Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

by Deborah Rodriguez

  Sky shot him a confused look, which Joe answered with a swift jerk of the head toward Sunny, who was busy helping herself to more cheese.

  “Oh,” Sky finally responded. “Well, you see, I was just on my way home from my bartending job at The Dirty Monkey, and I saw the lights on from the bottom of the hill, and I wanted to make sure everything was all right with the house.” He turned to Joe for approval. “And you’re still here, Sunny?”

  “Missed the ferry.” She held up two fingers. “Twice.”

  Sky nodded his head slowly up and down.

  “Sit, sit. Please,” Sunny said as if she had just remembered she was in her own house. She stood and rushed toward her new guest to help him with his jacket, piling it on top of the already soggy mess that was Joe’s. The two men sat as she returned to the paper bag on the counter. “My breakfast,” she explained a little sheepishly as she lifted out a can of Mountain Dew and a box of Frosted Flakes. “And my dinner,” she added, revealing a box of Triscuits, a jar of pickles, and a large bar of chocolate, which she artfully arranged on a couple of plates that she set down on the table next to Joe’s cheese. Another glass was rinsed before she finally joined them. “Please,” she said, filling Sky’s glass. “Enjoy. Happy to have the company.”

  Joe watched Sunny’s actions with a smile on his face.

  “So how long will you be staying on the island?” Sky asked Sunny, the little silver bead hanging in front of his teeth sparkling with every word.

  “I wasn’t planning on staying at all.”

  “Well you should!” he answered with the enthusiasm of the boy he was. “There’s so much to do. Fishing, hiking, skydiving, kayaking, paddle-boarding …” Sunny’s expression remained frozen as the two men waited for her reaction. “Art galleries, boutiques?” Sky tried. Nothing. “And in the summer, it stays light forever. Like Norway. Hey, and the car show is next week!”

  Joe helped himself to some more wine. “Sky is a one-man Chamber of Commerce. He should run for mayor.”

  “He reminds me a little of someone else,” Sunny said, flashing Joe a subtle smile.

  “I’ve lived here all my life,” Sky continued. “Well, practically all my life. My parents moved us up here from Los Angeles when I was little. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Maybe for a little while for school, but that’s about it.”

  “Sky is right,” Joe agreed. “It is a beautiful island. Oh, and I almost forgot, we found your other key. The one to the barn.” He nodded at Sky, who dug it out of his pocket and slid it across the table to Sunny. Joe watched as she zipped it into the pocket of her down vest. She reached for the bottle and topped off their glasses. This was good. Tomorrow—tomorrow he’d bring her a warm loaf of bread and a jar of his red sauce.

  8

  The vendors were already at work setting up their folding tables in the courtyard as the morning sun climbed its way into the cloudless Kabul sky. On the street, a jumble of vans and carts and taxis and cars were unloading bins and piles of goods, as both men and women approached with heavy bundles over their shoulders, dragging behind them the plastic chairs that would provide some relief throughout the long day of commerce. How the little bazaar had grown since they first started offering weekly space to those whose businesses had been hurt so badly by the restrictions imposed by the international organizations that would no longer allow their people to shop on Chicken Street, designating it as yet one more dangerous place in Kabul that was off-limits. But here, behind the safety of the high walls topped with razor wire, under the watchful eyes of the coffeehouse’s two chokidors, everyone was allowed to shop to their heart’s content, in turn allowing the vendors, along with Ahmet and his family, to bring in a few more dollars to help make ends meet.

  Yazmina greeted the women who appeared with their arms heavy with scarves and jewelry, and helped them arrange the cloths for covering their tables and string the clotheslines that would be used to display their wares. “Salaam alaikum,” she repeated to each of them, after the customary three kisses on their cheeks. “How are you? How is your health? How is your family?”

  Bashir Hadi was busy setting up his own table, where the coffeehouse favorites that Sunny had taught him to make—brownies, peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip cookies, date bars—would sell like hot cakes. He hoped they would go particularly fast today, he had told them this morning, as he was anxious to get home to where his wife, Sharifa, was working all day to prepare the special dish of mantu for the family. He could practically feel the little pockets of ground beef exploding in his mouth already, the mint and garlic sweet and tangy on the tip of his tongue.

  Ahmet stopped briefly to check in with Daoud, who was standing tall and firm by the coffeehouse gate, his eyes continuously scanning the busy courtyard like a beacon at sea. After the chokidor assured him that everything was running smoothly, Ahmet slicked back his hair and began his weekly rounds, sharing his own greetings with the eager men laying out their smooth lidded boxes, and the others hanging their heavy woven rugs. Against the far wall, a string of women’s dresses caught his eye, sparkling under the sun like a rainbow. Even from where he stood, Ahmet could recognize the good quality, but these dresses were nowhere near as beautiful as the ones his Yazmina had created, by hand, for Sunny and her friends, and later for some of the wealthy Afghans who had clamored for her designs, back when the child and the coffeehouse had not taken up so much of her time.

  He watched as his wife stood admiring a tableful of handmade dolls dressed in miniature embroidered dresses and hijab, with long, dark stitched lashes shooting out from their almond eyes like the rays of the sun. Like little Yazminas, he thought, suddenly struck by the glow that seemed to be surrounding her like the halo of an angel, that warm light that comes only from a woman with child.

  It wasn’t long before the courtyard began to fill with the foreigners who showed up each week, strolling the perimeter, fingering the beads and admiring the chunky bracelets of silver and lapis, testing the strength of the wing-shaped kites, their obvious hunger for a bargain matched by the vendors’ eagerness for a sale. Ahmet knew it would be a good day. He rubbed his hands together and smiled, and headed across the courtyard to escort Yazmina back inside the café, where she could sit and get some rest. How excited he was for this child, so much so that he sometimes felt the urge to shout his joy from the rooftop. But of course, out of honor and modesty, he would not share the news of Yazmina’s condition with anyone, not until her belly became obvious through the heaviest of clothing, leaving him no choice. For in Afghanistan, to discuss a wife’s pregnancy was to acknowledge engaging in the act that made it so, and that was something just not discussed. Outside the family, only Bashir Hadi had been told, and that was only because Ahmet did not want his wife working too hard.

  By late morning Ahmet could see that things in the courtyard were starting to wind down. Only the most serious shoppers remained, their hands heavy with plastic bags, and a few of the vendors had started packing up.

  “Khob asti laalaa?” How are you, big brother?

  Ahmet turned to see his young friend Omar, surprised by both his presence at the coffeehouse on a Friday and by the traditional perahan tunban he wore, instead of the usual jeans he chose for their classes and meetings on weekdays.

  “Hello, my friend, to you as well.” The two men embraced and clasped each other’s hands in greeting.

  “I’ve come to buy some of your delicious cookies for my family, but they are already gone. Next week I will have to get here earlier.”

  “Well, it is good to see you anyway.” Ahmet nodded toward the coffeehouse door. Omar headed inside and straight to his usual table by the wall, near the back. Ahmet followed with two cups of hot chai. “So,” he asked as he pulled up a chair and sat, “how are your studies going?”

  “Very well, thank you. Although sometimes it’s difficult, with my duties at my uncle’s shop, and my other job at Roshan selling phones.”

  “Yes,” Ahmet answered, his eyes taki
ng in the coffeehouse. “I understand.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Omar agreed.

  “Ah, but we’re lucky, are we not?”

  “That we are, my friend.” Omar blew lightly on the surface of his tea. “That we are.”

  Ahmet crossed his legs. “There are many good people there at the university,” he ventured, attempting to remain casual with his stream of talk.

  “Many.”

  “And many pretty girls, am I right?”

  Omar nodded.

  “By the way,” he said as he raised his cup toward his lips, “my mother tells me there was one who came by here yesterday, looking for you. Tall, silky hair, light complexion …”

  Omar’s eyes lit up a little. Ahmet raised his eyebrows and took a sip of the steaming liquid. Omar quickly composed himself, and sat up straight in his chair. “Perhaps it was my classmate Zara. We are working on a project together, and I missed her in class yesterday, because of my job.”

  “Well she must have missed you too. Apparently she was anxious to speak with you. This must be a difficult project.”

  “Yes, yes. Quite difficult.”

  “Apparently.”

  The two men sipped in silence for a moment.

  “So you will be able to work it out, this project, after the weekend?”

  “I hope so,” said Omar with a sigh.

  “So this Zara, she does not need to come looking for you at the coffeehouse again?”

  Omar shifted in his seat, his cheeks reddening a bit at the mention by somebody else of the girl’s name. Ahmet couldn’t help but think about how uncomfortable he had once been because of his own feelings for Yazmina, how the mere sight of her slender wrists would cause him to become weak in his knees and forget his duties, how his thoughts of her had challenged everything he thought he knew about the way things must go between a man and a woman. And now, how happy he was to have her as his wife, to look straight into her deep green eyes without fear or shame, to lay down next to her smooth, warm body at the end of each day. He felt sorry for the young man in front of him. But still, there were customs that had to be followed.

  He cleared his throat before he spoke. “I’m sure her parents would not be happy to know of your Zara coming to see you outside of school.”

  “She is not ‘my’ Zara,” Omar answered quickly, too quickly to be believed. “And I’m sure her parents are aware that she is working on a project. That is all.”

  “You must be careful to respect our ways, Omar. Nothing good can come out of a relationship where the parents don’t approve.”

  “I understand that, my friend.” The boy dug in his pocket for a buzzing phone. Ahmet winced, knowing that in a good family, an unmarried girl with a phone in her hand was something a parent would rather not see. And if a girl was found to be texting or talking with a boy, well, the shame that could bring on the family would bear some serious consequences.

  “Just be careful, little brother. Our world may be changing, but some traditions must still be respected. You must go about things in the proper way, for the sake of all. You cannot jeopardize your future, nor Zara’s.”

  Omar shook his head. “Don’t worry about me, big brother.” He tightened the ends of his checkered keffiyeh around his neck. “Life is good. And with a little luck, it will only get better.”

  “Inshallah,” Ahmet responded.

  “Inshallah,” Omar echoed.

  After seeing his friend out the door, Ahmet poured himself another cup of chai and sat back down to rest for a moment. The conversation had troubled him, bringing up thoughts and emotions old and new, making him feel as though his mind was being twisted and turned and tossed around like one of Poppy’s rubber dog toys. He thought of his wife’s sister Layla, who was not much younger than this girl, Zara, must be. What will it be like when she returns from America and goes herself to the university? He could only hope that the girl would have enough sense, and enough pride, to not get mixed up in this sort of situation.

  He remembered how incensed he had been just a few years before when he had discovered that his own mother had been receiving letters from Rashif, to whom she had not yet been married. A widow, an old woman, trading in words like that. You are my dearest, one letter had said. My loved one is a mile away and yet a lifetime, read another. But, really, had any harm been done? Hadn’t Rashif come forward like a gentleman to ask Ahmet’s permission to marry his mother? And to see how those two were together, like a pair of lovestruck teenagers. It was as if their relationship was always meant to be. If only he could understand better, if only these things were made clearer. He sighed and rubbed his hands up and down his forehead, as if that might help make it so. But his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of azzaan calling for Jummah prayer, so he buried the debate away for another day, and instead concentrated on rushing to the mosque to join the rest of the congregation in their Friday ritual.

  9

  “Fuck me,” Sunny said out loud as the man in the neon vest leveled his flattened palm in front of the hood of her Toyota. They’d waited forty minutes in line already, just to miss the ferry by one stinking car? She turned off the engine with a sigh, and helped herself to a handful of chips from the half-empty bag beside her.

  “Col tempo la foglia di gelso diventa seta. It is time and patience that changes the mulberry leaf to silk.”

  “I don’t understand how you can stand it here, Joe. I mean, really? One whole day just to get to a dentist appointment?”

  “It is one whole day that I get to spend with a beautiful woman,” he answered with the same charming smile he had used to sweet-talk her into driving him off the island and into Seattle. I have an appointment overtown, off the rock, he had said. The rock. Perfect. The same thing they call Alcatraz, she’d thought at the time, right before Joe gave her hand a little squeeze and said, “I would be honored if you’d accompany me.”

  Sunny could read between the lines. She figured that, at his age, Joe didn’t drive, or preferred not to. She could certainly take a few hours to help the old man out, though she didn’t really feel she had any choice in the matter. He was not an easy person to say no to. But no matter what, it would probably do her good to get off the island, to give herself a chance to clear her mind.

  The two weeks she’d ended up spending on Twimbly so far had been a true test of her nature. On one hand, there was something forbidding about the place. Streets with names like Forsaken Lane, Phantom Court, and Rocky Road, all of them leading down to Worthless Bay. Then there was the sign for fresh eggs that she passed all the time, that had another sign right under it that read “Out of Eggs”, no matter what time of day it was. And the dark restaurant with the signboard whose thick plastic letters announced “Chef Hurt. No Meals.” She shuddered to imagine that kitchen mishap. And on Saturday, those women shrouded in black like a coven of witches, or widows in mourning, lining both sides of the road over in the town of Chittleham. It wasn’t until she’d almost passed them by that she noticed the anti-war signs in their arms. But when she’d rolled down the window to offer a cheery thumbs-up, she became freaked by the stern, frozen expressions that made the women look more like zombies than peace activists.

  On the other hand, there were also those people who were a little too friendly for her taste. Did she really need to swap her life story with the gas station attendant before she’d even had her first sip of coffee? Or hear every little detail about last night’s choir performance at the community center while her bags were being held hostage by the checkout girl at the Red Apple?

  The worst was that woman in Meyersville. Sunny had decided to cheer herself up a little with a new top, or maybe even a jacket. Every shop window seemed to be filled with the same things—big, flowy dresses, layers of vests and scarves, chunky loose-knit sweaters—not exactly her go-to style, but maybe if she looked she’d find something more along the lines of her jeans and T-shirts.

  She picked a store at random and reluctantly opened the wooden door.
A little bell rang, and a stringy woman with a long, loose grey ponytail greeted Sunny from behind the counter. “Hi,” she chirped. “I’m Raven. What can I help you with today?”

  “Just browsing.” Sunny smiled and turned to the racks lining the small shop’s walls.

  “We have some beautiful new shrugs from Peru that I can show you, if you’re interested.”

  “No thanks. I’m good.” She had to admit, though, that some of these clothes were actually okay, when you got up close. Sunny tossed a few items over her arm.

  “Let me take those for you.” Sunny jumped, startled by Raven’s voice just inches from her ear. “And I’ll bring in a few others I think you might like.”

  Sunny emerged from the little curtained cubicle wearing the first top. As she smoothed the pleats over her hips, she could see Raven in the mirror behind her, wrinkling her nose.

  “Um, no. Not for you.”

  Personally, Sunny had thought she looked pretty good. Okay, maybe the shirt was pulling a little at the seams, but still. She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes at the mirror.

  “Sorry, I just tell it like it is. I see it as a service to my customers. After all, if they can’t trust me …”

  The next outfit didn’t get a much better reception. “No, no stripes. Here, just try some of the things I brought in,” Raven said, reaching for a green linen tent dress hanging from a hook. Sunny knew she’d look like a Christmas tree in that thing, but nevertheless did what the woman told her.