《追风筝的人》Chapter 17

Excerpt

Rahim Khan slowly uncrossed his legs and leaned against the bare wall in the wary, deliberate way of a man whose every movement triggers spikes of pain. Outside, a donkey was braying and some one was shouting something in Urdu. The sun was beginning to set, glittering red through the cracks between the ramshackle buildings.

A tall man dressed in a white turban and a green-striped chapan stood with a little boy in front of a set of wrought-iron gates. Sunlight slanted in from the left, casting a shadow on half of his rotund face. He was squinting and smiling at the camera, showing a pair of missing front teeth. Even in this blurry Polaroid, the man in the chapan exuded a sense of self-assuredness, of ease. It was in the way he stood, his feet slightly apart, his arms comfortably crossed on his chest, his head titled a little toward the sun. Mostly, it was in the way he smiled. Looking at the photo, one might have concluded that this was a man who thought the world had been good to him. Rahim Khan was right: I would have recognized him if I had bumped into him on the street. The little boy stood bare foot, one arm wrapped around the man's thigh, his shaved head resting against his father's hip. He too was grinning and squinting.

这一段描述到了读者心心念的哈桑，看着文字，想着照片中那个温暖的微笑，心中也是暖暖的。

“No,” I breathed.
“--and order him to kneel--”
“No. God, no.”
“--and shot him in the back of the head.”
“--Farzana came screaming and attacked them--”
“No.”
“--shot her too. Self-defense, they claimed later--”
But all I could manage was to whisper “No. No. No” over and over again.

哈桑终究还是离去了。

Thought

“You know,” Rahim Khan said, “one time, when you weren't around, your father and I were talking. And you know how he always worried about you in those days. I remember he said to me, 'Rahim, a boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything.' I wonder, is that what you've become?”

I dropped my eyes.

“What I'm asking from you is to grant an old man his dying wish,” he said gravely.

He had gambled whh that comment. Played his best card. Or so I thought then. His words hung in limbo between us, but at least he'd known what to say. I was still searching for the right words, and I was the writer in the room. Finally, I settled for this:

“Maybe Baba was right.”

懦弱的人很难走出内心的束困，遇到困难第一反应就是逃避，激将法对于他们来说并没有作用，因为他们自知懦弱，心甘懦弱。

作者对阿米尔这个人物的塑造很成功，定位也很明确，正是因为如此，本书才能到最后给予读者一种震撼的效果。

Summary

Rahim paused his story and gave Amir a letter written by Hassan. It introduces the “current” situation of Hassan and his family. But that is all Hassan has left. He was killed when he tried to protect the house from Talibs, so was his wife. Once again he sacrifice himself for Amir, this time, his life, his future. Their child was sent to an orphanage. Rahim want to save Sohrab badly. He begged Amir to pay Kabul a visit and bring the child to a safer place, where he mentioned as a small charity organization run by a kind American couple. Amir didn't stop struggling and protesting until Rahim told him, that Hassan is his half blood brother. Amir went crazy, cursed Rahim and Baba the liars and stormed out of the apartment in no time.