A Cup of Friendship (7 page)

That tailor had the heart of a modernist, just like his own mother. Ahmet had to love and respect his mother, according to the precepts. But he didn’t have to like Rashif one bit.

“W
hat’s with you?” Sunny asked.

Jack had come in that morning distracted and cranky. He hardly said hello, sat, gulped his coffee, and buried himself in his newspaper.

Finally, he looked up. “You,” he said. “That’s what’s with me.” And he went back to his paper.

“Excuse me?” Sunny said, putting a hand on her hip. “When you’re ready to discuss it, you know where to find me.” She turned and walked away.

But behind her she heard, “Two things.”

So she turned around, walked back to his table, and said, “So give me the bad news.”

“Driving that damn car around town like you did yesterday.”

He sounded as closed minded as an old Afghan man talking to his youngest wife. She knew he hated the car; he’d warned her about it and had explained why a woman shouldn’t be out alone in Kabul, many times.

She sighed loudly. “And?”

“Jesus, Sunny, it’s dangerous,” he said with frustration. “And two, Bashir Hadi gives you this great idea to build your wall higher so you can make more money and be safer and then you just sit on your ass, as nice as it is,” he said, craning his neck to look at her butt.

“Oh, shut up,” she said in return. “What am I supposed to do? Nobody came.”

“Give them a reason, for God’s sake. We came up with a hell of a lot of good ideas last night. I know you’re not stupid. So, what is it, are you stupid?”

She scowled then, and he smiled. She sat down at his table. Picked up his fork and tasted his egg. “Um, that’s good.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Okay, so I liked the idea of getting a speaker. But who?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t tell you because you’d only blow me off, Ms. Stubborn Know-It-All.”

She smiled again, this time fully. He could be cute, this fat old fart, who wasn’t so fat or old, and he was only sometimes a fart, not to mention handsome with his square chin and deep eyes.

“You’re right. I’ll think of someone.”

“But I do know of a doctor from India working here in the field. Passionate about women’s health issues in Afghanistan, and I know she wants to get the word out about the dire straits these women are in. Besides, I helped her once with something. She owes me.”

Sunny’s eyes widened. “Really? You think she’ll come speak here at the café?”

“Only if you beg me.”

She put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Please.”

“But promise me one thing.” He paused, waiting for her response, which she took a while to provide. “Hello?”

“Okay, I promise.”

“You get people here. Otherwise I’ll be embarrassed.”

“And we wouldn’t want that,” she said.

“Come on, Sunny,” he answered with some impatience. “Out of respect for the doctor.”

She realized, then, how serious he was. “Don’t worry. I’ll get people.”

One week later, on a bitter cold Wednesday night, Sunny lit the candles, Halajan poured the wine into the teapots, Bashir Hadi arranged the cookies and pastries on platters, Yazmina set the tables, and the windows rattled on their hinges. Whistling drafts came through the caulked edging of their casements, and it seemed only a matter of time before the roof blew off and the house lifted up into the sky.

Jack had confirmed that Dr. Ramita Malik would come and speak about her work. So Sunny had gone to the bazaar to buy poster board and tempera, and made dozens of signs that she took to the Women’s Ministry, the hospital, the schools, the French House, the UN, the American Embassy, and the other guesthouses and compounds—everywhere she knew where female foreigners lived, worked, and gathered—and pleaded with people to put them up. She’d thought about emailing her women friends, but they’d all left Kabul over the past few months. Sunny had never been one to need or want more than one or two close friends at a time, and really had to know someone well before confiding in them. Her Kabul friends—Chris, the schoolteacher from South Africa; Ellen, a cousin of a cousin of an old friend who had been in town studying Dari; and Suzanne, whom she’d met on her very first day in Kabul, and who ran a beauty school—had all left. Kabul was a temporary stop or a momentary adventure for all but the stalwart or foolhardy, of which Sunny realized she was the latter. Recently she’d felt a little lonely, and not only because Tommy had been away so long this time, but because she didn’t have someone to talk to with the kind of shorthand that only a close friend understands. A look, a raised brow, a down-turned mouth.

It wasn’t that men weren’t invited to the evening talk. It was just that Kabul was such a world of men, a place where women’s concerns and voices were secondary at best, so why not give women a place and a reason to come to hang out and talk and just be together? The more she thought about it, the more excited she was about the idea. Wednesday nights for women: food, drink, and something to think and talk about.

The coffeehouse was ready, and hopefully Jack would show. He wasn’t a woman, but he had the heart of one. She hadn’t seen him since he’d made the offer to pull in Dr. Malik, and it made her realize that she too often took him for granted. He was one of those people who make others feel safe and comfortable, make them sit up a little straighter and feel good about themselves.

The front door opened with a whoosh of wind from outside. It wasn’t Jack. But it was people, and Sunny was glad for that. One, surprisingly enough, was Petr, a tall, gorgeous Uzbek whom she’d met at a party last year at L’Atmosphere—or “L’Atmo,” as the regulars called it, the French nightclub that hosted the Eurotrash, the ex-pats, the wealthy and the wannabes, the drug dealers and the warlords. In short, it was a place where she didn’t belong, but not because they didn’t accept her. She just didn’t want to associate with those types anymore. When Tommy first left, they were all she had. But then she came to realize that they were the same people she had wanted to get away from in the States, only in Arkansas they wore cowboy boots instead of Hugo Boss and carried .38s instead of Uzis.

Petr was spiffed up and decked out, all raffish charm, with a cashmere scarf around his neck and a Persian lamb jacket, carrying a Porsche man bag in one hand and talking on his cellphone with the other. With him was one of those women who could wear baggy pants loaded with pockets, scruffy hiking boots, a baggy sweater under an oversized safari jacket, and a scarf to cover her head, and still look glamorous. Her face was strikingly beautiful, with pale skin, large black eyes, and a wide mouth. As the woman took off her outer clothes, and then the baggy sweater to reveal a tight T-shirt, one couldn’t help but notice how petite she was, with slim legs and a tiny waist that made her big boobs look even bigger—Petr’s weakness, if Sunny remembered correctly. The woman’s black hair was very short and raggedly cut, which only accentuated her large eyes and good-gene cheekbones. From one wrist dangled a two-inch-wide swath of leather bangles, but her hands were delicate. She was working hard to look tough, thought Sunny.

This woman had to be an idiot to be sleeping with Petr. Sunny knew this from firsthand experience, because she had been exactly such an idiot herself. So who was she to judge?

Ahmet had followed them in, carrying Petr’s shiny silver handgun, meant for close-up business, and handed it to Bashir Hadi, who put it in the back. Sunny looked at Ahmet as if she were going to say something about sticking close, and he nodded and said, “I’m here if you need anything,” before returning to his post just outside the gate.

Immediately Petr headed to Sunny, his arms outstretched, and said in his thick Russian accent, “Hello my dear.
Preevyet kak dyela?
How are you?”

He asked the way all of Sunny’s Russian acquaintances and customers asked—like they meant it. He held her arms and kissed her on both cheeks. “Where’ve you been hiding? Haven’t seen you once at L’Atmo—”

“Petr, nice to see you.” All right, she told herself, try a little harder. Be nice. They kissed on both cheeks, and breathing in his scent, she experienced a rush of déjà vu.

He lingered a moment too long on the second kiss. “This I remember,” he said in her ear, holding her arms firmly. But she pulled away and then he introduced his friend, Isabel Hughes, who was visiting from London.

“Petr’s told me much about you. Apparently this coffeehouse is considered Kabul Central,” said Isabel in a thick British accent, reaching out her hand.

Sunny shook it. “Yeah, well, it’s not L’Atmo,” she said, with sarcasm. She looked at the couple before her and decided she didn’t trust them for a second. Petr’s story was that he was a “consultant” working in “counter narcotics,” as if anybody would believe that, since work of that kind didn’t pay enough to buy his Gucci shoes, much less his entire lifestyle. She was fairly certain that Petr was an opium dealer, and if not a dealer, then a middleman. He knew where the poppy fields were, whom to contact, and how to get what to whom. He was Russian, fluent in Turkish and Uzbek, which were helpful for the poppy trade in the north, with connections including an Uzbek warlord’s son. And Sunny had no doubt he made millions from it. And Isabel? Though her clothes were cliché college student attire, she was older than that and obviously just another of his many women, who’d come to Kabul to find adventure and maybe a high-rolling boyfriend or husband in the process. But those women usually found themselves doing whatever it took to make a living. If she was with Petr, enough said.

They sat at one of the empty tables, Halajan served cappuccinos and the illegal wine in a teapot, and they chatted with some foreign aid workers and the other people who’d come in. No Jack yet, but a much better crowd than last time. And it was still early. The doctor hadn’t even arrived.

“Look,” whispered Bashir Hadi. “This place, it is rockin’!”

Sunny chuckled at his slang. “Well, it’s not bad. For our first.”

Isabel had apparently been listening. “It’s brilliant,” she said, reassuringly. “Look at you. Look at all this. It’s magnificent.”

“Bashir Hadi, I think she’s lecturing me on the power of positive thinking.” Sunny smiled, but she couldn’t hold back her cynicism.

“Rubbish. Relatively speaking, you seem to be doing okay.”

She was trying to be nice, Sunny thought. Give her a break. “And what about you? Why are you in Kabul?”

“I’m on a story.”

“You’re a journalist?” She couldn’t conceal her surprise. She’d thought the woman was a bimbo. Guilt by association.

“Freelance. A private foundation’s hired me to do a story for the BBC on the effect of the government’s plans to spray the poppy fields.”

Impressive, Sunny thought. The plan was highly controversial, and anything to do with poppies was dangerous, given the money involved in opium.

“The people are worried,” Isabel continued. “The women for their children, for other crops. It’s going to be indiscriminate aerial spraying and if the chemical kills poppies, it kills vegetables, and if it kills vegetables, it may not kill people, but it’ll make them sick. Dr. Malik has spoken on this subject before. Thought I could get a minute with her. People will lose their farms, their livelihood. They’ll starve. Don’t get me started.

“And of course it’s the women who feel strongest on this issue. They’re the ones who have to feed their families and watch over their children. But they have no protection and no voice. They’re not allowed to protest. It’s really become this insane issue, mothers siding with poppy growers, with drug lords.”

“But the story, it’s good,” Sunny said, raising her brows. “Dangerous, though. Anything involving opium. You be careful.”

“Now who’s giving the lecture?” Isabel smiled.

And Sunny smiled back. This woman with the
Playboy
body, the punk haircut, and the stupid boyfriend might just be okay.

“And Petr’s not my boyfriend,” Isabel said, as if she heard Sunny’s thoughts. “He’s just a friend. With friends.”

And she was smart. And the way she talked made Sunny realize this was not a regular Petr woman at all.

“Want some tea?” Sunny held up her teapot filled with wine.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Isabel held up her cup. Sunny poured, and the two women toasted to being positive.

The doctor arrived about a half hour late, having gotten lost on her way to the coffeehouse. There were no street signs in Kabul, so the only way to find a new place was to use markers, like the herd of sheep grazing on the garbage, or the green gate under the Nokia billboard, two houses down the muddy alley, or the third gate with the blue metal door.