A Cup of Friendship (4 page)

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “But I am concerned. I know it was very busy today, but it won’t be busy this afternoon or tonight. Miss Sunny, we must talk about the money. The coffeehouse is falling behind, and—”

“We always make it, Bashir Hadi, don’t we?”

“But Miss Sunny, we need more money to keep the café safe. And you safe and your customers. You know what I’m talking about.”

She let out a breath and looked out the window over his shoulder. Yes, the suicide bombings were on the increase and the kidnappings, too, yes, she knew. Just last month, a young man—a boy, really, from all accounts—strapped with an IED, an improvised explosive device, had blown himself up, and everything around him, two streets away. The ground shook and the front windows were shattered. Six people were killed. Everyone said it was lucky there weren’t more.

Bashir Hadi continued, “We must deal with security issues. We need a safe room, a place for customers to hide, should we be attacked. We need to put up blast film on the windows so they don’t shatter and become weapons of their own. We were lucky last time. But what if the bomb had been only a little closer? We need to fortify the compound in every way. We need to stop putting guns in the closet and, instead, lock them up in storage at the entrance.”

Sunny hated how that sounded like preparing for battle, but she had to face the truth. “Yes,” she said, “but I can’t afford it.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. And maybe there is a way,” he said, raising his brows, a slight smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

She looked at him closely, this lovely, trustworthy man, with his large, slanted dark eyes and warm face, his narrow frame and immaculate clothing. And, of course, his hard work that had saved her and the café more times than she could remember. Besides his running the place, and besides his dealing with the damage from last month’s explosion, there was the time, last winter, when the pipes burst. The time when a power surge had killed a coffee machine because they had had only one overworked generator and had relied on the city’s electricity. Getting the two extra generators that cost an arm and a leg. Keeping the
bohkari
, the wood-burning stove, working throughout the winter. Or dealing with the mud that seeped in through every possible crack and crevice in the walls each spring when the snow melted.

“You going to tell me? Or am I supposed to guess?” asked Sunny, teasingly.

Bashir Hadi reached into the pocket of his
kameez
and pulled out a newspaper article, neatly folded. “Look,” he said, “we rebuild the wall. Then we get UN compliance and the UN people will come. Then we’ll be busy.”

He opened the article and spread it on the counter. Sunny skimmed it. The United Nations was encouraging restaurants, hotels, and hostels to build their walls to height and depth specifications to ensure the safety of UN employees, and then the UN would sanction their use. It could double their business.

Sunny looked out her front courtyard to the wall that sheltered the coffeehouse from the street. She could see the brightly painted turquoise gate with Ahmet’s guardhouse in front. She remembered when she first came to Kabul, riding in a taxi through the streets that were walled on both sides and reminded her of the narrow roads through the dense cornfields back home. The big difference was that these walls were rife with bullet holes instead of cornhusks. They separated one home from another and every home from the street, making it difficult for people to find where they were going or to know their neighbors. They insulated the city’s residents from harm but separated them from freedom. But they were usually only about seven feet high. To get UN compliance, they had to be four meters, or about thirteen feet high.

“It’s like one of those, what do you call it? A cycle. You need more money to make the coffeehouse safer, so you build a better wall and then you get more people and more money.”

“There’s only one problem,” said Sunny, thinking about her dwindling bank account. “We need money to build the wall higher in the first place.”

Bashir put his elbow on the counter and rested his chin in his hand. “So we do something to get enough people to come so that we can do what is necessary to get more people to come.”

“Hmm. Maybe a party?”

“Do you mean to sell liquor? I don’t like that. It’s too dangerous.”

Sunny shook her head. “And I didn’t come to Kabul to be a bartender. That’s the life I left back home.”

“Something else then. We’ll think of it. But we need to do something quickly. Something for Christmas, maybe. Because before you know it, it’ll be Easter, and the coffeehouse will move to outside. It must be safe by then.”

Her first year in Kabul, Sunny instituted a couple of new traditions in the coffeehouse. One was Christmas, when she decorated with a big plastic tree and decorations from Chicken Street, and the other was Easter, which the coffeehouse celebrated as a welcome to spring, when Sunny opened the outdoor patio and created a Shangri-la of hyacinth and fuchsia that climbed the open-walled tents she’d brought back from Dubai. Christmas was around the corner; Easter was in just a few months.

“We’ll make that our goal. Safe by Easter.”

He bowed slightly, raised his head, and said, “Until then we can pray for safety. Thanks to Muhammad for Easter.”

“Thanks to Muhammad for Easter!” Sunny concurred.

And they both smiled.

H
alajan walked down the back hallway to the door that led to a small courtyard behind the café, where she could have some privacy and take off her hot, itchy scarf. It was the only way a woman could do such a brazen thing in Kabul these days and not be stoned. Ach, the stupid Talib idiots, she thought as her plastic shoes click-clacked on the marble-tiled floors, one of the many improvements Sunny made to her house. What little men they are, she thought, to put women back in the burqa. She’d gotten so used to the sun that she vowed she’d die before ever hiding in the darkness again. Wearing a head scarf was one thing. She could almost understand it, if only because of tradition. But purdah—the full covering of women at all times in public—was another. The Taliban rigorously enforced it during their five-year rule. Only in the sanctuary of the household and only in front of husbands or other women could women bare their faces. This was a prison sentence for Halajan. This was death in life. Being as old as she was, almost sixty, she’d experienced life before the Taliban and life after, and now, with the renewed violence, their presence on the streets at night, and the rumors sweeping Kabul that they were plotting their comeback, the rules were growing stricter. Halajan was worried for what might come. The taste of freedom was a strong and delicious elixir that never left her mouth.

She pushed the door open and the cold air outdoors felt wonderful against her face after a busy morning in the café. She took a deep breath, sure she could feel her old bones creak as she gazed around the patio. A lone pomegranate tree poked out of a hole surrounded by concrete and the three generators hummed loudly. Ah, the beloved generators. When Sunny had wanted to move them to the rear of the coffeehouse, because they made conversation impossible on the front patio, Halajan had first said no. And she said no again and again for months, just to assert her authority, to let this annoying American newcomer know that she was the owner of the building and would make the decisions. But as she witnessed Sunny make one improvement after another, she, too, became frustrated with the complaints and inevitable empty tables, and agreed that the generators should be moved even though they took up room back here and valuable parking spots. Neighbors had become angry, but Sunny had bribed police to open up more parking areas on the street. There was no exaggerating the idiocy of those who ran Kabul.

The great thing about Sunny, Halajan thought, was not her lousy Dari, not her blue jeans, not that loud voice of hers or her big whooping laughter or her crazy hair. The great thing about Sunny was her insistence on the generators. Electricity every hour of the day and night. It was as if a miracle of Muhammad had happened here.

She looked around to be sure she was alone. Then she put a hand through her hair and smiled at her reflection in the door’s small window. Though her skin was brown and wrinkled like the walnuts in the marketplace, her short hair made her feel young and powerful. She mussed it up, enjoying its boyishness. She had given herself the drastic haircut one year before, when rumors drifted through Kabul that the Taliban were back, hiding in the hillsides of the Helmand province in the south. In a private act of defiance, her own personal statement of freedom—for she knew what would happen if the Taliban again gained control of her beloved people—she’d borrowed Sunny’s scissors and cut off her braids, which were, at the time, long enough to reach her waist. She put them in a box under a small table in her sleeping room, where they remained. And now, about every three months, she borrowed the scissors and gave herself a trim, keeping her hair just long enough to hide the truth when under a scarf.

Under her brown dress, she wore an old blue-jean skirt that ended above her knees. A remnant of the pre-Russian era of the 1970s—when women were free to study, to work, to come and go as they pleased, to wear almost anything they wanted as long as it was respectful to Muhammad—the skirt had become soft and worn over time. Her skinny legs were covered in baggy pants to keep them warm, like the
salvars
her father wore before he’d died what seemed like a hundred years ago, when his house was transferred to her, his only child, then just a young woman. She dug into a front pocket and pulled out a box of Marlboros and a purple plastic lighter. She lit up, took a deep breath in, and let it out with intense satisfaction. And it wasn’t just from the nicotine. It was from the act itself—dangerous, contemptuous, and fearless. Out here, Halajan was as close as she’d ever get again, she feared, to freedom.

She looked back on her life as a time line of the regimes that had run her beloved Afghanistan—in the burqa and out of the burqa, in miniskirts, back into long dresses—of the wars that took friends and family, of the droughts that caused famine and killed the roses and the trees of Kabul, and she realized she, like her country, had survived. The evils inflicted from the outside had been nowhere near as deadly as the poisons that had grown from within. One look into the black, cold eyes of a young Taliban warrior had taught her that.

She dug into the pocket of her dress and pulled out Rashif’s most recent letter. She admired its lovely penmanship with the flourishes that surprised her on every page. She imagined him at his shop on a narrow alley in the Mondai-e waiting for her with a smile that made her body rush with warmth, her skin tingle with pleasure. She thought of him as he nodded a “
Salaam alaikum
” and then walked toward her to discreetly pass her a letter that she immediately hid in the folds of her chador. Tomorrow it would be Thursday, her market day, the beginning of the Muslim weekend that ran through Friday, and she would pass his way again. And there he’d be with another letter just as he had been every Thursday for the past six years.

She had loved Rashif since she was a little girl, growing up in her father and mother’s house. He’d lived just a few houses away, and they had played after school in the empty lot that sat between their homes, exactly where the coffeehouse sat today. They often saw each other at family events and religious holidays. But as they grew up, they were more restricted by their culture, and like other teenagers throughout Kabul could no longer talk easily or even be in each other’s presence without many others present. Ultimately Rashif was married off by his family to Salima, and Halajan, at age fifteen, was married to Sunil, who would be her husband for the next thirty-six years.

Those years had been filled with joy and worries, the births of two children—Ahmet and his sister, Aisha (who was now studying in Germany, living with others from Kabul, something Halajan encouraged her to do, as she had encouraged Ahmet, who wouldn’t go and leave his mother alone, much to her frustration)—and disagreement and compromise as all marriages are. Though she considered herself modern, there was one thing she would have never done: bring humiliation or harm to her family by choosing her own husband. So for thirty-six years, she made her marriage work. Sunil was a kind man but a simple man. He went to work, came home, prayed, studied the Koran, and maybe spoke ten words over the course of a week. He died of tuberculosis, as so many had, nine years before.

And then, a few years later, Rashif’s wife died. And almost immediately the letters began. She looked forward each week to the thrill of the exchange, to the joy of seeing Rashif’s smile and twinkling eyes.

She took a drag from her cigarette, folded the letter carefully, and stuck it deep in her pocket. She exhaled, watched the smoke wind its way up the house’s wall, dissipating into the air as it rose.

If only she could read. Only then would she learn what he was trying to tell her.

A
hmet leaned against the wall at the gate, watching the sky turn lavender over the hills that surrounded Kabul and the mountain peaks in the distance blur into the twilight. What was on the other side of those mountains? His sister knew; she’d left long ago. But he would never know because Kabul was his home and this was where he belonged. And yet, those mountains called to him like the muezzin’s song at sunrise. At times like this, when his chest tugged with uneasiness, he’d readjust the rifle on his shoulder and remind himself of his duty.

Four men approached, chatting loudly in an Eastern European language. Ahmet stood straight, not taking his eyes off them. They nodded. He opened the gate. Then two more, this time Americans. “Good afternoon,” they said in halting Dari. “
Salaam alaikum,
” he answered them. Ahmet never stopped to talk or ask questions, and he didn’t use a metal detector, like the fancy restaurants. But he had what he considered the surest method for safety clearance. He never failed to look into the eyes of the customers, because they reflected deeper truths than any momentary feelings of impatience or hunger or disappointment. The eyes of a man betrayed his heart. Even with a smile, the evil man’s eyes were as hard and shallow as a dry riverbed; even with a furrowed brow, the eyes of a good man were deep. In the Koran, the eyes were the gateway to the mind. “You will see” in the Koran meant “to know”; “thine heart and thine eyes” referred to your feelings and your thoughts, as Ahmet had been taught since he was a young boy in school.

After the busy mornings, the café quieted down until the afternoons, when people came for business meetings or just to talk politics, war, and the latest game of
buzkashi
before going home for dinner. On Fridays, the day of rest, when nobody went to work, the café was open and busy all day. No matter how hard Ahmet tried, he wasn’t interested in his people’s version of polo, played with a dead calf instead of a ball. Soccer was his game, or “football,” as the Brits called it. He enjoyed watching it on the big TV that hung on the wall inside the café. Foreign men bet on the games, but he could not participate. Betting was forbidden in the Koran.

He chuckled to himself at the memory of Sunny bringing a big TV home one afternoon. It was in a huge box, sticking halfway out of the trunk of her car, the hood tied down with twine to keep the thing from falling out as the car bounced over the severe potholes and plentiful rocks in the road.

Sunny had gotten out of the car, slammed her door shut, and turned to Ahmet. She flipped her hair out of her face, put her hands on her hips, and said, “You’re going to love this, Ahmet. Wait until you see today’s game.” She was referring to his favorite team—the Brazilians, who were in the finals against South Africa.

For years they’d watched the games on that big color TV, which sat on a small wobbly table in the back corner of the café. Ahmet was sure that one day its legs would go, falling to the floor under the weight of the huge TV. But it was better than what they had before—a small black-and-white one, with rabbit ears, as Sunny called them, laughing, making fun, when she first arrived.

Getting the new TV to work had been another matter. It had taken three weeks, a new satellite dish on the roof, three friends to help run the wires, countless trips to the electronics and hardware stores, and several prayers to Allah that Ahmet wouldn’t miss the entire football season.

But when the TV finally worked, it was a beautiful thing! Ahmet had never seen such color. The games seemed so alive! The TV brought more customers into the café and Ahmet felt new respect for Sunny. Here was a woman unafraid of hard work, one with the perseverance of a goat that banged its head against the fence in the hopes of getting to the other side. However, here, too, was a woman like his mother and his sister, who challenged his expectations of the weaker sex and made him uneasy as well.

Two Afghan men who Ahmet knew approached the gate. He greeted them, held the gate open, and reminded them they’d need to check their weapons. Too many guns, he thought, his eyes following them as they walked through the courtyard and were welcomed by Bashir Hadi. If everybody has a gun, everybody is prepared to kill and to die.

Though today maybe half the people inside were locals, the café’s customers were mostly foreigners, both men and women, who found the place so comfortable that they would sit for hours, in groups talking or alone with a book, while Bashir Hadi worked the kitchen, Sunny took orders, Halajan, his mother, bossed everybody around, and Yazmina kept the place clean and orderly.

Yazmina, now there were two eyes, Ahmet thought, as his own followed an old man who was crossing the street in front of him surrounded by sheep. He was hitting a particularly fat sheep on its backside with the long stick he was holding.

Yazmina’s eyes were like the bottomless pools of the Band-e Amir, the lakes of the northern mountain region, which he’d seen in pictures. He was convinced she had probably been a whore before Sunny brought her here and was up to no good, because her eyes were the only pair that he couldn’t read.

He turned to look through the front courtyard into the coffeehouse. And there was Yazmina, wiping a tray, laying it on the counter, placing two saucers, then two cups on each. Then a basket of sweets.
Look at me
, Ahmet thought,
let me see those eyes of yours. They will tell me the truth
. As if she heard his thoughts, she did, and he immediately turned away, back to the street.

Most certainly a
fahesha
, a prostitute, he said to himself, as he lifted his rifle high on his shoulder and nodded at two foreign women approaching the gate. Their heads were covered, but they wore the pants and shoes of the West, probably with NGOs working futilely to help a people who needed no help. Such women, like his own sister, might be intelligent, with good intentions, but there were rules, and respect must be paid. His beloved country had survived various regimes in the past and it would survive whatever came its way. But if traditions were ignored, if the Koran was not read faithfully and understood literally, then his people were just as low as the snakes crawling in the brush in the desert.

And Sunny, like all the Americans—except for Jack, Ahmet admitted, who showed some respect—flaunted the traditions. No wonder his mother was so comfortable in the café. Sunny and she fought like dogs but were as connected as two cats from the same litter. They’d hired Bashir Hadi, a Hazara! And then they gave him a raise and a bigger job. Now he was almost running the place. How could they give that kind of responsibility to a Hazara? And then came Yazmina, a mountain girl from Nuristan, a Kafir. Ahmet kicked at the dirt. The café was becoming a UN of its own.

Even Ahmet was changing. Yes, he still heeded the muezzin’s call five times a day, praying on his own rug or at the mosque. And he kept the rules of Islam, but he could feel himself bristle at talk of the Taliban’s resurgence in his country. Tradition was one thing, but cruelty and violence were another. One could argue that that wasn’t what Muhammad intended at all. He frowned at the setting sun behind him to the west. Still, it was up to him to uphold the traditions of his home.
Inshallah
, he would. The world might be changing, but the word of Allah was forever, and it was Ahmet’s lifework to watch over his mother’s house, to keep it safe, and to keep it righteous under Allah’s watchful eyes.

Rashif sat at a table in the back of his shop, behind the sewing machine, behind the counter and wall covered with spools of thread, behind the curtain that separated his living space from his working space. He opened the drawer at the table’s base and pulled out a piece of ivory paper, the vellum he’d bought at the art supply store on Paint Street. He held the corner between his thumb and index finger, and confirmed again how much he liked the feel and the weight of this paper. It was smooth enough to accept the ink of the pen, and opaque enough to prevent the writing from showing through to the other side, yet textured and light enough to make it elegant when folded. And the matching envelopes were equally fine. He opened the ballpoint pen’s cap and attached it to the back of the pen.

Dearest Halajan
, he wrote, in his simple penmanship. He wanted to be sure every word could be read, not because what he had to say was so important, but because writing was the only way he could say it. And he did not want Halajan to be unable to read one single word.

Today is the most beautiful day. The air is chilled but the sky is blue and it is the day before I see you. You are the sunshine of my week
.

I have news. The new sewing machine I have been waiting for has been shipped from Pakistan and is making its way across mountains and deserts to my little shop in the Mondai-e. Let us pray that it’s not confiscated by the warlords or destroyed by the fighters in the Khyber Pass. They say it will arrive in six weeks. What a celebration we will have!

He looked up from his paper and laughed to himself. If only, he thought, or as the American kids from the International School who bought Coca-Colas and chocolate bars at his friend Ibrahim’s kiosk across the street said, “As if.”
As if
he could celebrate with Halajan, take her face in his hands and kiss her and twirl her in a midnight dance. If only!

He went back to his letter and was about to write more, when the squeak of his metal door as it opened, and the clang as it shut, announced a customer. It’ll have to wait, he thought, as he stood up, brushed aside the curtain, and greeted the man with the dark suit folded neatly over his arm. My love will just have to wait.