the spirit within him emerges and he finds his way to happiness again.
Loyalty and Devotion
Another theme would be loyalty and devotion. This is especially evident in the relationship between Amir and Hassan. Despite the fact that Hassan is actually Amir’s half-brother, he is his servant, because no one but Baba and Ali know the truth. Nonetheless, even though Hassan is the victim of discrimination and class structure, he is completely devoted and loyal to Amir, both as his servant and as his friend. It takes Amir many years to atone for how terribly he treated the loyalty and love that Hassan always offered no matter what the circumstances.
CHARACTER LIST
Amir
He is the narrator of the story who tells how he grew up in Afghanistan and the sins he had committed against his friend and half-brother, Hassan. It is his journey to redemption that is the premise of this tale.
Hassan
He is the best and kindest character in the story. He is Amir’s best friend and as Amir later learns, he is also his half-brother. He faces discrimination every day, because he is a Hazara, a minority whom the Pashtuns treat like slaves. The sins committed against him - being raped by Assef while Amir does nothing to help him - are immediately forgiven, because he loves Amir so much.
Baba
He is Amir and Hassan’s father, but because it would be shameful to admit Hassan, a Hazara , was his son, the secret remains hidden long after his death. In Amir’s mind, he is larger than life, the man who was supposed to have wrestled a bear. But, in reality, he was a man tormented by his secrets. He dies in America, never again going home to his beloved Afghanistan. While he lives there, he is poor and often dirty from his job. So the way he is forced to live and the fact that he can never go home again may be his punishment for what he did to both Amir and Hassan. Amir knows, however, that like him, his father is basically a good man who finds a way to be good again.
Ali
His character is that of the loyal servant to Baba and a father figure to both Hassan and Amir. He often suffers humiliation at the hands of Pashtun boys like Assef, but he never bends his will to them and continues to be a figure of goodness.
Sohrab
He is Hassan’s son and the boy for whom Amir faces the Taliban to free. Like his father, he is raped by Assef and later betrayed by Amir. He even tries to commit suicide after Amir breaks his promise not to put him in an orphanage. However, Amir’s willingness to help Sohrab face life again saves them both.
Soraya
Amir’s wife, she, too, suffers from mistakes she made as a young woman, but accepts her humiliation for running away with a man and becomes a good, decent human being. She is denied motherhood, perhaps because that is how she must expiate her own sins. However, she is rewarded when Sohrab becomes her son and she and Amir finally have a complete family.
Rahim Khan
He was Baba’s best friend and business partner and was a major part of Amir and Hassan’s life. He seems to understand Amir’s desperate need for his father’s approval and tries to fill the gap Baba leaves in their relationship. He knows all along how Amir betrayed Hassan and is the one to call him and tell him there is still time to be good. He also sets into the motion the plan to get Sohrab out of Afghanistan; he knows that this is the only way to make up for never telling Amir and Hassan that they were brothers. Like Amir, he too finds a way to be good. He goes away to die alone, knowing that calling Amir back to his homeland was the right thing to do.
Assef
He is the villain of the story, a Pashtun boy who bullies Amir and Hassan and tries to humiliate Ali. He has a sociopathic nature even as a boy and admires Hitler for what he had done in eliminating the Jews. He wants to emulate this evil German by destroying all the Hazaras. He never forgets a slight from anyone and plots revenge. He becomes a Talib when the Taliban takes over Afghanistan and uses his power to kill innocent Afghans, especially Hazaras. He kills Hassan when he won’t give up his home and he tries to kill Amir. It is only Sohrab’s slingshot that finally defeats this evil man.
Chapter One
The Kite Runner begins with our thus-far nameless protagonist explaining that the past cannot be forgotten. A single moment in time defined him and has been affecting him for the last twenty-six years. This moment was in 1975 when he was twelve years old and hid near a crumbling alleyway in his hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan. When the protagonist's friend, Rahim Khan, calls him out of the blue, he knows that his past sins are coming back to haunt him even in the new life he has built in San Francisco. He remembers Hassan, whom he calls "the harelipped kite runner," saying "For you, a thousand times over." Rahim's words also echo in his head, "There is a way to be good again." These two phrases will become focal points for the rest of the novel and our protagonist's story.
Chapter Two
The protagonist remembers sitting in trees with Hassan when they were boys and annoying the neighbors. Any mischief they perpetrated was the protagonist's idea, but even when Hassan's father, Ali, scolded Hassan, he never told on the protagonist. Hassan's father was a servant to the protagonist's father, Baba and lived in a small servant's house on his property. Baba's house was widely considered the most beautiful one in Kabul. There Baba held large dinner parties and entertained friends, including Rahim Khan, in his smoking room. Though the protagonist was often surrounded by adults, he never knew his mother because she died in childbirth. Hassan never knew his mother, either, because she eloped with a performance troupe a few days after his birth. The protagonist always felt a special affinity with Hassan because he too was motherless. It was not a surprise that Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, left Ali. The only things these first cousins had in common were being of the Hazara ethnicity and the Shi'a religion. Otherwise, Sanaubar was nineteen years younger than Ali, gorgeous, and reportedly promiscuous. Meanwhile Ali was a pious man afflicted by paralysis of the lower face muscles and a crippled leg. Rumor had it that Sanaubar taunted Ali for his disabilities just as cruelly as strangers and refused to even hold the infant Hassan because of his cleft lip.
One night, after hearing so many insults thrown at Hassan because he was Hazara, the protagonist secretly read a summary of Hazara history. He found out that the Hazara people were descended from Moguls, owing to their flattened, "Chinese-like" facial features. The Hazaras were brutally oppressed throughout their history for being Shi'a instead of Sunni Muslim. His own people, the Pashtun, oppressed the Hazaras. The protagonist wondered why Baba had never told him any of this. He pitied Hassan for being a hated minority because he was an unusually gentle and kind person, "incapable of hurting anyone." In lieu of the boys' mothers, a kindly woman nursed and sang to both of them. Ali used to remind the boys that they were bound together because they had "fed from the same breasts." The boys were indeed like brothers. The protagonist explains that his first word was "Baba" while Hassan's was his name, "Amir." He says that the event that transpired in 1975, to which he alluded in Chapter One, was "already laid in those first words."
Chapter Three
Amir describes Baba as being a huge and intimidating man who stood six feet, five inches tall and was purported to have wrestled a bear because of the long scars on his back. Despite his huge size, Baba was softhearted. He even devoted three years to funding and building an orphanage. Amir was proud to have such a successful father. Together with Rahim Khan, Baba owned several successful businesses and he had also married well; Amir's mother, Sofia Akrami, was a highly respected and educated poetry professor of royal descent. However, Baba's successes took him away from home and from Amir most of the time. When he was present, he was usually aloof.
One day in school, a Mullah or Muslim teacher told Amir and his classmates that drinking was a sin. When he got home, Amir asked Baba, a frequent drinker, about what the teacher had said. Baba told Amir that ultra religious people were not only wrong in their convictions but dangerous. He said, prophetically, "God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands." Then he explained to Amir that the only sin is stealing, whether a piece of property or a life. Baba knew about having things stolen firsthand; his father's life was stolen by a thief who stabbed him to death while robbing his house. Amir was grateful that Baba spoke to him so personally, but felt a simultaneous guilt for not being more like his father. He always felt that Baba hated him a little for 'killing' his mother as he was born.
Because Baba was aloof and often absent, Amir turned his attention to books. By the age of eleven, he could recite more poetry than anyone in his class at school. Baba wanted Amir to be an athlete like him, but Amir was not talented at soccer and did not have an interest in Baba's choice sport. Once, Baba took Amir to the yearly Buzkashi tournament. Buzkashi is a traditional Afghani sport in which a "highly skilled horseman" called a chapandaz from one team must retrieve an animal carcass from inside the other team's stampede and drop it in a special scoring circle while being chased by chapandaz from the other team who try to steal the carcass from him. As they sat watching the tournament, Baba pointed out Henry Kissinger, who was sitting in the bleachers, to Amir. Before Amir had a chance to ask Baba who Henry Kissinger was, one chapandaz fell off his horse and was trampled to death. Amir cried all the way home while Baba tried unsuccessfully to hide his disgust at his son's weak disposition. Back at home, Amir overheard Baba complaining to Rahim Khan about how Amir was always lost in his books and did not stand up for himself. Rahim Khan told Baba that he was self-centered, but Baba maintained that Amir was "missing something." Amir heard him say, "If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I'd never believe he's my son."
Chapter Four
Chapter four opens with the story of how Ali became a part of Baba's family. In 1933, the same year Baba was born, two intoxicated young drivers struck and killed a Hazara couple. Only their five-year-old son, Ali, survived. Baba's father was asked to decide the young men's punishment. After sending the young men to serve in the army, he took Ali into his household. Baba and Ali grew up as quasi-brothers, just like Amir and Hassan a generation later. But despite their closeness, Baba never considered Ali his friend just as Amir never considered Hassan his. According to Amir, their ethnic and religious differences kept them from being true friends or family. At the same time, all these years later, Amir says Hassan is "the face of Afghanistan" to him. The boys played and got into mischief together like any other two boys, except that Hassan made Amir's breakfast, cleaned his room, and did all his other household chores. While Amir went to school, Hassan stayed home to do housework with Ali. After school, Amir would read to Hassan, who loved books despite his illiteracy.
One day, Amir pretended to read to Hassan from a book but made up his own story to trick Hassan. When Amir finished, Hassan clapped and told him it was the best story he had ever read him. Amir was so happy that he kissed Hassan on the cheek, and that night he wrote his first short story. It was about a man who had a cup that turned his tears into pearls. The man grew greedy and tried to find ways to make himself cry as much as possible. It ended with him sitting on top of a mountain of pearls, holding his wife's slain body. Amir took the story to Baba, but he refused to read it. Rahim Khan read the story and gave Amir a piece of paper on which he had written "Bravo." The rest of his note explained that Amir had achieved irony in his story, which is something many writers never manage to master. He encouraged Amir to put his talent to use. In the letter, he called Amir his friend, and for a moment Amir wished that Rahim Khan was his father instead of Baba. He was so overcome with guilt that he vomited.
Chapter Five
Before Amir could respond to Hassan's criticism of his story, gunfire erupted outside. The boys huddled together with Ali until Baba came home. For the first time, Amir saw fear on his father's face. He was even glad for the violence for a moment, because Baba held him and Hassan close. The events of that night, July 17, 1973, were a precursor to the end of life as Afghanis knew it. What would follow was the Communist coup d'etat of 1978, followed by the Russian occupation beginning in December of 1979. On that July night, the king's brother, Daoud Khan, had seized Zahir Shah's kingdom while he was away. Afghanistan had gone overnight from a monarchy to a republic. Tired of listening to the radio news, Amir and Hassan went to climb their favorite tree. On the way, a young "sociopath" named Assef and his friends confronted them. He taunted Hassan for being a Hazara; Assef also had a habit of taunting Ali, whom he called Babalu. He praised Hitler and then said that he wanted to finish what Hitler started and rid Afghanistan of Hazaras. He called Amir and Baba "a disgrace to Afghanistan" for taking in Hazaras. Just as Assef threatened to punch Amir with his brass knuckles, Hassan pointed his slingshot at the bully and threatened to take out his eye. Assef and his friends retreated, but promised to come back for Amir and Hassan later.
On Hassan's birthday, Baba summoned him to the house as usual to collect his present. To Hassan, Amir, and Ali's shock, Baba had hired a plastic surgeon to correct Hassan's harelip. Amir was jealous that Baba was giving Hassan such special attention. The surgery went well and Hassan could finally smile an unbroken smile. Ironically, Amir explains, it was soon after that Hassan stopped smiling for good.
Chapter Six
Chapter six opens in winter. Amir loved the icy season because the school was shut down for its duration. But he loved winter even more because then he flew kites with Baba, the only activity that consistently brought them closer. The pinnacle of winter for every boy in Kabul was the yearly kite-fighting tournament. Every year, Amir and Hassan saved their allowances to buy materials to make their kites, but they were not very good craftsmen. When Baba realized this, he started taking them to Saifo's to buy their kites, always buying the boys equally good kites. In the tournament, contestants used their kites' glass strings to cut others' kite strings until only one triumphant kite remained in the sky. Hassan was Amir's assistant. When kites fell out of the sky, especially the last kite to fall, those not flying their own kites would chase them and try to catch them-they were called "kite runners." Hassan was an exceptionally good kite runner. Once, Hassan convinced Amir to run the opposite way that a fallen kite was floating and sit under a tree with him to wait. While they sat, Amir taunted Hassan a little. Amir was unsettled to see Hassan's face change the way it sometimes did, as though there was an unfamiliar, sinister, hidden face behind his usual expression. After that uncomfortable moment, however, Hassan's face changed back to normal and the coveted kite came floating into his open arms.
In the winter of 1975, Amir watched Hassan run his last kite. That year, there was to be the biggest kite tournament the boys had ever seen. Boys from several neighborhoods would be competing in Amir and Hassan's neighborhood, Wazir Akhbar Khan. One evening, Baba suggested that Amir would win the tournament this year. After that, Amir became determined to win so that he could finally prove to Baba that he was a winner and a worthy son. The night before the tournament, Hassan and Amir huddled under blankets playing cards while Baba, Rahim Khan, and Assef's father met in the next room. Upon hearing that Afghanistan might get television under president Daoud Khan, Amir promised to buy Hassan a television set one day. Hassan responded that he would put it on the table in his and Ali's hut. Amir was dismayed than Hassan had accepted his fate of always living in the hut and being a servant. As though he read Amir's mind, Hassan told him, "I like where I live."
Chapter Seven
The morning of the tournament, Hassan described his dream to Amir. In it, the two boys amazed the people of Kabul by swimming in a lake and proving it contained no monster. Then the boys were lauded as heroes and became the lake's owners. When Amir said he didn't want to fly a kite, Hassan told him, "no monster," and convinced him to proceed. Amir and Hassan were a great team and theirs was one of the last two kites left in the sky. Their hands were bloodied from holding the sharp string, but their hearts were filled with hope of winning the tournament. Amir focused hard and to his surprise, he cut the last, blue kite and won. The true victory for Amir was seeing Baba hollering with pride. Hassan took off to run the blue kite and Amir followed after bringing his kite home. A merchant told Amir that he had seen Hassan running by with the blue kite. He finally found Hassan facing Assef and his two friends, who were trying to steal the kite from him. Assef told Hassan that even Amir considered him worthless, but Hassan defended himself and Amir, saying that they were friends. Amir stood frozen in shock as the fight began.
The chapter is interrupted with Amir's memories, which appear in italics. The first is of Ali's words about his kinship with Hassan because they had the same nursemaid. The second is of Amir and Hassan visiting a fortune teller who gets a look of doom on his face while reading Hassan's fortune. Next is a dream, also in italics. Amir is lost in a snowstorm until he takes Hassan's outstretched hand in his. Suddenly the boys are in a bright, grassy field, looking up at colorful kites.
The chapter is interrupted by another italicized memory. Baba, Ali, and their sons gathered in the yard to sacrifice a lamb for Eid-e-Qorban, in honor of the prophet Ibrahim's near sacrifice of his son. A mullah makes the meat halal and the tradition is to give one third to family, one third to friends, and one third to the poor. Baba's tradition is to give all the meat to the poor because he says, "The rich are fat enough already." Just before the mullah slaughtered the lamb, Amir saw its look of acceptance, as though it understood that its death was for "a higher purpose." The look would haunt him forever after.
We return to Hassan's rape. Amir turned away, weeping, still hearing Assef's grunts issuing from the alleyway. Instead of standing up for Hassan the way his friend had for him so many times, he fled. Amir tried to convince himself that he ran out of fear, but he knew that he felt Hassan to be his sacrificial lamb, the one to suffer for him so that he could live happily. In spite of himself, Amir thought, "He was just a Hazara, wasn't he?"
Some time later, Amir found Hassan walking down the streets, holding the blue kite. He pretended that he hadn't seen the rape, but he was terrified that Hassan would know or worse, would show him devotion despite knowing. Hassan said nothing about the rape even though he was bleeding through his pants. The boys returned home and proud Baba wrapped Amir in his arms. Amir was so overjoyed that he momentarily forgot that he had just betrayed Hassan.
Chapter Eight
After the rape, Hassan did not spend time with Amir although he still did his chores. A worried Ali asked Amir about Hassan's torn shirt and bloodied pants the night of the tournament, but Amir pretended not to know what happened. That night, he asked Baba if they could go to Jalalabad; ever since Amir won the tournament, Baba had not denied him anything. When Baba suggested they invite Hassan along, Amir told him that Hassan was sick. Amir looked forward to having Baba to himself, but Baba invited three vans' worth of relatives and friends along. As they drove along in the car, one friend's twin daughters recounted Amir's victory at the kite-fighting tournament. At this, Amir's carsickness overwhelmed him and he vomited. As they aired out the van on the roadside, Amir saw Hassan's bloodied pants in his head.
Finally, they reached Kaka Homayoun's house in Jalalabad. Even though Amir finally had the intimacy with Baba he had wanted all his life, his guilt made him feel emptier than ever. As Amir, Baba, and everyone else slept in the same room, Amir confessed to the darkness, "I watched Hassan get raped." No one heard him. He realized that he was the monster in Hassan's dream and had dragged Hassan to the bottom of the lake. That night, Amir's insomnia began.
A week later, Hassan asked Amir to climb the hill with him and read to him. When they reached their favorite spot, Amir changed his mind and the boys walked back down. After that incident, Amir's memories of the winter of 1975 are unclear. He could not wait for winter to end and school to begin, even though he had fun with Baba. He made sure to never be in the same room as Hassan, although his loyal friend kept trying to make things better between them. One day, after Amir refused to walk to the market with him, Hassan asked Amir what he had done wrong. Amir told Hassan that he should stop harassing him. After that, Hassan left him alone. One day as they were planting tulips, Amir asked Baba if he would get new servants. Baba was furious and threatened to strike Amir if he ever suggested it again. Ali and Hassan were their family, he said.
When school started, Amir was relieved to have homework to keep him busy. Then one day, he asked Hassan to climb the hill with him to hear a new story. Hassan joined him eagerly. After they picked pomegranates, Amir asked Hassan what he would do if he threw a pomegranate at him. When Hassan said nothing, he threw the fruit at him and demanded that Hassan throw one back. As Hassan refused to fight back, Amir threw countless pomegranates at him until he was stained in blood-red juice. Finally, Hassan smashed a pomegranate against his own forehead and asked, "Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?" before leaving.
Chapter Nine
The morning after his birthday party, Amir opened his presents joylessly. To him, each gift was tainted with Hassan's shed blood. He knew Baba never would have thrown him such an extravagant party if he had not won the tournament, and to him the victory was inseparable from Hassan's rape. Baba himself gave Amir a coveted Stingray bicycle and a fancy wristwatch, but they too felt like "blood money." The only gift Amir could stand to enjoy was the notebook from Rahim Khan. As he considered Rahim Khan's story about his Hazara fiancée, Amir decided that either he or Hassan had to leave their household in order for them to be happy.
When Amir took his new bike for a ride, Ali and Hassan were in the yard cleaning up the mess from the party. Ali stopped Amir to give him a present from himself and Hassan, a new copy of the Shahnamah, the book from which he had so often read to Hassan. When he got home, Amir buried the book at the bottom of his pile of presents so it would not torment him with guilt. Then he began scheming how to get rid of Hassan. Before he went to bed, he asked Baba if he had seen his new wristwatch.
The next morning, Amir hid his wristwatch and a bundle of cash under Hassan's bed. Then he told Baba that Hassan had stolen from him. Baba called a meeting with Ali and Hassan in his office. When they arrived, their eyes were red from crying. Hassan lied and said that he had stolen Amir's wristwatch and money. Amir felt a pang of guilt because he understood that Hassan was sacrificing himself for him as usual. He also understood that Hassan knew everything about the night he was raped, that Amir stood by and did nothing to help him. To his shock, Baba forgave Hassan, but Ali and Hassan had already resolved to leave. From Ali's cold glance, Amir understood that Hassan had told him about the rape and about Amir's nonaction. Despite Baba's begging, Ali and Hassan left. When they were gone, Amir saw Baba cry for the first time. As though echoing Baba's grief, the skies opened up and it stormed during the dry season in Kabul.
Chapter Ten
When Chapter Ten opens Amir and Baba are being smuggled out of Soviet- or Shorawi-occupied Kabul along with other Afghanis. Their goal was to reach the safer territory of Pakistan. Amir still has carsickness at age eighteen, which embarrasses Baba. The truck stops so that Amir can vomit on the roadside. Amir thinks of how secretly they had to leave Kabul, telling no one, not even their servant. The rafiqs, or Communist comrades, had taught everyone in Kabul how to spy on their neighbors and even their family.
The truck was supposed to have no trouble crossing through the Russian-Afghani checkpoints because of the driver, Karim's connections. At a checkpoint, the Afghani soldiers would have let the truck pass without issue, but one Russian soldier demanded a half hour with one of the refugees, a married woman. To Amir's dismay, Baba defended the woman, telling the Russian soldier that he had no shame and that he would "take a thousand bullets before [he] let this indecency take place." Amir felt ashamed that while Baba would give his life to save someone, he did nothing to save Hassan. The Russian soldier aimed the barrel of his gun at Baba's chest, but the shot that rang out did not kill him. It came from the gun of a more senior Russian soldier, who apologized for the first one, explaining that he was on drugs. The truck passed the checkpoint safely and in the darkness, the woman's husband kissed Baba's hand.
Because it turned out that Toor's truck was irreparable, the refugees departed in the tank of fuel truck. Before they left, Baba kissed the Afghani dirt and put some in his snuff box to keep next to his heart. Later, Amir awoke in the fuel tank feeling as though he was suffocating. He comforted himself with the memory of a spring afternoon he spent kite-fighting with Hassan. When they finally got out in Pakistan, they were thankful to be alive. Yet Kamal had suffocated on the fumes and died. In a rage, Kamal's father put the barrel of Karim's gun in his mouh and shot himself.
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven opens in the 1980s in Fremont, California, a year and a half after Amir and Baba arrived in America. Amir explains that Baba loved "the idea of America" so much that it gave him an ulcer. He believed that the only worthwhile countries were America, Israel and Britain, even though his support of Israel drew accusations from other Afghanis of his being anti-Islam. He was the only Republican among their blue-collar neighbors and even hung a framed picture of Ronald Reagan in their apartment. One day, Baba got into a fight with Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen, the owners of the small grocery store across the street. Mr. Nguyen had asked for Baba's ID when he wanted to pay with a check and Baba was so insulted that he damaged their property. It was clear to Amir that Baba missed their old life in Kabul and was having trouble adjusting to America. Whereas in Kabul he had been wealthy and influential, in Fremont he worked long hours at a gas station and missed almost everything about home. He saw life in America as a gift he had given to Amir and something he would have to suffer. For Amir, America was an escape from his memories of Hassan.
Amir graduated from high school at the age of twenty, when Baba was fifty. After the ceremony, Baba took Amir to a bar, where he bought drinks for other patrons and became the life of his own impromptu party. When they drove home, Amir was shocked to find that Baba had bought him a Ford Torino to drive himself to junior college. When they went inside, Baba said he wished Hassan was there. Amir's throat closed up with guilt. Amir also had to grapple with Baba's disappointment that he wanted to be a creative writer instead of a doctor or lawyer. Amir found release from his guilt by driving his Ford for hours at a time and sitting by the ocean. He was grateful to be starting anew in America.
The next summer, when Amir turned 21, Baba bought an old Volkswagen bus. On Saturdays, he and Amir drove to yard sales in neighboring towns and then sold their wares at the San Jose flea market. The flea market was a cultural epicenter for Afghan families, who dominated the Used Goods section. One one such day, Baba introduced Amir to General Taheri, an old acquaintance of his from Kabul. The "casually arrogant" Taheri did not impress Amir, but his daughter, Soraya, entranced him. Baba told Amir that Soraya had had a relationship with a man that did not work out well and had not been courted since. This did not matter to Amir, who already thought of her as his "Swap Meet Princess."
Chapter Twelve
Amir's desire for Soraya tormented him. At the flea market, he made excuses to walk by the Taheris' stand just to get a glimpse of her, but he could not muster the courage to talk to her. Finally one Sunday, he asked Soraya what she was reading. This was not a casual question in the Afghani community, because two single young people chatting invited gossip. Soraya knew that Amir was a writer and said she would like to read one of his stories. Just then, Soraya's mother, Kamila (or Khanum Taheri), showed up and greeted Amir warmly. She was a nice woman with one peculiarity; one side of her mouth drooped. Khanum Taheri sent Amir off with fruit and asked him to visit again. Amir understood that Khanum Taheri, and perhaps the General, saw Amir as a suitor for Soraya.
Every week, Amir visited the Taheris' booth when the General was away. He chatted with Khanum Taheri and Soraya. He found out that like him, Soraya was attending junior college. She wanted to be a teacher. She told Amir how, as a child in Kabul, she taught her illiterate housekeeper, Ziba, how to read. Amir was ashamed, remembering how he had lorded his literary over the oblivious Hassan. Just as Amir handed her a story to read, General Taheri arrived at the booth and Soraya was forced to hand him the story out of propriety. He dropped it into the garbage can. Then General Taheri took Amir aside and scolded him for having such an open conversation with Soraya in the marketplace.
Later that week, Baba caught a terrible cold but did not wan to go to the doctor. Amir convinced him to see a doctor when he saw that Baba was coughing up blood. The doctor told Amir that there was a suspicious spot on Baba's lung that he needed to have checked out. That night, Amir prayed for the first time in a very long time. They finally got to see a specialist, Dr. Schneider, but Baba lost his temper when he found out the doctor was Russian-American. They found a new Iranian doctor, Dr. Amani, who discovered that Baba had terminal cancer. Baba refused to prolong his life with chemotherapy and made Amir promise not to tell anyone about his disease. After the diagnosis, Amir and Baba still went to the flea market on Sundays. As the weeks progressed, Baba lost weight and got sicker until one day, he fell on the ground and started having seizures.At the doctor's office, the doctor showed Amir Baba's CAT scans. The cancer had spread to Baba's brain and he would have to take medications and receive radiation. Once news spread that Baba was dying, many local Afghans came to pay their respects, including the Taheris. Baba refused radiation, so Amir took him home to die. Then Amir asked him to ask General Taheri to go khastegari, to ask for Soraya's hand in marriage. Baba called and made arrangements to visit the Taheris the next morning. Amir helped Baba dress and drove him to the Taheris' house, then went home to wait. Finally, Baba called and said that the general had accepted and then put Soraya on the phone. She was delighted but said she wanted to tell him a secret. When the Taheris lived in Virginia, she ran off with an Afghan man. When her father found her and dragged her home, she found out that her mother had suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of her face. Amir was slightly upset to find out that Soraya was not a virgin because he was. At the same time, he knew that he of all people could not hold someone accountable for her past mistakes, so he told Soraya that nothing could change his desire to marry her. Envy tempered Amir's joy because Soraya was now free of her shameful secret whereas his still plagued him.
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen begins at the Taheris' house with "lafz, the ceremony of "giving word." Even though Baba is very ill, he proclaims it "the happiest day of [his] life." Baba made a speech and General Taheri welcomed Amir into his family. Then Soraya joined the celebration and kissed Baba's hands. Traditionally, lafz is followed by an engagement party called Shirini-kori and an engagement period, but everyone agreed that they should skip it because Baba was so close to death. Baba spent almost all the money he had left on the traditional Afghan wedding ceremony, called awroussi. According to the ceremony, Amir and Soraya were left alone together under a veil to gaze at each other's reflections in a mirror. There, Amir told her he loved her for the first time. Amir could not help wondering whether Hassan had gotten married and what his wife was like. The party continued until the early morning, after which Amir and Soraya made love for the first time.
Soraya moved in with Amir and Baba after the wedding so that Amir could spend his father's last days with him. Soraya cared for Baba as though he were her own father, bathing him, reading to him, cooking for him, and giving him anything else he needed. One day, Amir came home to find Soraya hiding Rahim Khan's notebook under Baba's mattress. Baba admitted that he had coaxed Soraya to read him Amir's stories. Amir left the room to cry tears of joy, since he knew Baba disliked seeing him cry. A month after the wedding, Soraya's family came over to Baba's for dinner. Amir could see how happy Baba was to see him happily married. At the end of the night, Soraya and Amir helped Baba into bed. He refused his morphine, saying, "There is no pain tonight." He died in his sleep.
After Baba's death, Amir got to know the Taheris much more closely. General Taheri was a complicated man. He did not work and collected welfare because he considered this more dignified than taking on a blue collar job as Baba had. He suffered from terrible headaches lasting days, and spent the rest of his time waiting for the liberation of Afghanistan. He felt sure that he would be called back to serve in the government at any time, so he always wore his grey suit and watch in preparation to leave. Khanum Taheri was a talented singer, but the general forbid her to sing. Instead, she focused her energies on homemaking. Now that Soraya was married, Khanum Taheri focused much of her attention on Amir. She adored him especially because he listened to her long list of imagined ailments; ever since her stroke, she became convinced that every small disturbance in her body was a serious ailment. Amir knew that Khanum Taheri was grateful to him not only for this, but for relieving her of her greatest fear-of Soraya becoming a spinster.
One night, Soraya told Amir the story of how the general forced her to end her affair. He came to her lover's house and told him he would kill him and himself if Soraya did not come home. Soraya told her father she wished he was dead, but she came home with him. At home, he made her cut off all her hair. Ever after, Soraya heard derogatory whispers everywhere she went. After Soraya told Amir the story, he asked her never to mention it again. He understood too well the torment of guilt and betrayal, but he also pitied Soraya for being a woman in Afghan society; even in America, she was subject to a double standard regarding sexual behavior.
Amir and Soraya moved into their own apartment. The Taheris helped them furnish it, and the general gave Amir a typewriter. They both enrolled at San Jose University, where Amir worked toward a degree in English and Soraya, in teaching. In 1988, Amir finished his first novel, "a father-son story set in Kabul." Soon after, he got a lierary agent and became a published writer. Amir's feelings of success were tempered with his guilt; he felt himself to be undeserving. That same year, international politics were particularly fraught. The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, but a new conflict erupted between the Mujahedin and the remaining communist government. The Berlin wall was destroyed and the Tiananmen Square riots occurred. In their safe American abode, Amir and Soraya began trying to conceive a child.
After months of trying to conceive, Amir and Soraya consulted fertility doctors. Neither of them had any detectable fertility problems, but they were still unable to have a child. When they told Soraya's parents, General Taheri and Khanum Taheri were disappointed. The general urged them not to adopt, most of all because Afghan society depends on the line of succession, which the act of adoption obliterates. Amir thought privately that his and Soraya's infertility was punishment for his betraying Hassan so many years before. Soon after they discovered they could not have a family, Amir and Soraya bought a house. Despite their newfound material comforts, the absence of a child tormented them both.
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen opens in June of 2001, when Amir received a call from Rahim Khan. He told Amir he was very sick and asked him to come visit him in Pakistan. Amir considered what Rahim Khan had said before hanging up, "Come. There is a way to be good again." Suddenly, he understood that Rahim Khan knew, and had always known, what he did to Hassan. Amir was comfortable leaving Soraya with her parents; her relationship with them had improved in the years since the wedding. The General no longer insisted that Soraya change her career path away from teaching; sometimes he sat in on the classes Soraya taught and even took notes. That night, Amir dreamt of Hassan as he had seen him right before the rape, shouting, "For you, a thousand times over!" A week later, he left for Peshawar, Pakistan.
Chapter Fifteen
When Amir arrives in Peshewar, Pakistan, he is reminded of the city of Kabul, especially the neighborhood of immigrants called “Afghan Town.” He finds Rahim Khan there, but he is nothing but skin and bones, obviously very ill. They have tea together and Rahim is amazed at the grown-up Amir. Their conversation inevitably turns to the Taliban. Rahim tells him, with many details and stories, how vicious they are. His stories are also full of the events of the civil war that he witnessed while living in Baba’s house. He remembers how happy the people were when the Taliban seized total power, because they were so tired of constant war and bloodshed. No one knew the price they would have to pay for welcoming this new government.
Rahim also tells Amir that he is dying and probably won’t see the end of the summer. Like Baba, he has accepted his fate as God’s will. But before he dies, he has a request for Amir and he wants to tell him everything about Hassan since Amir last saw him.
Chapter Sixteen
Rahim opens this chapter by indicating that one of the reasons he went to Hazarajat to find Hassan was loneliness for the people he had known all his life and a need to fill Baba’s house again with those who had grown up there. He was directed, when he arrived, to a small village outside Bamiyan where they inhabitants said Hassan lived in the only house with a walled garden. Rahim finds him working a tandoor, or oven, and slapping dough into it. Rahim says that Amir would have recognized him anywhere, because he still had those narrow green eyes, the scar on his upper lip, the round face, and the affable smile. Hassan brought him into his home and introduced him to his wife who was pregnant. He learned that Ali had been killed by a land mine. Rahim asked him to move with him to Kabul, but Hassan refused, because he had made a home and friends in that village. Hassan was also full of questions about Amir and he wept when he learned that Baba had died.
In the morning, Hassan and his wife changed their mind and decided to go back to Kabul and help Rahim care for Baba’s house. When they arrived, Hassan refused to live in the big house out of respect and moved into the mud hut where he had lived as a child. Hassan and his wife immediately took over all the duties of the house and Rahim tells Amir that he didn’t know what he would have done without them. In the fall, Hassan’s wife, Farzana, gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. Hassan kissed the lifeless baby tenderly and buried her in the backyard. However, they continued to make Baba’s house their own little haven from the war.
In early 1990, Farzana became pregnant again and in the middle of the summer a woman in a sky blue burqa knocked on their gate. She was in terrible shape with cuts on her face and sores on her arms. She asked where Hassan was and when he admitted who he was, she revealed that she was his mother. The news caused Hassan to run from the house and he didn’t come back until the next morning, but now willing to have his mother with him again. He forgave her utterly for everything she had done. They nursed her back to health and she delivered the new baby, a little boy whom they named Sohrab after Hassan’s favorite hero in the Shahnamah. She and Sohrab became inseparable and she lived to see him turn four. One morning, she just did not wake up. Hassan took her death hard, but for awhile it was even harder for Sohrab.By 1995, the factions who were fighting the civil war made life tense and stressful and everyday they worried about the rockets, the mines, and the shelling. During that time, Hassan was with his son as much as possible and even helped him become a deadly shot with the slingshot and how to fly kites. Rahim notes to Amir at this point in his story that Hassan was just as good a kite flyer as he had been when he was small.In 1996, the Taliban rolled in and Rahim believed the war was finally over, but Hassan just commented with a sober look in his eye, “God help the Hazaras now.” A few weeks later, the Taliban banned kite flying and in 1998, they massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Shaif.
Chapter Seventeen
After Rahim Khan finished telling the story about him and Hassan, he handed Amir a letter and a photograph. The photograph was of Hassan and Sohrab. In the letter, Hassan described the violence and injustice in Afghanistan. One day, Farzana spoke slightly loudly in the market and a Talib beat her so hard that she fell down and was bruised for days. Despite the terror, Hassan said, Sohrab was a healthy and smart boy; Hassan had made sure he was literate and knew how to shoot a slingshot as well as his father. Hassan ended his letter by expressing his wish to see Amir in Afghanistan again. Rahim Khan explained that the letter was written six months before. A month after he had arrived in Peshawar, he received news of Hassan's death from a friend. After he left Kabul, word spread that a Hazara family was living alone in Baba's house. One day, the Taliban came to the house and demanded that they leave. When Hassan protested, they took him out to the street, forced him to kneel, and shot him in the back of his head. Farzana ran out screaming and they shot her dead as well. The news devastated Amir, who could only whisper, "No. No. No."
Rahim Khan explained that the Taliban now occupied Baba's house and they were not held accountable for Hassan and Farzana's murders. Then he told Amir that he real reason he made Amir come to Peshawar was to bring Sohrab there. An American couple named Thomas and Betty Caldwell ran a goodwill organization there and would take care of him. When Amir protested and suggested Rahim Khan hire someone to find Sohrab, Rahim Khan was insulted. He told Amir, "I think we both know why it has to be you, don't we?" Then he asked Amir if he had become what Baba feared so many years before, a person who "can't stand up to anything." He said it was his dying wish for Amir personally to bring Sohrab to Peshawar. When Amir continued to refuse, Rahim Khan revealed a monumental secret. Amir and Hassan were half-brothers. Ali was infertile, as evidenced by the fact that his first wife bore him no children, but bore her second husband three daughters. It was Baba who had gotten Sanaubar pregnant, making Hassan his son. Rahim Khan explained that no one but himself, Baba, Ali, and Sanaubar had known about the matter in order to preserve their honor. Hassan never found out. Amir was furious at all of them for keeping the secret. He screamed at Rahim Khan and left the apartment.
Chapter Eighteen
After storming out of Rahim Khan's apartment, Amir had tea at a local café. He felt like a foreigner in his own life. Now that he knew Hassan was his half-brother, it seemed absurd that he had not realized it before. Baba had always treated Hassan like a son not just because he cared for him, but because Hassan was really his son. Amir wondered how Baba could have broken his own cardinal rule about not lying, how he could have lived with himself after shaming Ali.
Suddenly, Baba did not seem like such a shining example of righteousness. Amir now understood that Rahim Khan had called him to Peshawar to pay not only for his betrayal of Hassan, but for Baba's betrayal of Ali. Amir wondered if he was to blame for Hassan and Ali's deaths because he was the one who drove them out of the house and split up the family. Finally, at thirty-eight years old, Amir was ready to take responsibility for his actions. He returned to Rahim Khan's apartment to find him praying and told him he would bring Sohrab to Peshawar.
Chapter Nineteen
A driver named Farid was driving Amir from Peshawar to Kabul. He was a Tajik man of twenty-nine, who looked much older because of all he had experienced, fighting against the Soviet forces. Farid had two wives and seven children, two of whom had been killed by a landmine. Farid himself was missing toes and fingers from his years of combat. Farid was suspicious of Amir because he saw him as a defector; whereas Farid had stayed and fought for his homeland, Amir had fled to the privileges of America. He had abandoned his watan, his homeland.
Amir felt awkward in his traditional Afghan clothing and long fake beard, both necessary for him to blend in to Taliban-controlled Kabul. He told Farid, "I feel like a tourist in my own country," who replied, "You still think of this as your country?" Amir said he did because he had grown up there, but Farid explained to Amir that he had never been a true Afghani because he grew up with so many privileges. Amir did not try to argue with Farid. At last, they arrived in Jalalabad, where they would spend the night with Farid's brother, Wahid.
Unlike Farid, Wahid received Amir warmly. When he found out Amir was a writer, he suggested Amir use his writing to "tell the rest of the world what the Taliban are doing to [Afghanistan.]" Amir explained that he was "not quite that kind of writer." When Wahid asked Amir why he had returned to Afghanistan, Farid interrupted. He ranted about how people returned their only to be greedy and milk money out of their old properties. Wahid scolded Farid for his rudeness. Then Amir explained why he was really in Afghanistan. At this, Wahid called him, "An honorable man ... A true Afghan." Farid was ashamed at his own presumptuousness. Later he apologized to Amir, who told him, "You were more right than you know."
One of Wahid's wives brought dinner to Amir and Farid, saying the family had eaten earlier. As he ate, Amir noticed that Wahid's three boys were staring at his watch. After asking for Wahid's permission, he gave it to them. To his surprise, it did not impress them very much. Amir slept restlessly, dreaming about Hassan's death. He imagined that he himself was the Talib executing Hassan. When Amir woke up, he paced outside and pondered the fact that Afghanistan really was his homeland. His loyalty to the country surprised him, since he had built a new and full life in America. From inside, Amir heard one of Wahid's wives scolding him for not leaving any food for the children; Amir realized that the boys had been staring not at his watch, but at his food. Before he and Farid left the next morning, Amir tucked a wad of money under a mattress for them to find.
Chapter Twenty
The devastation in Kabul took Amir's breath away. The buildings and streets had turned into rubble, and fatherless children begged on every street corner. When a red truck full of Talibs drove by, Amir was mesmerized by them for a minute. Farid warned him never to stand at the Talibs again, because they welcomed any chance to start a conflict. An old beggar overheard them, asked for change, and started a conversation; while chatting, he quoted a line from a poem Amir recognized. It turned out that the man was a professor who used to teach at the university alongside Amir's mother. It was now Amir who was begging the old man-for any details about his mother. He gave Amir just a few small details about her, which amounted to more than he had ever learned from Baba. Amir was deeply grateful. The old man directed him and Farid to the orphanage in Karteh-Seh.
Chapter Twenty-One
After Amir visited the orphanage in Karteh-Seh, the horrifying truth about Afghanistan fell upon him more and more rapidly. As he and Farid drove away, he saw a forgotten corpse hanging in front of a restaurant. He saw a man selling his artificial leg, no doubt to buy food for his children. When they reached the Wazir Akhbar Khan district where Amir grew up, he was relieved to see that it had weathered somewhat better than the other neighborhoods.
The chapter is interrupted by Amir's memory of finding a turtle in the backyard with Hassan. They painted its shell red and marched it around as though they were discoverers of a wondrous new species. Even though they were children, they felt as though they were world-renowned explorers.
Amir walked up the driveway to Baba's house and saw that it had fallen into disrepair. He longed for it to be as it once was. Despite Farid's protestations, he insisted on staying for as long as possible. Amir climbed the hill with the pomegranate tree as he had with Hassan so many times. Although the tree was now decrepit, he could still make out the carving from their childhood: "Amir and Hassan. The Sultans of Kabul." After he sat for a while in contemplation, he and Farid drove off and checked into a nearby hotel.
The hotel was just as run-down as the rest of Kabul and there was even a bloodstain on the wall near the bed. Before going to bed, Farid told him stories about fighting the Soviets. In return, Amir told Farid about American conveniences, such as being able to receive over five hundred television channels; Farid explained that Kabul had not even had electricity for days. Finally, the men bonded over jokes about the bumbling cleric, "Mullah Nasruddin." Before he fell asleep, Amir thought that perhaps Kabul was as "hopeless" as people said.
The next day, the men attended a soccer match at Ghazi Stadium. It was nothing like Amir remembered, the lush green playing field now turned to dry dirt with two deep holes behind the goalpost. Talibs walked up and down the aisles, whipping anyone who made too much noise. During halftime, Amir discovered the horrifying reason for the two deep holes in the ground; they were to be the graves of two accused adulterers, who would be stoned in front of the thousands of attendees. A cleric announced to the crowd that the "will of Allah and the word of the Prophet Muhammad" said death by stoning was a just punishment for adulterers. As he listened to this distortion of Islam, Amir e what Baba had said years before: "God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands."
The Talib official they had been waiting for appeared on the field. He personally stoned both of the accused to death, after which other Talibs buried them. Afterwards, Farid told a Talib that they wanted to arrange a meeting with the Talib official; it was very easy for them to get an appointment for the same day.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Farid and Amir parked in front of a large house in Wazir Akhbar Khan where the meeting would take place. Farid waited in the car while a terrified Amir went into the house. After being frisked by armed Talibs, he was ushered into an empty room. The Talib official entered the room and sat down opposite Amir, who noticed he had blood on his sleeve from the executions. He ordered one of his men to rip off Amir's false beard, then described with relish his role in the mass execution of the Hazaras. He derided Amir for leaving Afghanistan, saying he should have him shot for treason. Then he ordered Sohrab to come into the room. Sohrab's resemblance to Hassan shocked Amir, who saw that the boy wore bells around his ankles and makeup on his face. The Talib officer put on music, banned to everyone but the Taliban, and made him dance. Then he said to Amir, "Whatever happened to the old Babalu, anyway?" Horror filled Amir as he realized that the Talib official was Assef.
When Amir offered to pay for Sohrab, Assef explained that he did not need money; his wealthy parents lived on an Australian beachfront. Besides, he joined the Taliban not for money but because he felt it was his divine task. When he was in prison in the 1980s, there was a guard who beat one prisoner each night in order to terrorize the others. One night, when Assef had a terrible kidney stone, the guard decided to beat him. He was wailing in pain as the guard beat him until one kick to his side dislodged the kidney stone and made it pass so that he laughed through the rest of his beating. Assef believed it to be "a message from God." Years later, he found the same man injured on the battlefield and shot him in the genitals. Ever since, he had been "on a mission" to get rid of those he considered unworthy of living in Afghanistan.
Assef said Amir could have Sohrab, but he would have to kill Assef in order to leave the house. He told his guards to wait outside the room and not enter no matter what they heard. If Amir killed him, he would be able to go free. Then Assef told Sohrab to stay as a "lesson."The chapter is interrupted briefly by Amir's memory of the doctor who helped nurse him back to health.Chapter Twenty-Three
Amir is lying in his hospital bed, floating in and out of consciousness. He does not know where he is or how long ago he was brought in; all he can think of is that he wants to thank a child for something. In his fleeting moments of clarity, he sees a caretaker named Aisha, a doctor, and Farid-although he cannot remember names. Amir has a vision of Baba fighting a bear in Baluchistan, a story that is supposedly true. At the end of the vision, he sees that he is Baba.
When Amir finally regains full consciousness, the doctor, Dr. Faruqi, explains his injuries. He has had several surgeries in the two days since Farid brought him in; his jaw is wired together, his spleen ruptured and had to be removed, he suffered several broken ribs and a punctured lung, his upper lip was split open, and his eye socket bone broken. Dr. Faruqi said Amir was lucky to have survived such trauma. As Amir tried to take in the magnitude of what happened, one ironic fact stayed with him; he now had a harelip scar just like Hassan had.After Sohrab left, Amir read Rahim Khan's letter. In it, he revealed that Hassan told him about the rape soon after it happened. He told Amir that he did betray his friend, but reminded him that he was only a boy at the time. He assured Amir that he had suffered from his guilt so much only because he was a good, caring person. Rahim Khan explained that it was hard for him to watch Amir vying for Baba's attention. Baba, he said, was hard on Amir only because of his own guilt. His betrayal of Ali and the fact that he could never claim Hassan as his son tortured him. Rahim Khan believed that all of Baba's charity was in atonement for his sin. Amir, he said, should learn from Baba's example and try to redeem himself as well. He said he had left money for Amir in a safety deposit box, which the key would open. He ended the letter by requesting that Amir not look for him. Amir cried reading the letter. He was ashamed that, unlike Baba, he had acted out because of his guilt rather than doing good.
The next morning, Amir looked at his face in a mirror. His monstrous appearance shocked him. Then Farid came to visit. He warned Amir that they had to leave Peshawar right away before Taliban sympathizers tried to finish him off. Amir sent him to find John and Betty Caldwell and spent the day playing cards with Sohrab. They did not talk much, but eventually Sohrab told Amir what Hassan said about him, that he was "the best friend he ever had." Still, every time Amir tried to touch Sohrab's arm, he pulled away.
The next day, Amir left the hospital against Dr. Faruq's advice. He planned to use the money from the safety deposit box to pay his bills, leave Sohrab with the Caldwells, and fly home. When Farid arrived with Sohrab, he explained that there were no Caldwells in Peshawar, nor had there ever been. Farid drove Amir and Sohrab to Islamabad
Chapter Twenty-Four
Islamabad was much more modern and cleaner than Peshawar, and the hotel they stayed in even had a television-a big change from Kabul. Before Farid left to rejoin his family, Amir paid him a little over two thousand dollars, leaving his friend speechless. Sohrab fell asleep and then Amir did the same. When Amir awoke, Sohrab was gone. The hotel manager, Fayyaz, decided to help Amir find him, saying, "I will drive you because I am a father like you." They found Sohrab sitting in front of the giant Shah Faisal Mosque. Amir sat on the grass with Sohrab, who told him about his memories of his parents. Amir gave him the photograph that Rahim Khan took.
Sohrab asked Amir if he would go to hell for taking out Assef's eye. Amir told him that Assef was a bad man who had hurt Hassan many years before. He assured Sohrab that Hassan would have been very proud of him. Sohrab was tormented by a feeling that he was dirty because Assef and his men had molested him. Amir told him that he was not dirty and after some coaxing, Sohrab let him hold him in his arms. He asked Sohrab if he would come to America with him, but Sohrab only sobbed.
The issue of America lay dormant until a week later, when Amir and Sohrab took a day trip to a hill. There, he revealed to Sohrab that he and Hassan were half-brothers. Sohrab asked if Baba had loved him and Hassan equally, and Amir replied, "he loved us equally but differently." Back at the hotel, Amir promised to show Sohrab the Golden Gate Bridge and drive him up the steep streets of San Francisco. He promised Sohrab that he would never have to live in an orphanage again.
At last, Amir called Soraya. After fifteen years of marriage, he finally told her about Hassan's rape. She told Amir to bring Sohrab home. The next day, Amir took Sohrab to the American Embassy to see an official named Raymond Andrews. Amir told him he wanted to take his half-nephew to America, omitting all the information about Assef. Raymond Andrews told him that his chances of getting a visa for Sohrab were slim. He would have to prove that Sohrab was legally an orphan by providing death certificates for Hassan and Farzana; this would have been impossible even in pre-Taliban Kabul. Before leaving, Amir snapped at Raymond Andrews, "They ought to put someone in your chair who knows what it's like to want a child." As he and Sohrab left, the receptionist told Amir that Raymond Andrews's daughter had committed suicide.
After Omar Faisal left, Amir told Sohrab that he might have to spend a little time in an orphanage. Terrified, Sohrab sobbed and begged Amir not to put him in an orphanage, but Amir could not bring himself to promise. He knew that an orphanage might be their best hope. Finally, Sohrab cried himself to sleep and Amir fell askeep as well. A call from Soraya awoke him; she gave the good news that Sharif would be able to get Sohrab a visa. Amir knocked on the bathroom door to tell Sohrab that all their fears were over, but he would not answer. Then Amir opened the door to the bathroom and began to scream; an ambulance took him and Sohrab to the hospital.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Amir is at the hospital, waiting for Sohrab. He finds a bedsheet and kneels on it to pray for the first time in over fifteen years. He mumbles the phrases of prayers he still remembers, his belief in God suddenly renewed. In his prayers, he begs God to let Sohrab live; he will do anything to ensure the boy's safety, saying, "My hands are stained with Hassan's blood; I pray God doesn't let them get stained with the blood of this boy too." He recounts what he saw when he opened the bathroom door; Sohrab lay dying in the bloody bathwater, having slit his wrists with Amir's razor. Finally, a doctor tells Amir that Sohrab will live. When he finally gets to visit Sohrab in the intensive care unit, Amir sees how hopeless he is. At Fayyaz's request, Amit stopped staying in his hotel. He barely said a word, even when Amir read him the story of his namesake from the Shahnamah. Finally, he told Amir, "I want my old life back" and that he wishes he was dead. Amir told him the good news from Soraya and asked Sohrab to forgive him for going back on his word. Sohrab just said he was tired and fell asleep.
Eventually, Amir did bring Sohrab home with him to San Francisco. We discover that Amir has been narrating the story in 2002, seven months after they arrived. Sohrab had not spoken a single word since then. He showed no interest in the books Soraya had bought him or any activity they suggested. They did not tell the Taheris the story of why exactly they were adopting Sohrab or how Amir had gotten injured. One day, General Taheri said, "People will ask. They will want to know why there is a Hazara boy living with our daughter. What do I tell them?" Amir, angered, told the general that Sohrab was the son of his illegitimate half-brother and told him never to call him a "Hazara boy" in front of him again.
The political landscape had changed in the interim since Amir and Sohrab arrived home. The Twin Towers had fallen in New York City and The United States had bombed Afghanistan, compounding the damage done by decades of fighting. Amir found it strange to hear non-Afghan Americans discussing the cities of his childhood. He and Soraya began to get involved on Afghanistan's behalf, trying to restore a hospital on the Pakistani border. Amir had kept his promise to pray after Sohrab had survived his suicide attempt.
Amir explains that four days earlier, a miracle happened. He and Soraya took Sohrab to an Afghan picnic in the park, along with Khanum Taheri. General Taheri was not there because he had finally gotten his wish; he had been offered a post in the Afghanistan ministry. By now, people had gotten used to Sohrab's silence and even Soraya could not bear trying to engage him anymore. Only Amir kept trying. Suddenly, Amir noticed kites flying over the park. He bought one and brought it to Sohrab. He told him that Hassan was the best kite runner he had ever known and asked Sohrab to fly the kite with him. Sohrab remained silent, but Amir knew what to do; he ran as fast as he could to launch the kite. As he stared up at it, he noticed that Sohrab had followed him and handed him the string. Sohrab soon gave it back to him. They stood in silence once more until they noticed a green kite closing in on theirs. When the kite came close enough, Amir performed Hassan's favorite kite-fighting trick, "the old lift-and-dive" as Sohrab watched, mesmerized. The green kite fell out of the air. When Amir looked down at Sohrab, he witnessed a half-smile steal over Sohrab's face. He asked, "Do you want me to run that kite for you?" Sohrab nodded, and Amir told him, "For you, a thousand times over." Amir ran among the children, after the kite.
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