Rahim Khan Quotes

Rahim Khan laughed. “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.

I know. I know. But he's always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he's lost in some dream." "And?" "I wasn't like that." Baba sounded frustrated, almost angry. Rahim Khan laughed. "Children aren't colouring books. You don't get to fill them with your favourite colours.

Zendagi migzara. Life goes on.

I looked at the photo. "Your father was a man torn between two halves," Rahim Khan had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba's guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son. I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Safir Khan. Rahim’s former underling, working from either Afghanistan or the tribal region of Pakistan. Now presumed to be hiding in the mountainous region straddling the border between the two countries. The bastard had killed their president and killed dozens of soldiers and civilians. His days were numbered.

Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought.

I miss Father, and Mother too," he croaked. "And I miss Sasa and Rahim Khan sahib. But sometimes I'm glad they're not ... they're not here anymore." "Why?" I touched his arm. He drew back. "Because--" he said, gasping and hitching between sobs, "because I don't want them to see me... I'm so dirty." He sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, wheezy cry. "I'm so dirty and full of sin.