A Cup of Friendship (21 page)

“It suits her, doesn’t it?” said Isabel.

“She looks like a princess, a very
sexy
princess,” Tommy said, not taking his eyes off Sunny.

“So, Sunny, where have you been keeping this one? How do you know this lovely man?” Candace said.

“She hasn’t told you about me? Keeping me a secret, Sunny? So,” he said quietly as he took her two hands in his, “how about we go away somewhere together?”

She lost her smile and said, “What are you talking about?” She glanced at Candace and Isabel, who were listening as if they were taking notes.

“Let’s take a few days. To catch up, to get to know each other again. We can’t do it here.” He looked at the table of her friends. “Too crowded.”

“I can’t. We’re busy. I’m painting the wall.”

“Come on, we need some time together. Mazar-e Sharif. You’re not going to believe how beautiful it is there.”

“I’ve been.”

“Not with me,” he said arrogantly, with a sly smile.

Sunny put her hands on her hips and said, “I can’t just drop everything to go off with you. I don’t even know you anymore.”

“Sunny, if you don’t go with this beautiful man, then I will,” said Candace.

Isabel nudged Candace with her elbow and said to Sunny, “Why don’t you take some time and think about it?”

“Can we talk about this alone?” asked Tommy. “Please.”

“Outside.”

She walked out to the front courtyard, with Tommy following, and stood in the moonlight in front of her wall, with its smeared and faded outline of the tiger looking like it was going to devour Tommy.
Perfect
, Sunny thought.

He took her hands in his. “Let’s just go. I was thinking we’d go tomorrow.” He was excited, like a boy, and it was infectious.

Sunny was tempted to say yes but she shook her head. She hadn’t slept with him since his return, insisting it was time she needed—time to get used to him, to
them
—but knowing that it was her ambivalence that stopped her. “Not tomorrow. I need to, I mean, there’s a lot to … I don’t know.”

“Okay, then, it’s settled. I’ll pick you up in the morning. Figure we’ll be back in a few days, on Sunday.” He looked through the window at Bashir Hadi. “He’ll be fine without you.”

Sunny turned to look at Bashir Hadi, who was cleaning up for the night. Of course he’d be fine without her. She’d taken days off before, when she went to Dubai, when she went to Beirut and Morocco. This was different. This had nothing to do with the coffeehouse or Bashir Hadi or anything else. This had to do with her and what she wanted, if only she knew what that was.

She looked into Tommy’s bright blue eyes, whose crow’s feet and heavy lids betrayed his age and whatever violence he’d experienced this past year. And in a reckless moment, outside, under the moon, she heard herself say, “Yes.”

Later that evening, after the customers had left, and after she’d answered Candace’s and Isabel’s questions, particularly the ones regarding why the hell she hadn’t told them about Tommy, and how she felt about him versus Jack, which she had a hard time answering because she didn’t know herself, Sunny left Candace and Isabel drinking at the table to go to pack. She passed a small window that looked out onto the back courtyard, and through it she saw Halajan smoking, her scarf down around her neck, her short hair shiny in the moonlight. She decided to join her. Halajan jumped when the door opened, quickly covering her head and hiding her cigarette behind her back, but when she realized it was Sunny, she relaxed and continued smoking.

“It’s a beautiful night, Halajan, isn’t it?” said Sunny.

“It’s the start of spring. This is what happens,” Halajan responded, taking a big drag.

Sunny smiled with a shrug. “True. Still.”

There was a long moment of silence as the two women stood leaning against the wall. Then Sunny turned to walk back inside, but when she did, Halajan spoke.

“Please wait. I must talk with you. I am so angry at me!”

“Hala, what is it?” asked Sunny.

“I’ve waited too long. And now Jack is gone. I am ashamed.”

“Then it’s good to talk about it now.”

“Now it could be too late! Jack may never come back. Don’t you see?” She was agitated.

“Jack? What’s this about?” Sunny said quietly. “Halajan, whatever it is, whatever help you need, we can deal with it.”

“Not me. It’s Yazmina who needs help,” she said desperately.

Sunny turned. “Is it the baby? Is she okay?”

“It’s her younger sister, Layla.”

“She has a sister? She’s never even mentioned—”

“She’s worried for her. She’s so young, only twelve, but she will be taken by the same men who stole Yazmina once it’s spring again in the north and the mountain roads are open. But she won’t be as lucky as Yazmina. I thought that maybe Mr. Jack, maybe he could go get Layla and—”

“Oh, Halajan, it’s true, I think. Jack would know how to deal with something like this, given his experience with negotiating. But I don’t know when or if he’ll be coming back.”

“You trust in Jack and yet you’re going to Mazar-e Sharif tomorrow with Tommy,” said Halajan.

“Yes,” Sunny said, in barely a whisper.
I’m ashamed, too
, she was thinking. “What about Tommy?”

“What do you mean?”

“To help get Layla out of there. He knows the area. He has friends in the military that can help. Maybe get a helicopter to get him up there fast. Maybe not even have to wait for the roads to open.”

“I trust Jack more.” She lit another cigarette. “But in his absence Tommy will do.”

“My thinking exactly.”

And the two women laughed for a moment, understanding each other’s meaning.

“If you would ask him, I would be so grateful.”

“I will, while we’re in Mazar. How could he say no to me there? Have you ever been there, Halajan?”

“Miss Sunny, we’ve all been there.”

Sunny pursed her brows and cocked her head. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about, Halajan? That mystical stuff doesn’t sound like you.”

“Who knows what sounds like me anymore?” Halajan took another drag from her cigarette, and as she blew out the smoke, she explained, “There’s a legend about the white doves of Mazar-e Sharif’s blue mosque. It is said that all doves that go there turn white after forty days and forty nights. Then, every seventh of the white doves is given a spirit, a path to God. So you see what I mean.”

Sunny thought about it for a minute and then said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t quite get the connection—”

“Do Americans have no use for metaphor? Or is it only you who needs such a literal translation?”

Sunny laughed and said, “I hope it’s just me.”

“Well, Sunny,” Halajan continued, speaking very slowly for Sunny’s benefit. “Like the doves, for which walls, mountains, and wars are no barrier, people who live in Afghanistan are from other places—whether a thousand years ago or yesterday. But they quickly become a part of this country, and as they do, they change color and will never go back to being their old gray selves. The experience of Motherland Afghanistan makes everyone Afghan.

“But not everyone is worthy of being rewarded with a spirit. So only every seventh dove or every seventh person is blessed.” She inhaled from her cigarette. “So now you understand?”

“I don’t know, Halajan. I think so.”

“So you see, we’re all white doves. But only the special ones are the seventh dove.” She dropped her cigarette on the cement patio and crushed it with her foot, then said, “Too bad you’re going with an eighth.” She covered her head with her scarf, wrapping it around her neck and throwing the rest over her shoulder.

“But you always liked Tommy.”

“I did. I hope I do still. But you should not be going with him. You should be going with someone you love. Because everything we do in life matters. One thing leads to another.”

“Love? Someone just told me that in Afghanistan love is for everybody else.”

Halajan laughed. “Since when do you listen to such nonsense? Even I know that love is in our Afghan bones, flows through our blood. That’s why I get so angry at those who try to make love a sin. But don’t listen to me, an old lady. Go, have fun, feed the birds.”

“Thanks, Halajan. I’ll see you on Sunday, and I will do everything I can to get Tommy to help bring Layla here.”

Sunny rushed back to the café, sat with Isabel and Candace, and said, “Yazmina has a twelve-year-old sister.”

The two women just looked at her, waiting for more.

“And we have to get her out. She was left with her uncle and she’ll be taken just the way Yazmina was, only she may not be as lucky,” she said breathlessly.

The two women looked at each other and then back at Sunny.

“She has a sister?” asked Isabel.

“She was taken? By who? Is that how she got here?” Candace asked.

“Please, we have to try to find her sister,” said Sunny impatiently.

“Okay, slow down, everyone. Sunny, tell us the whole story,” Isabel said, “from the beginning.”

Sunny took a deep breath and told them everything—almost everything. She’d promised to keep Yazmina’s pregnancy a secret, and she would. But she told them how she’d met Yazmina at the Women’s Ministry, how her uncle had been forced to give her away to repay a debt, how Yazmina had escaped from the men before they could sell her, and now, of the threat that the men would return for her younger sister, who’d been left behind. That, once the snow melted and the mountain roads were clear, Yazmina feared Layla would be in danger.

“There must be
something
we can do to help her,” Isabel said.

“We have to,” said Candace.

“And, shit. She’s just a baby. Jack knows the area and the delicate relationships of the people up there. I know he’d be willing to do whatever he could. But he’s not here and God knows when or if he’ll be back.” Sunny paused and sighed. “I can ask Tommy, though. He doesn’t have Jack’s smarts, but he’s got the brute strength to get Layla out. But …” She hesitated.

“It’s so fucking barbaric,” said Isabel. “I’ve seen it a hundred times and never get used to it. Women being bartered or sold to the highest bloody bidder for their bodies. I was just telling Candace about Pul-e Charkhi, the conditions, the waste of women’s lives. For nothing! For being women, for saying no!”

“You want to do something?” Candace demanded impatiently. “So stop talking and do something!” She pounded her fist on the table. “And you, Sunny, what’s the problem? Get your men up to the mountains to save the girl. You gave Yazmina her life back, but now her little sister needs you.”

Sunny and Isabel exchanged looks. Candace was right. And given all she’d done for Wakil’s clinic and school, and her proven fund-raising skills, Sunny suspected she could use something to sink her teeth into now that Wakil had hurt her.

“So help Sunny bring Layla here,” Isabel said to Candace. “Help me.”

“It’s not so hard,” answered Candace. “Just get off that little butt of yours.”

“I could use your involvement.”

“Of course you could,” she said, sarcastically. “Everybody could. That’s my reason for living, apparently.” But then Candace leaned forward in her chair, put her elbows on the table, and said, “Okay, tell me the details. We can do this. There ain’t three more formidable women in all of Kabul.” Then she paused and said, “Except for Halajan.”

And Isabel said, “Okay, but listen.”

“What’re you thinking?”

And for the next hour Isabel talked about the possibilities, the complications, how difficult it would be, but with Candace’s social connections, and Isabel’s media and political ones, they might just be able to pull off something brilliant that would save women’s lives. And change their own in the process.

And then they turned their attention to Layla. Sunny knew Yazmina could never be happy if Layla wasn’t brought safely to her side. The best plan would be for Sunny to persuade Jack and Tommy to work together to get up there and get her out at the first sign of spring. If Jack didn’t return from wherever the hell he was in time, she’d have to resort to Plan B: relying on Tommy alone. But that wouldn’t do it. They knew that without Jack, there had to be a leader to organize the helicopters, the extra men, the arms for protection from the inevitable violence. There was only one person among them strong enough, wily enough, and committed enough once she began something to see it through to every minute detail—and that was Candace.

She heartily agreed.

“So, it’s a plan,” Sunny said.

“Simple, right?” Isabel asked.

Sunny let out a nervous laugh. Nothing in Afghanistan was simple.

In her room that night, it was impossible to fall asleep. Sunny didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Mazar-e Sharif with Tommy. A week ago she thought he’d been gone so long that she might never see him again. And tonight, her mind exploded with the realization that, as the cliché goes, life changes in an instant, that right when you think you know what’s next, how your life will be, something can happen to change it dramatically. The very reason to live and keep on living.

Not that she knew exactly how her life would go, since she’d thought, before Tommy returned, that she was at the beginning of something, maybe, possibly, with Jack. And she knew she couldn’t stay in Kabul forever. So, really, she hadn’t a clue what was going to happen to her.

She just hadn’t considered Tommy in the picture at all, though to be honest she’d have to admit she’d hoped that one day this very thing would happen. Another cliché:
Be careful what you wish for
.

She got up and brought her laptop from the table to the
toshak
, resting it on her crossed legs.

There was an email from Jack. Weeks since he’d been gone, and now, tonight, an email. She laughed out loud. Somebody up there was joking around with her.

She opened it. It read:

Dear Sunny
,

Sorry I’ve been out of touch but had to figure this all out. The good news: My son is doing great. We’ve spent important time together. The bad news: There really is no bad news except how things change. More good news: I’m on my way back to Kabul
.