ON THE RICKSHAW RIDE back to Rahim Khan’s apartment, I remembered Baba saying that my problem was that someone had always done my fighting for me. I was thirty-eight flow. My hair was receding and streaked with gray, and lately I’d traced little crow’s-feet etched around the corners of my eyes. I was older now, but maybe not yet too old to start doing my own fighting. Baba had lied about a lot of things as it turned out but he hadn’t lied about that.
I looked at the round face in the Polaroid again, the way the sun fell on it. My brother’s face. Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had or ever would again. He was gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was in Kabul.Waiting.I FOUND RAHIM KHAN praying _namaz_ in a corner of the room. He was just a dark silhouette bowing eastward against a bloodred sky. I waited for him to finish.
Then I told him I was going to Kabul. Told him to call the Caldwells in the morning.
“I’ll pray for you, Amir jan,” he said.
我雇了黄包车，在回拉辛汗寓所的路上，我想起爸爸说过，我的问题是，总有人为我挺身而出。如今我三十八岁了，我的头发日渐稀疏，两鬓开始灰白，最近我发现鱼尾纹开始侵蚀我的眼角。现在我老了，但也许还没有老到不能为自己挺身而出的地步。尽管最终发现爸爸说过很多谎言，但这句话倒是实情。
我再次看着宝丽莱照片上的圆脸，看着阳光落在它上面。我弟弟的脸。哈桑曾经深爱过我，以前无人那样待我，日后也永远不会有。他已经走了，但他的一部分还在。在喀布尔。等待。我发现拉辛汗在屋角做祷告。我只见到在血红色的天空下，一个黑色的身影对着东方朝拜。我等待他结束。
然后我告诉他要去喀布尔，告诉他明天早上给卡尔德威打电话。
“我会为你祷告，亲爱的阿米尔。”他说。