"Because – " he [Sohrab] said, gasping and hitching between sobs, "because I don't want them to see me...I'm so dirty." He sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, wheezy cry. "I'm so dirty and full of sin."
[Amir:] "You're not dirty, Sohrab," I said.
[Sohrab:] "Those men – "
[Amir:] "You're not dirty at all."
[Sohrab:] " – they did things...the bad man and the other two...they did things...did things to me."
[Amir:] "You're not dirty, and you're not full of sin." I touched his arm again and he drew away. (24.87-92)
Although Sohrab misses his father and mother (and grandmother), he admits he doesn't want to see them. Or, rather, them to see him. All the terrible things Assef and the guards did to him has made him feel "dirty" and guilty. Sohrab's father, Hassan, seems like the most lovable guy in the world. Hassan does, however, hide his tragedy from others, compounding Amir's guilt. How does Amir hide the fact that he abandoned Hassan? Does Baba hide anything? What about Soraya? Why do all these characters hide so much? Will Sohrab, like them, hide his tragic experience?
Sohrab stopped chewing. Put the sandwich down. "Father never said he had a brother."
[Amir:] "That's because he didn't know."
[Sohrab:] "Why didn't he know?"
"No one told him," I said. "No one told me either. I just found out recently."
Sohrab blinked. Like he was looking at me, really looking at me, for the very first time. "But why did people hide it from Father and you?"
[Amir:] "You know, I asked myself that same question the other day. And there's an answer, but not a good one. Let's just say they didn't tell us because your father and I...we weren't supposed to be brothers."
[Sohrab:] "Because he was a Hazara?"
I willed my eyes to stay on him. "Yes." (24.106-113).
Amir has recently rescued Sohrab from Assef and the Taliban. And Amir, eating lunch with Sohrab, suddenly blurts out that he and Hassan were half-brothers. As Amir says, "[...] [H]e had a right to know; I didn't want to hide anything anymore" (24.105). Amir does the right thing here – most readers probably let out a sigh of relief when Amir tells Sohrab the truth about Hassan. But we also find it a little sad that this twelve-year-old boy already knows enough about his homeland to guess Amir and Hassan shouldn't have been brothers because of ethnicity. It's a sort of barometer of ethnic relations in Afghanistan: even a young boy knows it's somehow improper for a Hazara and Pashtun to have the same father.