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Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner

A Thousand Splendid Suns

And the Mountains Echoed

One

Fall 1952

So, then You want a story and I will tell you one But just the one Don’t either of you askday of travel ahead of us, Pari, you and I You will need your sleep tonight And you too, Abdullah I a on you, boy, while your sister and I are away So is your mother Now One story, then Listen, both of you, listen well And don’t interrupt

Once upon a tiiants roamed the land, there lived a farmer nae by the nae family to feed, Baba Ayub saw his days consumed by hard work Every day, he labored fro the soil and tending to his iven moment you could spot him in his field, bent at the waist, back as curved as the scythe he swung all day His hands were always callused, and they often bled, and every night sleep stole him away no sooner than his cheek met the pillow

I will say that, in this regard, he was hardly alone Life in Maidan Sabz was hard for all its inhabitants There were other, es to the north, in the valleys, with fruit trees and flowers and pleasant air, and streams that ran with cold, clear water But Maidan Sabz was a desolate place, and it didn’t resee that its name, Field of Green, would have you picture It sat in a flat, dusty plain ringed by a chain of craggy mountains The as hot, and blew dust in the eyes Finding water was a daily struggle because the village wells, even the deep ones, often ran low Yes, there was a river, but the villagers had to endure a half-day walk to reach it, and even then its waters flowed ht, the river too ran shallow Let’s just say that people in Maidan Sabz worked twice as hard to eke out half the living

Still, Baba Ayub counted hi the fortunate because he had a fas He loved his wife and never raised his voice to her, enuine pleasure in her companionship As for children, he was blessed with as hters, each of whohters were dutiful and kind and of good character and repute To his sons he had taught already the value of honesty, courage, friendship, and hard ithout coood sons must, and helped their father with his crops

Though he loved all of his children, Baba Ayub privately had a unique fondness for one aest, Qais, as three years old Qais was a little boy with dark blue eyes He charhter He was also one of those boys so bursting with energy that he drained others of theirs When he learned to walk, he took such delight in it that he did it all day while he ake, and then, troublingly, even at night in his sleep He would sleepwalk out of the family’s mud house and wander off into the moonlit darkness Naturally, his parents worried What if he fell into a well, or got lost, or, worst of all, was attacked by one of the creatures lurking the plains at night? They took stabs at many remedies, none of which worked In the end, the solution Baba Ayub found was a simple one, as the best solutions often are: He reoats and hung it instead around Qais’s neck This way, the bell would wake soht The sleepwalking stopped after a tirew attached to the bell and refused to part with it And so, even though it didn’t serve its original use, the bell re around the boy’s neck When Baba Ayub ca day’s work, Qais would run froling with each of his tiny steps Baba Ayub would lift hireat attention as his father washed up, and then he would sit beside Baba Ayub at suppertime After they had eaten, Baba Ayub would sip his tea, watching his faave him children of their ohen he would be proud patriarch to an even greater brood

Alas, Abdullah and Pari, Baba Ayub’s days of happiness came to an end

It happened one day that a div cae from the direction of the mountains, the earth shook with each of its footfalls The villagers dropped their shovels and hoes and axes and scattered They locked themselves in their ho sounds of the div’s footsteps stopped, the skies over Maidan Sabz darkened with its shadow It was said that curved horns sprouted from its head and that coarse black hair covered its shoulders and powerful tail They said its eyes shone red No one knew for sure, you understand, at least no one living: The div ate on the spot those who dared steal so ers wisely kept their eyes glued to the ground

Everyone at the village knehy the div had coes and they could only ed to escape its attention for so long Perhaps, they reasoned, the poor, stringent lives they led in Maidan Sabz had worked in their favor, as their children weren’t as well fed and didn’t have as much meat on their bones Even so, their luck had run out at last

Maidan Sabz trembled and held its breath Families prayed that the div would bypass their home for they knew that if the div tapped on their roof, they would have to give it one child The div would then toss the child into a sack, sling the sack over its shoulder, and go back the way it had coain And if a household refused, the div would take all of its children

So where did the div take the children to? To its fort, which sat atop a steep mountain The div’s fort was very far from Maidan Sabz Valleys, several deserts, and two mountain chains had to be cleared before you could reach it And what sane person would, only to eons where cleavers hung fros They said there were giant skewers and fire pits They said that if it caught a trespasser, the div was known to overcome its aversion to adult meat

I guess you knohich rooftop received the div’s dreaded tap Upon hearing it, Baba Ayub let an agonized cry escape from his lips, and his wife fainted cold The children ith terror, and also sorrow, because they knew that the loss of one a them was now assured The fa