The Kite Runner (29 page)

I felt like Jean Valjean sitting across from Javert. I reminded myself that I was on American soil now, that this guy was
on my side, that he got paid for helping people like me. “I want to adopt this boy, take him back to the States with me,”
I said.

“Tell me your story,” he repeated, crushing a flake of ash on the neatly arranged desk with his index finger, flicking it
into the trash can.

I gave him the version I had worked out in my head since I’d hung up with Soraya. I had gone into Afghanistan to bring back
my half brother’s son. I had found the boy in squalid conditions, wasting away in an orphanage. I had paid the orphanage director
a sum of money and withdrawn the boy. Then I had brought him to Pakistan.

“You are the boy’s half uncle?”

“Yes.”

He checked his watch. Leaned and turned the tomato plants on the sill. “Know anyone who can attest to that?”

“Yes, but I don’t know where he is now.”

He turned to me and nodded. I tried to read his face and couldn’t. I wondered if he’d ever tried those little hands of his
at poker.

“I assume getting your jaws wired isn’t the latest fashion statement,”

he said. We were in trouble, Sohrab and I, and I knew it then. I told him I’d gotten mugged in Peshawar.

“Of course,” he said. Cleared his throat. “Are you Muslim?”

“Yes.”

“Practicing?”

“Yes.” In truth, I didn’t remember the last time I had laid my forehead to the ground in prayer. Then I did remember: the
day Dr. Amani gave Baba his prognosis. I had kneeled on the prayer rug, remembering only fragments of verses I had learned
in school.

“Helps your case some, but not much,” he said, scratching a spot on the flawless part in his sandy hair.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I reached for Sohrab’s hand, intertwined my fingers with his. Sohrab looked uncertainly from
me to Andrews.

“There’s a long answer and I’m sure I’ll end up giving it to you. You want the short one first?”

“I guess,” I said.

Andrews crushed his cigarette, his lips pursed. “Give it up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your petition to adopt this young fellow. Give it up. That’s my advice to you.”

“Duly noted,” I said. “Now, perhaps you’ll tell me why.”

“That means you want the long answer,” he said, his voice impassive, not reacting at all to my curt tone. He pressed his hands
palm to palm, as if he were kneeling before the Virgin Mary. “Let’s assume the story you gave me is true, though I’d bet my
pension a good deal of it is either fabricated or omitted. Not that I care, mind you. You’re here, he’s here, that’s all that
matters. Even so, your petition faces significant obstacles, not the least of which is that this child is not an orphan.”

“Of course he is.”

“Not legally he isn’t.”

“His parents were executed in the street. The neighbors saw it,” I said, glad we were speaking in English.

“You have death certificates?”

“
Death certificates?
This is Afghanistan we’re talking about. Most people there don’t have
birth
certificates.”

His glassy eyes didn’t so much as blink. “I don’t make the laws, sir.

Your outrage notwithstanding, you still need to prove the parents are deceased. The boy has to be declared a legal orphan.”

“But—”

“You wanted the long answer and I’m giving it to you. Your next problem is that you need the cooperation of the child’s country
of origin. Now, that’s difficult under the best of circumstances, and, to quote you, this
is
Afghanistan we’re talking about. We don’t have an American embassy in Kabul. That makes things extremely complicated. Just
about impossible.”

“What are you saying, that I should throw him back on the streets?” I said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“He was sexually abused,” I said, thinking of the bells around Sohrab’s ankles, the mascara on his eyes.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Andrews’s mouth said. The way he was looking at me, though, we might as well have been talking about
the weather. “But that is not going to make the INS issue this young fellow a visa.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if you want to help, send money to a reputable relief organization. Volunteer at a refugee camp. But at this
point in time, we strongly discourage U.S. citizens from attempting to adopt Afghan children.”

I got up. “Come on, Sohrab,” I said in Farsi. Sohrab slid next to me, rested his head on my hip. I remembered the Polaroid
of him and Hassan standing that same way. “Can I ask you something, Mr. Andrews?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have children?”

For the first time, he blinked.

“Well, do you? It’s a simple question.”

He was silent.

“I thought so,” I said, taking Sohrab’s hand. “They ought to put someone in your chair who knows what it’s like to want a
child.” I turned to go, Sohrab trailing me.

“Can I ask
you
a question?” Andrews called.

“Go ahead.”

“Have you promised this child you’ll take him with you?”

“What if I have?”

He shook his head. “It’s a dangerous business, making promises to kids.” He sighed and opened his desk drawer again. “You
mean to pursue this?” he said, rummaging through papers.

“I mean to pursue this.”

He produced a business card. “Then I advise you to get a good immigration lawyer. Omar Faisal works here in Islamabad. You
can tell him I sent you.”

I took the card from him. “Thanks,” I muttered.

“Good luck,” he said. As we exited the room, I glanced over my shoulder. Andrews was standing in a rectangle of sunlight,
absently staring out the window, his hands turning the potted tomato plants toward the sun, petting them lovingly.

“TAKE CARE,” the secretary said as we passed her desk.

“Your boss could use some manners,” I said. I expected her to roll her eyes, maybe nod in that “I know, everybody says that,”
kind of way. Instead, she lowered her voice. “Poor Ray. He hasn’t been the same since his daughter died.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Suicide,” she whispered.

ON THE TAXI RIDE back to the hotel, Sohrab rested his head on the window, kept staring at the passing buildings, the rows
of gum trees. His breath fogged the glass, cleared, fogged it again. I waited for him to ask me about the meeting but he didn’t.

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the closed bathroom door the water was running. Since the day we’d checked into the hotel, Sohrab took
a long bath every night before bed. In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity. Now Sohrab spent
almost an hour a night in the bath, soaking in the soapy water, scrubbing. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I called Soraya.
I glanced at the thin line of light under the bathroom door.
Do you feel clean yet, Sohrab?

I passed on to Soraya what Raymond Andrews had told me. “So what do you think?” I said.

“We have to think he’s wrong.” She told me she had called a few adoption agencies that arranged international adoptions. She
hadn’t yet found one that would consider doing an Afghan adoption, but she was still looking.

“How are your parents taking the news?”

“Madar is happy for us. You know how she feels about you, Amir, you can do no wrong in her eyes. Padar . . . well, as always,
he’s a little harder to read. He’s not saying much.”

“And you? Are you happy?”

I heard her shifting the receiver to her other hand. “I think we’ll be good for your nephew, but maybe that little boy will
be good for us too.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I find myself wondering what his favorite
qurma
will be, or his favorite subject in school. I picture myself helping him with homework . . .” She laughed. In the bathroom,
the water had stopped running. I could hear Sohrab in there, shifting in the tub, spilling water over the sides.

“You’re going to be great,” I said.

“Oh, I almost forgot! I called Kaka Sharif.”

I remembered him reciting a poem at our
nika
from a scrap of hotel stationery paper. His son had held the Koran over our heads as Soraya and I had walked toward the stage,
smiling at the flashing cameras. “What did he say?”

“Well, he’s going to stir the pot for us. He’ll call some of his INS buddies,” she said.

“That’s really great news,” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see Sohrab.”

“I can’t wait to see you,” she said.

I hung up smiling.

Sohrab emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later. He had barely said a dozen words since the meeting with Raymond Andrews
and my attempts at conversation had only met with a nod or a monosyllabic reply. He climbed into bed, pulled the blanket to
his chin. Within minutes, he was snoring.

I wiped a circle on the fogged-up mirror and shaved with one of the hotel’s old-fashioned razors, the type that opened and
you slid the blade in. Then I took my own bath, lay there until the steaming hot water turned cold and my skin shriveled up.
I lay there drifting, wondering, imagining . . .

OMAR FAISAL WAS CHUBBY, dark, had dimpled cheeks, black button eyes, and an affable, gap-toothed smile. His thinning gray
hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore a brown corduroy suit with leather elbow patches and carried a worn, overstuffed
briefcase. The handle was missing, so he clutched the briefcase to his chest. He was the sort of fellow who started a lot
of sentences with a laugh and an unnecessary apology, like
I’m
sorry,
I’ll
be there at five.
Laugh. When I had called him, he had insisted on coming out to meet us. “I’m sorry, the cabbies in this town are sharks,”
he said in perfect English, without a trace of an accent. “They smell a foreigner, they triple their fares.”

He pushed through the door, all smiles and apologies, wheezing a little and sweating. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief
and opened his briefcase, rummaged in it for a notepad and apologized for the sheets of paper that spilled on the bed. Sitting
cross-legged on his bed, Sohrab kept one eye on the muted television, the other on the harried lawyer. I had told him in the
morning that Faisal would be coming and he had nodded, almost asked something, and had just gone on watching a show with talking
animals.

“Here we are,” Faisal said, flipping open a yellow legal notepad. “I hope my children take after their mother when it comes
to organization. I’m sorry, probably not the sort of thing you want to hear from your prospective lawyer, heh?” He laughed.

“Well, Raymond Andrews thinks highly of you.”

“Mr. Andrews. Yes, yes. Decent fellow. Actually, he rang me and told me about you.”

“He did?”

“Oh yes.”

“So you’re familiar with my situation.”

Faisal dabbed at the sweat beads above his lips. “I’m familiar with the version of the situation you gave Mr. Andrews,” he
said. His cheeks dimpled with a coy smile. He turned to Sohrab. “This must be the young man who’s causing all the trouble,”
he said in Farsi.

“This is Sohrab,” I said. “Sohrab, this is Mr. Faisal, the lawyer I told you about.”

Sohrab slid down the side of his bed and shook hands with Omar Faisal.
“
Salaam
alaykum,”
he said in a low voice.

“
Alaykum salaam,
Sohrab,” Faisal said. “Did you know you are named after a great warrior?”

Sohrab nodded. Climbed back onto his bed and lay on his side to watch TV.

“I didn’t know you spoke Farsi so well,” I said in English. “Did you grow up in Kabul?”

“No, I was born in Karachi. But I did live in Kabul for a number of years. Shar-e-Nau, near the Haji Yaghoub Mosque,” Faisal
said. “I grew up in Berkeley, actually. My father opened a music store there in the late sixties. Free love, headbands, tie-dyed
shirts, you name it.” He leaned forward. “I was at Woodstock.”

“Groovy,” I said, and Faisal laughed so hard he started sweating all over again. “Anyway,” I continued, “what I told Mr. Andrews
was pretty much it, save for a thing or two. Or maybe three. I’ll give you the uncensored version.”

He licked a finger and flipped to a blank page, uncapped his pen. “I’d appreciate that, Amir. And why don’t we just keep it
in English from here on out?”

“Fine.”

I told him everything that had happened. Told him about my meeting with Rahim Khan, the trek to Kabul, the orphanage, the
stoning at Ghazi Stadium.

“God,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I have such fond memories of Kabul. Hard to believe it’s the same place you’re telling me
about.”

“Have you been there lately?”

“God no.”

“It’s not Berkeley, I’ll tell you that,” I said.

“Go on.”

I told him the rest, the meeting with Assef, the fight, Sohrab and his slingshot, our escape back to Pakistan. When I was
done, he scribbled a few notes, breathed in deeply, and gave me a sober look. “Well, Amir, you’ve got a tough battle ahead
of you.”

“One I can win?”

He capped his pen. “At the risk of sounding like Raymond Andrews, it’s not likely. Not impossible, but hardly likely.” Gone
was the affable smile, the playful look in his eyes.

“But it’s kids like Sohrab who need a home the most,” I said. “These rules and regulations don’t make any sense to me.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Amir,” he said. “But the fact is, take current immigration laws, adoption agency policies,
and the political situation in Afghanistan, and the deck is stacked against you.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. I wanted to hit something. “I mean, I get it but I don’t get it.”

Omar nodded, his brow furrowed. “Well, it’s like this. In the aftermath of a disaster, whether it be natural or man-made—and
the Taliban are a disaster, Amir, believe me—it’s always difficult to ascertain that a child is an orphan. Kids get displaced
in refugee camps, or parents just abandon them because they can’t take care of them. Happens all the time. So the INS won’t
grant a visa unless it’s clear the child meets the definition of an eligible orphan. I’m sorry, I know it sounds ridiculous,
but you need death certificates.”