A Cup of Friendship (5 page)

T
he car bumped and lurched on the dirt road, throwing stones up against the windshield. Through the cloud of dust Candace Appleton could see the green of the valley ahead. Here, on the outskirts of Kabul, it was brown, dry, and bleak, just like the city itself. But right ahead was a lush, fruitful paradise. It was everything Wakil had said it would be.

He sat beside her, behind the driver of his new SUV, talking about his plans for the new roads he was having built out this way. She admired his strong profile, imagined his lovely body under his simple gray cotton tunic and pants. On his head he wore a turban made from such exquisite silk that it looked regal. She glanced once more at his meticulously trimmed beard, his dark-rimmed eyes. He was, indeed, a beautiful man. A young man, too; ten years her junior, to be precise. But it wasn’t just that. Maybe it was his commitment to his country, to helping boys without fathers of their own, to building them a clinic, a school, an orphanage out here in the vast green countryside. Or perhaps it was his attentiveness toward her and their passionate lovemaking. Or how he’d vowed to marry her when the time was right. To have a family. Or a combination of it all. Because she had fallen deeply in love with him, which made the fact that she’d left her husband for him easier to justify.

All these years she’d never done anything for herself, except, of course, the shopping, the little nips and tucks, the necessary things to keep her looking good as she grew older, which was a requisite for being married to a man who was in the public eye. Leaving Richard was the first real thing she’d done for herself in eighteen years of marriage. Eighteen years! She looked out the car’s window and sighed. And still, it had been so easy to walk away since there had been no children involved. She’d wanted them, and not just one—the way she grew up, lonely and treated like an adult even as a young girl—but an entire brood! When she didn’t get pregnant instantly, Richard had no desire to find out why or explore their options.

Then she met Wakil. It was at a conference her husband had attended at the U.S. consulate in Afghanistan for representatives of NGOs and local community organizers to meet and discuss priorities and funding. She sat with the other guests, in the back, behind the round tables of the participants. But she couldn’t keep her eyes off Wakil even then—he was so very passionate about his work, and he spoke with such eloquence. Later, at the reception, her husband introduced them. The connection was instant.

“Your school sounds wonderful,” she had said to him.

“It’s a clinic and a home to orphans as well. You must come and see it,” he’d answered. “It’s in a green and lush part of my country. A place I know you will appreciate.”

She laughed. “Because you want my support?”

“Because I noticed you—how could I not?—during the conference, listening, taking notes, and I saw a woman with not only beauty and passion but a deep power to accomplish things.” He paused, smiled as her face flushed with the effects of his charm, and then added, “And I think you must love children as I do.”

Were these simply corny pickup lines? It didn’t matter. She was hooked.

And look where it had brought her: to this rich, verdant valley with this glorious man, where she would do something with her life, for once. Wakil gave her a real reason to be. Not just designer clothes, fashionable parties, a townhouse on Beacon Hill in Boston, and volunteering for this museum or that educational institution.

He gave her life purpose. And she was, perhaps for the first time, excited to be alive.

The car headed toward the cluster of trees in the distance below. She was eager to tour the school, meet the children, and see firsthand what Wakil was talking about when he spoke so ardently about building new lives and giving the boys hope, a new direction. He hadn’t been talking about her life, but he could’ve been.

“There,” he said in flawless English, pointing out the windshield toward her side of the car. “Through the trees.”

“Yes,” she replied, “I see it.” There were several buildings in the distance, a village.

He turned to her. “My sweet Candace, my light. I cannot wait to show you everything. Then you will see what we have worked so hard for, and for such a long time.” He took her hand in his and held it firmly.

She smiled. And she thought about everyone she could approach for money for Wakil’s project. Her contacts would come in handy. As the wife to the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan (and many other Middle East and Gulf countries prior to that), she had met every important businessman and entrepreneur, every significant philanthropist and activist interested in the area. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew her divorce from Richard Appleton III had caused a lot of gossip and damaged her reputation. But she was confident in her own ability to persuade and attract attention. It was how she, the hick from Bumfuck, USA, had landed a Boston Brahmin in the first place.

They drove through a grove of tall trees, the geography having changed dramatically since they left Kabul. The sun sifted through the leaves and in between the black trunks that passed by in a blur.

“We’re here,” said Wakil, as they parked in a clearing circled by buildings. “The school first. Come, my love. Come see this place I’ve told you about for so long.”

He came around the car to open the door for her. Then they walked into the building, out of the midday sun.

Inside was one large room filled with boys sitting silently on
toshak
s on the floor, their legs folded and books on their laps. They all wore white, clean
shalwaar kameez
es and small hats of ivory wool, and they were rocking back and forth as they recited the Koran. An older man in a white turban sat facing them—their teacher, apparently.

As soon as the boys noticed Wakil’s presence, they stood up, crossed their arms, holding their wrists, and put their eyes to the floor.

“You see,” whispered Wakil, “the boys are Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, Turkmen. They come from all over. Boys with no family, nothing, boys left orphaned, beggars. We give them an education. And from here, they will build lives, get jobs, be fruitful.”

He went to one of the smaller boys and rubbed his head. The boy turned and tried to kiss his hand. Politely, Wakil pulled his hand away. “It is not me he should be thanking, it is Allah,” Wakil said to Candace. “I only do this because it is the right thing to do.”

Candace looked out over the sea of faces, and then at Wakil’s. How proud he was to offer these boys a home and a place to learn. How proud she was to be able to help—and to be so close to him.

“But we need more books, we need more room. This school has grown in size in only these few months. And what you’ve just seen is only a part of it. The girls come in the afternoon.”

“Girls live here, too?” How remarkable it was that he, an Afghan man, would want to educate girls, especially in a country where the girls were predominantly illiterate, raised to be subservient.

“No, they’re not orphans. Just poor girls with no place to learn. Why should they grow up ignorant? How can our country prosper if its women know nothing of its history? Or if they cannot read the Koran? Here we are unafraid to teach them. Now, come, let’s see the clinic, and then we shall have a tour of the boys’ home.”

As they turned to leave, the boys sat down and began their chanting again. Candace was overwhelmed by Wakil’s vision. Affection welled up in her like a wave and she so wanted to take Wakil’s hand but knew she couldn’t. So she followed him out, as was the rule. But once outside, she couldn’t contain herself. She whispered to him and he followed her behind the building, behind a tree, like two teenagers. And there she kissed him hard, felt his body against hers, his strong hand on her lower back. Stealing a kiss like this, during the day, outside, was dangerous. She felt Wakil pull away.

“Careful, my love,” he whispered. “There will be much time for this later. For you”—he hesitated, breathed into her neck—“are almost impossible to resist. But now, I want you to see the clinic.”

They walked around the next building to the front door. Inside was a line of boys, women in burqas, and old men, which snaked from the waiting room all the way down the hall to a closed door.

“We do not have enough doctors, and these few must help people for miles around,” Wakil said, his eyes full of concern. “The people in this area have experienced such hardships, and suffer from many ailments and diseases. They try to be strong. But they only get sicker. We have already lost many.…” His voice drifted off.

He walked over to one boy and stroked his hair. He spoke quietly to another, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. And to another, and another. Then he returned to Candace and said, “We need more doctors, equipment, medicines. Or our young will continue to die young.”

She looked at the little boy and wished she could hold him, too. She fought her every impulse to pull him into her arms, stroke his head. If she could say what she really wanted, what she held deep in her heart, it would’ve been this: to have a child with this man standing next to her, to make a life, a family, together. Instead, she said to Wakil, “We will help them, my dear. We will get everything you want. I promise you that.”

W
ith the recent violence in the city, Sunny was anxious about the café’s being open late. It wasn’t only the latest suicide bombing that concerned her, but there were gangs of young men terrorizing foreigners and holding them for ransom—an Italian aid worker was kidnapped recently on her way home from a yoga class. Ahmet would have to guard the door and hire a friend to guard the gate. At the same time, because of the dangers, these late nights were terribly slow. People weren’t going out as much. They’d lived with violence in the past, but they’d become accustomed to the peace, which made the recent occurrences particularly frightening.

But Bashir Hadi was right. They needed to make money and the longer they stayed open, the more chance they had of doing that. So she had put up signs on the front door and walls, and smaller ones on each table for the past week, announcing the late hours and entertainment. She even emailed some of her regulars.

“He gives you a gift, Bashir Hadi does,” said Halajan. “Life changes and you choose to flow with the river or you build a dam. In this case, flow. Let’s make some money. It can be fun.”

“Forget fun. I’m just hoping people show up,” Sunny replied. Maybe she’d be lucky and Jack would stop by, as he often did late in the day.

In the meantime, some entertainment would liven things up. She had her iPod and the speakers for music. But music wasn’t enough. Tonight they’d show a movie.

That afternoon, while the coffeehouse was quiet, she put on a large purple scarf and went out the back door, past her beloved generators, past Yazmina’s window and the pomegranate tree, and out the back gate to the narrow alley where her car was parked.

When she got out of her car on Chicken Street, a horde of young boys wearing the standard brown pants, shirts, and vests came whooping and begging for an afghani or two, their arms outstretched, their eyes laughing to belie their hunger. She’d made the mistake once of giving a few coins to a young boy who looked desperately hungry. The minute she’d turned her back, he was attacked by a mob of boys intent on stealing the money she’d given him. She’d tried to break up the fighting and was bitten in the process. Now she gave only to children who were selling something, anything, just so she wasn’t encouraging begging. It wasn’t as if it was acceptable to beg in Kabul; in fact, begging on the streets was new to the city, something that appalled Halajan. But it had become a way of life for the hundreds of thousands of people with no work, the displaced, the starving, the uneducated and disenfranchised.

When she got to her favorite store, she stepped inside and greeted the owner. “
Salaam alaikum,
” she said. “Anything new?”

“
Wa alaikum as-salaam,
” he answered with a small bow. “Definitely, much new. Check out my New Arrivals wall, over there.”

Sunny was, as usual, impressed with the store. It was well lit and organized like a mini Blockbuster back home. It was critical that she find something good to show, so that people would come back. The problem was that the only videos available in Kabul were pirated. You couldn’t rent one, so those for sale had to be cheap, and the legal versions were too expensive to sell. The pirated videos were secondhand versions—made illegally—sometimes impossible to hear or see, because the movies had actually been videotaped by some guy who snuck his camera into the movie theater under his jacket, or made in someone’s living room, where somebody copied an already lousy copy of a TV show or movie. Recently, though, more tapes were coming in from China, and though they were not the homemade variety, they were a gamble as well. So Sunny made it a habit of buying a few at a time to be sure there was something watchable. Today she picked up the complete first season of
Grey’s Anatomy
and the recent Academy Award winner
Crash
. She’d wanted
The Man Who Would Be King
, but it was so popular because it was about Afghanistan that there was a perennial waiting list. She added her name to it.

Sunny had ordered delicious sweets from the French bakery that brought her the warm, crusty bread each morning all the way from Carte Se, about a forty-five-minute drive in traffic, and Yazmina had agreed to work late to serve coffee. The coffeehouse was inviting at night, with its soft lighting and warm colors. Who wouldn’t want a place to hang out and talk and watch a great movie and drink the best coffee in Kabul?

Nobody, that’s who. Or almost nobody. At seven, Sunny wondered if there’d been a bomb or a roadside blast. She tried the walkie-talkie with the UN channels, but everything seemed normal. So she told herself maybe they would still come, that there was a lot of rush-hour traffic.

At 8:00, Halajan said, “No one’s coming. And why not? Because people are afraid, and they won’t go out just for a movie and some talk. You have to offer more. And then maybe even tell people about it. That would help.”

At 8:10, Sunny’s cellphone rang. The landlines in Kabul were about as trustworthy as the rug dealer in the market. If the wind blew too hard, if it rained, if a little bird landed on a wire, the line went dead.

Sunny answered the call, but nobody was there. So she told Ahmet to let his friend at the gate leave. Ahmet resumed his usual place outside.

At 8:22, Jack walked in, a large canvas bag hanging from his shoulder. He looked around the room and raised his brows. He laid the bag gingerly on a table.

“Nice crowd,” he said.

Sunny couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “At least you decided to show up.”

“Honey, I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said. “Hello, Halajan,” he said, and then said something in his perfect Dari that made Halajan laugh.

Sunny didn’t know precisely what he’d said, but it was somewhere in the vicinity of Sunny having scared everyone off. Jack sat. And Sunny said, “Very funny.” She joined Jack, and Yazmina served them each a Coke, then retreated behind the counter to the kitchen.

But Jack dug into his bag and pulled out a bottle of wine.

“Let’s get this party started,” he said. “Got any movies?”

“She’s got them,” said Bashir Hadi from the counter. “Miss Sunny took the car out today.”

Sunny glared at Bashir Hadi and then looked at Jack, who was shaking his head unhappily. As if she were a teenager.

“I’ll deal with that,” offered Halajan. She took the bottle to the kitchen and returned with a teapot and three cups. She poured.

“Nice tea,” Jack said. “Good vintage. Let’s toast.”

“To busy nights,” Sunny said.

“To safe driving,” he answered.

At that moment, the door slammed open and two Afghan men, twenty-one, maybe twenty-two years old, walked in and, instead of waiting to be seated properly, sat themselves at a table. They were clearly Pashtun, dressed nicely, of some privilege. What was also clear is that they were high on hashish or something, which made them loud, arrogant, and demanding.

“Hey, two beers over here!” one yelled in his native language, slamming his hand on the table. The other laughed, tilting his chair back.

Sunny’s hackles rose and she looked at Jack. He nodded to her in response.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

Bashir Hadi whispered something to Yazmina, probably to stay behind the counter, and approached the table himself.

“We don’t serve beer here.”

“Come on,” the young man said. “Sure you do.” He looked Bashir Hadi up and down. “This guy won’t serve us beer,” he said to his friend, “because he’s Hazara and we’re Afghan.”

“No—it’s because—” began Bashir Hadi, but he was interrupted.

“Because why?” asked the other.

Sunny stood, looked at Jack.

“Wait,” he whispered. “Let him handle this.”

She slowly sat down.

“We don’t serve beer,” explained Bashir Hadi slowly, as if with each word he was struggling to contain himself, “because we’re a coffeehouse, not a bar. Perhaps you want some tea.”

The two men looked at each other. And then the leader looked over at Sunny, gave her an obsequious smile, and laughed out loud. That was when Jack stood. The young man also stood and faced him.

“Come on,” said his friend, worried about the fight that was brewing. “Let’s get out of here.” Then he dug into his pocket and threw some coins on the table and said to Bashir Hadi, “Here, to feed you and your family for a week!”

“Filthy Hazara,” the other man sneered.

As they sauntered out, Jack followed behind them to the door and watched them until Ahmet closed the gate behind them. Then he turned and said, “Bashir Hadi, my man, come have a drink with us. You handled that well, sir.”

Sunny looked at Bashir Hadi, who obviously felt the weight of Jack’s compliment, but his eyes couldn’t help but convey hurt and anger. He sat next to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “The way those boys spoke—”

“I’m used to it,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

Yazmina came in then, carrying a tray with a pot of tea and cups, and served the tea to Bashir Hadi.

“
Bishine,
” said Sunny, asking Yazmina to sit. “We’ve got no customers anyway.” When Yazmina froze, Sunny continued, “
Bya
, come sit.”

Yazmina looked to Halajan for a sign of what to do.

“It’s okay,” said Halajan. “We women are always outnumbered. Now we’ll have the vote.” She nodded at Sunny, as if she’d read her thoughts. “Two of them, three of us.”

“Here,” Sunny said, pulling out a chair. “Join us. It’s okay.”

Yazmina looked at Halajan again, who smiled and nodded, and then she sat, her hands in her lap, her eyes down. Jack filled Yazmina’s teacup.

“Okay, so we’re all here now? To feel sorry for me?” said Bashir Hadi.

“Nobody feels sorry for you,” said Jack. “How could we? It’s those guys—”

But Bashir Hadi interrupted, held his cup high, and said, “Well, here’s to feeding my family for a week, to being Hazara, to being Shia, to—”

“It could be worse. You could be a woman,” interrupted Halajan, as she poured from the teapot.

“And let’s not forget the women!” he said, and drank.

They were joking around, but Sunny reflected that there was much truth and sadness in what they said. The Hazara people were the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan after the Pashtun (some of whom were Talib) and the Tajik. They’d descended from the Mongolians, and some even said from Genghis Khan, which was why their features had an Asian influence. Sunny had always thought that Bashir Hadi looked like the American Indians she knew as a kid—the golden skin, the heavy-lidded black eyes, and the strong, straight nose. His people had been persecuted for years by the Pashtun Sunni majority, mostly because the Hazara were Shia.

“But like women, Bashir Hadi, you should be careful,” Jack was saying, all hints of joking gone. “The country is on the verge of changing again. And not on the side of being more tolerant, if the Taliban come back into power.”

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Jack. Tolerance is overrated. I’m no more tolerant of the Pashtun Talib than they are of me. They just have bigger guns. Which brings me to the point. Making money to make this place safer. How are we going to do it?”

They talked into the night, sharing ideas, making suggestions, putting together plans, their anger over Bashir Hadi’s treatment by those men turning to excitement and fueling their creative energy. Only Yazmina sat quietly, not saying one word, with her hands clenched tightly on her lap, though every now and then she looked up from the table and let the light of those green eyes shine on everyone. When she did, Sunny would nod, acknowledging her presence and letting her know she was welcome. Jack would translate for her to bring her into the conversation. But it was Halajan who kept her hand on Yazmina’s the entire night so that she knew she wasn’t alone.