THE KITE RUNNER ~ EXTRACT 1 "Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends 2. pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a goddamn thing. 3. Oh, they're just men having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly everyone 4 is ‘talking nang and namoos and I have to have my face rubbed in it for the 5. restof my life.” 6 I wiped a tear ftom her jawline, just above her birthmark, 7 with the pad of my thumb. "I didn't tell you," Soraya said, éabbing at her eyes, 8 "but my father showed up witha gun that night. He told... him... that he had two 9 bullets in the chamber, one for him and one for himself if | didn't 10 come home. | was screaming, calling. my father all kinds of names, 111 saying he couldn't keep me locked up forever, that I wished he were 12 dead." Fresh tears squeezed out between her lids. "I actually said 13 that to him, that I wished he were dead. 14 “When he brought me home, my mother threw her arms around me and. she 15. was crying too, She was saying things but | couldn't understand any of it 16 because she was slurring her words so badly. So my father took me up to my 17 bedroom and sat me in front of the dresser mirror. He handed me a pair of 18 scissors and calmly told me to cut off all my hair. He watched while 19 Tid it. "I didn't step out of the house for weeks. And when I did, | heard 20. whispers or imagined them everywhere | went. That was four years ago 21. and thiee thousand miles away and I'm still hearing them. 1 Nora: Pooh! we can borrow till then. 2. Helmer: Nora! (Goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear:) 3. ‘The same little feathethead! Suppose, now, that | borrowed fifty pounds 4 today, and you spent itall in the Christmas week, and then on New Year’s Eve a 5. slate fell on my head and killed me, and— 6 Nora (putting her hands over his mouth): Oh! don’t say such horrid things. 7 Helmer: Sill, suppose that happened,—what then? 8 Nora: If that were to happen, | don’t suppose | should care 9 whether I owed money or not. 10. Helmer: Yes, but what about the people who had lent it? UL Nora: They? Who would bother about them? I should not 12 know who they were. 13. Helmer: That is like a woman! But seriously, Nora, you know what I think 14 about that. No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about 15a home life that depends on horrowing and det. We two have kept bravely on 16 the straight road so far, and we will go on the same way for the short time 17 longer that there need be any struggle. 18 Nora (moving towards the stove): As you please, Torvald. 19 Helmer (following her): Come, come, my little skylark must not droop her wings. 20. What is this! Is my litle squirrel out of temper? (Taking, out his purse.) 21 Nora, what do you think I have got here?