_Qiyamat_, Judgment Day. In those days, drinking was fairly common in Kabul. No one gave you a public lashing for it, but those Afghans who did drink did so in private, out of respect. People bought their scotch as medicine?in brown paper bags from selected p tory burch reva flats harmacies.?They would leave with the bag tucked out of sight, sometimes drawing furtive, disapproving glances from those who knew about the stores reputation for such transactions. We were upstairs in Babas study, the smoking room, when I told him what Mullah Fatiullah Khan had taught us in tory burch sale class. Baba was pouring himself a whiskey from the bar he had built in the corner of the room. He listened, nodded, took a sip from his drink. Then he lowered himself into the leather sofa, put down his drink, and propped me up on his lap. I felt as if I were sitting on a pair of tree trunks. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose, the air hissing through his mustache for what seemed an eternity I couldnt decide whether I wanted to hug him or leap from his lap in mortal fear. I see youve confused what youre l tory burch ballet flats earning in school with actual education,?he said in his thick voice. But if what he said is true then does it make you a sinner, Baba?? Hmm.?Baba crushed an ice cube between his teeth. Do you want to know what your father thinks about sin?? Yes.? Then Ill tell you,?Baba said, but first understand this and understand it now, Amir: Youll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots.? You mean Mullah Fatiullah Khan?? Baba gestured with his glass. The ice clinked. I mean all of them. Piss on the beards of all those self-righteous monkeys.? I began to giggle. The image of Baba pissing on the beard of any monkey, selfrighteous or otherwise, was too much. They do nothing but thumb their prayer beads and recite a book written in a tongue they dont even understand.?He took a sip. God help us all if Afghanistan ever tory burch pumps falls into their hands.? But Mullah Fatiullah Khan seems nice,?I managed between bursts of tittering. So did Genghis Khan,?Baba said. But enough about that. You asked about sin and I want to tell you. Are you listening?? Yes,?I said, pressing my lips together. But a chortle escaped through my nose and made a snorting sound. That got me giggling again. Babas stony eyes bore into mine and, just like that, I wasnt laughing anymore. I mean to speak to you man to man. Do you think you can handle that for once?? Yes, Baba jan,?I muttered, marveling, not for the first time, at how badly Baba could sting me with so few words. Wed had a fleeting good moment–it wasnt often Baba talked tory burch wedges to me, let alone on his lap–and Id been a fool to waste it. Good,?Baba said, but his eyes wondered. Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a v cheap tory burch shoes ariation of theft. Do you understand that?? No, Baba jan,?I said, desperately wishing I did. I didnt want to disappoint him again. Baba heaved a sigh of impatience. That stung too, because he was not an impatient man. I remembered all the times he didnt come home until after dark, all the times I ate dinner alone. Id ask Ali where Baba was, when he was coming home, though I knew full well he was at the construction site, overlooking this, supervising that. Didnt that take patience? I already hated all the kids he was building the orpha tory burch shoes sale nage for; sometimes I wished theyd all died along with their parents. When you kill a man, you steal a life,?Baba said. You steal his wifes right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?? I did. When Baba was six, a thief walked into my grandfathers house in the middle of the night. My grandfather, a respected judge, confronted him, but the thief stabbed him in the throat, killing him instantly–and robbing Baba of a father. The townspeople caught the killer just before noon the next day; he turned out to be a wanderer from the Kunduz region. They hanged him from the branch of an oak tree with still two hours to go before afternoon prayer. It was Rahim Khan, not Baba, who had told me that story. I was always learning things about Baba from other people. There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir,?Baba said. A man who takes whats not his to take, be it a life or a loaf of _naan_… I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him. Do you understand?? I found the idea of Baba clobbering a thief both exhilarating and terrib tory burch wallets ly frightening. Yes, Baba.? If theres a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork. Now, hop down. All this talk about sin has made me thirsty again.? I watched him fill his glass at th cheap tory burch shoes e bar and wondered how much time would pass before we talked again the way we just had. Because the truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I _had_ killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadnt I? The least I could have done was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadnt turned out like him. Not at all. IN SCHOOL, we used to play a game called _Sherjangi_, or Battle of the Poems.? The Farsi teacher moderated it and it w tory burch uk ent something like this: You recited a verse from a poem and your opponent had sixty seconds to reply with a verse that began with the same letter that ended yours. Everyone in my class wanted me on their team, because by the time I was eleven, I could recite doze tory burch purses ns of verses from Khayyam, Hfez, or Rumis famous _Masnawi_. One time, I took on the whole class and won. I told Baba about it later that night, but he just nodded, muttered, Good.? That was how I escaped my fathers aloofness, in my dead mothers books. That and Hassan, of course. I read everything, Rumi, Hfez, Saadi, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Ian Fleming. When I had finished my mothers books–not the boring history ones, I was never much into those, but the novels, the epics–I started spending my allowance on books. I bought one a week from the bookstore near Cinema Park, and stored them in cardboard boxes when I ran out of shelf tory burch outlet room. Of course, marrying a poet was one thing, but fathering a son who preferred burying his face in poetry books to hunting… well, that wasnt how Baba had envisioned it, I suppose. Real men didnt read poetry–and God forbid they should ever write it! Real men–real boys–played soccer just as Baba had when he had been young. Now _that_ was something to be passionate about. In 1970, Baba took a break from the construction of the orphanage and flew to Tehran for a month to watch the World Cup games on television, since at the time Afghanistan didnt have TVs yet. He signed me up for soccer teams to stir the same passion in me. But I was pathetic, a blundering liability to my own team, always in the way of an opportune pass or unwittingly blocking an open lane. I shambled about the field on scraggy legs, squalled for passes that never came my way. An tory burch london d the harder I tried, waving my arms over my head frantically and screeching, Im open! Im open!?the more I went ignored. But Baba wouldnt give up. When it became abundantly clear that I hadnt inherited a shred of his athletic talents, he settled for trying to turn me into a passionate spectator. Certainly I could manage that, couldnt I? I faked interest for as long as possible. I cheered with him when Kabuls team scored against Kandahar and yelped insults at the referee when he called a penalty against our team. But Baba sensed my lack of genuine interest discount tory burch shoes and resigned himself to the bleak fact that his son was never going to either play or watch soccer. I remember one time Baba took me to the yearly _Buzkashi_ tournament that took place on the first day of spring, New Years Day. Buzkashi was, and still is, Afghanistans na tory burch ballet flats tional passion. A _chapandaz_, a highly skilled horseman usually patronized by rich aficionados, has to snatch a goat or cattle carcass from the midst of a melee, carry that carcass with him around the stadium at full gallop, and drop it in a scoring circle while a team of other _chapandaz_ chases him and does everything in its power–kick, claw, whip, punch–to snatch the carcass from him. That day, the crowd roared with excitement as the horsemen on the field bellowed their battle cries and jostled for the carcass in a cloud of dust. The earth trembled with the clatter of hooves. We watched from the upper bleachers as riders pounded past us at full gallop, yipping and yelling, foam flying from their horses?mouths. At one point Baba pointed to someone. Amir, do you see that man sitting up there with those other men around him?? I did. Thats Henry Kissinger.? Oh,?I said. I didnt know who Henry Kissinger was, and I might have asked. But at the moment, I watched with horror as one of the _chapandaz_ fell off his saddle and was trampled under a score of hooves. His body was tossed and hurled in the stampede like a rag doll, finally rolling to a stop when the melee moved on. He twitched once and lay motionless, his legs bent at unnatural angles, a pool of his blood soaking through the sand. I began to cry.
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