Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul (22 page)

“Huh?” Rick returned to the bar, his face a rubbery question mark.

“What, did you print these up yourself?” Sky pulled out a thick-tipped marker and ran it across one of the bills. “See?” He held it up for Kat. “Fake as they come. If it were real, this black mark would come out as yellow.”

“Why, Rick, you're quite the bad boy, aren't you?” Kat laughed.

“What are talking about? C'mon, Bella, let's get outta here.” Kat pulled back as Rick reached for her arm. “I said let's go,” he repeated, louder this time.

Sky appeared from behind the bar in a flash. “She's not going anywhere with you, jerk. And if you don't leave her alone and get out of here right now I'm gonna call the cops and tell them you've been trying to pass off fake bills. That's a federal offense, just in case you didn't know.”

“What the …?” Rick's features appeared to harden as the realization of what had happened began to sink in through the gin. He stood frozen for a moment, his gaze moving from Sky to Kat to the handful of regulars remaining on their stools, their eyes now all on him. It wasn't until Sky pulled a phone from his pocket that Rick began to back slowly toward the door.

Kat could tell that Sky was trying hard not to laugh, the corners of his mouth held firm and tight. She scooted around to the back of the bar as she tried to control her own laughter. “And don't forget this!” she cried, tossing Rick's wallet across the worn wooden floor to his feet. “You might want to buy a girl a drink someday.”

And then the door of The Dirty Monkey slammed shut, as Rick disappeared into the silent Twimbly evening.

Najama sat cross-legged on the pebbled ground, tirelessly bouncing the red ball up and down in front of Poppy's flaring nose. The dog, flopped on her side in the afternoon heat, looked back at the girl through half-closed eyes, her tail rising and slapping back on to the ground every so often in a lazy wag.

Ahmet and his mother watched them in silence, lost in the haunting echoes that remained within the courtyard's walls. Neither of them had spent any time out here since the attack, save to walk back and forth from the front gate, its guardhouse now standing empty and still. But today's balmy weather had drawn them both from the house, with Najama as an excuse to take in some fresh air. Now Ahmet noticed that the hyacinth and fuchsia vines that had once helped to provide shade for their customers had turned brittle and bare from lack of care. Even the silly peahen was gone, nowhere to be seen since the
day of the attack. Some
Shangri-La
, he thought, remembering what Sunny used to call this spot.

Upstairs, above the dark coffeehouse, Yazmina was resting, exhausted from the nine long months of carrying another life within her. Ahmet felt a twinge of regret as he pictured her up there struggling to find a comfortable position for her swollen body. They had had yet another argument yesterday, this one lasting so long into the night that he had trouble rousing himself for morning prayers. Again they fought about that ridiculous girl. That Yazmina and his mother insisted on allowing her to hide in their home was unacceptable to him. And that he did not seem to have the power to stop them made him feel as though he were as weak as a newborn calf.

“What is wrong with you that you need to be so involved in this family's problems?” he had lashed out at his wife after yet another refusal to make the girl leave. “All the unnecessary drama, with that funeral that wasn't a funeral. You are just being lured into things that will bring more trouble to our family. And I refuse to allow it.”

“I know you might not believe that Zara was the cause of the attack. But I have seen the look in this girl's eyes, I have heard the fear in her words. I have been this girl in the past, trembling at the sound of a footstep, freezing at the touch of a hand.” Yazmina shifted clumsily on her
toshak
. “I had no voice of my own to protect me, yet I did have the good fortune to find women like Sunny and Halajan who spoke up for me and helped me make my way. Helping this girl is important to me, and I would hope that with something so important you would grant me your support.”

“Support? Why should I support something that brings such a risk to our home?”

Yazmina straightened her back against the wall, the anger growing like a freshly lit flame in her green eyes, the same pair of eyes that had once warmed him and weakened him and confused him. “And you don't think it was difficult for me to support you and your endless meetings?” she continued. “That I didn't worry about the rumors I heard being shared by those who pictured gambling and prostitutes and the drinking of alcohol going on behind those closed doors? Did I ever ask you to stop? No. I was willing to take the risk because I trusted in your belief that you were doing something good.”

“And what good is it doing to hide this girl?” Ahmet stood and crossed his arms defiantly in front of his body

“I know it is doing good for her. And that must mean something,” she said with her face turned up toward him. “Whether it is just one girl or many is not the measure of how important it is to me. This way of treating girls cannot be right, and it cannot continue. It is a problem in our country that must be fixed. And maybe this is my way of trying to fix it,” she continued, her cheeks now moist with tears.

“You are just feeling this way because of your condition,” he said, pointing to her belly.

“How dare you use our daughter to doubt the strength of my feelings!” she hissed.

“It will be a welcome day when this is over and my son arrives to help me keep my sanity in this house of crazy women!” he spat back.

And so it had gone throughout the night, without either of them backing down. He had seen his wife angry before, especially during the weeks since the attack on the coffeehouse, but never had he felt such fire coming from within her. And he did have to wonder, to himself, if perhaps he was witnessing the
beginning of a new Yazmina, one who might manage to match her courage with her heart in ways he feared he never could.

Now, sitting in the courtyard with Halajan and Najama, he felt irritable and tired. He scowled at his mother as she pulled the scarf from her head.

“What? It is only us out here.” She ran her fingers through her short grey hair.

“Well someone might come in.”

“Then let them. Do you think an old lady's bare head will cause the world to end?” She reached into her pocket for a cigarette.

“And what kind of example are you for the child?” he snapped.

“What kind of example are
you
for the child?” she snapped back in a harsh whisper. “You sit around here all day as if you were a brooding hen. I do not even see you going to classes.”

Ahmet lifted his eyebrows. “What is the point of me going to school when I need to be working to support my family?”

“Is that what you are doing here in this courtyard? Working to support your family? Because I don't see much work happening in front of my eyes.”

“So just what do you expect me to do?” he shouted, throwing his arms into the air.

“Lower your voice!” she warned, pointing toward Najama with her chin.

Ahmet continued in a quieter, clipped manner. “The only thing I know is being a
chokidor
, and there is not much use for guards these days. Just look around you, at the half-built houses and deserted construction sites. Everyone with any money to pay another man is leaving. There is no more work for translators or drivers, or uneducated
chokidors
like me.”

“Well, then you are just going to have to try a little harder. Do not wait for someone else to hand you the answers.” She
flicked her lighter and held the flame to the tip of the cigarette.

“You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.”

“And what do you mean by that? Is that your beloved Rumi speaking once again?”

Halajan simply shrugged her shoulders.

“No, I mean it,” Ahmet insisted. “What are you saying?”

She inhaled and exhaled slowly toward the sun, the smoke rising above their heads like a genie escaping from a bottle. “You are still acting like a little boy, my son,” she began, “taking what others give, yet not able to give to yourself.”

Ahmet placed both palms on the table as if preparing to rise.

“No, you sit right here and hear me out,” his mother demanded in a tone he hadn't heard since he was a child. Ahmet remained frozen as she continued. “You had your job in the guardhouse thanks to Sunny, and then it was the money from the coffeehouse that allowed you to go to the university. And it was Rashif who provided you with the ideas that freed your mind from its rusty chains. And what have you done with all those gifts? You have become a big man with a big mouth. You think I don't hear the things you say to your wife? And the way you treat me, as if you are now my Taliban.”

Ahmet leaned in toward her. “What I say to my wife is not your business. And you, sometimes I think you are the way you are just to annoy me.” He sat back up and fixed his gaze straight ahead, away from her.

“Do not flatter yourself,” Halajan snorted. “I am the way I am because it pleases me. And because there are things I believe in that I, unlike some people, must take a stand for.”

“How can you dare to say that to me? What about my meetings?”

“A bunch of boys sitting in a room talking. All that babble about changing the world, what good has it done?”

“These things take time,” Ahmet protested. “Do you think we can simply demand the end to ways that have existed for so many years?”

“Yes.” Halajan closed her eyes and rubbed them with her palms. “You are right that big changes take time, but there are also things we can do every day that can make a difference to the future of our people.”

“I am not willing to wear my inner thoughts on my sleeve for all the world to see. I am not like you, Mother.” Or like Yazmina, he thought, remembering with a little envy her spirit from the night before.

“Ah, but you are smart like your father, and clever like me, my son.” Halajan touched her cropped head with one bony finger. “And you also have the blessing of being surrounded with good fortune.”

“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.”