A Cup of Friendship (30 page)

Sunny painted the entire background of the mural the color of the Afghan sky that day in Mazar-e Sharif when the sun was high and reflected in the blue and gold tiles of the mosque. She used the same roller that she and Bashir Hadi had used to whitewash the old mural. She could feel the weight of the paint in her shoulder as her arm dipped and then rolled up and down again and again. She stood on a wooden box from the storage room so she could reach the top of the wall.

Once the background was done, she began to use smaller brushes to get the images just right. White was easy, but the off-white and shadows, the gold of the roof in the sunlight, took time, was harder to achieve.

But the doves came, the doves and the women who looked like doves, a few larger, closer, many smaller in the distance, the mural emulating the courtyard she experienced that day at Mazar-e Sharif.

She was in the midst of painting her sixth dove, getting its neck right. This wasn’t a photograph, of course, so there was room for artistic license, but they had to look like the beautiful doves she remembered. She had dipped her smaller brush into the white circle of paint on her palette, and was reaching for the wall when the earth rumbled and she heard something that sounded like distant thunder. It sent a current of fear through her as if she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning.

But not one window was shattered. The wall stood, but a car alarm went off, and then another. Birds flew from the trees and over the roof, and the sky blackened with soot. When she ran into the coffeehouse to check the radio for news, it was as silent as a church, though it was filled with customers who were frozen with fear. She turned on the radio and quickly learned there had been a suicide bombing inside the Serena Hotel, followed seconds later by another near the U.S. Embassy and another at the circle less than a mile from the coffee shop. Soon, the customers returned to their conversations, now in hushed voices of concern, and Sunny hoped with every ounce of her being that her friends were safe.

S
unny sat at Candace’s bedside at the emergency hospital, holding her hand, waiting for her to regain consciousness. She’d just come out of surgery for her leg, which was broken in seven places and required two pins. Her face and arms were covered in scratches; her head required fifty-seven stitches. Had the wooden shard hit her any lower, she might’ve been killed. But as it was, she’d be fine soon enough, the doctor had told Sunny.

It wasn’t long before her eyelids fluttered open.

“Sunny.” She smiled, squeezing her hand. “Am I glad to see you.”

“You, too.”

“Everything hurts.”

“You’re going to be fine. Just no high heels for a few months.”

Candace tried to raise her head to look down at her body but couldn’t.

“The doctor said he’d be here soon to explain everything. So just relax.”

“It was terrible. The explosion … wait, how’s Isabel? Where—”

“Candace,” Sunny began, and then stopped. She looked away.

“Was she hurt? She threw herself on me. She must’ve seen it coming, and she threw herself right on top of me. I thought I heard her try to tell me …”

“Candace,” Sunny said again, and then, she couldn’t help it and she began to cry.

“Sunny, what is it? Tell me.”

“She’s gone. We’ve lost our girl.”

“Oh, God,” cried Candace. “Oh, no.”

Isabel was dead. She’d acted as a blanket for Candace, protecting her from the worst of the broken windows and falling beams, while taking their deathly impact herself.

As Sunny held Candace, they both cried.

“She saved my life.”

Sunny squeezed Candace’s hand.

“She was one brave and stupid Brit.”

Sunny laughed a little.

Candace continued, “I hate her for doing that. Her life was so much more … much more … than mine.”

“How can you say that?” Sunny said. “You—”

“We were sitting three feet away from each other!” Candace interrupted, shaking her head. “One dies, the other breaks her fucking leg?” She began to cry again, this time uncontrollably.

“There is no making sense of it. There are no rules and no reason.” Tears streamed down Sunny’s cheeks as she remembered a tornado that came through their town when she was a kid. It decimated an entire neighborhood, but every so often, it would jump a house, leaving it intact, while destroying the house next door and every other house on the street. What luck is that? What luck kills one friend when the other requires a few bandages and a cast for eight weeks?

Candace must’ve been thinking the same thing because she said, “But she threw herself on me.”

“I know.”

“It should’ve been me. Her life was so—”

“It should’ve been neither of you. Or any of the others.”

“But Isabel! She was the one who got me … who tried to warn me … about Wakil.” She looked away in tears.

Sunny recalled what Bashir Hadi said to her in anger that day, and she said it to Candace. “But you were helping her, too. Who’s good and who’s bad, who’s to judge? Nobody can, so there is no justice when it comes to what happens in life.”

“Please,” said Candace, “spare me the pep talk.”

Sunny squeezed her hand again, pleased that she was her old self.

“What I’m trying to say,” Candace continued, “is that Isabel tried to tell me about Wakil and though I had a gut feeling she might be right, I didn’t listen. But when I saw that waiter, the one with the bomb, I recognized him immediately from Wakil’s school. I was about to say something, but then …”

Sunny put her hand on Candace’s face and wiped her tears with her thumb. She whispered, “There was nothing you could’ve done.”

“He couldn’t have known we’d be at that hotel on that day, could he? It was just our dumb luck, right? You think Wakil meant …?”

“No, there’s no way.”

“As soon as I’m out of here, I’m going to the embassy.” Candace looked up at Sunny with a fierce gaze. “It’s one thing to steal my money. It’s another to steal my friend.”

“Not the embassy. They won’t do a damned thing. I have a better idea. Remember that night we drank a little too much and talked about our pasts?”

“You mean with men? I think I know where you’re going with this. Isabel’s army guy.”

“Exactly.”

“I know he’ll follow up on Wakil once he hears about Isabel,” Sunny said. “If only I could remember his name.”

“Stewart,” Candace said. “General Stewart. Stationed in the south somewhere.” Then she smiled sweetly and started to cry again. “Isabel would be glad to know that
shagging
a general had a higher purpose.”

Sunny laughed. “General Stewart, you may have been a
wanker
, but your past is coming back to haunt you. You have no idea.”

I
t was early morning and the emotional residue from the bombings lay over the café like a thick black coat of soot. Bashir Hadi silently prepared the coffeemaker and Sunny sat on a stool at the counter, signing the papers and making the final arrangements for shipping Isabel’s body to London. It was overwhelming, but she knew that Isabel would want to be buried with her parents. Sunny still couldn’t believe she was gone, that Isabel, with her prickly nature and her mushy interior, with her
fags
and her
mobile
and her
mad lovely
self, wouldn’t walk into the café, nudging Sunny to laugh and think. She slammed her hand down hard on the counter. She immediately turned to Bashir Hadi, who had turned to her. They nodded and went back to their tasks.

She opened her computer, hoping for an email from Jack but knowing better. Where he was there were no computers, and besides, she couldn’t be sure he was even still alive. There’d been no contact from Tommy or Jack since the day they left.

The quiet was broken when Yazmina ran into the coffeehouse screaming.

“My baby! Najama! She is gone!”

Sunny and Bashir Hadi ran to her.

“What do you mean, gone?” Bashhir Hadi asked.

“She is not in her bed. She is not in my room.” The fear on her face was etched as deep as the dry gorge of the Kabul River. She began to choke on her sobs.

Sunny put her hand on her arm to soothe her. “Did you see someone come into your room? Last night? This morning?”

“No, I saw no one.”

Then Sunny asked, “Did you leave the baby alone in your room even for a moment?”

And Yazmina looked up and said, “Yes. This morning, while I was in the
tashnab
. But who would’ve—?” And then she stopped and looked at them, her eyes wide. She knew the answer to her own question. “Ahmet,” she said, and she sank to the floor sobbing.

“But why would he do that?” Bashir Hadi asked.

“He threatened us the day the baby was born. He was so angry.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see Ahmet stealing your baby. He loves her. He loves you.”

Yazmina’s eyes lowered in embarrassment when she heard his words.

“But she’s shamed him. He is not a man like you, Bashir Hadi,” Sunny said. “We don’t have time to argue. He could be selling the baby as we speak!”

“Please, wait a minute. Let’s think. Someone has taken the baby, but I just don’t think—”

“Well, I’m going out with Poppy in the car to try to track him down. Where would he have taken her? What would he do with her? You don’t think—”

“No, I don’t. Not for one minute. Ahmet may be stubborn and old in his thinking, but I … And where’s Halajan? I wonder—”

And Sunny suddenly realized what he meant and she ran out the door and up the stairs to Halajan’s apartment and banged on her door. She could hear Bashir Hadi’s voice yelling to her. When no one answered, she ran back down into the coffeehouse.

There was Ahmet, helping Yazmina up and into a chair.

“It’s my mother,” he said, “I’m sure of it.”

And Sunny replayed their conversations and Halajan’s words about Yazmina’s life being in danger, about her being perceived as a
fahesha
in the eyes of the Afghans, promising to do whatever it would take to save Yazmina’s life. And giving the baby to a hospital when the baby was strong enough to be separated from her mother, in about a month or two, Halajan had said. Sunny realized then that it was six weeks to the day that Najama was born. And the bombings must’ve made Halajan’s fears for Yazmina living on the street even greater. She could almost hear her thoughts: The baby would make Yazmina a pariah in the eyes of her son. He would throw them out on the street, and with no protection, a bombing, like the recent ones, would surely kill them both.

“I know where she might be,” she said. “Bashir Hadi, please hold down the fort. Yazmina and Ahmet, let’s go.” And she grabbed her bag, threw on her chador, and ran out with Poppy following behind.

They left Poppy to guard the car while they were in the hospital. Sure enough, the receptionist said an old woman had come in an hour before with a baby she’d found in the street, she’d said. She’d taken it to the maternity ward, where a doctor would check on the status of the baby’s health.

The three of them ran down the dark hallway and made the first left as they were told. And there, in the blue-walled waiting room, was Halajan, rocking Najama in her arms and singing to her softly under a lone dim lightbulb. Halajan was crying, her tears landing softly on the baby’s blanket.

“Halajan,” Sunny said. She let out a sigh that was as big as the breath she’d been holding for the past half hour.

“I thought you loved the baby!” cried Yazmina. “Why now? I thought we had made a good life.”

The old woman in the tattered brown clothes stood and screamed, “You will not hurt her! Do not come closer!”

She was looking directly at Ahmet, accusation exuding from every pore of her body. She held the baby close. “Don’t you see? He will hurt her. He will sell her or kill her! Rashif told me what you said, Ahmet. He didn’t believe you would harm the baby, but then the bombs happened and showed me again that belief in goodness is stupid. I cannot take any chances.”

Ahmet collapsed into a chair. “I did say words to Rashif that were in my heart, but I thought he knew they were only words. I never would … never!”

“He didn’t think you would. He only told me so that I might protect you, my son.” Halajan looked then at Yazmina, the corners of her mouth turning down, her eyes filling with tears. “Even if Ahmet has no ill intentions for the baby, you are not safe. As long as you hide in the coffeehouse, you might be. But if you venture outside, Yazmina, they will kill you. And I couldn’t bear that. I love you and I love Najama. I don’t know what I’d do if—”

“You can’t give away her baby, Mother. That will kill her, too,” Ahmet pleaded gently. He stood up and walked to her slowly. She turned away, but then he put a hand on her shoulder. “Mother, Najama must be with her mother.”

Halajan looked into his eyes, as if trying to read what was behind them.

Ahmet reached out slowly and gently took the baby from his mother. He cradled her in his arms while looking lovingly into her face.

Yazmina looked at him with grateful eyes.

“But she is like a daughter to me. Shall I lose her, too? I lose one to Germany and now lose another to our stupid way of thinking? To hands like yours, Ahmet.”

Ahmet looked as if a sword had pierced through him, body and soul. “Mother, I would never hurt Yazmina. And I would never let anyone hurt her or the baby. This baby is like my very own.”

Sunny stood silently, hoping mother and son would figure this out. She looked at Yazmina. Her eyes were as wide as the sea, as if she couldn’t believe Ahmet’s appeals on her behalf.

“Besides, Mother, I have an idea that Rashif offered to propose to Yazmina. But I suppose he told you that, too.”

“No, my son, he didn’t speak of your entire conversation, only that he was concerned for you,” said Halajan.

“Well, it’s a long story, but,” he said looking at Yazmina, his face opening into a sweet smile, “I am so shy with you. I don’t know why. I’ve so wanted to talk to you, to tell you that …” He paused, looked down in thought, then directly at Sunny and said, “You said the baby was yours. And Mother, you said the baby was yours. But the truth is”—and now he looked at Yazmina—“the baby is mine. She has always been mine since the moment you came to our coffeehouse. And if you will have me, I will be Najama’s father and your husband. That is, of course, if you, Mother, agree to the match.”

Halajan sobbed, answering only with her tears.

“You’re a good man, Ahmet,” Sunny said softly.

“Mother?” he asked Halajan, his eyes pleading for her approval.

Halajan stood and said, “I have never been prouder than I am today. You have become the man I always dreamed you would be.” And she reached up to kiss him on both cheeks.

Ahmet turned to Yazmina and said, “And you? Will you have me? I know this is very modern, to ask you like this, here, directly. But there it is.”

All eyes in the room turned to Yazmina, whose tears were streaming down her face. She looked down to her feet, then to Halajan, then to Ahmet holding her precious one so sweetly, and said, “Some modern is good. You are a fine man, Ahmet. I never thought this day would come. I have wanted it for so long.”

“So, yes? Your answer is yes?” he said excitedly.

“Yes,” Yazmina said.

Then Ahmet sat, feeling slightly dizzy, on a red vinyl chair and took a deep breath in to steady himself. “I have been arguing with myself for weeks now. It’s very tiring.”

“Son,” Halajan said, “I believe that baby is blessed with love. She changes everyone who holds her.”

Yazmina nodded with a smile.

Ahmet pulled Najama to his chest and lowered his face to her face and said, “I will protect you and your mother always.”

Sunny opened her cellphone and said, “Bashir Hadi, we have Najama. We’re coming home.”

Later that night, once the coffeehouse was closed, Halajan was in her sleeping room, taking off her scarf, when there was a knock on her door. She put the scarf back on her head, wrapped it around her neck, and opened the door.

It was Ahmet.

“Come in,” she said, closing the door behind him.

“I have something to say to you,” he said.

He looked terribly serious, worrying Halajan that he’d changed his mind, that the traditionalist teachings had gotten the better of him.

“Rashif,” he said.

Halajan’s heart dropped. She thought she would faint. She leaned on the wall, felt her body’s weight against it. What had happened? What more could happen?

“You will marry him,” he said.

For once in her whole long life, she couldn’t speak.

“Because,” Ahmet continued, and now he smiled widely and without guile, “because he loves you, and I have a strong feeling that you love him as well. And there is the matter of the letters, of course. Entirely improper.” He smiled again.

And Halajan took her son, her boy, in her arms and held him the way she had when he was too young to protest, before there were talks of love and letters and marriage.