The Kite Runner

One time, a bratty Hindi kid whose family had recently moved into the neighborhood told us that in his hometown, kite fighting had strict rules and regulations. “You have to play in a boxed area and you have to stand at a right angle to the wind,” he said proudly. “And you can’t use aluminum to make your glass string.”

Hassan and I looked at each other. Cracked up. The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980s: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish custom but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck.

Except that wasn’t all. The real fun began when a kite was cut. That was where the kite ru

For kite ru

Over the years, I had seen a lot of guys run kites. But Hassan was by far the greatest kite ru

I remember one overcast winter day, Hassan and I were ru

“Hassan! Wait!” I yelled, my breathing hot and ragged.

He whirled around, motioned with his hand. “This way!” he called before dashing around another corner. I looked up, saw that the direction we were ru

“We’re losing it! We’re going the wrong way!” I cried out.

“Trust me!” I heard him call up ahead. I reached the corner and saw Hassan bolting along, his head down, not even looking at the sky, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. I tripped over a rock and fell – I wasn’t just slower than Hassan but clumsier too; I’d always envied his natural athleticism. When I staggered to my feet, I caught a glimpse of Hassan disappearing around another street corner. I hobbled after him, spikes of pain battering my scraped knees.

I saw we had ended up on a rutted dirt road near Isteqlal Middle School. There was a field on one side where lettuce grew in the summer, and a row of sour cherry trees on the other. I found Hassan sitting cross-legged at the foot of one of the trees, eating from a fistful of dried mulberries.

“What are we doing here?” I panted, my stomach roiling with nausea.

He smiled. “Sit with me, Amir agha.”

I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, wheezing. “You’re wasting our time. It was going the other way, didn’t you see?”

Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. “It’s coming,” he said. I could hardly breathe and he didn’t even sound tired.

“How do you know?” I said.

“I know.”

“How can you know?”

He turned to me. A few sweat beads rolled from his bald scalp. “Would I ever lie to you, Amir agha?”

Suddenly I decided to toy with him a little. “I don’t know. Would you?”

“I’d sooner eat dirt,” he said with a look of indignation.

“Really? You’d do that?”

He threw me a puzzled look. “Do what?”

“Eat dirt if I told you to,” I said. I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn’t know some big word. But there was something fascinating – albeit in a sick way – about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now, he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass.

His eyes searched my face for a long time. We sat there, two boys under a sour cherry tree, suddenly looking, really looking, at each other. That’s when it happened again: Hassan’s face changed. Maybe not changed, not really, but suddenly I had the feeling I was looking at two faces, the one I knew, the one that was my first memory, and another, a second face, this one lurking just beneath the surface. I’d seen it happen before – it always shook me up a little. It just appeared, this other face, for a fraction of a moment, long enough to leave me with the unsettling feeling that maybe I’d seen it someplace before. Then Hassan blinked and it was just him again. Just Hassan.

“If you asked, I would,” he finally said, looking right at me. I dropped my eyes. To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.

“But I wonder,” he added. “Would you ever ask me to do such a thing, Amir agha?” And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then he’d toy with me, test my integrity.

I wished I hadn’t started this conversation. I forced a smile. “Don’t be stupid, Hassan. You know I wouldn’t.”

Hassan returned the smile. Except his didn’t look forced. “I know,” he said. And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

“Here it comes,” Hassan said, pointing to the sky. He rose to his feet and walked a few paces to his left. I looked up, saw the kite plummeting toward us. I heard footfalls, shouts, an approaching melee of kite ru

IN THE WINTER OF 1975, I saw Hassan run a kite for the last time.

Usually, each neighborhood held its own competition. But that year, the tournament was going to be held in my neighborhood, Wazir Akbar Khan, and several other districts – Karteh-Char, Karteh-Parwan, Mekro-Rayan, and Koteh-Sangi – had been invited. You could hardly go anywhere without hearing talk of the upcoming tournament. Word had it this was going to be the biggest tournament in twenty-five years.

One night that winter, with the big contest only four days away, Baba and I sat in his study in overstuffed leather chairs by the glow of the fireplace. We were sipping tea, talking. Ali had served di

I didn’t know what to think. Or what to say. Was that what it would take? Had he just slipped me a key? I was a good kite fighter. Actually, a very good one. A few times, I’d even come close to wi