The Kite Runner Summaries Chapter 15-18

Chapter Fifteen
As Amir rode through the streets of Peshawar in a cab, he remembered being there in 1981 as a refugee. The city was bustling with vendors, families, and children. Rahim Khan was staying in the Afghan section. Amir had last seen him the night before he and Baba fled Kabul, and has barely spoken with him since. When Rahim Khan answered the door, Amir saw how emaciated his illness had made him. Still, Rahim Khan's face brightened in Amir's presence and at the news of his marriage fifteen years earlier. He did not remember the notebook he gave Amir.
Rahim Khan described how the Taliban was terrorizing Afghanistan, though they had been received initially as heroes. Once, at a soccer game, a man next to him cheered too loudly. A Talib pistol whipped Rahim Khan, thinking he had made the noise. People in Kabul were afraid to leave their houses because of frequent shootings and bombings. Even Baba's orphanage had been destroyed, with many children inside it. Then Rahim Khan told Amir that he did not have long to live. He laughed at Amir's offer to take him to America, saying he accepted his fate. Then he revealed to Amir that for all the years he lived in Baba's house after 1981, Hassan lived there with him. He told Amir that he needed a favor of him, but first wanted to tell him about Hassan.

Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen is in Rahim Khan's voice; he is telling Amir the story of what happened to Hassan. He went searching for Hassan in 1986 because he was dreadfully lonely, so many of his relatives and friends having been killed or fled since 1981. He was managing to take care of the house and himself despite his age and arthritis, but when the news of Baba's death reached him, he felt the weight of it all was too much. He drove to Hazarajat, where Ali and Hassan had been living, and was directed to a village outside Bamiyan. He found Hassan, now in his early twenties, and his pregnant wife, Farzana, living in a small hut. Hassan was overcome with joy when he saw Rahim Khan. He told him that Ali had been killed by a land mine two years before. He asked many questions about Amir. Initially, Hassan and Farzana refused to move to Baba's house, but then Rahim told him of Baba's death. Hassan cried all through the night and in the morning he agreed to move in with Rahim Khan.

Despite Rahim Khan's protestations, Hassan and Farzana stayed in the servants' hut and did all the chores. Hassan also wore black for forty days in mourning for Baba. In the fall, their daughter was stillborn; they buried her and Hassan placed a flower on her grave every day. Then in 1990, Farzana became pregnant again and Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, came to find him. She collapsed at the gate of the house; when they carried her inside and removed her burqa, they discovered that the former beauty was malnourished, had no teeth, and had grotesque scars all over her face from being cut. Hassan ran out of the house and was gone for hours, but when he returned he accepted Sanaubar as his mother. She became healthy and a part of the family; she even delivered Farzana and Hassan's son. Hassan named him Sohrab, after the hero in his favorite story from the book Amir used to read him. Sohrab became inseparable from Sanaubar, whom he called Sasa. Four years later, Sanaubar died peacefully. Hassan tried to give Sohrab a good childhood despite the constant fighting and danger in Kabul. He even took him kite running in the winter. When the Taliban took over, most people celebrated, but Hassan knew Hazaras' lives were in peril. He was right; in 1998 the Taliban "massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif."
Summary
Chapter Seventeen
After Rahim Khan finished telling the story about him and Hassan, he handed Amir a letter and a photograph. The photograph was of Hassan and Sohrab. In the letter, Hassan described the violence and injustice in Afghanistan. One day, Farzana spoke slightly loudly in the market and a Talib beat her so hard that she fell down and was bruised for days. Despite the terror, Hassan said, Sohrab was a healthy and smart boy; Hassan had made sure he was literate and knew how to shoot a slingshot as well as his father. Hassan ended his letter by expressing his wish to see Amir in Afghanistan again. Rahim Khan explained that the letter was written six months before. A month after he had arrived in Peshawar, he received news of Hassan's death from a friend. After he left Kabul, word spread that a Hazara family was living alone in Baba's house. One day, the Taliban came to the house and demanded that they leave. When Hassan protested, they took him out to the street, forced him to kneel, and shot him in the back of his head. Farzana ran out screaming and they shot her dead as well. The news devastated Amir, who could only whisper, "No. No. No."

Rahim Khan explained that the Taliban now occupied Baba's house and they were not held accountable for Hassan and Farzana's murders. Then he told Amir that he real reason he made Amir come to Peshawar was to bring Sohrab there. An American couple named Thomas and Betty Caldwell ran a goodwill organization there and would take care of him. When Amir protested and suggested Rahim Khan hire someone to find Sohrab, Rahim Khan was insulted. He told Amir, "I think we both know why it has to be you, don't we?" Then he asked Amir if he had become what Baba feared so many years before, a person who "can't stand up to anything." He said it was his dying wish for Amir personally to bring Sohrab to Peshawar. When Amir continued to refuse, Rahim Khan revealed a monumental secret. Amir and Hassan were half-brothers. Ali was infertile, as evidenced by the fact that his first wife bore him no children, but bore her second husband three daughters. It was Baba who had gotten Sanaubar pregnant, making Hassan his son. Rahim Khan explained that no one but himself, Baba, Ali, and Sanaubar had known about the matter in order to preserve their honor. Hassan never found out. Amir was furious at all of them for keeping the secret. He screamed at Rahim Khan and left the apartment.
Chapter Eighteen
After storming out of Rahim Khan's apartment, Amir had tea at a local café. He felt like a foreigner in his own life. Now that he knew Hassan was his half-brother, it seemed absurd that he had not realized it before. Baba had always treated Hassan like a son not just because he cared for him, but because Hassan was really his son. Amir wondered how Baba could have broken his own cardinal rule about not lying, how he could have lived with himself after shaming Ali.

Suddenly, Baba did not seem like such a shining example of righteousness. Amir now understood that Rahim Khan had called him to Peshawar to pay not only for his betrayal of Hassan, but for Baba's betrayal of Ali. Amir wondered if he was to blame for Hassan and Ali's deaths because he was the one who drove them out of the house and split up the family. Finally, at thirty-eight years old, Amir was ready to take responsibility for his actions. He returned to Rahim Khan's apartment to find him praying and told him he would bring Sohrab to Peshawar.