In 1933, the year Baba was born and the year Zahir Shah began his forty-year reign¹ of Afghanistan, two brothers, young men from a wealthy and reputable family in Kabul, got behind the wheel of their father's Ford² roadster. High on hashish and "mast" on French wine, they struck and killed a Hazara husband and wife on the road to Paghman. The police brought the somewhat contrite³ young men and the dead couple's five-year-old orphan⁴ boy before my grandfather, who was a highly regarded judge and a man of impeccable reputation. After hearing the brothers?account and their father's plea for mercy, my grandfather ordered the two young men to go to Kandahar at once and enlist⁵ in the army for one year--this despite the fact that their family had somehow managed to obtain them exemptions⁶ from the draft. Their father argued, but not too vehemently⁷, and in the end, everyone agreed that the punishment had been perhaps harsh but fair. As for the orphan, my grandfather adopted him into his own household, and told the other servants to tutor him, but to be kind to him. That boy was Ali.

Ali and Baba grew up together as childhood playmates--at least until polio crippled Ali's leg--just like Hassan and I grew up a generation later. Baba was always telling us about the mischief⁸ he and Ali used to cause, and Ali would shake his head and say, "But, Agha sahib, tell them who was the architect of the mischief and who the poor laborer⁹?"Baba would laugh and throw his arm around Ali.

But in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend.

The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not in the usual sense, anyhow. Never mind that we taught each other to ride a bicycle with no hands, or to build a fully¹⁰ functional¹¹ Homemade camera out of a cardboard box. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile.

Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing.

But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that either. I spent most of the first twelve years of my life playing with Hassan. Sometimes, my entire childhood seems like one long lazy summer day with Hassan, chasing each other between tangles¹² of trees in my father's yard, playing hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, insect torture--with our crowning achievement undeniably the time we plucked the stinger off a bee and tied a string around the poor thing to yank it back every time it took flight.

爸爸生于1933年，同年查希尔国王（MohammedZahirShah1914～，阿富汗前国王，1933～1973年在位）开始了他对阿富汗长达40载的统治。就在那年，一对来自喀布尔名门望族的年轻兄弟，开着他们父亲的福特跑车一路狂飙。他们抽了大麻，喝了法国葡萄酒，醉意醺然，又有些亢奋，在去往帕格曼Paghman，阿富汗城市。的途中撞死了一对哈扎拉夫妇。警察逮到了这两个略带悔意的青年，连同罹难夫妻那个五岁的遗孤，带到爷爷跟前。爷爷是位德高望重的法官，听完那对兄弟辩说来龙去脉之后，爷爷不顾他们父亲的哀求，判决那两个年轻人立即到坎大哈去，充军一年。此前他们家里已经不知用了什么手段，免去他们服役的义务。他们的父亲有所申辩，然而不是太激烈，最终，人人都赞同这样的判罚，认为也许有些严厉，却不失公正。至于那个孤儿，爷爷将他收养在自己家里，让仆人教导他，不过得对他和蔼一些。那个孤儿就是阿里。

阿里和爸爸一起长大，他们小时候也是玩伴--至少直到小儿麻痹症令阿里腿患残疾，就像一个世代之后哈桑和我共同长大那样。爸爸总是跟我们说起他和阿里的恶作剧，阿里会摇摇头，说:"可是，老爷，告诉他们谁是那些恶作剧的设计师，谁又是可怜的苦工。"爸爸会开怀大笑，伸手揽住阿里。

不过爸爸说起这些故事的时候，从来没有提到阿里是他的朋友。

奇怪的是，我也从来没有认为我与哈桑是朋友。无论如何，不是一般意义上的朋友。虽然我们彼此学习如何在骑自行车的时候放开双手，或是用硬纸箱制成功能齐备的相机。虽然我们整个冬天一起放风筝、追风筝。虽然于我而言，阿富汗人的面孔就是那个男孩的容貌：骨架瘦小，理着平头，耳朵长得较低，那中国娃娃似的脸，那永远燃着微笑的兔唇。

无关乎这些事情，因为历史不会轻易改变，宗教也是。最终，我是普什图人，他是哈扎拉人，我是逊尼派，他是什叶派，这些没有什么能改变得了。没有。

但我们是一起蹒跚学步的孩子，这点也没有任何历史、种族、社会或者宗教能改变得了。十二岁以前，我大部分时间都在跟哈桑玩耍。有时候回想起来，我的整个童年，似乎就是和哈桑一起度过的某个懒洋洋的悠长夏日，我们在爸爸院子里那些交错的树木中彼此追逐，玩捉迷藏，玩警察与强盗，玩牛仔和印第安人，折磨昆虫--我们拔掉蜜蜂的尖刺，在那可怜的东西身上系根绳子，每当它想展翅飞走，就把它拉回来，这带给我们无与伦比的快乐。