Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul (11 page)

The dark water churned in the wake of a giant container ship heading north to Alaska, a flock of gulls keeping pace above. Sunny stood outside the back door of the house and watched until long after it disappeared from view, then checked her watch. She was trying to make herself scarce during Layla's session with Kat, knowing that her inability to keep her own mouth shut while the two of them were conversing tended to make Layla's progress a slow go.

The idea to bring Kat—whose real name she now knew was Katayon—over to the island to help Layla with her English a few times a week had come to her in a cartoon light bulb moment. Where else would she ever find a Dari-speaking person in a place whose only diversity seemed to come from the variety of trees or brews of coffee? Kat had been a bit of a tough negotiator, but in the end Sunny's promises of sun-filled afternoons on the island had won out over the tedium of the job in the
dentist's office. Now she felt just a little bit guilty, as the breeze off the water made bumps rise on the skin on her arms, making her look like a naked chicken. She pulled down her sleeves and headed across the lawn to the barn.

The two girls seemed to be hitting it off okay so far, but it was difficult to tell by just a couple of weeks. The exuberance she had once so admired in Layla seemed subdued by the stress of life in a strange country, or perhaps simply by the stress of being a teenager. The girl was way quieter and more withdrawn than Sunny had remembered. And Kat? She couldn't quite figure that one out. On the outside, she appeared all tough and feisty, yet Sunny could tell there was more going on behind that defiant exterior. And, for two girls born in the same country, could they be any more different? The look on Layla's face when she first saw Kat's black-and-white hair was priceless. And she supposed that Kat must be equally perplexed by a girl who insisted on keeping her head covered at all times, even inside the house. But for Sunny, hearing the two of them chatting at the kitchen table made it feel like home, especially when Layla started rattling off questions in Dari. But Kat would have none of that.
English only in this house
, she insisted over and over.

Sunny dug into her jeans pocket for the key Sky had given her so many weeks ago and forced it into the heavy brass padlock that hung from the barn door. She struggled to make the key turn, jamming it left and right over and over without success. Then she picked up a rock and banged at the lock with all her strength. No dice. It would be easier to just huff and puff and blow this place down like the big bad wolf than to get this door open, she thought as she stood back and eyed the weather-beaten structure. She cupped her hands around her eyes and leaned forward to peer between the shrunken wooden slats, but
was unable to make out much in the dark. She jiggled the key in the lock again, now more gently. This time it opened.

The outside light streamed in through the door behind her as Sunny stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the scene. The barn was a hell of a lot bigger than it looked from the outside, and was jam-packed with equipment from front to back and side to side. The wall to her right was completely obscured by what she assumed to be winemaking apparatus—vats and barrels and bins—and the left looked like a cemetery for dead gardening tools. But it was the back of the barn, where heavy beige tarps had been neatly and carefully draped over a huge mountain of something, that intrigued her most.

For a moment Sunny fought her natural urge to snoop. But then again, for now all this stuff—well, at least half of it—was still hers, wasn't it? Despite Rick's badgering, and both of them offering to drop their respective selling prices even more, they still hadn't reached an agreement about what to do with the place. And she was the one living there, after all. Maybe she'd only look at half the stuff. And now Rick was suggesting that she pay him “a little good-faith money” just for her and Layla to continue living in the place, as to him, he said, it looked as if she was really planning on staying. Fuck him, she thought as she headed to the back of the barn. She'd uncover it all.

She pulled her brown curls into a knot on top of her head and pushed up her sleeves. The first tarp slid off in a cloud of dust that danced across the slivers of sunlight piercing through the gaps in the roof above. But all that appeared was an old TV set with a cracked screen. Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. Under the next tarp she found an empty birdcage that had some potential, for something, someday. She dragged it away from the pile and put it aside. But the next item she
bent to uncover caused Sunny to let out a little gasp, for peeking out from under this tarp were the heavy carved wooden legs of what could only be that furniture from Nuristan that she had always loved so much, and that Jack had always referred to as termite bait. And indeed it was a gorgeous table, and one that she recognized as her own from where it once stood in the front corner of the coffeehouse. A wave of homesickness washed over her as she ran her palm lovingly over the smooth walnut surface and breathed in its rich, dark smell. But what the hell was Jack doing with her table? As she whipped off the coverings of more items in the pile she began to get the picture.

At first she couldn't contain her excitement. Sunny squealed out loud at the sight of the bowls and cups from the potters in Istalif, so blue they seemed to glow even in the darkness of the barn, the lustrous
suzani
bedcovers, hand stitched for generations by Uzbek women in Afghanistan, the silk embroidered pillows that had brightened her outlook even on the darkest of nights. And there was the rug, one of many she had purchased at “the carpet mall of death”, as Jack had called it due to the fact that the Russian-built cinderblock building was five stories high with all four walls facing an interior parking lot—a lot with only one narrow passageway for both entering and exiting. A security nightmare. He had, in a moment of weakness, given in to her begging one Sunday afternoon, and had accompanied her there for a spree. He ended up sitting there patiently for hours, gentleman that he was, as she sipped tea with the merchants and spent half his paycheck.

But then it hit her. Jack had obviously made a huge assumption about their future, her future, no doubt planning to sweeten the Twimbly pot by bringing over the things that might make her feel content. And she was pissed. She couldn't deny how happy
it made her feel to be reunited with her favorite belongings, but now she'd have to start from scratch if, or when, she moved back to Kabul.
Thanks a lot, pal
, she thought as she pictured a smug little smile plastered on his face, which only made her miss him that much more.

She was halfway through her rummaging when she found, taped to the underside of a squat wooden table, the envelope with her name on it. The sight of Jack's impeccable handwriting took her by surprise, making her feel almost as if he was speaking to her from the grave, or from that box of ashes she hadn't yet had the heart to part with. She ripped it open, hoping to hear more. But there was no note inside, only a small brass key.

She made a mad dash around the room in search of anything with a lock, flinging the dusty tarps around as though she were executing judo throws. It was when she came across a short, rectangular object sitting in the farthest reach of the barn, with four points poking up at the canvas from each corner, that she stopped. This one she had a hunch about, and when she lifted the tarp with pinched fingers, as if uncovering a priceless portrait, she knew she was right. It was a piece she recognized from a trip she and Jack had taken to Bamiyan, an object so beautiful it practically took her breath away—a hand-carved wooden dowry chest, no doubt once owned by a wealthy nomadic woman. Sunny had to laugh, wondering if Jack thought he was being funny, mocking her own inability to settle down. In the old days, a woman would have taken to the road with these chests filled with things like linens and jewelry, medicinal herbs, clothing for their future children, and family documents. But what could be inside now? Sunny rubbed her hands together with anticipation as she slipped the key into the lock and tilted the top of the chest back on its hinges.

She slammed the lid shut as quickly as she had opened it, her heart pumping a million beats per second. Bundles and bundles of hundred dollar bills, more cash than she had ever seen in one place in her entire life. Enough money to feed an entire Afghan village for years. Her mind raced with confusion. Why the hell would he be keeping this kind of money in cash? And in a barn? Sure, there were plenty of other men she had met in Afghanistan whom she could imagine getting into this kind of thing, but Jack? Even with all his unexplained absences, she'd never once suspected him of being anything less than one hundred per cent above board. He had stood out like a cowboy in a white hat among a sea of black in Kabul, where there were plenty of foreigners who were seduced by the easy money that came from selling drugs and weapons. But still, however he had earned all this, why on earth couldn't he have just put it in the bank?

Suddenly the answer hit her like a smack in the head. The money had to be Rick's.

She reached again toward the chest, her hand trembling as she slowly lifted the lid for a second look. She hesitated to actually touch the money, shuddering at the thought of what shady services it might have bought, or whose unguarded pockets it may have come from. But when she noticed a slip of white paper poking out in the center of the chest, she couldn't help herself, and plunged her arm deep into the stacks.

“Damn you, Jack!” She flung back her arm and with it came a wad of bills that went flying across the barn, slipping from their wrapper midair and showering down like confetti on New Year's Eve. But she had to laugh at herself for falling for such a lame prank. She should have known better. She could tell instantly by the too-smooth feel of the bills that they were fakes. And she knew just where Jack had gotten them.
She'd seen the moneychangers on the street corners of Kabul checking for counterfeit currency plenty of times, squinting to assess the color, holding the bills up to their ears to hear how they sounded. The ones piled high in the trunk had the consistency of cheap computer paper, but the color, she had to admit, was pretty authentic.

She grabbed the white paper that continued to cry out to her from beneath the stacks, and unfolded it to once again see Jack's handwriting.

Sunny slumped down onto the dusty floor, the feel of Jack's strong arms wrapped around her surrendering body all too fresh in her memory, the image of his crinkly blue eyes when he laughed enough to make her chest ache with longing. The nerve of him, calling me baby, she thought as she wiped a tear from her cheek. And there she remained—thinking of Jack, wanting Jack, missing Jack—until the sunlight's pattern had shifted across the floor toward the other end of the barn. Then she stood, brushed herself off, and forced her mind to turn toward finding a solution for getting all this stuff out of this shithole before the grime and mildew could take its toll.

The faded posters plastered across the walls of the dark room told of countless calamities—falling stones and dangling electrical wires, cars plunging headfirst into water or slipping down steep mountains, ominous black arrows twisting this way and that. One simply showed a very large exclamation point, screaming out its warning from the middle of a white triangle with a border as red as blood.

But Halajan wasn't alarmed by the signs. She had learned what each and every one of them meant by heart, along with all the other rules and regulations for driving a car. She had been enrolled in the driving school for nine weeks already, and had only three more to go.

At first it had felt strange to be the oldest person in the class, the only one who could truly remember the days when a woman behind the wheel of a car was not such a rare sight, a time when a woman could even drive a public bus as a job. The others must
have wondered what an old fool like her thought she needed with a driver's license. But her age was forgotten the day she volunteered to give the teacher, Anisa, a break by offering to take a turn reading the manuals out loud to the class of women who, like so many other women in Kabul, could not read a word.

Now the others would wait outside for her and Najama to arrive each morning, greeting Halajan with kisses and showering the little girl with trinkets and sweets to keep her quiet in the classroom while they all tried to concentrate on their studies. Halajan's favorites were Bita and Tamra. Bita, whose husband had been crippled by a roadside explosion, was determined to drive in order to save the hours she spent each day travelling around the city by foot, taking her children to and from school and shopping for her family's needs. The driving school was the first school she had ever attended. Young Tamra told of being taunted by boys for her desire to drive a car. Lucky for her, her father and brothers were proud of her strength, and supported her wishes.

Halajan loved coming to the school, waking early to dress and feed herself and Najama, slipping out before Yazmina could find chores for her to do and before anyone had the chance to ask where they were going. They'd take the bus to the city center, just the two of them, past the armies of children on their way to school, the girls all in black, save for their little white headscarves. The first few times when the two of them had reached their destination the driver just kept going, despite Halajan rapping on the windows and shouting out her request to get off. There were no ropes to pull or assistants to help, like there were in the old days. She and Najama had had to practically run to get to the school on time. But by now the driver had come to know them, and treated them both like royalty,
pulling right up to the curb without even being asked. Halajan and her granddaughter would descend into the cool morning air to walk the last two blocks that took them past the vendors arranging their carts for a day of commerce, Najama giggling as she and her nana dodged the bucketfuls of water being tossed from each storefront by the shopkeepers fighting a losing battle with the dust that invaded from the street.

After greeting the other students at the door of the school, Halajan would lead Najama inside to say hello to Anisa. Now
there
was a woman. The only female driving instructor in all of Kabul and not scared of a soul. She had been driving herself since the fall of the Taliban, taught by her kind and open-minded husband, who was a taxi driver. It was his sympathy for the women who were stuck without transportation—those who could not take a taxi because they were not allowed to speak to men other than those in their family, and those who were made uncomfortable by the stares and harassment they would often receive on public transportation—that had led him to encourage her to share what she had learned with others. The threats they had faced after opening the school, and the taunts Anisa still received when behind the wheel—male drivers trying to force her off the road and young boys pelting the car with pebbles and stones—only seemed to make her stronger. Halajan had witnessed it for herself, just last week, when Anisa had taken the class out, two at a time, in the Toyota Corolla for their first drive. As they pulled up to a stoplight, the two men in the car to their right had called out in singsong voices, “
Jaan jaan
, how much is it to Taymani?” Before she knew it, Anisa had leapt out of the car and marched straight over to their open window, hands on hips. “Come now, little boys, do you really think you can afford this ride?”
Halajan hadn't been able to stop herself from laughing on and off throughout the rest of the lesson.

There were plenty of driving schools in the city that were run by men, and women could, if their fathers or husbands and the schools themselves allowed, go there if they chose. But having a woman instructor made it easier for many, as the gossip that ran like sewer water through the streets of Kabul would be less. Of course, Halajan was too old to be the target of such gossip, not that she would have cared anyway. She had chosen Anisa's school to show her support for this woman who she hoped would lead the way for many others to come.

And even though Anisa took her job as a teacher very seriously, she did allow Halajan and the other women in the class to have their fun. The best was when they would take turns sitting in the middle of the room on the stack of plastic chairs, their hands resting on either side of an old steering wheel that was connected to a skeleton of a car. There, in the privacy of the classroom, they would pretend to be kings of the road, shifting the unconnected gear knob quickly and with a firm hand, spinning the steering wheel sharply back and forth as if speeding up a mountain road, banging on the pretend horn at any imaginary person who dared to get in their way. Even little Najama would be given a turn, propped up by pillows and books to help her reach the controls.

Halajan loved every day at the school, and knew she would miss it terribly once the course was completed. But today's lesson was giving her reason to pause.

She stood near the door, her ropy arms crossed beneath her sagging breasts and her wiry brows drawn into a knot. The grease-stained carpet in front of her was covered with nuts and bolts and wrenches and the guts of an engine, or maybe two,
that looked like they had been vomited straight out of the hood of a car. Today's lesson was to be in the basics of automobile mechanics.

Halajan rolled up her sleeves and prayed for the hours to pass quickly, hoping that, with a little luck, she'd soon be back on the bus with Najama at her side, reciting their story to each other as they did every time.

“And where did you go with Nana today, Najama?”

“We went to the magic city!”

“That's right, we went to the magic city.” Halajan smiled at the little girl's enthusiasm about the place they had dreamed up together, a make-believe city where anything could happen, and where nobody but Nana and Najama were allowed to go. Her stories about their adventures were so fanciful that nobody dared interrupt her to press for the truth.

“And what did we do there, in the magic city?”

“We captured the dragons!”

“Okay, we captured the dragons today. Yes we did, little one. And maybe we saw the prince dancing as well, right?” And they'd repeat it again, Halajan feeling slightly guilty at drawing her granddaughter into her own lies. She wasn't sure how her husband would feel about her learning to drive. Rashif might worry a bit too much about her safety, fearing the kind of attention a woman driving a car would get in this city. Jack had brought in Poppy the dog for that very reason, to protect Sunny when she insisted on driving by herself. But Halajan did know how her son would react. Even with his opening mind and expanding views, he still remained stubborn in many ways. Sometimes he seemed like a child just learning to walk, taking two steps and tumbling before getting up to try again. No, she would keep this her secret until after it was done. She would
fight any battle she might have to face to get behind the wheel once she had the license firmly in her hand. And there would come a time when she and her grandchild would share a laugh about their trips to the magic city, should Halajan live long enough to see that day,
inshallah
.