ON THE RICKSHAW RIDE back to Rahim Khan’s apartment, I remembered Baba saying that my problem was that someone had always done my fighting for me. I was thirty-eight flow. My hair was receding and streaked with gray, and lately I’d traced little crow’s-feet etched around the corners of my eyes. I was older now, but maybe not yet too old to start doing my own fighting. Baba had lied about a lot of things as it turned out but he hadn’t lied about that. I looked at the round face in the Polaroid again, the way the sun fell on it. My brother’s face. Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had or ever would again. He was gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was in ing.I FOUND RAHIM KHAN praying _namaz_ in a corner of the room. He was just a dark silhouette bowing eastward against a bloodred sky. I waited for him to finish. Then I told him I was going to Kabul. Told him to call the Caldwells in the morning. “I’ll pray for you, Amir jan,” he said. 我僱了黃包車，在回拉辛汗寓所的路上，我想起爸爸說過，我的問題是，總有人爲我挺身而出。如今我三十八歲了，我的頭髮日漸稀疏，兩鬢開始灰白，最近我發現魚尾紋開始侵蝕我的眼角。現在我老了，但也許還沒有老到不能爲自己挺身而出的地步。儘管最終發現爸爸說過很多謊言，但這句話倒是實情。 我再次看着寶麗萊照片上的圓臉，看着陽光落在它上面。我弟弟的臉。哈桑曾經深愛過我，以前無人那樣待我，日後也永遠不會有。他已經走了，但他的一部分還在。在喀布爾。等待。我發現拉辛汗在屋角做禱告。我只見到在血紅色的天空下，一個黑色的身影對着東方朝拜。我等待他結束。 然後我告訴他要去喀布爾，告訴他明天早上給卡爾德威打電話。 “我會爲你禱告，親愛的阿米爾。”他說。
