A Cup of Friendship (3 page)

M
en dressed in Western clothes—suits with ties and jeans with jackets—as well as
shalwaar kameez
es and turbans, stood at the café’s door waiting, while others leaned against the counter, sipping espresso from colorful demitasse cups. The tables were filled; their dark wooden chairs held men talking, reading the newspaper, and eating eggs with home-fried potatoes. Bashir Hadi was behind the counter making his famous coffees while Halajan flipped pancakes on the grill and Yazmina filled syrup bottles and cleaned tables. The hubbub, the smell of coffee and grease, of bacon and bread, the brightly painted walls, the fabrics draping each table, the warmth and color of the café, all conspired to fill Sunny with longing. What should have provided her the greatest satisfaction—that this place was hers and hers alone, that she had seen to every detail from the walls of ochre, orange, green, and mauve to the shiny copper espresso machine, from her prized generators that kept the electricity flowing even when Kabul’s shut down to the
bokhari
that kept the place warm on a cold day like this—also made her miss the one thing she wanted most.

One day soon, when she least expected it, she imagined Tommy would walk right through her door. She’d be standing just the way she stood now, leaning against the counter, yakking with Bashir Hadi, something about the crazy customers or when the meat delivery would arrive, and she’d hear the door open and see Bashir glance over her shoulder and then back at her, and then she’d hear the door slam, and she’d get a feeling. She’d just know. She’d turn around, and there he’d be, with that megawatt smile of his.

She let out a snort, hoping nobody heard it over the fray. Of course he wouldn’t walk in anytime soon, because he’d been gone only two months. His assignments took three, sometimes four months, and then he’d come home for as many weeks, at most. Tommy, you fool, she wanted to rail at him when her longing was especially fierce. How could you stay away from me for so long? For what? For adventure? The thrill? The money? They’d come to Kabul together five years before, to find themselves and a life together away from their hick town of Nowheresville, America. There they were white trash. Here they were royalty. But then Tommy found contract work in the south, first doing security for an NGO—a nongovernmental organization—then training the Afghan military, and finally becoming a sniper. He was paid more than he’d ever imagined making in a lifetime, so he would be gone for long stretches at a time. Sometimes he’d call telling her he had a weekend off and they’d both fly to Dubai, which was surprisingly easy and worth every penny, for furtive lovemaking in a fancy, high-rise hotel. But mostly it was long stretches of waiting, trying to live her life, pretending she was independent and strong when she was just a woman spending her life waiting. For a man. So, who was the real fool, she asked herself with disgust, wiping her hands on her apron.
You, Sunny Tedder, you
.

She put both palms on the counter and straightened her arms, locking her elbows. Enough feeling sorry for herself. She was lucky to have found love, to have experienced love at all. She could even have a fling if she felt like it. (Tommy and she had an unspoken pact: Do what you want with whom you want on your own time, just don’t talk about it, and never ever get emotionally involved.) She was lucky to have the coffeehouse and be living in this extraordinary place.

Tommy’s earnings, which they’d shared in the beginning, had enabled her to pay the first six months’ rent for the café, but her ingenuity and hard work had made it the success it was. She’d known that his money had been earned by killing, that he’d become a shooter, a paid mercenary fighting the Taliban in the south. But she’d figured that it was for a good cause. He was killing the bad guys.

Sometimes she felt that life in Kabul was like the Wild West, where bad guys were bad and the good guys were good, where the rule of law was as ephemeral as peace. She let out a sigh, took the clip out of her apron pocket, and wrapped her hair up into a bun. Life should be as easy as it was back then, as easy as putting your hair up, she thought. You love, you die, and in between you live as best you can.

“Daydreaming again, Miss Sunny?” asked Halajan. “Meanwhile the wolves eat your goats.”

Halajan was full of ancient Afghan wisdom. Whether Sunny wanted it or not.

Sunny looked at the old woman who owned the building and was the mother of Ahmet, with her long, low breasts that hung at her waist, unsupported by a bra, her clothes that looked like rags, and her open face. She answered, “I don’t have any goats.”

“Then they eat
you,
” Halajan said, as she came out from behind the counter and walked toward the back door. “I’m taking a break now.”

“Enjoy your smoke,” said Sunny.

Halajan turned and smiled at her. “You bet your ass,” she said in English.

Sunny laughed. Halajan was the only Afghan woman Sunny knew who spoke like that, who drank and smoked, a vestige of her life from the pre-Taliban days. How she must feel now, hearing the rumors of their return, Sunny could only guess.

A table of regulars called Sunny over, but they were pains in the butt, so she deliberately walked slowly to take their order. One wanted his eggs over easy, but not so easy. Another wanted his hash browns extra crispy but not burned like the last time. And another was upset that the bread hadn’t arrived yet. Sunny rolled her eyes and thought
It’s going to be a long day
.

She took the order to Bashir Hadi. “Crispy but not too crispy, okay? And watch those eggs.”

He smiled and said, “The customer is always right. Isn’t that the great American wisdom?”

Sunny smirked and took the cappuccino on the counter to the table where it belonged. There, a Western man wearing a traditional
shalwaar kameez
was reading the morning Kabul newspaper in Dari.

“And what about you, mister? You going to eat or just take up space?”

The man raised his face from his newspaper and looked at her with steel blue eyes. He was striking, his face lined with the wreckage of a hard life, his hair starting to gray and recede with age, his neck and waist thick with a few too many pounds, and yet his strong hands were almost graceful the way he folded his paper, laid it on the table. He reminded Sunny of movie stars from the forties, rugged types, not too handsome but handsome enough, with something special going on under the skin.

“Are we having a bad morning, ma’am?”

He talked like a man from the forties, too.

“How about it? You going to order?” Sunny replied.

“So, this is how it’s going to be, is it? All business?”

“And please don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ Ma’am is for old ladies. I left America because of ma’am.”

“Hmm, really?” He put on his reading glasses, perused the menu, and continued, “I heard you had to. They were on to you,” he said teasingly.

Sunny ignored him.

“I’ll have a three-egg omelet with cheese—not too runny—with hash browns, and can you be sure they’re cooked this time? I like ’em crispy. And some of that good French bread of yours.” He stopped to think. “And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe I smell bacon. How’d you get your hands on bacon?”

“I have my ways. But there’s no French bread. The good old flat Afghan bread is what we’re offering this morning.”

He deliberated long and hard.

Sunny waited, one hand on her hip, a slight smile forming at the edges of her mouth.

“No French bread, huh?” he said, “Okay, I’ll forgo the bread, but since I’m eating alone and won’t offend one of my Afghan friends, I’ll have some bacon. And some mango. I like how you serve the mango.”

“Anything else, sir?” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Another cappuccino.” He took a last slug from his cup and wiped the froth from his top lip with the back of his hand.

“We have things called ‘napkins’ for that very purpose,” Sunny said.

“But then I wouldn’t piss you off, would I?” he replied, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. He took his napkin from his lap and dabbed his mouth delicately, a bemused look on his craggy face.

Sunny couldn’t stop herself from grinning as she turned back to the counter. “Jack wants the regular,” she called to Bashir Hadi.

“Watch out, you, ’cuz I’ll be back,” she said to Jack as he picked up his newspaper.

She was surprised at how much his presence instantly brightened her mood. He’d been gone for more than a month. His work, as a consultant for rural development, often took him to remote parts of the country where he worked with engineers and contractors to bring irrigation, paved roads, and electricity to impoverished, backward areas. Or something like that. Sunny learned long ago that “consultant” was the label in Kabul for anybody doing something they couldn’t talk about. Jack didn’t speak much about the NGOs that hired him or the specifics of his job. All Sunny knew for sure was that he was married, had a kid in high school back home, and liked his eggs cooked through. And that he was funny and made her laugh. What he was doing here, with his family over there, she wasn’t sure. Except maybe it was for the same reason 99.9 percent of the other foreigners were here: to make money. In Afghanistan, a guy who made forty, fifty thousand dollars a year back home could make ten times that just for “danger pay.” If you were willing to die, you could earn a shitload to live.

Tommy was proof of that, Sunny thought. The love of her life, her reason for coming to Kabul, left her every few weeks for more lucrative possibilities. And Sunny had adapted to life in this town alone.
Life happens
, was her motto. You adapt or you’re lost.

Look at Yazmina, Sunny thought, who was cleaning a table toward the back of the coffeehouse. Only a few weeks ago Sunny had brought her here and introduced her to indoor plumbing and electricity. When she’d turned on the light in her room for the first time, Yazmina jumped. Halajan had had to explain the use of the toilet, which made Sunny smile just remembering her crude explanation. But when Yazmina told Halajan that where she was from, you never did your dirty business in the house and that it was very primitive of them to do such business under the same roof where they ate and slept, Halajan folded over in laughter. When she’d shown Yazmina the shower, turning on first the cold and then the hot water, the young woman’s face lit up and she put her hand into the warm stream, felt it against her skin, and watched it flow down her arm. She looked as if she’d seen a miracle.

Yazmina was completely covered in the lavender
chaderi
that she’d worn when she’d first arrived. It certainly wasn’t as beautiful as the one Sunny had seen her in at the Women’s Ministry, with its handmade embroidery. But that one had been torn and ruined by her ordeal and now was kept folded and hidden under her pillow. Sunny had seen it one morning when she’d gone to Yazmina’s room to give her an extra blanket for the cold nights. She’d marveled at the
chaderi
’s beautiful work, and though she would never let Yazmina know she’d seen it, she vowed to herself that one day soon, she’d take Yazmina for a handmade
shalwaar kameez
or two. Something bright and pretty to make her feel better about being here while her family was so far away. Something light and comfortable for her to grow into as her pregnancy was further along. She hadn’t mentioned to Yazmina that she knew, not wanting to embarrass her. But the day was coming when she’d have to, if only to get her a doctor and to help her feel more comfortable and prepare for the day the baby would be born.

“Yazmina,” Sunny said to her. “
Sob bakhaer
. Good morning. I hope you slept well,” she said slowly, in her halting Dari. “How are you feeling today?”

Yazmina stood there, nervously, obviously not understanding.

Sunny shook her head in frustration. Communication between them was still slow as they tried to find the Dari words they had in common.

Jack looked up from his nearby table and spoke Waigili, the language of the Nuristani people, so fluently that he might have been from Nuristan himself. “Don’t mind her. She’s trying. She’d like to know how you’re feeling today.”

Yazmina smiled, and answered in her language, “Very well, thank you,
tashakur,
” then nodded and walked to the counter. As she put on an apron over her
chaderi
, Bashir Hadi was rubbing the copper coffee machine with lime juice, the best way to make it glow like the moon on a winter night, he had told her.

The morning flew by. It wasn’t until the last customer had left, and Yazmina had swept the floors and left for her room to rest, that Bashir Hadi approached Sunny, who was at the counter on her laptop.

“May we speak, Miss Sunny?” asked Bashir Hadi.

Bashir was very serious, which worried her. “Of course,” she said, closing the computer and turning to face him.

Bashir pulled a stool behind him and sat. “I enjoy my job here and I thank you for the opportunity you have given me—”

“You’re not quitting, are you?” Sunny interrupted, her heart leaping into her throat. What would she do without Bashir? She’d come to rely on him so.