“You call yourself a director?” Farid n dropped his hands. “I haven’t been paid in over six months. I’m broke because I’ve spent my life’s savings on this orphanage. Everything I ever owned or inherited I sold to run this godforsaken place. You think I don’t have family in Pakistan and Iran? I could have run like everyone else. But I didn’t. I stayed. I stayed because of them.” He pointed to the door. “If I deny him one child, he takes ten. So I let him take one and leave the judging to Allah. I swallow my pride and take his goddamn filthy... dirty money. Then I go to the bazaar and buy food for the children.”Farid dropped his eyes. “What happens to the children he takes?” I n rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. “Some times they come back.”“Who is he? How do we find him?” I said.“Go to Ghazi Stadium tomorrow. You’ll see him at halftime. He’ll be the one wearing black sunglasses.” He picked up his broken glasses and turned them in his hands. “I want you to go now. The children are frightened.”He escorted us the truck pulled away, I saw Zaman in the side-view mirror, standing in the doorway. A group of children surrounded him, clutching the hem of his loose shirt. I saw he had put on his broken glasses. We crossed the river and drove north through the crowded Pashtunistan Square. Baba used to take me to Khyber Restaurant there for kabob. The building was still standing, but its doors were padlocked, the windows shattered, and the letters K and R missing from its name. I saw a dead body near the restaurant. There had been a hanging. A young man dangled from the end of a rope tied to a beam, his face puffy and blue, the clothes he’d worn on the last day of his life shredded, bloody. Hardly anyone seemed to notice him. We rode silently through the square and headed toward the WazirAkbar Khan district. Everywhere I looked, a haze of dust covered the city and its sun-dried brick buildings. A few blocks north of Pashtunistan Square, Farid pointed to two men talking animatedly at a busy street corner. One of them was hobbling on one leg, his other leg amputated below the knee. He cradled an artificial leg in his arms. “You know what they’re doing? Haggling over the leg.” “He’s selling his leg?” “你還說自己是負責人？”察曼放下手：“我已經有六個月沒有收入了。我破產了，因爲我畢生的積蓄，都投在這個恤孤院。我賣掉一切財產和遺產，來維持這個淒涼的地方。你以爲我沒有家人在巴基斯坦和伊朗嗎？我完全可以像其他人那樣一走了之。但我沒有，我留下。我留下來，全是爲了他們。”他指着門，“如果我拒絕給他一個孩子，他會帶走十個。所以我讓他帶走，讓安拉來作決定。我忍氣吞聲，拿過他那些該死的、骯髒的臭錢，然後到市場去，給孩子買食物。”法裏德垂下眼睛。 “被他帶走的孩子會怎樣？”我問。察曼用食指和拇指揉揉眼睛：“有時他們會回來。”“他是誰？我們怎樣才能找到他？”“明天到伽茲體育館去，中場休息的時候你會看到他，他就是那個戴着黑色太陽鏡的人。”他撿起他的破眼鏡，在手裏翻轉，“我要你們現在就離開，孩子嚇壞了。”他送我們出去。車開走的時候，我從側視鏡看到察曼，他站在門口，一羣孩子圍在他身邊，拉着他鬆開的襯衣下襬。我看見他戴上那副破眼鏡。 我們過河，向北駛去，穿過擁擠的普什圖廣場，從前爸爸常帶我到那兒的開伯爾餐館吃烤肉。那屋宇依然挺立，只是大門上了掛鎖，窗戶破裂，招牌上不見了“ K”和“ R”兩個字母。 在餐館附近，我見到一具屍體。那兒行過絞刑，有個年輕人被吊起來，繩索末端綁在橫樑上，他臉龐青腫，壽終那日，他穿着殘破的衣服，染着血跡。人們對他視而不見。 我們默默駛過廣場，直奔瓦茲爾?阿克巴?汗區。我目光所及，見到的總是一座塵霧籠罩的城市，還有生磚壘成的建築。在普什圖廣場往北幾條街，法裏德指着兩個男人，他們在繁忙的街角相談甚歡。其中有個金雞獨立，他另外那條腿從膝蓋以下不見了，懷裏抱着一根義肢。“你知道他們在幹什麼嗎？就那條腿討價還價呢。” “他要賣掉他的腿？”
