Farid nodded. “You can get good money for it on the black market. Feed your kids for a couple of weeks.”To MY SURPRISE, most of the houses in the WazirAkbar Khan district still had roofs and standing walls. In fact, they were in pretty good shape. Trees still peeked over the walls, and the streets weren’t nearly as rubble-strewn as the ones in Karteh-Seh. Faded streets signs, some twisted and bullet-pocked, still pointed the way. “This isn’t so bad,” I remarked. “No surprise. Most of the important people live here now.” “Taliban?” “Them too,” Farid said. “Who else?”He drove us into a wide street with fairly clean sidewalks and walled homes on either side. “The people behind the Taliban. The real brains of this government, if you can call it that: Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis,” Farid said. He pointed northwest. “Street 15, that way, is called Sarak-e-Mehmana.” Street of the Guests. “That’s what they call them here, guests. I think someday these guests are going to pee all over the carpet.”“I think that’s it!” I said. “Over there!” I pointed to the landmark that used to serve as a guide for me when I was a kid. If you ever get lost, Baba used to say, remember that our street is the one with the pink house at the end of it. The pink house with the steeply pitched roof had been the neighborhood’s only house of that color in the old days. It still d turned onto the street. I saw Baba’s house right FIND THE LITTLE TURTLE behind tangles of sweetbrier in the yard. We don’t know how it got there and we’re too excited to care. We paintits shell a bright red, Hassan’s idea, and a good one:This way, we’ll never lose it in the bushes. We pretend we’re a pair of daredevil explorers who’ve discovered a giant prehistoric monster in some distant jungle and we’ve brought it back for the world to see. We set it down in the wooden wagon Ali built Hassan last winter for his birthday, pretend it’s a giant steel cage. Behold the firebreathing monstrosity! We march on the grass and pull the wagon behind us, around apple and cherry trees, which become skyscrap ers soaring into clouds, heads poking out of thousands of windows to watch the spectacle passing below. We walk over the little semi lunar bridge Baba has built near a cluster of fig trees; it becomes a great suspension bridge joining cities, and the little pond below, a foamy sea. Fireworks explode above the bridge’s massive pylons and armed soldiers salute us on both sides as gigantic steel cables shoot to the sky. The little turtle bouncing around in the cab, we drag the wagon around the circular red brick driveway outside the wroughtiron gates and return the salutes of the world’s leaders as they stand and applaud. We are Hassan and Amir, famed adventurers and the world’s greatest explorers, about to receive a medal of honor for our courageous feat... 法裏德點頭：“在黑市可以賣個好價錢，足以餵飽你的孩子好幾個星期。”讓我意外的是，瓦茲爾‘阿克巴?汗區的房子多數依然有屋頂，牆壁依然完整。實際上，它們保存完好。牆頭仍有樹枝伸出來，街道也不像卡德察區那樣，到處是廢墟垃圾。褪色的指路牌雖說偶有彎曲和彈孔，仍指引着方向。 “這兒不算太糟。”我評論說。 “別奇怪，現在多數重要人物住在這裏。” “塔利班？” “他們也是。”法裏德說。 “還有誰？”我們駛上一條寬廣的街道，兩邊是相當乾淨的人行道，還有高牆聳立的住宅。“塔利班背後的人，政府的真正首腦，你也可以這麼叫他們：阿拉伯人，車臣人，巴基斯坦人。”法裏德說，他指着西北方向：“那邊的十五號街叫迎賓大道。他們在這兒的尊號就是這個，賓客。我想有朝一日，這些貴賓會在地毯上到處撒尿。”“我想就是它！”我說，“在那邊！”我指着一處地標，小時候，我常靠着它認路。如果你迷路了，爸爸過去說，記得在我們街道的盡頭，有一座粉紅色的房子。從前，附近只有這座屋頂高聳的房子是粉紅色的。現在還是這樣。法裏德轉上那條街。我立即看到爸爸的房子。我們在院子裏的薔薇花叢後面找到那隻小烏龜。我們不知道它怎麼會在那裏，而我們太高興了，顧不上關心這個。我們把它塗成鮮紅色，哈桑的主意，也是個好主意：這樣，我們永遠不會在灌木叢中找不到它。我們扮成兩個孤膽英雄，在某處遙遠的叢林，發現一隻巨大的史前怪獸，我們將它帶回來，讓世人開開眼界。去年冬天，阿里造了一輛木車，送給哈桑當生日禮物。我們假裝它是巨大的鐵籠，將烏龜放在上面。抓住那隻噴火的怪獸了！我們在草叢中游行，背後拖着木車，周圍是蘋果樹和櫻桃樹，它們變成高聳入雲的摩天大廈，人頭從成千上萬的窗戶探出來，爭睹樓下的奇觀。我們走過爸爸在無花果樹林邊上搭建的那座小拱橋，它變成連接城市的巨大吊橋；而它下面的小水塘則是波濤洶涌的大海。煙花在壯觀的橋塔上方綻放，兩邊有荷槍實彈的士兵朝我們敬禮，還有巨大的橋索射向天空。小烏龜在車上顛來顛去，我們拖着木車，沿紅磚車道穿出鍛鐵大門，全世界的領導人起立鼓掌，我們報以敬禮。我們是哈桑和阿米爾，著名的冒險家，無人可以匹敵的探險家，正要接受一枚表彰我們豐功偉績的勳章……
