Saving Kabul Corner

by N. H. Senzai

  Wali reddened and snatched his hand back.

  “And we don’t want your family around here either, so go back to stinking Los Angeles,” added Ariana, throwing the fragments of paper at him. Then she stopped in disbelief. That wasn’t supposed to come out of my mouth.

  The kids around the table, who’d been jabbering away a second ago, went dead silent. Everyone was looking at Ariana like she’d sprouted horns on her head.

  “Dude, what’s wrong with you?” muttered a voice in the back.

  “How dare you!” huffed Patty. “We’re doing this to, like, help kids in need.”

  “She’s, like, a total Grinch,” sputtered Yoojin.

  “Uh, she’s been under a lot of stress,” said Mariam loudly, grabbing Ariana’s arm. “Really, really rough quiz in science . . .”

  “Yes, very tough quiz,” piped in Laila, her eyes wide at Ariana’s odd behavior.

  As Mariam pulled Ariana away, Wali whispered for her ears only. “We aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “This is a free country, and we’re here to stay, whether you like it or not.”

  • • •

  Ariana followed her nose into the kitchen and found Hava Bibi covered in a fine sprinkling of flour, kneading dough. She was making gunzakhil, a fried cookie, and the air smelled sweet with a hint of cardamom. The mouthwatering aroma sent a wave of comfort through Ariana. The day hadn’t gotten any better when she’d arrived home from school. Mariam had just called, and not for her—for Laila. Ariana had thrust the phone into her cousin’s hand and stomped toward the kitchen.

  “Salaam, Ariana jaan. How was school?”

  Ariana shrugged “Okay, I guess,” she mumbled as she grabbed a golden cookie, still hot from the oil.

  “Well, you don’t look like it was okay,” said Hava Bibi with a raised eyebrow.

  Ariana sighed, cramming the cookie into her mouth. She knew her grandmother wasn’t going to let her go without an explanation. “I ran into Wali at school,” she said, swallowing. “Wali Ghilzai.”

  “Oh?” said Hava Bibi, looking up as she rolled out cookies.

  “Yeah, and we kind of exchanged some words.”

  “What kind of words?”

  “I told him that he and his stinking family should go back to Los Angeles,” mumbled Ariana, her cheeks reddening.

  Hava Bibi sighed. “I understand your feelings, jaan. Your father and Shams have had the great fortune of owning the only Afghan grocery store in town. But a little bit of competition may be a good thing. It will challenge them to do better.”

  “But the Ghilzais had no right to open a store right next to us!”

  “Perhaps the location is not the best, but they have every right to run any kind of business they want.”

  “But what if they’re here because of the feud,” muttered Ariana, the question burrowing its way out of her.

  Hava Bibi waved the rolling pin at Ariana in an unexpected show of annoyance. “Don’t even think that. That feud was left behind in Afghanistan with the death of my father and Bawer. I know Tofan, Gulbadin’s uncle. He would never continue the feud . . .” Her voice went quiet. “He’s a very honorable man.”

  Ariana nodded, chastised.

  “So don’t pick a fight with Wali. He had nothing to do with his family’s decision.”

  “But he was, like, throwing it in my face,” said ­Ariana, not able to stop herself.

  “Really? He was rude to you?”

  Ariana remembered that all Wali had done was offer her a flyer. He hadn’t said anything obnoxious. It was she who’d done that.

  “All I’m saying, my dear, is that you should not judge someone so quickly. Give him a chance. Remember, a Pukhtun must always be imandar.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means ‘righteous.’ No matter how difficult a situation you find yourself in, you must try to have good thoughts, speak good words, and perform good deeds.”

  “I’ll try, Bibi,” mumbled Ariana. But it’s going to be really hard.

  “Ariana jaan, come help me with these,” Jamil called as he entered the kitchen, with a large box from Krishna Kopymat in tow.

  Ariana looked inside and saw huge stacks of advertisements printed on standard pale blue economy paper.

  “I thought you could fold them up, since you like doing those paper foldy thingies,” teased her father.

  “It’s called origami, dad,” grumbled Ariana as she pulled out a light, almost translucent page and read the headline: Free bread with purchase of $25 worth of groceries.

  “These flyers should remind our old customers that since our bread is the best in town, they should get their groceries at Kabul Corner as well. We’ll post them at the mosques and the community center, and advertise on the Afghan radio station.”

  “Do you think giving away free bread is a good idea?” asked Ariana.

  “Oh, yes,” said Jamil. “Your uncle and I talked it over. You know that we charge two-fifty per loaf of bread, but it only costs us one dollar to make. So we’re really giving away a dollar’s worth of stuff, but customers don’t know that. They think they’re getting something valuable—a loaf of our amazing bread.” Jamil smiled, pleased with himself.

  “It’s a good idea,” said Hava Bibi as Jamil returned to the garage.

  Ariana nodded, realizing that it was a pretty brilliant move. She washed her hands and took out a stack of flimsy flyers and began folding while Hava Bibi hummed and fried cookies. A sense of confidence settled over Ariana; the game was on, and if the Ghilzais wanted to try to beat them, they were going to get a darn good fight. As the pile of papers grew, she heard a stampede heading toward the kitchen. The boys were back from soccer practice.

  “Salaam, Bibi,” chorused Omar and Hasan, followed by Baz, Marjan, and Taroon. They gave their grandmother a kiss and fell on the cookies.

  “Boys,” ordered Hava Bibi, “get some plates.”

  “Hey, watch out,” grumbled Ariana, shaking away oily crumbs. She wrinkled her nose, disgusted as they chewed with their mouths open and slurped milk like a herd of hippopotamuses.

  Hava Bibi shooed them into the dining room, giving Ariana some peace to work. But she’d already blocked them out, her mind swirling with delightful thoughts about how she was going to decorate her room at the new house. Just that morning she’d made another red X on her calendar. She smiled, debating what color to paint the walls. She dredged up the names of paint colors she’d seen at The Home Depot the week before, when she’d picked up supplies with her father. Lemon Grass, Sassy Blue, Honeysuckle, or even a shade of purple, like Vigorous Violet. Or maybe she’d use a textured wallpaper instead. . . .

  FOR THE NEXT TWO weeks, to everyone’s relief, Kabul Corner was flooded with a steady stream of customers. Many old faces were back, along with new ones, as Ariana found out when she went to the dry goods aisle to organize ten-pound bags of rice. She came upon two women she’d never seen before.

  “So did you hear?” whispered a portly woman, poking a bag of green lentils. “There’s a feud between this store and the one that opened across the plaza.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the other woman in a pink chador. “My sister heard about it at Ali’s Auto Repair Shop when she took her car in for an oil change. I’m going to check out their prices after getting the free bread here.”

  Ariana slunk away to restock the pickles. Obviously gossip about the stores had spread to neighboring towns. Whatever, she thought, thinking back to the picture of the European green crab. It was survival of the fittest, and it didn’t matter what kind of customers they were getting, as long as they were the paying kind.

  With the recent uptick in customers, the kids had been put on a rotating schedule to help at the store. Friday afternoon it was Ariana’s and Laila’s turn, and it was particularly busy, since everyone was picking up groceries for the week
end. Ariana had just ­reorganized the new freezer, packed with a new line of chicken and lamb kebobs when she noticed a gap in the coffee section. She ran back to the storage room, passing Uncle Shams, who was on the phone happily reordering supplies.

  As she sorted through cardboard boxes, muffled shouts filtered over from the bakery. Ariana grimaced, feeling sorry for the new assistant baker her father had hired to help Haroon. She grabbed a dozen cartons of tea and exited, pausing a moment at the bakery door.

  Haroon stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at a row of singed, smoking bread. “What were you thinking?” he barked.

  Sweat ran down the assistant’s thin face, and his elbows were covered in flour. “Apologies, Haroon sahib,” he mumbled, wiping his forehead with a towel. “I’m just figuring out how the ovens work. The one in the corner is rather tricky.”

  “I told you how to do it five times!” growled Haroon. “An idiot from the village could do it—and we were already behind to begin with!”

  “A thousand apologies . . . ,” said the assistant, hurrying to lug in a bag of flour.

  “This free bread is killing me,” grumbled Haroon, throwing up his hands.

  Ariana scooted off, leaving the men to start another batch of dough. Since the free bread campaign had started two weeks before, Haroon had been baking three times as much bread, and Ariana wasn’t a bit surprised that he was grumpier than usual.

  By late afternoon most customers had gone home, so Ariana and Laila grabbed bottles of orange soda and took a break before Nasreen came to pick them up. An exhausted feeling of satisfaction settled over Ariana as she took a gulp of ice-cold soda. This was a good tired. They were winning against stinking Pamir Market. She glanced at her father, proud that he’d come up with the free bread campaign, and spotted Uncle Shams stepping outside for a breath of fresh air. Suddenly her uncle stiffened, and Ariana followed his gaze across the plaza. He was glaring at Gulbadin Ghilzai, who’d just stepped out of his car, a sleek red BMW. The two men eyed each other a moment, but Gulbadin turned in a huff and marched off toward his store. Uncle Shams pivoted and headed over to chat with Mr. Milan.

  Back inside, Jamil balanced the accounting ledger while the television buzzed in the background. Ariana found Laila’s eyes glued to the newscaster’s fire-engine-red lips.

  “Scenes of carnage today in the Paktia Province, on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said the woman, showing a clip of a bombed-out village. “Villagers report of an attack that occurred before dawn . . .”

  Ariana sighed, not wanting to hear about battles, guns, and destruction, so she tuned out the news and edged toward the window.

  The plaza was nearly empty as the sun set in the distance, and the hot-pink neon sign for Wong Plaza flickered to life. The G in “Wong” remained dark, announcing Won Plaza. In the fuchsia light Ariana noticed that the entire sign looked pretty beat up. Mr. Martinez stood chatting with his delivery guy over crates of avocados and bell peppers. She and Laila still hadn’t made it over to Juan More Tacos to get the chips and salsa he’d offered all those weeks before. She ran her gaze past Milan’s Indian Emporium to Well-Read Secondhand Books and mentally kicked herself as she glanced at the cracked window. The sale sign was long gone, and she’d forgotten to get origami paper. Her supply was running low.

  With a sigh she glanced at Koo Koo Dry Cleaning’s awning, bleached by the sun and saggy in the middle, to Hooper’s Diner, with its for lease sign. It had closed nearly a year before, after Mr. Hooper’s heart attack. Neither of his sons had wanted to take over the business, so Mrs. Wong was desperately looking for a new tenant. As if noticing the plaza for the first time, Ariana realized that all the stores looked a bit shabby and outdated. Besides Pamir Market, which had been renovated before opening, the rest of the buildings needed a fresh coat of paint and a face-lift, Kabul Corner included.

  • • •

  Mariam was at the house when they arrived, and ­Ariana was thrilled. She hadn’t had the chance to hang out with her in weeks, and she was dying to show Mariam the new origami animals.

  But Mariam’s words stopped her cold. “Hey, guys. I’m so glad you’re back. Laila and I have a lot of work to do. Noor got me a bunch of beetles.”

  “Where did your sister get these?” asked Laila, looking nervously into the box.

  “From a pet store near her university,” said Mariam.

  Ariana stood, stony-faced, as Laila gave Mariam an excited grin.

  “Don’t worry,” Mariam told Laila. “The beetles are already dead. Noor said they use them to feed the frogs or something gross like that. It’s going to be so cool to mummify them.”

  “Oh,” said Ariana. “I guess you won’t need me, then, so I’ll be in my room.” My stinky, crowded room that’s not really mine.

  “No, silly,” said Mariam. “I haven’t seen you in, like, forever. Sit with us, please. I want us to hang out while we work.”

  “Okay,” said Ariana, feeling a bit better.

  As Laila disappeared into the hall to get her books, Mariam grabbed Ariana’s arm, pausing to check for nosey ears, and whispered, “We have to talk.”

  Ariana tensed. “Okay,” she mumbled. “Let me get some juice first.”

  As she grabbed two apple juice cartons from the pantry, she dawdled, thinking back to the day she’d first met Mariam, nearly six years before. Her parents had invited Mariam’s family over for dinner, since their fathers had recently become friends. At first ­Ariana hadn’t even noticed the silent, skinny little girl shadowing her older brother, Fadi. From the grown-ups’ whispers Ariana had learned that Mariam had accidently been left behind in ­Afghanistan when her family had fled to escape the ­Taliban. Somehow the gutsy little girl had ended up in a refugee camp in Pakistan and had eventually been reunited with her family. It had been Fadi who’d found Mariam in a photograph of a refugee camp, clinging to Gulmina, her Barbie doll wearing a bright pink burka.

  Amazed by her story, Ariana had tentatively approached Mariam, sensing that behind the fear lurked a spunky girl who needed time to come out of her shell. At first Mariam had resisted, but when ­Ariana had showed her a bag of chocolate-dipped Oreos, Mariam had given her a shy smile. The two girls had spent the rest of the evening watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, with Mariam glued to the screen, Gulmina by her side. Ariana had later found out that after arriving in America, Mariam had suffered from an anxiety disorder because of her horrific experience of being left behind in Afghanistan, and the only thing that had calmed her down had been watching television. So for the first few months, her parents had let her watch endless hours of black-and-white movies, cartoons, game shows, and old sitcoms. As she’d reverted back to her old self, Mariam had picked up a dramatic flair and a love for the performing arts. Ariana and Mariam had been inseparable since that day and had even begun first grade together, because even though Mariam was a year older, she had missed a year of school. When Mariam said, “We have to talk,” it was something serious.

  Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends anymore. Maybe she likes Laila better. Who wouldn’t? Laila was fun, pretty, and perfect. I’m grumpy, uninteresting, and totally awkward. Her stomach sank to her ankles as she walked back into the dining room.

  “I was in the bathroom stall the other day, and I overheard Patty, Yoojin, and their posse talking,” said Mariam, her hazel eyes stern.

  “Huh?” mumbled Ariana. This isn’t about us?

  “You won’t believe what they were saying,” said Mariam, leaning forward.

  “What?” The fear of losing Mariam’s friendship morphed into an unknown anxiety.

  “They said you were a bully—and mean—that you had something against Wali, who they think is really nice and supercute, by the way.”

  “Oh, crud,” said Ariana. It wasn’t like she was ever going to be best friends with Patty and her crew, but she didn’t want to be on their ba
d side either.

  “I walked out of the stall, gave them a dirty look, and stomped out!”

  Ariana grinned, imagining the scene in her head.

  “So they know that I know what they are saying. So if rumors start, they know that I know—that you know—it’s them.”

  “You’re awesome.” Ariana grinned.

  “Yeah! It was hilarious, but then I found this,” she said, passing Ariana a copy of the school newspaper. The third article in The Owl was about bullying. Mariam had underlined a section that talked about “certain aggressive individuals in school who pick on people.”

  “Oh, no,” muttered Ariana.

  “Patty is the editor of the newspaper,” said Mariam, “so she probably means you. We need to work on damage control. . . .” Ten minutes later, as they finished up talking about how to repair Ariana’s reputation, Laila still hadn’t returned.

  Ariana changed the subject, happy to have her best friend to herself. “I still can’t believe you applied for us to be on the Great Race together,” she said, grinning at the memory.

  “Hey, we would have been an amazing team and kicked some serious butt,” exclaimed Mariam, still upset with the producers of the show. She and ­Ariana had actually made it to their short list, but when they’d called Mariam’s house and found out she was twelve and Ariana was eleven, not even the minimum age of eighteen, the girls had been disqualified.

  “It sure would have been fun racing around the world on a scavenger hunt,” agreed Ariana. “I caught the episode the week before last, and the remaining four teams were in China, looking for clues along the Great Wall.”

  “Man . . . we so could have won a hundred thousand dollars,” said Mariam. “I’m so mad, I’m not watching the show this year in protest.”

  “Oh,” said Ariana. She hadn’t realized the depth of Mariam’s anger toward the producers, so she changed the subject. “Can you believe that Rodrigo got tossed off Supreme Chef?”