بخش 10

If Peshawar was the city that reminded me of what Kabul used to be, then Islamabad was the city Kabul could have become someday. The streets were wider than Peshawar’s, cleaner, and lined with rows of hibiscus and flame trees. The bazaars were more organized and not nearly as clogged with rickshaws and pedestrians. The architecture was more elegant too.

Farid found a small hotel on a side street running along the foot of the Margalla Hills. We passed the famous Shah Faisal Mosque on the way there, reputedly the biggest mosque in the world, with its giant concrete girders and soaring minarets. Sohrab perked up at the sight of the mosque, leaned out of the window and looked at it until Farid turned a corner.

The hotel room was a vast improvement over the one in Kabul where Farid and I had stayed. The sheets were clean, the carpet vacuumed, and the bathroom spotless. There was shampoo, soap, razors for shaving, a bathtub, and towels that smelled like lemon. And no bloodstains on the walls.

“I’ll get going, Amir agha,” Farid said.

“Stay the night,” I said. “It’s a long drive. Leave tomorrow.”

“Tashakor,” he said. “But I want to get back tonight. I miss my children.” On his way out of the room, he paused in the doorway. “Good-bye, Sohrab jan,” he said. He waited for a reply, but Sohrab paid him no attention.

Outside, I gave him an envelope. When he tore it, his mouth opened.

“I didn’t know how to thank you,” I said. “You’ve done so much for me.”

“How much is in here?” Farid said, slightly dazed.

“A little over two thousand dollars.”

“Two thou—” he began. His lower lip was quivering a little. Later, when he pulled away from the curb, he honked twice and waved. I waved back. I never saw him again.

I returned to the hotel room and found Sohrab lying on the bed, curled up in a big C. His eyes were closed but I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping. I sat on my bed and grimaced with pain, wiped the cool sweat off my brow. I wondered how much longer it would hurt to get up, sit down, roll over in bed. I wondered when I’d be able to eat solid food. I wondered what I’d do with the wounded little boy lying on the bed, though a part of me already knew.

There was a carafe of water on the dresser. I poured a glass and took two of Armand’s pain pills. Then I pulled the curtains, eased myself back on the bed, and waited for the pills to work.

When I woke up, the room was darker. The slice of sky peeking between the curtains was the purple of twilight turning into night. My heart gave a sick lurch when I looked to Sohrab’s bed and found it empty. I called his name and heard nothing. I struggled out of bed, checked the bathroom, looked in the narrow hallway outside the room. He was gone.

I imagined Sohrab lying in a ditch. Or in the trunk of some car, bound and gagged. I didn’t want his blood on my hands. Not his too.

I locked the door and hobbled to the manager’s office in the lobby, one hand clutching the rail along the walkway for support. I found the hotel manager reading a newspaper behind the Formica-topped check-in counter. I described Sohrab to him, asked if he’d seen him. He put down his paper and took off his reading glasses. He had greasy hair and a square-shaped little mustache speckled with gray. He smelled vaguely of some tropical fruit I couldn’t quite recognize.

“Boys, they like to run around,” he said, sighing. “I have three of them. All day they are running around, troubling their mother.” He fanned his face with the newspaper, staring at my jaws.

“I don’t think he’s out running around,” I said. “And we’re not from here. I’m afraid he might get lost.”

I squinted. Read his name tag on the lapel of his short-sleeve blue cotton shirt. “Mr. Fayyaz, have you seen him?” “I have seen no such boy.”

As I was exiting the lobby, he said, “Any idea where he might have wandered to? Does he have any interests?” My boys, for example, they will do anything for American action films, especially with that Arnold Whatsanegger—” “The mosque!” I said. “The big mosque.” I remembered the way the mosque had jolted Sohrab from his stupor when we’d driven by it, how he’d leaned out of the window looking at it.

“Can you take me there? I’ll pay you for the ride,” I said.

“I don’t take your money,” he said, blowing by me. “I will drive you because I am a father like you.” We found him about a hundred yards from the mosque, sitting in the half-full parking lot, on an island of grass. Fayyaz pulled up to the island and let me out. “I have to get back,” he said.

“That’s fine. We’ll walk back,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Fayyaz. Really.”

“You gave me a good scare,” I said. I sat beside him, wincing with pain as I bent.

He was looking at the mosque. We sat in silence, me leaning against the tree, Sohrab next to me, knees to his chest. We listened to the call to prayer, watched the building’s hundreds of lights come on as daylight faded. The mosque sparkled like a diamond in the dark. It lit up the sky, Sohrab’s face.

“Have you ever been to Mazar-i-Sharif?” Sohrab said, his chin resting on his kneecaps.

“A long time ago. I don’t remember it much.”

“Father took me there when I was little. Mother and Sasa came along too. Father took me to the Blue Mosque,” Sohrab said. “I remember there were so many pigeons outside the masjid, and they weren’t afraid of people. They came right up to us. Sasa gave me little pieces of naan and I fed the birds.” “You must miss your parents very much,” I said. I wondered if he’d seen the Taliban drag his parents out into the street. I hoped he hadn’t.

“I’m starting to forget their faces,” Sohrab said. “Is that bad?”

“No,” I said. “Time does that.” I thought of something. I looked in the front pocket of my coat. Found the Polaroid snapshot of Hassan and Sohrab. “Here,” I said.

He brought the photo to within an inch of his face, turned it so the light from the mosque fell on it. He looked at it for a long time. I thought he might cry, but he didn’t. He stretched his hand to give it back to me.

“Keep it,” I said. “It’s yours.”

“Thank you.” He looked at the photo again and stowed it in the pocket of his vest. He lifted his face, looked straight at me. Now he was crying, softly, silently. “Can I ask you something, Amir agha?” “Of course.”

“Will God . . .” he began, and choked a little. “Will God put me in hell for what I did to that man?”

I reached for him and he flinched. I pulled back. “Nay. Of course not,” I said. His face twisted and strained to stay composed. “Father used to say it’s wrong to hurt even bad people. Because they don’t know any better, and because bad people sometimes become good.” “Not always, Sohrab.”

He looked at me questioningly.

“The man who hurt you, I knew him from many years ago,” I said. He . . . he tried to hurt me once when I was your age, but your father saved me. So one day the bad man hurt your father instead. He hurt him in a very bad way, and I …I couldn’t save your father the way he had saved me. You gave him what he deserved, and he deserved even more.” “Do you think Father is disappointed in me?”

“I know he’s not,” I said. “You saved my life in Kabul. I know he is very proud of you for that.”

He buried his face in his hands and wept a long time before he spoke again. “I miss Father, and Mother too,” he croaked. “And I miss Sasa and Rahim Khan sahib. But sometimes I’m glad they’re not . . . they’re not here anymore.” “Why?” He sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, wheezy cry. “I’m so dirty and full of sin.” “You’re not dirty, Sohrab,” I said.

“—they did things …the bad man and the other two …they did things …did things to me.”

“You’re not dirty, and you’re not full of sin.” I touched his arm again and gently pulled him to me. “I won’t hurt you,” I whispered. “I promise.” His little body convulsed in my arms with each sob.

A kinship exists between people who’ve fed from the same breast. Now, as the boy’s pain soaked through my shirt, I saw that a kinship had taken root between us too. What had happened in that room with Assef had irrevocably bound us.

For days I’d been looking for the right time, the right moment, to ask. The question that had been buzzing around in my head and keeping me up at night. I decided the moment was now, right here, right now, with the bright lights of the house of God shining on us.

“Would you like to come live in America with me and my wife?”

He didn’t answer. He sobbed into my shirt and I let him.

For a week, neither one of us mentioned what I had asked him, as if the question hadn’t been posed at all. Then one day, Sohrab and I took a taxicab to the Daman-e-Koh Viewpoint—or “the hem of the mountain.” Perched midway up the Margalla Hills, it gives a panoramic view of Islamabad, its rows of clean, tree-lined avenues and white houses.

We sat on a bench in one of the picnic areas, in the shade of a gum tree. We unrolled one of the hotel’s bathroom towels on the picnic table and played panjpar on it. It felt good being there, with my half brother’s son, playing cards, the warmth of the sun patting the back of my neck.

“Look,” Sohrab said. He was pointing to the sky with his cards. I looked up, saw a hawk circling in the broad seamless sky. “Didn’t know there were hawks in Islamabad,” I said.

“Me neither,” he said, his eyes tracing the bird’s circular flight. “Do they have them where you live?”

“San Francisco? I guess so. I can’t say I’ve seen too many, though.”

“Oh,” he said. I was hoping he’d ask more, but he dealt another hand and asked if we could eat. I opened the paper bag and gave him his meatball sandwich. My lunch consisted of yet another cup of blended bananas and oranges. I smiled and he smiled back.

“Your father and I were brothers,” I said. It just came out. “Half brothers, really. We had the same father.” Sohrab stopped chewing. Put the sandwich down. “Father never said he had a brother.”

“That’s because he didn’t know.”

“Why didn’t he know?”

“No one told him,” I said. “No one told me either. I just found out recently.”

Sohrab blinked. Like he was looking at me, really looking at me, for the very first time. “But why did people hide it from Father and you?” “You know, I asked myself that same question the other day. And there’s an answer, but not a good one. Let’s just say they didn’t tell us because your father and I . . . we weren’t supposed to be brothers.” “Because he was a Hazara?”

I willed my eyes to stay on him. “Yes.”

“Did your father,” he began, eyeing his food, “did your father love you and my father equally?”

I pictured Baba in the hospital room, beaming as they removed the bandages from Hassan’s lips. “I think he loved us equally but differently.” “Was he ashamed of my father?”

“No,” I said. “I think he was ashamed of himself.”

He picked up his sandwich and nibbled at it silently.

We left late that afternoon, tired from the heat, but tired in a pleasant way. I had the driver pull over at a store that sold calling cards. I gave him the money and a tip for running in and buying me one.

That night, we were lying on our beds, watching a talk show on TV. “I saw a picture of San Francisco once,” Sohrab said.

“Really?”

“There was a red bridge and a building with a pointy top.”

“You should see the streets,” I said.

“What about them?” He was looking at me now. “They’re so steep, when you drive up all you see is the hood of your car and the sky,” I said.

“It sounds scary,” he said.

“It is the first few times,” I said. “But you get used to it.”

There was wonder in his smile. “Oh.”

“Sohrab? Have you given any thought to what I asked you before?” His smiled faded. “I’ve thought about it,” Sohrab said. He rolled toward me again. Drew his knees up. “What if you get tired of me? What if your wife doesn’t like me?”

I struggled out of bed and crossed the space between us. I sat beside him. “I won’t ever get tired of you, Sohrab,” I said. “Not ever. That’s a promise. You’re my nephew, remember? And Soraya jan, she’s a very kind woman. Trust me, she’s going to love you. I promise that too.”

“I don’t want to go to another orphanage,” he said. “I won’t ever let that happen. I promise you that.” I cupped his hand in both of mine. “Come home with me.” His tears were soaking the pillow. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then his hand squeezed mine back. And he nodded. He nodded.

The connection went through on the fourth try. The phone rang three times before she picked it up. “Hello?” It was 7:30 in the evening in Islamabad, roughly about the same time in the morning in California. That meant Soraya had been up for an hour, getting ready for school.

“It’s me,” I said. I was sitting on my bed, watching Sohrab sleep.

“Amir!” she almost screamed. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

“I’m in Pakistan.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m fine now.” I had told her I’d be away a week, two at the most. I’d been gone for nearly a month. “What do you mean ‘fine now’? And what’s wrong with your voice?”

“Don’t worry about that for now. I’m fine. Really. Soraya, I have a story to tell you, a story I should have told you a long time ago, but first I need to tell you one thing.” “What is it?” she said, her voice lower now, more cautious. “I’m not coming home alone. I’m bringing a little boy with me.” I paused. “I want us to adopt him.” “What?”

I checked my watch. “I have fifty-seven minutes left on this stupid calling card and I have so much to tell you. Sit somewhere.” I heard the legs of a chair dragged hurriedly across the wooden floor.

“Go ahead,” she said.

Then I did what I hadn’t done in fifteen years of marriage: I told my wife everything. By the time I was done with my story, she was weeping.

“What do you think?” I said.

“I don’t know what to think, Amir. You’ve told me so much all at once.”

“I realize that.”

I heard her blowing her nose. “But I know this much: You have to bring him home.”

I closes my eyes and smiled.

“Soraya?”

“Yeah.”

“Dostet darum.” I love you.

The lawn outside the American embassy in Islamabad was neatly mowed, dotted with circular clusters of flowers, bordered by razor-straight hedges. We passed through several roadblocks to get there and three different security officials conducted a body search on me after the wires in my jaws set off the metal detectors. When we finally stepped in from the heat, the air-conditioning hit my face like a splash of ice water. The secretary in the lobby, a fifty-something, lean-faced blond woman, smiled when I gave her my name. She wore a beige blouse and black slacks—the first woman I’d seen in weeks dressed in something other than a burqa or a shalwar-kameez. She asked me to take a seat. Sohrab and I sat on the black leather sofa across the reception desk, next to a tall American flag. Sohrab picked up a magazine from the glass-top coffee table. He flipped the pages, not really looking at the pictures.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said, touching his arm. I could have used my own advice. I kept shifting in my seat, untying and retying my shoelaces.

Raymond Andrews was a short fellow with small hands, nails perfectly trimmed, wedding band on the ring finger. He gave me a curt little shake; it felt like squeezing a sparrow. Those are the hands that hold our fates, I thought as Sohrab and I seated ourselves across from his desk.

“Smoke?” he asked, his voice a deep baritone that was at odds with his slight stature.

“No thanks,” I said, not caring at all for the way Andrews’s eyes barely gave Sohrab a glance, or the way he didn’t look at me when he spoke. He pulled open a desk drawer and lit a cigarette from a half-empty pack. Then he closed the drawer, put his elbows on the desktop, and exhaled. “So,” he said, crinkling his gray eyes against the smoke, “tell me your story.”

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. “Know anyone who can attest to that?”

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

He turned to me and nodded. “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. “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. 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.”

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. Your petition faces significant obstacles, not the least of which is that this child is not an orphan.” “Of course he is.”

“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.”

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

“I didn’t say that.”

“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. “Can I ask you something, Mr. Andrews?” “Yes.”

“Do you have children?”

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.

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.

“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.

“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. “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. 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. He wore a brown corduroy suit with leather elbow patches and carried a worn, overstuffed briefcase. 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, 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.

“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.”

“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”. 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 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.

I told him about 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. “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. The INS won’t grant a visa unless it’s clear the child meets the definition of an eligible orphan. I know it sounds ridiculous, but you need death certificates.” “You’ve been to Afghanistan,” I said. “You know how improbable that is.”

“I’m sorry, I’m telling you how the INS works, Amir,” Omar said, touching my arm. I looked at Sohrab sitting on the bed, watching TV, watching us. He was sitting the way his father used to, chin resting on one knee.

“What are my options, Omar?”

“I’ll be frank. You don’t have a lot of them.”

Omar breathed in, tapped his chin with the pen, let his breath out. “You could do an independent adoption. That means you’d have to live with Sohrab here in Pakistan, day in and day out, for the next two years. You could seek asylum on his behalf. That’s a lengthy process and you’d have to prove political persecution. You could request a humanitarian visa. That’s at the discretion of the attorney general and it’s not easily given.” He paused. “There is another option, probably your best shot.” “What?” I said, leaning forward.

“You could relinquish him to an orphanage here, then file an orphan petition. Start your I-600 form and your home study while he’s in a safe place.” “What are those?”

“I’m sorry, the I-600 is an INS formality. The home study is done by the adoption agency you choose,” Omar said. “It’s, you know, to make sure you and your wife aren’t raving lunatics.” I looked at Sohrab. “I promised him I wouldn’t send him back to an orphanage.” “Like I said, it may be your best shot.”

I walked him out to his car, an old VW Bug. He waved as he pulled away. Standing outside the hotel room and waving back, I wished Soraya could be there with me.

Sohrab had turned off the TV when I went back into the room. I sat on the edge of my bed, asked him to sit next to me. “Mr. Faisal thinks there is a way I can take you to America with me,” I said.

“He does?” Sohrab said, smiling faintly for the first time in days. “When can we go?”

“Well, that’s the thing. It might take a little while. But he said it can be done and he’s going to help us.” I put my hand on the back of his neck. From outside, the call to prayer blared through the streets.

“How long?” Sohrab asked.

“I don’t know. A while.”

Sohrab shrugged and smiled, wider this time. “I don’t mind. I can wait. It’s like the sour apples.”

“Sour apples?”

“One time, when I was really little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I’d just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn’t have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.” “Sour apples,” I said. “Mashallah, you’re just about the smartest little guy I’ve ever met, Sohrab jan.” His ears reddened with a blush.

“Will you take me to that red bridge? The one with the fog?” he said.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Absolutely.”

My eyes stung with tears and I blinked them away.

“Is English hard to learn?”

“I say, within a year, you’ll speak it as well as Farsi.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” I placed a finger under his chin, turned his face up to mine. “There is one other thing, Sohrab.”

“What?”

“Well, Mr. Faisal thinks that it would really help if we could . . . if we could ask you to stay in a home for kids for a while.” “Home for kids?” he said, his smile fading. “You mean an orphanage?”

“It would only be for a little while.”

“You promised you’d never put me in one of those places, Amir agha,” he said. His voice was breaking, tears pooling in his eyes.

“This is different. It would be here, in Islamabad, not in Kabul. And I’d visit you all the time until we can get you out and take you to America.” “Please! Please, no!” he croaked. “I’m scared of that place. They’ll hurt me! I don’t want to go.”

“No one is going to hurt you. Not ever again.”

“Yes they will! They always say they won’t but they lie. They lie! Please, God!”

He was trembling, snot and tears mixing on his face.

“Shhh.” I pulled him close, wrapped my arms around his shaking little body. “Shhh. It’ll be all right. We’ll go home together. You’ll see, it’ll be all right.” His voice was muffled against my chest, but I heard the panic in it. “Please promise you won’t! Oh God, Amir agha! Please promise you won’t!” How could I promise? I held him against me, held him tightly, and rocked back and forth. He wept into my shirt until his tears dried, until his shaking stopped and his frantic pleas dwindled to indecipherable mumbles. I waited, rocked him until his breathing slowed and his body slackened. I remembered something I had read somewhere a long time ago: That’s how children deal with terror. They fall asleep.

I carried him to his bed, set him down. Then I lay in my own bed, looking out the window at the purple sky over Islamabad.

The sky was a deep black when the phone jolted me from sleep. I rubbed my eyes and turned on the bedside lamp. It was a little past 10:30 P.M.; I’d been sleeping for almost three hours. I picked up the phone. “Hello?” “Call from America.” Mr. Fayyaz’s bored voice.

“Thank you,” I said. The bathroom light was on; Sohrab was taking his nightly bath. A couple of clicks and then Soraya: “Salaam!” She sounded excited.

“Hi.”

“How did the meeting go with the lawyer?”

I told her what Omar Faisal had suggested. “Well, you can forget about it,” she said. “We won’t have to do that.”

I sat up. “Rawsti? Why, what’s up?”

“I heard back from Kaka Sharif. He said the key was getting Sohrab into the country. Once he’s in, there are ways of keeping him here. So he made a few calls to his INS friends. He called me back tonight and said he was almost certain he could get Sohrab a humanitarian visa.” “No kidding?” I said. “Oh thank God! Good ol’ Sharif jan!”

“I know. Anyway, we’ll serve as the sponsors. It should all happen pretty quickly. He said the visa would be good for a year, plenty of time to apply for an adoption petition.” “It’s really going to happen, Soraya, huh?”

“It looks like it,” she said. She sounded happy. I told her I loved her and she said she loved me back. I hung up.

“Sohrab!” I called, rising from my bed. “I have great news.” I knocked on the bathroom door. “Sohrab! Soraya jan just called from California. We won’t have to put you in the orphanage, Sohrab. We’re going to America, you and I. Did you hear me? We’re going to America!” I pushed the door open. Stepped into the bathroom.

Suddenly I was on my knees, screaming. Screaming through my clenched teeth. Screaming until I thought my throat would rip and my chest explode.

Later, they said I was still screaming when the ambulance arrived.