Chapters 14-16 summary

Chapter 14

• Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, asking him to come to Pakistan to see him.
• He goes for a walk to think about the call, and sees a man playing catch with his son and some people  flying kites.
• Amir thinks of his and Soraya's relationship, how it has changed because of them not being able to have a child.
• A week after the phone call Amir leaves for Pakistan, telling Soraya that he should only be a week or two.

Chapter 15

• Amir lands in Peshawar where Rahim Khan now lives. He gets a taxi to the house and the driver tells him all about how bad Afghanistan has become.
• As they drive through 'Afghan town' Amir remembers the last time he saw Rahim Khan, on the night that he and Baba left for America and they had visited Rahim Khan, promising to stay in touch.
• Rahim Khan looks very skinny and ill when Amir arrives at his home. Amir tells him all about his new life, talking about Soraya and his career as a writer. However, the conversation inevitably turns to the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan, and how Rahim Khan got the scar on his face.
• Amit finds out that Rahim Khan lived in the old house when he and Baba had left, looking after it for Baba's return. He also learns that Kabul became a dangerous fighting space for Afghan factions.
• Rahim Khan tells Amir that he is dying, and that he will probably not live through the summer.He says that he needs a favour from Amir, that when he was living in Baba's old house Hassan lived with him.
• He tells Amir that before he asks the favour he must tell him about Hassan.

Chapter 16 (Rahim Khan is narrative voice)

• After a while of looking after the house Rahim Khan became lonely and it was difficult to do it alone. He went to Hazarajat and found Hassan and his wife, Farzana.
• He asked the two to come back to Kabul to look after Baba's house with him, but they declined.
• Hassan asked many questions about Amir, and when he found out that Baba had died he became very upset. The morning after he said that they would like to come to Kabul with Rahim Khan.
• Rahim Khan asked them to stay in one of the guest rooms in the house as they were not in use, however out of respect they declined, they stayed in the hut where Hassan and Ali used to live.
• Farzana gives birth to a stillborn girl in the fall of 1986, who they bury in the garden. Farzana is very upset, but becomes pregnant again in 1990.
• In that same year Hassan's mother, Saunbar, appears at Baba's house. She is severely injured, and Hassan and Farzana have to nurse her back to health. They become very close.
• When the baby arrives in winter Saunbar delivers it. It is a boy, and they name him Sohrab, after the character from Amir and Hassan's favourite book as children.
•  He and Saunbar become close, she cares for him very much. When he is 4 she passes away.
• In 1995 Hassan teaches Sohrab to read and to fly kites, while there is fighting between rival Afghan groups after the Soviets are pushed out.
• In 1996 the Taliban take over Kabul, and just 2 weeks after they have taken control they ban kite fighting, and 2 years later they massacre Hazaras.