When the winds of winter began to blow and snow fell in chunks, we undid the snap under the horse’s belly. We saved our weekly allowances in the fall, dropped the money in a little porcelain horse Baba had brought one time from Herat. For a while, Hassan and I used to build our own kites. In Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going to war.Īs with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle. I felt like a soldier trying to sleep in the trenches the night before a major battle. I’d roll from side to side, make shadow animals on the wall, even sit on the balcony in the dark, a blanket wrapped around me. I never slept the night before the tournament. And if you were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was undeniably the highlight of the cold season. Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between those spheres.Įvery winter, districts in Kabul held a kite-fighting tournament. Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres of existence. But mostly because, as the trees froze and ice sheathed the roads, the chill between Baba and me thawed a little. I loved it for the soft pattering of snow against my window at night, for the way fresh snow crunched under my black rubber boots, for the warmth of the cast-iron stove as the wind screeched through the yards, the streets. Watched them until I drifted back to sleep. I pulled the blanket to my chin and watched the snowcapped hills in the north through the window. I waited until they pulled away, turned the corner, then I slipped back into bed in my flannel pajamas. I made a point of watching Ahmad and his father get into the car, Ahmad in his wool vest and winter coat, his schoolbag filled with books and pencils. Every morning, I watched from my bedroom window as their Hazara servant shoveled snow from the driveway, cleared the way for the black Opel. Ahmad had epilepsy and always wore a wool vest and thick black-rimmed glasses-he was one of Assef’s regular victims. His father was some kind of doctor, I think. I remember one kid, Ahmad, who lived across the street from us. No kid I knew ever volunteered to go to these classes parents, of course, did the volunteering for them.įortunately for me, Baba was not one of them. There were the so-called voluntary winter courses. And running them.įor a few unfortunate kids, winter did not spell the end of the school year.
#Boy soilder kite runner book free
Winter to me was the end of long division and naming the capital of Bulgaria, and the start of three months of playing cards by the stove with Hassan, free Russian movies on Tuesday mornings at Cinema Park, sweet turnip qurma over rice for lunch after a morning of building snowmen.Īnd kites, of course. The reason was simple: They shut down school for the icy season.
Winter was every kid’s favorite season in Kabul, at least those whose fathers could afford to buy a good iron stove. I walk down the front steps, barefoot, and call for Hassan to come out and see. I shovel a handful of the fresh snow into my mouth, listen to the muffled stillness broken only by the cawing of crows. The sky is seamless and blue, the snow so white my eyes burn. I find the driveway, my father’s car, the walls, the trees, the rooftops, and the hills buried under a foot of snow. Here is what I do on the first day of snowfall every year: I step out of the house early in the morning, still in my pajamas, hugging my arms against the chill.
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