“Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.” He laughed again. Later, after Aisha changed the IV tubing and raised the head of the bed like I’d asked, I thought about what had happened to me. Ruptured spleen. Broken teeth. Punctured lung. Busted eye socket. But as I watched a pigeon peck at a bread crumb on the windowsill, I kept thinking of something else Armand/Dr. Faruqi had said: The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip. FARID AND SOHRAB came to visit the next day. “Do you know who we are today? Do you remember?” Farid said, only hAlf-jokingly. I nodded. “Al hamdullellah!” he said, beaming. “No more talking non sense.” “Thank you, Farid,” I said through jaws wired shut. Armand was right--I did sound like Al Pacino from The Godfather. And my tongue surprised me every time it poked in one of the empty spaces left by the teeth I had swallowed. “I mean, thank you. For everything.” He waved a hand, blushed a little. “Bas, it’s not worthy of thanks,” he said. I turned to Sohrab. He was wearing a new outfit, light brown pirhan-tumban that looked a bit big for him, and a black skullcap. He was looking down at his feet, toying with the IV line coiled on the bed. “We were never properly introduced,” I said. I offered him my hand. “I am Amir.” He looked at my hand, then to me. “You are the Amir agha Father told me about?” he said. “你今天的工作是排便。你完成之後我們才能開始餵你吃流食。不見糞便，不給食物。”他又哈哈大笑。 稍後，艾莎幫我換輸液管，又善解人意地搖起牀頭。隨後，我想起發生在自己身上的事情。脾臟破裂。牙齒脫落。肺被刺穿。眼眶裂開。當我看見窗臺上有隻鴿子啄食碎麪包的時候，忍不住想起阿曼德或者法魯奇大夫適才說過的話。衝擊力讓你的上脣裂成兩半，他說，從人中裂開。從人中裂開，像兔脣那樣。 隔日，法裏德和索拉博前來探望。“你今天知道我們是誰嗎？你記得嗎？”法裏德半開玩笑地說。我點頭。 “讚美安拉！”他說，喜氣洋洋，“不用再說廢話了。” “謝謝你，法裏德。”我透過縫着線的下巴說。阿曼德說得對——我聽起來確實像《教父》裏面那個阿爾?帕西諾。而我的舌頭讓我大吃一驚：它伸過我賴以進食的牙齒原來所在的地方，卻是空空蕩蕩。“說真的，謝謝你替我做的一切。” 他搖搖手，臉色有點尷尬：“別這麼說，沒什麼好謝的。”我轉向索拉博。他穿着新衣服，淡藍色的棉布長袍，看上去尺寸大了一些，還戴着黑色的無邊便帽。他低頭看着腳，手裏撥弄着牀邊彎曲的輸液管。 “我們還沒好好地相互介紹呢。”我說，朝他伸出手，“我是阿米爾。” 他看着我的手，然後看着我。“你是爸爸跟我說過的阿米爾老爺嗎？”他說。
