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my father’s car to attend a party. On his way out, Rahim Khan hunkered before me and handed me my story and another folded piece of paper. He flashed a smile and winked. “For you. Read it later.” Then he paused and added a single word that did more to encourage me to pursue writing than any compliment any editor has ever paid me. That word was _Bravo_.

    When they left, I sat on my bed and wished Rahim Khan had been my father. Then I thought of Baba and his great big chest and how good it felt when he held me against it, how he smelled of Brut in the morning, and how his beard tickled my face. I was overcome with such sudden guilt that I bolted to the bathroom and vomited in the sink.

    Later that night, curled up in bed, I read Rahim Khan’s note over and over. It read like this:

    Amir jan,

    I enjoyed your story very much. _Mashallah_, God has granted you a special talent. It is now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey. You have written your story with sound grammar and interesting style. But the most impressive thing about your story is that it has irony. You may not even know what that word means. But you will someday. It is something that some writers reach for their entire careers and never attain. You have achieved it with your first story.

    My door is and always will be open to you, Amir jan. I shall hear any story you have to tell. Bravo.

    Your friend,
    Rahim

    22
    “The Kite Runner” By Khaled Hosseini

    Buoyed by Rahim Khan’s note, I grabbed the story and hurried downstairs to the foyer where Ali and Hassan were sleeping on a mattress. That was the only time they slept in the house, when Baba was away and Ali had to watch over me. I shook Hassan awake and asked him if he wanted to hear a story.

    He rubbed his sleep-clogged eyes and stretched. “Now? What time is it?”

    “Never mind the time. This story’s special. I wrote it myself,” I whispered, hoping not to wake Ali. Hassan’s face brightened.

    “Then I _have_ to hear it,” he said, already pulling the blanket off him.

    I read it to him in the living room by the marble fireplace. No playful straying from the words this time; this was about me! Hassan was the perfect audience in many ways, totally immersed in the tale, his face shifting with the changing tones in the story. When I read the last sentence, he made a muted clapping sound with his hands.

    “_Mashallah_, Amir agha. Bravo!” He was beaming.

    “You liked it?” I said, getting my second taste--and how sweet it was--of a positive review.

    “Some day, _Inshallah_, you will be a great writer,” Hassan said. “And people all over the world will read your stories.”

    “You exaggerate, Hassan,” I said, loving him for it.

    “No. You will be great and famous,” he insisted. Then he paused, as if on the verge of adding something. He weighed his words and cleared his throat. “But will you permit me to ask a question about the story?” he said shyly.

    “Of course.”

    “Well...” he started, broke off.

    “Tell me, Hassan,” I said. I smiled, though suddenly the insecure writer in me wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear it.

    23
    “The Kite Runner” By Khaled Hosseini
    “Well,” he said, “if I may ask, why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn’t he have just smelled an onion?”

    I was stunned. That particular point, so obvious it was utterly stupid, hadn’t even occurred to me. I moved my lips soundlessly. It appeared that on the same night I had learned about one of writing’s objectives, irony, I would also be introduced to one of its pitfalls: the Plot Hole. Taught by Hassan, of all people. Hassan who couldn’t read and had never written a single word in his entire life. A voice, cold and dark, suddenly whispered in my ear, _What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He’ll never be anything but a cook. How dare he criticize