追风筝的人阿塞夫结局 残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(80)

残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(80)  

“It’s not so bad now
” he said
meaning since he had bee the day manager at the gas station. But I’d seen the way he winced and rubbed his wrists on damp days. The way sweat erupted on his forehead as he reached for his bottle of antacids after meals. “Besides
I didn’t bring us here for me
did I?”
I reached across the table and put my hand on his. My student hand
clean and soft
on his laborer’s hand
grubby and calloused. I thought of all the trucks
train sets
and bikes he’d bought me in Kabul. Now America. One last gift for Amir.
Just one month after we arrived in the U.S.
Baba found a job off Washington Boulevard as an assistant at a gas station owned by an Afghan acquaintance--he’d started looking for work the same week we arrived. Six days a week
Baba pulled elve-hour shifts pumping gas
running the register
changing oil
and washing windshields. I’d bring him lunch sometimes and find him looking for a pack of cigarettes on the shelves
a customer waiting on the other side of the oil-stained counter
Baba’s face drawn and pale under the bright fluorescent lights. The electronic bell over the door would ding-dong when I walked in
and Baba would look over his shoulder
wave
and smile
his eyes watering from fatigue.
The same day he was hired
Baba and I went to our eligibility officer in San Jose
Mrs. Dobbins. She was an overweight black woman with inkling eyes and a dimpled smile. She’d told me once that she sang in church
and I believed her--she had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey. Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. “Thank you but I don’t want
” Baba said. “I work always. In Afghanistan I work
in America I work. Thank you very much
Mrs. Dobbins
but I don’t like it free money.”
Mrs. Dobbins blinked. Picked up the food stamps
looked from me to Baba like we were pulling a prank
or “slipping her a trick” as Hassan used to say. “Fifteen years I been doin’ this job and nobody’s ever done this
” she said. And that was how Baba ended those humiliating food stamp moments at the cash register and alleviated one of his greatest fears: that an Afghan would see him buying food with charity money. Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor. THAT SUMMER OF 1983
I graduated from high school at the age of enty
by far the oldest senior tossing his mortarboard on the football field that day. I remember losing Baba in the swarm of families
flashing cameras
and blue gowns. I found him near the enty-yard line
hands shoved in his pockets
camera dangling on his chest. He disappeared and reappeared behind the people moving beeen us: squealing blue-clad girls hugging
crying
boys high-fiving their fathers
each other. Baba’s beard was graying
his hair thinning at the temples
and hadn’t he been taller in Kabul? He was wearing his brown suit--his only suit
the same one he wore to Afghan weddings and funerals--and the red tie I had bought for his fiftieth birthday that year. Then he saw me and waved. Smiled. He motioned for me to wear my mortarboard
and took a picture of me with the school’s clock tower in the background. I smiled for him--in a way
this was his day more than mine. He walked to me
curled his arm around my neck
and gave my brow a single kiss. “I am moftakhir
Amir
” he said. Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look.
He took me to an Afghan kabob house in Hayward that night and ordered far too much food. He told the owner that his son was going to college in the fall. I had debated him briefly about that just before graduation
and told him I wanted to get a job. Help out
save some money
maybe go to college the following year. But he had shot me one of his smoldering Baba looks
and the words had vaporized on my tongue.
After dinner
Baba took me to a bar across the street from the restaurant. The place was dim
and the acrid smell of beer I’d always disliked permeated the walls. Men in baseball caps and tank tops played pool
clouds of cigarette smoke hovering over the green tables
swirling in the fluorescent light. We drew looks
Baba in his brown suit and me in pleated slacks and sports jacket. We took a seat at the bar
next to an old man
his leathery face sickly in the blue glow of the Michelob sign overhead. Baba lit a cigarette and ordered us beers. “Tonight I am too much happy
” he announced to no one and everyone. “Tonight I drinking with my son. And one
please
for my friend
” he said
patting the old man on the back. The old fellow tipped his hat and smiled. He had no upper teeth.
Baba finished his beer in three gulps and ordered another. He had three before I forced myself to drink a quarter of mine. By then he had bought the old man a scotch and treated a foursome of pool players to a pitcher of Budweiser. Men shook his hand and clapped him on the back. They drank to him. Someone lit his cigarette. Baba loosened his tie and gave the old man a handful of quarters. He pointed to the jukebox. “Tell him to play his favorite songs
” he said to me. The old man nodded and gave Baba a salute. Soon
country music was blaring
and
just like that
Baba had started a party.
At one point
Baba stood
raised his beer
spilling it on the sawdust floor
and yelled
“Fuck the Russia!” The bar’s laughter
then its full-throated echo followed. Baba bought another round of pitchers for everyone.
When we left
everyone was sad to see him go. Kabul
Peshawar
Hayward. Same old Baba
I thought
smiling.
I drove us home in Baba’s old
ochre yellow Buick Century. Baba dozed off on the way
snoring like a jackhammer. I smelled tobacco on him and alcohol
sweet and pungent. But he sat up when I stopped the car and said in a hoarse voice
“Keep driving to the end of the block.”
“Why
Baba?”