They won't let me in.
I see them wheel him through a set of double doors and I follow. I burst through the doors, the smell of iodine1 and peroxide hits me, but all I have time to see is two men wearing surgical2 caps and a woman in green huddling3 over a gurney. A white sheet spills over the side of the gurney and brushes against grimy checkered4 tiles. A pair of small, bloody5 feet poke6 out from under the sheet and I see that the big toenail on the left foot is chipped. Then a tall, thickset man in blue presses his palm against my chest and he's pushing me back out through the doors, his wedding band cold on my skin. I shove forward and I curse him, but he says you cannot be here, he says it in English, his voice polite but firm. "You must wait,?he says, leading me back to the waiting area, and now the double doors swing shut behind him with a sigh and all I see is the top of the men's surgical caps through the doors?narrow rectangular windows.
He leaves me in a wide, windowless corridor crammed8 with people sitting on metallic10 folding chairs set along the walls, others on the thin frayed11 carpet. I want to scream again, and I remember the last time I felt this way, riding with Baba in the tank of the fuel truck, buried in the dark with the other refugees. I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away. There will be no other reality tonight. I close my eyes and my nostrils12 fill with the smells of the corridor, sweat and ammonia, rubbing alcohol and curry13. On the ceiling, moths14 fling themselves at the dull gray light tubes running the length of the corridor and I hear the papery flapping of their wings. I hear chatter15, muted sobbing16, sniffling, someone moaning, someone else sighing, elevator doors opening with a bing, the operator paging someone in Urdu.
I open my eyes again and I know what I have to do. I look around, my heart a jackhammer in my chest, blood thudding in my ears. There is a dark little supply room to my left. In it, I find what I need. It will do. I grab a white bedsheet from the pile of folded linens17 and carry it back to the corridor. I see a nurse talking to a policeman near the restroom. I take the nurse's elbow and pull, I want to know which way is west. She doesn't understand and the lines on her face deepen when she frowns. My throat aches and my eyes sting with sweat, each breath is like inhaling18 fire, and I think I am weeping. I ask again. I beg. The policeman is the one who points.
I throw my makeshift _jai-namaz_, my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I bow to the west. Then I remember I haven't prayed for over fifteen years. I have long forgotten the words. But it doesn't matter, I will utter those few words I still remember: ??La iflaha ii Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger. I see now that Baba was wrong, there is a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him, not the white masjid with its bright diamond lights and towering minarets19. There is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity20 only to turn to Him now in my hour of need, I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent21, and gracious as His book says He is. I bow to the west and kiss the ground and promise that I will do _zakat_, I will do _namaz_, I will fast during Ramadan and when Ramadan has passed I will go on fasting, I will commit to memory every last word of His holy book, and I will set on a pilgrimage to that sweltering city in the desert and bow before the Ka'bah too. I will do all of this and I will think of Him every day from this day on if He only grants me this one wish: My hands are stained with Hassan's blood; I pray God doesn't let them get stained with the blood of his boy too.
I hear a whimpering and realize it is mine, my lips are salty with the tears trickling22 down my face. I feel the eyes of everyone in this corridor on me and still I bow to the west. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I'd always feared they would.
A STARLESS, BLACK NIGHT falls over Islamabad. It's a few hours later and I am sitting now on the floor of a tiny lounge off the corridor that leads to the emergency ward7. Before me is a dull brown Coffee table cluttered24 with newspapers and dog-eared magazines--an April 1996 issue of Time; a Pakistani newspaper showing the face of a young boy who was hit and killed by a train the week before; an entertainment magazine with smiling Hollywood actors on its glossy25 cover. There is an old woman wearing a jade26 green shalwar-kameez and a crocheted27 shawl nodding off in a wheelchair across from me. Every once in a while, she stirs awake and mutters a prayer in Arabic. I wonder tiredly whose prayers will be heard tonight, hers or mine. I picture Sohrab's face, the pointed28 meaty chin, his small seashell ears, his slanting29 bambooleaf eyes so much like his father's. A sorrow as black as the night outside invades me, and I feel my throat clamping.
I need air.
I get up and open the windows. The air coming through the screen is musty and hot--it smells of overripe dates and dung. I force it into my lungs in big heaps, but it doesn't clear the clamping feeling in my chest. I drop back on the floor. I pick up the Time magazine and flip30 through the pages. But I can't read, can't focus on anything. So I toss it on the table and go back to staring at the zigzagging31 pattern of the cracks on the cement floor, at the cobwebs on the ceiling where the walls meet, at the dead flies littering the windowsill. Mostly, I stare at the clock on the wall. It's just past 4 A.M. and I have been shut out of the room with the swinging double doors for over five hours now. I still haven't heard any news.
The floor beneath me begins to feel like part of my body, and my breathing is growing heavier, slower. I want to sleep, shut my eyes and lie my head down on this cold, dusty floor. Drift off. When I wake up, maybe I will discover that everything I saw in the hotel bathroom was part of a dream: the water drops dripping from the faucet32 and landing with a plink into the bloody bathwater; the left arm dangling33 over the side of the tub, the blood-soaked razor sitting on the toilet tank--the same razor I had shaved with the day before--and his eyes, still half open but light less. That more than anything. I want to forget the eyes.
Soon, sleep comes and I let it take me. I dream of things I can't remember later.
SOMEONE IS TAPPING ME on the shoulder. I open my eyes. There is a man kneeling beside me. He is wearing a cap like the men behind the swinging double doors and a paper surgical mask over his mouth--my heart sinks when I see a drop of blood on the mask. He has taped a picture of a doe-eyed little girl to his beeper. He unsnaps his mask and I'm glad I don't have to look at Sohrab's blood anymore. His skin is dark like the imported Swiss chocolate Hassan and I used to buy from the bazaar34 in Shar-e-Nau; he has thinning hair and hazel eyes topped with curved eyelashes. In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr. Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don't think I can bear to hear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again:
La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.
They had to transfuse35 several units of red cells-- How will I tell Soraya?
Twice, they had to revive him--I will do _namaz_, I will do _zakat_.
They would have lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong--
I will fast.
He is alive.
Dr. Nawaz smiles. It takes me a moment to register what he has just said. Then he says more but I don't hear him. Because I have taken his hands and I have brought them up to my face. I weep my relief into this stranger's small, meaty hands and he says nothing now. He waits.
THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT is L-shaped and dim, a jumble36 of bleeping monitors and whirring machines. Dr. Nawaz leads me between two rows of beds separated by white plastic curtains. Sohrab's bed is the last one around the corner, the one nearest the nurses?station where two nurses in green surgical scrubs are jotting37 notes on clipboards, chatting in low voices. On the silent ride up the elevator with Dr. Nawaz, I had thought I'd weep again when I saw Sohrab. But when I sit on the chair at the foot of his bed, looking at his white face through the tangle38 of gleaming plastic tubes and IV lines, I am dry-eyed. Watching his chest rise and fall to the rhythm of the hissing39 ventilator, a curious numbness40 washes over me, the same numbness a man might feel seconds after he has swerved41 his car and barely avoided a head-on collision.
I doze42 off, and, when I wake up, I see the sun rising in a buttermilk sky through the window next to the nurses?station. The light slants43 into the room, aims my shadow toward Sohrab. He hasn't moved.
"You'd do well to get some sleep,?a nurse says to me. I don't recognize her--there must have been a shift change while I'd napped. She takes me to another lounge, this one just outside the ICU. It's empty. She hands me a pillow and a hospital-issue blanket. I thank her and lie on the vinyl sofa in the corner of the lounge. I fall asleep almost immediately.
I dream I am back in the lounge downstairs. Dr. Nawaz walks in and I rise to meet him. He takes off his paper mask, his hands suddenly whiter than I remembered, his nails manicured, he has
neatly44 parted hair, and I see he is not Dr. Nawaz at all but Raymond Andrews, the little embassy man with the potted tomatoes. Andrews cocks his head. Narrows his eyes.
IN THE DAYTIME, the hospital was a maze45 of teeming46, angled hallways, a blur47 of blazing-white overhead fluorescence. I came to know its layout, came to know that the fourth-floor button in the east wing elevator didn't light up, that the door to the men's room on that same floor was jammed and you had to ram9 your shoulder into it to open it. I came to know that hospital life has a rhythm, the flurry of activity just before the morning shift change, the midday hustle48, the stillness and quiet of the late-night hours interrupted occasionally by a blur of doctors and nurses rushing to revive someone. I kept vigil at Sohrab's bedside in the daytime and wandered through the hospital's serpentine49 corridors at night, listening to my shoe heels clicking on the tiles, thinking of what I would say to Sohrab when he woke up. I'd end up back in the ICU, by the whooshing50 ventilator beside his bed, and I'd be no closer to knowing.
After three days in the ICU, they withdrew the breathing tube and transferred him to a ground-level bed. I wasn't there when they moved him. I had gone back to the hotel that night to get some sleep and ended up tossing around in bed all night. In the morning, I tried to not look at the bathtub. It was clean now, someone had wiped off the blood, spread new floor mats on the floor, and scrubbed the walls. But I couldn't stop myself from sitting on its cool, porcelain51 edge. I pictured Sohrab filling it with warm water. Saw him undressing. Saw him twisting the razor handle and opening the twin safety latches52 on the head, sliding the blade out, holding it between his thumb and forefinger53. I pictured him lowering himself into the water, lying there for a while, his eyes closed. I wondered what his last thought had been as he had raised the blade and brought it down.
I was exiting the lobby when the hotel manager, Mr. Fayyaz, caught up with me. "I am very sorry for you,?he said, "but I am asking for you to leave my hotel, please. This is bad for my Business, very bad.?
I told him I understood and I checked out. He didn't charge me for the three days I'd spent at the hospital. Waiting for a cab outside the hotel lobby, I thought about what Mr. Fayyaz had said to me that night we'd gone looking for Sohrab: The thing about you Afghanis is that... well, you people are a little reckless. I had laughed at him, but now I wondered. Had I actually gone to sleep after I had given Sohrab the news he feared most?
When I got in the cab, I asked the driver if he knew any Persian bookstores. He said there was one a couple of kilometers south. We stopped there on the way to the hospital.
SOHRAB'S NEW ROOM had cream-colored walls, chipped, dark gray moldings, and glazed54 tiles that might have once been white. He shared the room with a teenaged Punjabi boy who, I later learned from one of the nurses, had broken his leg when he had slipped off the roof of a moving bus. His leg was in a cast, raised and held bytongs strapped55 to several weights.
Sohrab's bed was next to the window, the lower half lit by the late-morning sunlight streaming through the rectangular panes56. A uniformed security guard was standing57 at the window, munching58 on cooked watermelon seeds--Sohrab was under twenty-four hours-a-day suicide watch. Hospital protocol59, Dr. Nawaz had informed me. The guard tipped his hat when he saw me and left the room.
Sohrab was wearing short-sleeved hospital pajamas60 and lying on his back, blanket pulled to his chest, face turned to the window. I thought he was sleeping, but when I scooted a chair up to his bed his eyelids61 fluttered and opened. He looked at me, then looked away. He was so pale, even with all the blood they had given him, and there was a large purple bruise62 in the crease63 of his right arm.
"How are you??I said.
He didn't answer. He was looking through the window at a fenced-in sandbox and swing set in the hospital garden. There was an arch-shaped trellis near the playground, in the shadow of a row of hibiscus trees, a few green vines climbing up the timber lattice. A handful of kids were playing with buckets and pails in the sand box. The sky was a cloudless blue that day, and I saw a tiny jet leaving behind twin white trails. I turned back to Sohrab. "I spoke64 to Dr. Nawaz a few minutes ago and he thinks you'll be discharged in a couple of days. That's good news, nay65??
Again I was met by silence. The Punjabi boy at the other end of the room stirred in his sleep and moaned something. "I like your room,?I said, trying not to look at Sohrab's bandaged wrists. "It's bright, and you have a view.?Silence. A few more awkward minutes passed, and a light sweat formed on my brow, my upper lip. I pointed to the untouched bowl of green pea aush on his nightstand, the unused plastic spoon. "You should try to eat some thing. Gain your quwat back, your strength. Do you want me to help you??
He held my glance, then looked away, his face set like stone. His eyes were still lightless, I saw, vacant, the way I had found them when I had pulled him out of the bathtub. I reached into the paper bag between my feet and took out the used copy of the Shah namah I had bought at the Persian bookstore. I turned the cover so it faced Sohrab. "I used to read this to your father when we were children. We'd go up the hill by our house and sit beneath the pomegranate...?I trailed off. Sohrab was looking through the window again. I forced a smile. "Your father's favorite was the story of Rostam and Sohrab and that's how you got your name, I know you know that.?I paused, feeling a bit like an idiot. "Any way, he said in his letter that it was your favorite too, so I thought I'd read you some of it. Would you like that??
Sohrab closed his eyes. Covered them with his arm, the one with the bruise.
I flipped66 to the page I had bent67 in the taxicab. "Here we go,?I said, wondering for the first time what thoughts had passed through Hassan's head when he had finally read the _Shahnamah_ for himself and discovered that I had deceived him all those times. I cleared my throat and read. "Give ear unto the combat of Sohrab against Rostam, though it be a tale replete68 with tears,?I began. "It came about that on a certain day Rostam rose from his couch and his mind was filled with forebodings. He bethought him...?I read him most of chapter 1, up to the part where the young warrior69 Sohrab comes to his mother, Tahmineh, the princess of Samen gan, and demands to know the identity of his father. I closed the book. "Do you want me to go on? There are battles coming up, remember? Sohrab leading his army to the White Castle in Iran? Should I read on??
He shook his head slowly. I dropped the book back in the paper bag. "That's fine,?I said, encouraged that he had responded at all. "Maybe we can continue tomorrow. How do you feel??
Sohrab's mouth opened and a hoarse70 sound came out. Dr. Nawaz had told me that would happen, on account of the breathing tube they had slid through his vocal71 cords. He licked his lips and tried again. "Tired.?
"I know. Dr. Nawaz said that was to be expected--?He was shaking his head.
"What, Sohrab??
He winced72 when he spoke again in that husky voice, barely above a whisper. "Tired of everything.?
I sighed and slumped73 in my chair. There was a band of sunlight on the bed between us, and, for just a moment, the ashen74 gray face looking at me from the other side of it was a dead ringer for Hassan's, not the Hassan I played marbles with until the mullah belted out the evening azan and Ali called us Home, not the Hassan I chased down our hill as the sun dipped behind clay rooftops in the west, but the Hassan I saw alive for the last time, dragging his belongings75 behind Ali in a warm summer downpour, stuffing them in the trunk of Baba's car while I watched through the rain-soaked window of my room.
He gave a slow shake of his head. "Tired of everything,?he repeated.
"What can I do, Sohrab? Please tell me.?
"I want--?he began. He winced again and brought his hand to his throat as if to clear whatever was blocking his voice. My eyes were drawn76 again to his wrist wrapped tightly with white gauze bandages. "I want my old life back,?he breathed.
"Oh, Sohrab.?
"I want Father and Mother jan. I want Sasa. I want to play with Rahim Khan sahib in the garden. I want to live in our house again.?He dragged his forearm across his eyes. "I want my old life back.?
I didn't know what to say, where to look, so I gazed down at my hands. Your old life, I thought. My old life too. I played in the same yard, Sohrab. I lived in the same house. But the grass is dead and a stranger's jeep is parked in the driveway of our house, pissing oil all over the asphalt. Our old life is gone, Sohrab, and everyone in it is either dead or dying. It's just you and me now. Just you and me.
"I can't give you that,?I said. "I wish you hadn't--?
"Please don't say that.?
?-wish you hadn't... I wish you had left me in the water.?
"Don't ever say that, Sohrab,?I said, leaning forward. "I can't bear to hear you talk like that.?I touched his shoulder and he flinched77. Drew away. I dropped my hand, remembering ruefully how in the last days before I'd broken my promise to him he had finally become at ease with my touch. "Sohrab, I can't give you your old life back, I wish to God I could. But I can take you with me. That was what I was coming in the bathroom to tell you. You have a visa to go to America, to live with me and my wife. It's true. I promise.?
He sighed through his nose and closed his eyes. I wished I hadn't said those last two words. "You know, I've done a lot of things I regret in my life,?I said, "and maybe none more than going back on the promise I made you. But that will never happen again, and I am so very profoundly sorry. I ask for your bakhshesh, your forgiveness. Can you do that? Can you forgive me? Can you believe me??I dropped my voice. "Will you come with me??
As I waited for his reply, my mind flashed back to a winter day from long ago, Hassan and I sitting on the snow beneath a leafless sour cherry tree. I had played a cruel game with Hassan that day, toyed with him, asked him if he would chew dirt to prove his loyalty78 to me. Now I was the one under the microscope, the one who had to prove my worthiness79. I deserved this.
Sohrab rolled to his side, his back to me. He didn't say anything for a long time. And then, just as I thought he might have drifted to sleep, he said with a croak80, "I am so khasta.?So very tired. I sat by his bed until he fell asleep. Something was lost between Sohrab and me. Until my meeting with the lawyer, Omar Faisal, a light of hope had begun to enter Sohrab's eyes like a timid guest. Now the light was gone, the guest had fled, and I wondered when it would dare return. I wondered how long before Sohrab smiled again. How long before he trusted me. If ever.
So I left the room and went looking for another hotel, unaware81 that almost a year would pass before I would hear Sohrab speak another word.
IN THE END, Sohrab never accepted my offer. Nor did he decline it. But he knew that when the bandages were removed and the hospital garments returned, he was just another Homeless Hazara orphan82. What choice did he have? Where could he go? So what I took as a yes from him was in actuality more of a quiet surrender, not so much an acceptance as an act of relinquishment83 by one too weary to decide, and far too tired to believe. What he yearned84 for was his old life. What he got was me and America. Not that it was such a bad fate, everything considered, but I couldn't tell him that. Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm85 of demons86.
And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac and I brought Hassan's son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil87 and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty88.
ONE DAY, maybe around 1983 or 1984, I was at a video store in Fremont. I was standing in the Westerns section when a guy next to me, sipping89 Coke from a 7-Eleven cup, pointed to _The Magnificent Seven_ and asked me if I had seen it. "Yes, thirteen times,?I said. "Charles Bronson dies in it, so do James Coburn and Robert Vaughn.?He gave me a pinch-faced look, as if I had just spat90 in his soda91. "Thanks a lot, man,?he said, shaking his head and muttering something as he walked away. That was when I learned that, in America, you don't reveal the ending of the movie, and if you do, you will be scorned and made to apologize profusely92 for having committed the sin of Spoiling the End.
In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered. When Hassan and I came Home after watching a Hindi film at Cinema Zainab, what Ali, Rahim Khan, Baba, or the myriad93 of Baba's friends--second and third cousins milling in and out of the house--wanted to know was this: Did the Girl in the film find Happiness? Did the bacheh film, the Guy in the film, become katnyab and fulfill94 his dreams, or was he nah-kam, doomed95 to wallow in failure?
Was there Happiness at the end, they wanted to know.
If someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab, and me ends with Happiness, I wouldn't know what to say.
Does anybody's?
After all, life is not a Hindi movie. Zendagi migzara, Afghans like to say: life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end, kamyab, nah-kam, crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan96 of kochis.
I wouldn't know how to answer that question. Despite the matter of last Sunday's tiny miracle.
WE ARRIVED Home about seven months ago, on a warm day in August 2001. Soraya picked us up at the airport. I had never been away from Soraya for so long, and when she locked her arms around my neck, when I smelled apples in her hair, I realized how much I had missed her. "You're still the morning sun to my yelda,?I whispered.
"What??
"Never mind.?I kissed her ear.
After, she knelt to eye level with Sohrab. She took his hand and smiled at him. "Sataam, Sohrab jan, I'm your Khala Soraya. We've all been waiting for you.?
Looking at her smiling at Sohrab, her eyes tearing over a little, I had a glimpse of the mother she might have been, had her own womb not betrayed her.
Sohrab shifted on his feet and looked away.
SORAYA HAD TURNED THE STUDY upstairs into a bedroom for Sohrab. She led him in and he sat on the edge of the bed. The sheets showed brightly colored kites flying in indigo97 blue skies. She had made inscriptions98 on the wall by the closet, feet and inches to measure a child's growing height. At the foot of the bed, I saw a wicker basket stuffed with books, a locomotive, a water color set.
Sohrab was wearing the plain white T-shirt and new denims I had bought him in Islamabad just before we'd left--the shirt hung loosely over his bony, slumping99 shoulders. The color still hadn't seeped100 back into his face, save for the halo of dark circles around his eyes. He was looking at us now in the impassive way he looked at the plates of boiled rice the hospital orderly placed before him.
Soraya asked if he liked his room and I noticed that she was trying to avoid looking at his wrists and that her eyes kept swaying back to those jagged pink lines. Sohrab lowered his head. Hid his hands under his thighs101 and said nothing. Then he simply lay his head on the pillow. Less than five minutes later, Soraya and I watching from the doorway102, he was snoring.
We went to bed, and Soraya fell asleep with her head on my chest. In the darkness of our room, I lay awake, an insomniac103 once more. Awake. And alone with demons of my own. Sometime in the middle of the night, I slid out of bed and went to Sohrab's room. I stood over him, looking down, and saw some thing protruding104 from under his pillow. I picked it up. Saw it was Rahim Khan's Polaroid, the one I had given to Sohrab the night we had sat by the Shah Faisal Mosque105. The one of Hassan and Sohrab standing side by side, squinting106 in the light of the sun, and smiling like the world was a good and just place. I wondered how long Sohrab had lain in bed staring at the photo, turning it in his hands.
I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between two halves, Rahim Khan had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate107 half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba's guilt108. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses109 of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son.
I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare110 of epiphany, but with pain gathering111 its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.
THE GENERAL AND KHALA JAMILA came over for dinner the following night. Khala Jamila, her hair cut short and a darker shade of red than usual, handed Soraya the plate of almondtopped maghout she had brought for dessert. She saw Sohrab and beamed. "_Mashallah_! Soraya jan told us how khoshteep you were, but you are even more handsome in person, Sohrab jan.?She handed him a blue turtleneck sweater. "I knitted this for you,?she said. "For next winter. _Inshallah_, it will fit you.?
Sohrab took the sweater from her.
"Hello, young man,?was all the general said, leaning with both hands on his cane112, looking at Sohrab the way one might study a bizarre decorative113 item at someone's house.
I answered, and answered again, Khala Jamila's questions about my injuries--I'd asked Soraya to tell them I had been mugged--reassuring her that I had no permanent damage, that the wires would come out in a few weeks so I'd be able to eat her cooking again, that, yes, I would try rubbing rhubarb juice and sugar on my scars to make them fade faster.
The general and I sat in the living room and sipped114 wine while Soraya and her mother set the table. I told him about Kabul and the Taliban. He listened and nodded, his cane on his lap, and tsk'ed when I told him of the man I had spotted115 selling his artificial leg. I made no mention of the executions at Ghazi Stadium and Assef. He asked about Rahim Khan, whom he said he had met in Kabul a few times, and shook his head solemnly when I told him of Rahim Khan's illness. But as we spoke, I caught his eyes drifting again and again to Sohrab sleeping on the couch. As if we were skirting around the edge of what he really wanted to know.
The skirting finally came to an end over dinner when the general put down his fork and said, "So, Amir jan, you're going to tell us why you have brought back this boy with you??
"Iqbal jan! What sort of question is that??Khala Jamila said.
"While you're busy knitting sweaters, my dear, I have to deal with the community's perception of our family. People will ask. They will want to know why there is a Hazara boy living with our daughter. What do I tell them??
Soraya dropped her spoon. Turned on her father. "You can tell them--?
"It's okay, Soraya,?I said, taking her hand. "It's okay. General Sahib is quite right. People will ask.?
"Amir--?she began.
"It's all right.?I turned to the general. "You see, General Sahib, my father slept with his servant's wife. She bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead now. That boy sleeping on the couch is Hassan's son. He's my nephew. That's what you tell people when they ask.?
They were all staring at me.
"And one more thing, General Sahib,?I said. "You will never again refer to him as ‘Hazara boy?in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.?
No one said anything for the remainder of the meal.
IT WOULD BE ERRONEOUS to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquillity116. Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life.
Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it.
Sohrab's silence wasn't the self-imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.
He didn't so much live with us as occupy space. And precious little of it. Sometimes, at the market, or in the park, I'd notice how other people hardly seemed to even see him, like he wasn't there at all. I'd look up from a book and realize Sohrab had entered the room, had sat across from me, and I hadn't noticed. He walked like he was afraid to leave behind footprints. He moved as if not to stir the air around him. Mostly, he slept.
Sohrab's silence was hard on Soraya too. Over that long-distance line to Pakistan, Soraya had told me about the things she was planning for Sohrab. Swimming classes. Soccer. Bowling117 league. Now she'd walk past Sohrab's room and catch a glimpse of books sitting unopened in the wicker basket, the growth chart unmarked, the jigsaw118 puzzle unassembled, each item a reminder119 of a life that could have been. A reminder of a dream that was wilting120 even as it was budding. But she hadn't been alone. I'd had my own dreams for Sohrab.
While Sohrab was silent, the world was not. One Tuesday morning last September, the Twin Towers came crumbling121 down and, overnight, the world changed. The American flag suddenly appeared everywhere, on the antennae122 of yellow cabs weaving around traffic, on the lapels of pedestrians123 walking the sidewalks in a steady stream, even on the grimy caps of San Francisco's pan handlers sitting beneath the awnings124 of small art galleries and open-fronted shops. One day I passed Edith, the Homeless woman who plays the accordion125 every day on the corner of Sutter and Stockton, and spotted an American flag sticker on the accordion case at her feet.
Soon after the attacks, America bombed Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance moved in, and the Taliban scurried126 like rats into the caves. Suddenly, people were standing in grocery store lines and talking about the cities of my childhood, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif. When I was very little, Baba took Hassan and me to Kunduz. I don't remember much about the trip, except sitting in the shade of an acacia tree with Baba and Hassan, taking turns sipping fresh watermelon juice from a clay pot and seeing who could spit the seeds farther. Now Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz, the Taliban's last stronghold in the north. That December, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras gathered in Bonn and, under the watchful128 eye of the UN, began the process that might someday end over twenty years of unHappiness in their watan. Hamid Karzai's caracul hat and green chapan became famous.
Sohrab sleepwalked through it all.
Soraya and I became involved in Afghan projects, as much out of a sense of civil duty as the need for something--anything--to fill the silence upstairs, the silence that sucked everything in like a black hole. I had never been the active type before, but when a man named Kabir, a former Afghan ambassador to Sofia, called and asked if I wanted to help him with a hospital project, I said yes. The small hospital had stood near the Afghan-Pakistani border and had a small surgical unit that treated Afghan refugees with land mine injuries. But it had closed down due to a lack of funds. I became the project manager, Soraya my comanager. I spent most of my days in the study, e-mailing people around the world, applying for grants, organizing fund-raising events. And telling myself that bringing Sohrab here had been the right thing to do.
The year ended with Soraya and me on the couch, blanket spread over our legs, watching Dick Clark on TV. People cheered and kissed when the silver ball dropped, and confetti whitened the screen. In our house, the new year began much the same way the last one had ended. In silence.
THEN, FOUR DAYS AGO, on a cool rainy day in March 2002, a small, wondrous129 thing happened.
I took Soraya, Khala Jamila, and Sohrab to a gathering of Afghans at Lake Elizabeth Park in Fremont. The general had finally been summoned to Afghanistan the month before for a ministry130 position, and had flown there two weeks earlier--he had left behind his gray suit and pocket watch. The plan was for Khala Jamila to join him in a few months once he had settled. She missed him terribly--and worried about his health there--and we had insisted she stay with us for a while.
The previous Thursday, the first day of spring, had been the Afghan New Year's Day--the Sawl-e-Nau--and Afghans in the Bay Area had planned celebrations throughout the East Bay and the peninsula. Kabir, Soraya, and I had an additional reason to rejoice: Our little hospital in Rawalpindi had opened the week before, not the surgical unit, just the pediatric clinic. But it was a good start, we all agreed.
It had been sunny for days, but Sunday morning, as I swung my legs out of bed, I heard raindrops pelting131 the window. Afghan luck, I thought. Snickered. I prayed morning _namaz_ while Soraya slept--I didn't have to consult the prayer pamphlet I had obtained from the mosque anymore; the verses came naturally now, effortlessly.
We arrived around noon and found a handful of people taking cover under a large rectangular plastic sheet mounted on six poles spiked132 to the ground. Someone was already frying bolani; steam rose from teacups and a pot of cauliflower aush. A scratchy old Ahmad Zahir song was blaring from a cassette player. I smiled a little as the four of us rushed across the soggy grass field, Soraya and I in the lead, Khala Jamila in the middle, Sohrab behind us, the hood127 of his yellow raincoat bouncing on his back.
"What's so funny??Soraya said, holding a folded newspaper over her head.
"You can take Afghans out of Paghman, but you can't take Paghman out of Afghans,?I said.
We stooped under the makeshift tent. Soraya and Khala Jamila drifted toward an overweight woman frying spinach133 bolani. Sohrab stayed under the canopy134 for a moment, then stepped back out into the rain, hands stuffed in the pockets of his raincoat, his hair--now brown and straight like Hassan's--plastered against his scalp. He stopped near a Coffee-colored puddle135 and stared at it. No one seemed to notice. No one called him back in. With time, the queries136 about our adopted--and decidedly eccentric--little boy had mercifully ceased, and, considering how tactless Afghan queries can be sometimes, that was a considerable relief. People stopped asking why he never spoke. Why he didn't play with the other kids. And best of all, they stopped suffocating137 us with their exaggerated empathy, their slow head shaking, their tsk tsks, their "Oh gung bichara.?Oh, poor little mute one. The novelty had worn off. Like dull wallpaper, Sohrab had blended into the background.
I shook hands with Kabir, a small, silver-haired man. He introduced me to a dozen men, one of them a retired138 teacher, another an engineer, a former architect, a surgeon who was now running a hot dog stand in Hayward. They all said they'd known Baba in Kabul, and they spoke about him respectfully. In one way or another, he had touched all their lives. The men said I was lucky to have had such a great man for a father.
We chatted about the difficult and maybe thankless job Karzai had in front of him, about the upcoming Loya jirga, and the king's imminent139 return to his Homeland after twenty-eights years of exile. I remembered the night in 1973, the night Zahir Shah's cousin overthrew140 him; I remembered gunfire and the sky lighting141 up silver--Ali had taken me and Hassan in his arms, told us not to be afraid, that they were just shooting ducks.
Then someone told a Mullah Nasruddin joke and we were all laughing. "You know, your father was a funny man too,?Kabir said.
"He was, wasn't he??I said, smiling, remembering how, soon after we arrived in the U.S., Baba started grumbling142 about American flies. He'd sit at the kitchen table with his flyswatter, watch the flies darting143 from wall to wall, buzzing here, buzzing there, harried144 and rushed. "In this country, even flies are pressed for time,?he'd groan145. How I had laughed. I smiled at the memory now.
By three o'clock, the rain had stopped and the sky was a curdled146 gray burdened with lumps of clouds. A cool breeze blew through the park. More families turned up. Afghans greeted each other, hugged, kissed, exchanged food. Someone lighted coal in a barbecue and soon the smell of garlic and morgh kabob flooded my senses. There was music, some new singer I didn't know, and the giggling147 of children. I saw Sohrab, still in his yellow raincoat, leaning against a garbage pail, staring across the park at the empty batting cage.
A little while later, as I was chatting with the former surgeon, who told me he and Baba had been classmates in eighth grade, Soraya pulled on my sleeve. "Amir, look!?
She was pointing to the sky. A half-dozen kites were flying high, speckles of bright yellow, red, and green against the gray sky.
"Check it out,?Soraya said, and this time she was pointing to a guy selling kites from a stand nearby.
"Hold this,?I said. I gave my cup of tea to Soraya. I excused myself and walked over to the kite stand, my shoes squishing on the wet grass. I pointed to a yellow seh-parcha. "Sawl-e-nau mubabrak,?the kite seller said, taking the twenty and handing me the kite and a wooden spool148 of glass tar23. I thanked him and wished him a Happy New Year too. I tested the string the way Hassan and I used to, by holding it between my thumb and forefinger and pulling it. It reddened with blood and the kite seller smiled. I smiled back.
I took the kite to where Sohrab was standing, still leaning against the garbage pail, arms crossed on his chest. He was looking up at the sky.
"Do you like the seh-parcha??I said, holding up the kite by the ends of the cross bars. His eyes shifted from the sky to me, to the kite, then back. A few rivulets149 of rain trickled150 from his hair, down his face.
"I read once that, in Malaysia, they use kites to catch fish,?I said. "I'll bet you didn't know that. They tie a Fishing line to it and fly it beyond the shallow waters, so it doesn't cast a shadow and scare the fish. And in ancient China, generals used to fly kites over battlefields to send messages to their men. It's true. I'm not slipping you a trick.?I showed him my bloody thumb. "Nothing wrong with the tar either.?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Soraya watching us from the tent. Hands tensely dug in her armpits. Unlike me, she'd gradually abandoned her attempts at engaging him. The unanswered questions, the blank stares, the silence, it was all too painful. She had shifted to "Holding Pattern,?waiting for a green light from Sohrab. Waiting.
I wet my index finger and held it up. "I remember the way your father checked the wind was to kick up dust with his sandal, see which way the wind blew it. He knew a lot of little tricks like that,?I said. Lowered my finger. "West, I think.?
Sohrab wiped a raindrop from his earlobe and shifted on his feet. Said nothing. I thought of Soraya asking me a few months ago what his voice sounded like. I'd told her I didn't remember anymore.
"Did I ever tell you your father was the best kite runner in Wazir Akbar Khan? Maybe all of Kabul??I said, knotting the loose end of the spool tar to the string loop tied to the center spar. "How jealous he made the neighborhood kids. He'd run kites and never look up at the sky, and people used to say he was chasing the kite's shadow. But they didn't know him like I did. Your father wasn't chasing any shadows. He just... knew?
Another half-dozen kites had taken flight. People had started to gather in clumps151, teacups in hand, eyes glued to the sky.
"Do you want to help me fly this??I said.
Sohrab's gaze bounced from the kite to me. Back to the sky.
"Okay.?I shrugged152. "Looks like I'll have to fly it tanhaii.?Solo.
I balanced the spool in my left hand and fed about three feet of tar. The yellow kite dangled153 at the end of it, just above the wet grass. "Last chance,?I said. But Sohrab was looking at a pair of kites tangling154 high above the trees.
"All right. Here I go.?I took off running, my sneakers splashing rainwater from puddles155, the hand clutching the kite end of the string held high above my head. It had been so long, so many years since I'd done this, and I wondered if I'd make a spectacle of myself. I let the spool roll in my left hand as I ran, felt the string cut my right hand again as it fed through. The kite was lifting behind my shoulder now, lifting, wheeling, and I ran harder. The spool spun156 faster and the glass string tore another gash157 in my right palm. I stopped and turned. Looked up. Smiled. High above, my kite was tilting158 side to side like a pendulum159, making that old paper-bird-flapping-its-wings sound I always associated with winter mornings in Kabul. I hadn't flown a kite in a quarter of a century, but suddenly I was twelve again and all the old instincts came rushing back.
I felt a presence next to me and looked down. It was Sohrab. Hands dug deep in the pockets of his raincoat. He had followed me.
"Do you want to try??I asked. He said nothing. But when I held the string out for him, his hand lifted from his pocket. Hesitated. Took the string. My heart quickened as I spun the spool to gather the loose string. We stood quietly side by side. Necks bent up.
Around us, kids chased each other, slid on the grass. Someone was playing an old Hindi movie soundtrack now. A line of elderly men were praying afternoon _namaz_ on a plastic sheet spread on the ground. The air smelled of wet grass, smoke, and grilled160 meat. I wished time would stand still.
Then I saw we had company. A green kite was closing in. I traced the string to a kid standing about thirty yards from us. He had a crew cut and a T-shirt that read THE ROCK RULES in bold block letters. He saw me looking at him and smiled. Waved. I waved back.
Sohrab was handing the string back to me.
"Are you sure??I said, taking it.
He took the spool from me.
"Okay,?I said. "Let's give him a sabagh, teach him a lesson, nay??I glanced over at him. The glassy, vacant look in his eyes was gone. His gaze flitted between our kite and the green one. His face was a little flushed, his eyes suddenly alert. Awake. Alive. I wondered when I had forgotten that, despite everything, he was still just a child.
The green kite was making its move. "Let's wait,?I said. "We'll let him get a little closer.?It dipped twice and crept toward us. "Come on. Come to me,?I said.
The green kite drew closer yet, now rising a little above us, unaware of the trap I'd set for it. "Watch, Sohrab. I'm going to show you one of your father's favorite tricks, the old lift-and-dive.?
Next to me, Sohrab was breathing rapidly through his nose. The spool rolled in his palms, the tendons in his scarred wrists like rubab strings161. Then I blinked and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, calloused162 hands of a harelipped boy. I heard a crow cawing somewhere and I looked up. The park shimmered163 with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes. It sprinkled soundlessly from the branches of white-clad trees. I smelled turnip164 qurina now. Dried mulberries. Sour oranges. Sawdust and walnuts165. The muffled166 quiet, snow-quiet, was deafening167. Then far away, across the stillness, a voice calling us Home, the voice of a man who dragged his right leg.
The green kite hovered168 directly above us now. "He's going for it. Anytime now,?I said, my eyes flicking169 from Sohrab to our kite.
The green kite hesitated. Held position. Then shot down. "Here he comes!?I said.
I did it perfectly170. After all these years. The old lift-and-dive trap. I loosened my grip and tugged171 on the string, dipping and dodging172 the green kite. A series of quick sidearm jerks and our kite shot up counterclockwise, in a half circle. Suddenly I was on top. The green kite was scrambling173 now, panic-stricken. But it was too late. I'd already slipped him Hassan's trick. I pulled hard and our kite plummeted174. I could almost feel our string sawing his. Almost heard the snap.
Then, just like that, the green kite was spinning and wheeling out of control.
Behind us, people cheered. Whistles and applause broke out. I was panting. The last time I had felt a rush like this was that day in the winter of 1975, just after I had cut the last kite, when I spotted Baba on our rooftop, clapping, beaming.
I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curled up just so.
A smile.
Lopsided.
Hardly there.
But there.
Behind us, kids were scampering175, and a melee176 of screaming kite runners was chasing the loose kite drifting high above the trees. I blinked and the smile was gone. But it had been there. I had seen it.
"Do you want me to run that kite for you??
His Adam's apple rose and fell as he swallowed. The wind lifted his hair. I thought I saw him nod.
"For you, a thousand times over,?I heard myself say.
Then I turned and ran.
It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight.
But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake177 at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.
I ran. A grown man running with a swarm of screaming children. But I didn't care. I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the Valley of Panjsher on my lips.
I ran.
The End
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iodine
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| n.碘，碘酒 | |
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surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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huddling
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| n. 杂乱一团, 混乱, 拥挤 v. 推挤, 乱堆, 草率了事 | |
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checkered
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| adj.有方格图案的 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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sobbing
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linens
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| n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 )；家庭日用织品 | |
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inhaling
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| v.吸入( inhale的现在分词 ) | |
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minarets
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| n.（清真寺旁由报告祈祷时刻的人使用的）光塔( minaret的名词复数 ) | |
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impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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tar
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cluttered
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glossy
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jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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crocheted
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| v.用钩针编织( crochet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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flip
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| vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的 | |
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zigzagging
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| v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的现在分词 )；盘陀 | |
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faucet
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| n.水龙头 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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transfuse
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| v.渗入；灌输；输血 | |
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jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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jotting
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| n.简短的笔记，略记v.匆忙记下( jot的现在分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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swerved
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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slants
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| （使）倾斜，歪斜( slant的第三人称单数 )； 有倾向性地编写或报道 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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whooshing
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| v.（使）飞快移动( whoosh的现在分词 ) | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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latches
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| n.（门窗的）门闩( latch的名词复数 )；碰锁v.理解( latch的第三人称单数 )；纠缠；用碰锁锁上（门等）；附着（在某物上） | |
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53
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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54
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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55
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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56
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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57
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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58
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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59
protocol
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| n.议定书，草约，会谈记录，外交礼节 | |
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60
pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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61
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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62
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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63
crease
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| n.折缝，褶痕，皱褶；v.(使)起皱 | |
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64
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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65
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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66
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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67
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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68
replete
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| adj.饱满的，塞满的；n.贮蜜蚁 | |
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69
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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70
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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71
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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72
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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74
ashen
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| adj.灰的 | |
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75
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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76
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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77
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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79
worthiness
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| 价值，值得 | |
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80
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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81
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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82
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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83
relinquishment
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| n.放弃；撤回；停止 | |
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84
yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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85
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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86
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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87
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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88
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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89
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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90
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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91
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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92
profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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93
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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94
fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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95
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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96
caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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97
indigo
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| n.靛青，靛蓝 | |
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98
inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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99
slumping
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的现在分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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100
seeped
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| v.（液体）渗( seep的过去式和过去分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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101
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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102
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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103
insomniac
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| n.失眠症患者 | |
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104
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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105
mosque
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| n.清真寺 | |
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106
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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107
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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108
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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109
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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110
fanfare
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| n.喇叭；号角之声；v.热闹地宣布 | |
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111
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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112
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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113
decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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114
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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116
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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117
bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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118
jigsaw
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| n.缕花锯，竖锯，拼图游戏；vt.用竖锯锯，使互相交错搭接 | |
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119
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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120
wilting
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| 萎蔫 | |
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121
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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122
antennae
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| n.天线；触角 | |
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123
pedestrians
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| n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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124
awnings
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| 篷帐布 | |
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125
accordion
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| n.手风琴；adj.可折叠的 | |
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126
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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127
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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128
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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129
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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130
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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131
pelting
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| 微不足道的，无价值的，盛怒的 | |
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132
spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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133
spinach
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| n.菠菜 | |
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134
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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135
puddle
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| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
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136
queries
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| n.问题( query的名词复数 )；疑问；询问；问号v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的第三人称单数 )；询问 | |
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137
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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138
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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139
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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140
overthrew
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| overthrow的过去式 | |
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141
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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142
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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143
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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144
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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145
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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146
curdled
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| v.（使）凝结( curdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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147
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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148
spool
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| n.（缠录音带等的）卷盘（轴）；v.把…绕在卷轴上 | |
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149
rivulets
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| n.小河，小溪( rivulet的名词复数 ) | |
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150
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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151
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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152
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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153
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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154
tangling
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| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的现在分词 ) | |
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155
puddles
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| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
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156
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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157
gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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158
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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159
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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160
grilled
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| adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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161
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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162
calloused
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| adj.粗糙的，粗硬的，起老茧的v.（使）硬结，（使）起茧( callous的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）冷酷无情 | |
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163
shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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164
turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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165
walnuts
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| 胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木 | |
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166
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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167
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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168
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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169
flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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170
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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171
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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172
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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173
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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174
plummeted
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| v.垂直落下，骤然跌落( plummet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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175
scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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176
melee
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| n.混战；混战的人群 | |
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177
flake
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| v.使成薄片；雪片般落下；n.薄片 | |
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