Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

by Deborah Rodriguez

“What good fortune? A business that can have no more business? A wife who cares about a strange girl more than she cares about her own husband? A mother who thinks nothing of doing things that bring shame to her family? What good fortune is that?”

  “Ach. Listen to yourself. It’s all the way you look at it.” Halajan crushed the remainder of her cigarette under her foot. “Now me,” she continued, “what I see is a door open for you to do something of your own. And a wife with the desire and strength to travel down that road with you. And a mother who has hopefully given you a brain to someday use for yourself. Do you not know the story of the man who wanted to change his luck?”

  Ahmet slumped back in his chair, knowing that whatever his answer was, it wouldn’t make any difference.

  “The man asks his lucky brother,” his mother began, “‘Where can I find good luck?’ ‘In the forest,’ his brother tells him. So the unlucky man sets out for the forest. On the way he meets a sick lion, who asks where he is going. ‘To find good luck,’ the man says. The lion then asks the man to find him some luck as well, to make him feel better. Then he meets a horse who is lying on his side, too weak to stand. The horse asks him to also find some luck to help him find strength. Next he sees a tree with no leaves. ‘Please ask for me why I am leafless,’ the tree begs. When the man reaches the place where he finds his good luck he seizes it. Then he asks the questions he carried for the lion, the horse, and the tree. His fortune replies, ‘Tell the lion that he should devour a fool and he will recover his health. Tell the horse that he should take a master who will ride him and he will grow strong. And tell the tree that under its roots lies the treasure of seven kings. If the treasure is dug up, the tree’s roots will flourish.’ On his way home the man stops first at the tree, who begs him to dig the treasure from his roots. ‘What good are riches, since I have my fortune?’ the man replies. Next he comes upon the horse. ‘Please sir, become my master,’ the animal begs. ‘I have my fortune now, so look for somebody else to be your master,’ the man says as he continues on his way. When he reaches the lion he repeats the advice his fortune had given, that the lion should devour a fool. Then he tells the lion all about the tree and the horse. The lion licks his chops, and swallows the man in one big gulp.”

  Ahmet sighed. “That is a very nice story, Mother, but I am not going to allow myself to be eaten by a lion.”

  “Exactly. You must use the brains and the wit we have given you to take advantage of all the good fortune around you.”

  It was then that Ahmet saw Halajan’s eyes light up at the sight of something over his shoulder, and he knew that Rashif had returned. He stood to greet the man. “As-salaamu alaikum, padar. It is good to have you home safe, Father. We have missed you here. How was your visit to your cousin?”

  “Wa-alaikum-salaam, my son.” Rashif turned to Halajan with a look of sorrow in his eyes, and took her two hands in his. “I am sorry, my sweet wife. I did what I could.”

  Halajan’s hands flew to her mouth.

  Rashif turned to face Ahmet. “And to you, bachai ma, my son, I am sorry as well. It was your friend Omar I was with in Mazar, not my cousin.”

  “So you lied to me? This is why you are sorry?”

  Rashif shook his head. “I was helping Omar find his way to Herat. I was there to use my eyes and my friends to keep him safe, but I failed.”

  “What do you mean you failed?”

  “He is gone, killed by a bullet from one of Faheem’s men right after I left him in Mazar. I do not know how they found him. I’m out of my mind with sadness that I could not protect him from that madman.”

  Ahmet sat in silence for a moment, stunned by this news he wished was instead the lie Rashif had told him. “Omar? Omar is dead?”

  Halajan turned a sharp eye on him. “Now do you see for yourself why we must act and not talk? Now do you believe the idiotic reason for what happened here?” She waved her arm around the courtyard. “Now do you understand the lengths to which a man will go to hold on to a pride that is based on a twisted belief?”

  Ahmet’s cheeks burned with anger and shame. But before he could respond to his mother’s reproach, a small voice could be heard coming from the door of the coffeehouse.

  “Please, will someone drive me to the hospital?” Yazmina asked. “It is time.”

  35

  “Well, if it isn’t Bella Swan.” Kat was emerging from the house, her hair pulled up into a messy bun and her eyes still sleepy. “Good afternoon. Where’s Layla? Don’t tell me she’s still in bed. You’re such a bad influence on her.”

  “Ha! I’m the bad influence? I just watched her down some Frosted Flakes and Mountain Dew for breakfast. I wonder where she learned to do that?” Kat took a seat on the other side of the picnic table, facing the water, her back to Sunny and Joe.

  “Bella Swan? Why do you call her that?” Joe scratched his snowy head.

  “It’s the fake name she used when we played the trick on Rick. Now Kat will forever be Bella Swan to me.”

  Joe laughed. He seemed to have gotten more of a kick out of the whole Rick escapade than any of them, making them recount how it had all gone down over and over and over again. He was particularly proud of his own role in the scheme, the fake phone call to Sunny about her busted pipes. None of them had heard a peep from Rick since that night, save for a call from the bank to say that the deed had been signed and the paperwork readied for transfer.

  Sunny gathered her own hair up on top of her head and covered it with a floppy red hat. “So where is Layla, now that she’s had a hearty breakfast with all that recommended daily nutrition?”

  “Trying to Skype with her sister, I think,” Kat answered without turning around.

  Sunny was tempted to go inside and join Layla—to hear how everyone was doing, to see for herself how Yaz was coming along—but she wanted to give the girl her privacy. If there was any news, Layla would pass it on. Candace had been checking up on everyone, and last they spoke she’d assured Sunny that Bashir Hadi had healed, and had told her that Yazmina looked as though she were about to give birth to a pair of elephants. Right now everything over there seemed to be at a standstill, on hold until they figured out what to do with the coffeehouse, a matter that still pained Sunny terribly if she let herself dwell on it. But it wasn’t long before Layla joined them outside, ready for work under the baseball cap that sat on top of her head scarf.

  “Everything okay?” Sunny asked.

  “I could not get it to work. Maybe they are not there,” Layla answered in a quiet voice.

  “It won’t be long now before you see them.”

  “I know.”

  “I miss them too.”

  “I know.”

  Sunny felt for the girl, but at the same time envied her, heading back to Kabul in less than a month. But perhaps it was just Sunny who felt homesick for the place, and it was instead the whole crush thing with Sky that was getting to Layla. She had taken it upon herself to warn Sky, who had laughed a little at the young girl’s infatuation, and promised to be extra careful not to encourage her. She hadn’t yet come up with a way to talk to Layla without causing the inevitable embarrassment the topic would bring, but with some luck maybe the flame would burn out by itself in due time.

  “Let’s go, people! Those grapes aren’t going to pick themselves, you know.” As if on cue, Sky came bounding out of the barn, his bare chest already damp with sweat, his khaki shorts caked with dirt. “Everyone have a hat?” he asked as he plopped a straw fedora on top of his long curls. “It’s gonna get hot out there.” He raised a plastic bucket above his head. “Come choose your weapons!”

  Sunny obediently accepted a pair of work gloves and a set of clippers, and hitched up her shorts. If only Jack could see me now, she thought with a snicker. They formed a motley parade down to the vines, Sky in the lead and Joe close behind, steadying himself with a thick walking stick Sky had ingeniously fashioned, which doubled as a portable stool. The two girls brought up the rear, both still s
eeming a bit out of sorts.

  “So we’re going to be working in pairs today,” Sky explained when they reached the vineyard. “One will work one side of the vines, the other the opposite side. That way you won’t have to reach around. Understand?” He scanned their faces for a response. “Now listen up,” he said, sounding way too much like the gym instructor whose Gatorade Sunny had once spiked with cayenne pepper. “The most important thing is to concentrate on what you’re doing. You don’t want to miss anything. No waste. We don’t have a lot of grapes here, so we can’t afford to leave anything behind. Now, that doesn’t mean that we want to use every single grape on the vine. If you see a bunch that looks like raisins already, you snip them off and let them drop to the ground. The others, the good-looking ones, you toss into the bins.” He pointed to the lineup of plastic yellow boxes he’d scattered throughout the vineyard earlier that morning. “And just leave them there. I’ll bring the truck around later to pick them up for de-stemming. And now, we cut.” Sky paused, and turned to Joe. “Would you care to demonstrate for the ladies?”

  “With pleasure,” Joe smiled.

  Sunny fanned herself with her hat as she waited for Joe to set up his cane-stool in front of a vine dripping with heavy grapes. He groaned a little as he sat, then held out his gloved hand to Sky as if he were a surgeon preparing to operate. Sky delicately placed the shiny clippers into his palm. Then Joe leaned forward and reached his arms between the leaves, and with one snip a bunch of dark purple grapes were flying from his hand into the bin, where they landed with a soft thud.

  “Easy-peasy.” Sunny turned to get to work.

  “Not so fast there, missy.” Joe shook his clippers at her. “It might look easy, but take your time. These are our babies you’re dealing with.”

  The first few vines went quickly. She was paired with Kat, who worked quietly and efficiently, filling the bin on her side of the vine at the same rate as Sunny filled hers. Layla and Joe were teamed up on the next row over, with Joe attacking the lower parts of the vines from his seat on the stool, and Layla using her height to take care of the grapes on top. Sky acted as a one-man reaper, his clippers slashing and flashing in the mid-morning sun. Really, Sunny thought, what was the big deal?

  But it didn’t take long for her to realize it was harder work than she thought. Her hands were becoming cramped like a crab’s claw, and her T-shirt was beginning to feel as though she had worn it into the shower. She wiped the sweat from her face and stepped back from the vines, removed her gloves and stood with one hand on her lower back. “Water?” she asked Kat, offering the bottle she’d hooked to her belt loop. Kat shook her head and continued to snip. Sunny checked the time on her phone. “Twenty minutes?” she said out loud. “You’ve gotta be shitting me!” It felt like an hour. And still so many grapes to cut, she thought, her eyes scanning the green canopies that now seemed to go on for miles. She capped the water, pulled on her gloves, and went back to work. Pull-clip-toss. Pull-clip-toss. Pull-clip-toss. The bins were filled behind them as they edged toward the end of one row and started up the next. Pull-clip-toss. If the heat didn’t kill her, the tedium surely would. What they needed was some music, or at least a little conversation to pass the time.

  “So,” Sunny said as she and Kat made the U-turn into the next row of vines, “nice day, right?”

  Kat peered at her through the leaves.

  “I mean, if you like the heat and all.” Sunny swatted at a bee circling her head. “Personally, it makes me feel like a billy goat in a pepper patch.”

  Kat didn’t laugh. They finished another row together in silence. Halfway through the next one, Sunny tried again. “How are things in Seattle? Your uncle, your cousins, everybody good?” she asked, going for the Afghan way of small talk.

  But Kat just shrugged her shoulders and kept on working. Pull-clip-toss. Pull-clip-toss.

  “You know, once, when I was in Morocco, it was so hot that we literally put our sheets in the freezer before we went to bed, and filled our hats with ice cubes. And did you know that eating spicy foods is actually supposed to be good on hot days? It raises body temperature, which makes you sweat, which cools you off.”

  The hand holding Kat’s clippers dropped to her side. “Would you mind if we just didn’t talk? I really need to focus.”

  Sunny closed her mouth and watched Joe head up toward the house. Lunch soon, thank God. She bent over and resumed cutting. She could hear Sky and Layla’s laughter coming from the far end of the vineyard. Kat moved on to the next vine. Sunny squinted at the grapes through eyes burning from sweat and sunscreen, trying her best to follow Sky’s good grape–bad grape instructions, but it was getting difficult to see. She hurried to keep up with Kat.

  “Come and get it!” Joe finally called from the top of the hill, his voice booming through the silence. Sunny was the first at the picnic table, where she unlaced her boots and pried them off her sweaty feet. “So,” Joe said, “what do you think?”

  “Me?” Sunny asked, squeezing her aching arches with her cramped fingers.

  “Yes, you. How do you like the harvest?”

  “Well,” she said after a pause for a desperate gulp of cold water, “I’ve gotta say, it’s not exactly how I pictured it. You know, holding up my peasant skirt, stomping on grapes, everyone all happy … drinking … singing, maybe a little hanky-panky in the vines. At least you got the checkered tablecloth part right.” She flicked an ant onto the grass.

  “Poor Sunny,” Joe laughed. “Maybe we can make the rest of it happen for you later in the week. Wine is hard work.”

  “Doesn’t have to be. You know they even sell it with screw tops. Barely need to lift a finger.”

  “Ha! But you know what they say. Non ha il dolce a caro, chi provato non ha l’amaro. To taste the sweet, you must taste the bitter.”

  “Okay, Joe.” She poured the rest of the water down her parched throat. “Whatever you say.”

  The others soon followed, their faces streaked with dirt and their hair plastered to their heads. Everyone seemed too tired to talk. “Mangia!” Joe passed around the plate of sandwiches as they all settled in, and a feeding frenzy worthy of Sea World began. Sunny could have sworn that nothing in her life had ever tasted anywhere as good as Joe’s prosciutto and mozzarella on ciabatta did that day. They were already on seconds before anyone uttered a word. And, of course, it was Joe who spoke first.

  “I’d like to propose a toast.” He tapped a spoon on the edge of his water glass, as if he needed it even quieter than it already was. “Harvest,” he cleared his throat, “is a special time of year. It is the end of something, and the beginning of another. The cycle of life.” He paused to allow for a seaplane to pass overhead. “It is a bittersweet time of year, but also an exciting one. And with that,” he held his glass into the air, “I offer a special blessing to our friends Sky and Layla.” Sunny wiped the tomato from her chin and picked up her glass, and elbowed Kat to do the same. “To Sky, off to school and new adventures. May you come back and teach me a thing or two someday.” Sky nodded, his grin stretching from ear to ear. “And our dear Layla, heading home to your family as an even lovelier young lady than the one who first crossed our doorstep. We will miss you. To both of you, Cent’anni. May you live a hundred years—although, personally, there are some mornings when I wake up feeling that it is way too long.”

  Sky clinked his glass against Layla’s and downed the rest of his water.

  “Wait, I’m not finished.” Joe pulled a bottle of wine from under the table and poured two glasses, one of which he handed to Sunny. “To the man who made this all possible. Without him, we would never have had the good fortune to find ourselves in each other’s company. To Jack.” Joe looked Sunny squarely in the eye as they drank to his toast.

  “To Jack,” she echoed, her heart suddenly feeling as weary as the rest of her.

  Sky stood and stretched his browned arms high above his head, then turned to Layla. “Back to work?” She nodded and follow
ed him down to the vines. Sunny watched them go, their shadows peeking out from behind them in the early afternoon light. Beside her Kat was watching as well, her silence weighing heavily in the air.

  “So what’s next for you?” Sunny asked, picking a stray piece of cheese from the table and popping it into her mouth.

  “What do you mean?” Kat asked.

  “Do you have any plans?”

  “Plans? Like what?”

  “You know, for the fall. After Layla leaves.”

  Kat shrugged her shoulders.

  “Nothing?” It dawned on Sunny that she’d been peppering the girl with the very same questions she should be answering herself. It was harvest day, after all, and much to her disappointment, she had not awoken to a light bulb flashing over her head heralding the solution to her own dilemma. “Well you’re welcome to stay here, you know, for at least as long as I’m here, though it might not be for that long,” she offered. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Joe chuckle a little to himself. “But it could get kind of boring, without Layla and Sky.”

  “Thanks,” Kat answered in a quiet voice.

  “I suppose you could always find work back on the mainland, especially around the holidays.”

  Kat lowered her head.

  “But if you did want to stay on the island, maybe Joe could help. He seems to know just about everyone around here, right, Joe?” She looked at the old man, who gestured toward Kat with his chin. Sunny turned to see a tear escaping down Kat’s dusty face. Sunny reached out to touch her arm, but Kat jerked away. “I know it’s hard.”

  Kat shook her head as she tried to mask her tears. “You don’t know.”

  “He’ll be back next summer. And there are weekends, too.”

  “I know. It’s not just that.”

  “Layla?”

  Kat shrugged her shoulders.

  “I thought you’d be sort of happy to have your freedom back, and your privacy.”

  Kat didn’t answer.

  “Well I get where you’re coming from. Me, I’ve spent all these months sticking around for Layla, waiting for Joe’s grapes, and now what?”