Who is Yusuf from the collection, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories?

Yusuf is one of the main characters of the story “Return to Sender.” In the narrative present, he, his wife Amina, and their son Ismael are living in Kabul, Afghanistan. Six months prior, he and his family were living in the United States. Over the course of their time in the States, Yusuf’s wife became increasingly desperate to return to Afghanistan. She urged Yusuf to return so that they could use their medical degrees to help their people and country. Yusuf was reluctant, but agreed to relocate for a year.

One day, while at his apartment, Yusuf hears a knock at the door. When he sees that someone has left a package in the hall, he hopes that it is not an explosive. To his horror, when he opens the box, he discovers one of his son’s dismembered fingers inside. He races out into the hall with the box, desperate to apprehend the perpetrator of this atrocity. He trips and injures his ankle. His injury does not, however, keep him from finding a police officer and reporting his son’s disappearance. Although the officer is dismissive, Yusuf does not give up. He goes to the precinct and talks with innumerable police officials. No matter how he tries to convey the gravity of the situation, however, the police assure him there is nothing that they can do.

Yusuf finally returns home at the end of the short story. He finds his wife with a bloody finger upon his return. She leads him into their late son’s room and shows him what she has done: stitched the dismembered pieces of their son’s body back together. Yusuf does not balk at Amina's attempts to recover their son's living form. Rather, he sits on the bed with her. Seeing her struggle to stitch the final finger onto Ismael’s body, Yusuf helps her. Together, he and his wife realize that they will now never get out of Kabul.