1980s

The 1980s represent a decade of profound dislocation and tentative reconstruction for Amir and Baba, a period that begins with their harrowing escape from Soviet-occupied Kabul and ends with Amir's graduation from college and his marriage to Soraya Taheri. For Baba, the decade is a long, bitter mourning for the life he lost; for Amir, it is a deliberate flight from the past that ultimately fails to outrun his guilt.

Flight and Arrival in America

The decade opens in March 1981, with Amir and Baba fleeing Kabul in the tarpaulin-covered cab of a Russian truck, part of a desperate exodus of refugees. The journey is marked by terror and degradation: a Russian soldier demands a woman from the group, and Baba confronts him, nearly getting shot; they are forced to hide in a rat-infested basement in Jalalabad for a week; and finally, they are smuggled across the Khyber Pass in the pitch-black, gasoline-fumed fuel tank of a truck, a journey that kills another young refugee, Kamal, and drives his father to suicide. They arrive in Peshawar, Pakistan, and then, after a six-month wait for visas, they step off a Boeing into the United States. For Amir, America is immediately a place of liberation: "America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom." For Baba, it is a place of mourning: "For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his."

Baba's Struggle and Decline

In Fremont, California, Baba, once a wealthy and powerful merchant in Kabul, is reduced to working twelve-hour shifts pumping gas at a station owned by an Afghan acquaintance. He lives in a shabby apartment, his body aching from labor, his spirit crushed by the indignity of his new life. He refuses food stamps, declaring to the welfare officer, "I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don't like it free money." He clashes with a Vietnamese store owner who asks for ID when he writes a check, a confrontation that reveals his deep sense of dishonor and his inability to adapt to a world where trust is not given freely. The Bay Area's smog stings his eyes, the traffic gives him headaches, and he misses the sugarcane fields of Jalalabad and the gardens of Paghman. He is a man who has lost his country, his status, and his purpose, and his body begins to fail him, culminating in a diagnosis of advanced, inoperable oat cell carcinoma. He dies in the mid-1980s, shortly after Amir's wedding.

Amir's New Life: Education, Writing, and Marriage

For Amir, the 1980s are a decade of personal achievement and emotional retreat. He graduates from high school at the age of twenty, the oldest in his class, and Baba, proud, takes him to a bar where he buys drinks for strangers and shouts, "Fuck the Russia!" Amir enrolls at San Jose State University, majoring in English with a focus on creative writing, a choice that initially disappoints Baba, who had hoped for a more practical profession. He works a security job at a furniture warehouse, where he begins writing his first novel. He also meets Soraya Taheri at the San Jose flea market, where he and Baba sell used goods on weekends. Their courtship is slow and cautious, constrained by Afghan customs of honor and propriety, but they marry in a large ceremony in 1984, just before Baba's death. Soraya moves in with Amir and Baba, caring for the dying man, and after his death, they move into their own apartment. Amir's first novel is published in 1989, bringing him a measure of success and a minor celebrity status within the Afghan community.

The Unshakable Past

Despite the new life, the 1980s are haunted by the past. Amir's memory of the winter of 1975, when he witnessed Hassan's rape and did nothing, is a constant, unspoken presence. He thinks of Hassan's voice whispering, "For you, a thousand times over." He thinks of Rahim Khan's words, "There is a way to be good again." The decade is a period of self-imposed exile, a time when Amir tries to drown his sins in the river of America, but the past claws its way out, and the foundation for his eventual return to Afghanistan is laid in the guilt he cannot escape. The decade ends with Amir married, a published author, and seemingly successful, but the question of redemption remains unanswered, waiting for the phone call from Rahim Khan that will come in the summer of 2001.