The Kite Runner, Chapter 13

In chapter 13 Amir and Baba go to Taheri’s house for a “giving word” ceremony. It means that General has to agree that Amir will be in his family, which he does. In the house are two dozen people, but Soraya, as a fiancée, cannot be there.  According to the tradition there’s “eating of the sweets” ceremony which takes a few months, but they skip it, because of Baba’s cancer, he has not that much time. He also spends all his money on Amir’s wedding. Then there is just the final “swearing” ceremony and have their first night.

After wedding is Soraya moving to Amir, because they have to care about sick Baba and few months after wedding Baba dies in sleep. But before he died, he for the first time support Amir’s writing, when Soraya is reading to him Amir’s story.

Amir and Soraya are often meeting her parents, so Amir gets to know them much more. He finds out that General has once a month horrible headaches and that Khanum Taheri was in Kabul a famous singer, but she had to quit when she married General.

On Soraya’s uncle’s wedding two women are talking about Soraya and she get upset and when Amir is talking to her, she tells him more about her live in Virginia. The night the General came for her, he had a gun with him. He said that if Soraya will not go with him he will kill her boyfriend and then himself. After that Soraya decided to go with him and at home he cut off all her hair. 

Because they don’t have to live in the old apartment anymore, they move to one-bedroom apartment. Amir enrolls at San Jose State and declares English as his major and Soraya enrolls a year later and declares Education, but the General isn’t happy about it, because he wanted her to be a lawyer or politician. Amir also finishes his first novel and gets an agent, so he is now a published novelist.

Amir and Soraya are trying to have a baby, but they don’t succeed, so they go to the doctor and have a lot of test. But even after the tests they still don’t know why they cannot get pregnant. The doctor tell them about adoption and they start to thinking about it, but when they say it to General, he starts to talk about family and how the blood is important, so on the end even they don’t want it. On the end of the chapter they’re moving to new house.