Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul (5 page)

The kitchen floor was finally beginning to reveal its true self, layer by layer, as Sunny relentlessly drove the sponge mop back and forth and back again. She paused to brush away the strands of wavy brown hair that had escaped from the clip on top of her head, and stretched backwards with a groan. The crappy mattress had done a number on her last night, a penalty she accepted as the price she had to pay for missing that last ferry. And with barely enough cell service to make a call, searching for a hotel or inn or B&B on this island would have been a nightmare. Figures. And today? If it weren't for getting hopelessly lost in that green maze of towering pines that made every road around here look exactly alike, causing her to be two hours late for her appointment with Rick, she'd be watching TV in a cozy room at the Seattle Hyatt with a glass of red wine and a room-service pizza on its way.

Rick Stark. On first impression she had been admittedly charmed. He was tall—taller than Jack—and carried himself
with the air of a man who knew exactly what he wanted, the type whose every gesture was smooth and deliberate. She'd seen plenty like him before. In fact, there was a time in her life, or perhaps even two, when she would have welcomed a guy like that into her bed with open arms. But she hadn't felt that way about anybody in a long time. Not since Jack.

Rick had been the only customer in the coffee place when Sunny poked her head through the shiny silk banners hanging from the doorway, and as she entered he turned his head toward her, cellphone glued to one ear, and waved her over. She shook out the damp feathers clumped inside her puffy jacket, draped it over the back of a chair, dropped her leather knapsack onto the floor and sat, taking in the room around her as he continued with his conversation. The place felt like a flashback to the sixties; batik panels suspended from above, a Haight-Ashbury street sign over the bar, a poster of Chairman Mao—his profile tilted optimistically upward—behind the bakery counter, walls plastered with bumper stickers demanding that the ocean be protected, the earth be loved, the planet be saved. Sunny wondered why Rick had chosen this place to meet. He didn't look at all like he belonged here, with his slicked-back hair, buttoned-down shirt and shiny black shoes.

“What'll you have?” he asked with a smile as he put down the phone and scraped back his chair.

“Well hello to you too. Cappuccino, I guess?”

“Wet, or dry?” he purred, as if he were offering something dirty or illicit.

“Um, dry, I guess?” She had no clue. She'd gotten used to the whole venti or grande, regular or soy, caf or half-caf thing that had happened since she'd been away, but wet or dry? How the hell could a coffee be dry?

Rick returned with a hefty ceramic cup filled with a creamy brew, the aroma of which brought back fond memories of times long gone. Sunny settled back into her chair with a little sigh.

“Good, right? Twimbly's finest.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, his own cup clutched tightly between his hands.

She took a little sip. “Mmm. The best I've had since my own, at the coffeehouse.”

“Ah, yes, the famous café of Kabul. Jack never stopped talking about that place.”

Sunny had to laugh to herself, thinking about how she had felt it was actually Twimbly Island that Jack never stopped talking about.

“Must seem pretty quiet around here to you.” Rick checked his watch. “Not much happening, unless you're into whale-watching or kayaking.”

Sunny nodded as she blew lightly into her cup.

“Of course,” he continued, “come summer, things do pick up a little.” He launched into a rapid-fire inventory of the island's statistics and attractions—population 62,300, thirty-five miles of spectacular countryside from tip to toe, world-class cycling, canoeing, bird-watching—ticking them off one by one as if he were guiding a tour.

Sunny was determined to keep her own impressions of the place to herself. “Well, Jack certainly did love it here,” she heard herself say.

Rick stared into his cup and laughed a little. “True. True. That guy loved everyone, everything, and every place. Sometimes made me wonder if he could tell shit from Shinola. Excuse me for a second,” he said, reaching for his phone, which had begun to buzz like an angry bee. Sunny bristled a little at his
last comment as she watched Rick's fingers peck at the screen.

“I'm sure you'll find plenty to do around here once the weather improves,” he continued without raising his head.

“Oh, I'm not planning on being here that long. Nowhere near that long.”

Rick paused and lifted one eyebrow up toward her. “Really?”

“Not in my plans.” She wiped a drop of milk from the table.

“Huh.” His head bowed back down to the phone. “So I assume you'll be heading back to your Kabul coffee shop?” he asked as he returned to his typing.

Sunny started to shake her head, the echoes of Jack's convictions still bouncing around in her brain. But Jack was gone. And with him went the last connection she had over here, in the States, with Kabul—those shared memories that had kept it all alive for her day after day. “Not sure,” she heard herself answer. Saying those words out loud for the first time made her realize just how much she missed her old life. She had never felt as alive as she did in Afghanistan. More seemed to happen in just one day there than happened in a lifetime anywhere else.

“So what can I do for you today?” Rick asked, his eyes still riveted onto the little screen.

Sunny sat forward and tucked her curls behind her ears. “I want to make a deal with you. Jack's half, my half, to you. Market value. Clean and simple.”

Rick slowly put down the phone and turned his toothy smile back on her. Then he cleared his throat. “Well, that's certainly an interesting proposition,” he said after a beat.

Sunny was about to ask him about the property's last appraisal when the phone rang again. Once more Rick apologized but took the call, heading outside to the parking lot while he talked.
She could see him through the café's window, pacing back and forth in the mist. Sunny checked her watch, pissed that missing the last ferry had now clearly become a certainty. All of a sudden the guy didn't seem so attractive to her anymore.

“So let me ask you something,” Rick said as he came back in and blotted the moisture from outside off his face with a napkin. “What makes you so certain you want to sell?”

“What am I going to do in a place like this? This was Jack's dream. Not mine.”

“But you don't know where you're going?” Rick narrowed his eyes.

Sunny shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, what do you think Jack would want you to do?”

“Jack's not here.”

“Just saying.” Rick tilted his head back and drained his cup. “Another?” She shook her head. Rick shouted out his own triple shot order to the sleepy guy behind the counter. “You don't think he'd rather see you tucked away safe and sound here on Twimbly than running around Pakistan or Tajikistan or whatever Stan strikes your fancy next?”

Sunny didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Under the table she could see Rick's legs dancing their own little jig. Cut this guy open and he'd probably bleed caffeine, she thought.

And then Rick said something she hadn't expected. “Well, personally, I think
I
know what Jack would have wanted. And me? I want to do right by him. So here's what I'm willing to do.” He leaned forward and folded his hands together on the table. “My half, to you. Market value minus twenty per cent. For cash, that is.”

Sunny was stunned. “You want to sell?”

“For Jack,” he said solemnly. “For you.”

She drew back as he slid a clammy hand over hers. “You mean you're not going to start up the winery again?”

“It wasn't exactly a part of my plans. I'm really too busy to do it justice. And now …”

“Well it wasn't exactly a part of my plans either,” she protested.

“It's quite a good deal I'm offering. You really should think about it.”

“I could think about it until the cows come home and it wouldn't change anything.”

Rick sat back again and drummed his fingers on the table.

“So, wait,” Sunny continued slowly, as if speaking to a five-year-old, “if you want to sell, and I want to sell, why don't we just agree to sell the whole mess to someone else?”

Rick lowered his dark eyebrows and slowly shook his head. “I'd rather not do that to Jack.”

“I don't get it,” she answered a little too loudly. “Don't you think Jack would want what I want?”

“What I think, sweetheart,” he said as he ran his hand back over his shiny dark hair, “is that you might not know what you want. And maybe you didn't know Jack like I knew Jack.”

It was then that Sunny truly began to sense something else at play behind this guy's wide smile. How dare he?
Sweetheart
? And no one knew Jack better than Sunny knew Jack. Like how kind and respectful he was to everyone, regardless of who they were or where they came from. Or how deeply he felt for those in need. Or how quick he was with the perfect wisecrack to lighten a dark mood or brighten a cloudy day. Suddenly she began to notice more about the man sitting across from her. Wasn't his hair just a little too perfect? And his shoes, so shiny she'd bet he could simply glance down after a lunch and check those big old teeth in them. Why on earth had Jack chosen to be
friends with this guy? She knew they had met years ago when Jack had briefly been stationed at the base up-island, and that Rick was the townie who had taken him under his wing and introduced him to life on the island. But seriously, to remain friends all these years, and to go into a partnership with a guy like him? Ah—but there was where Rick had been right. Jack had been friends with everybody. She bent to retrieve her knapsack from the floor and stood.

Rick stood along with her. “You're going?”

“Gotta run,” she answered, her words sliding down the scale in mock apology.

“Well, think about my offer. Though I suppose we could sell the place. One of those dickhead developers who are ruining the island would snap it up in a nanosecond. But really? The way I feel about it? I honestly think we should remember how much the place meant to Jack.”

She turned to face him, her eyes narrowing into tiny slits, as if squinting might actually help her see this man more clearly. “You know what?” she finally answered. “Why don't we both just think about it for a day or two? I'm sure we can figure this out somehow.” And with that she flashed him her own wide smile, grabbed her jacket, and walked out the door.

 

Asshole
, she thought to herself now, thinking back on the conversation as she took in the sight of the shabby kitchen around her. Now what was she supposed to do? Maybe he was right. Maybe she should honor Jack's wishes. But then again, maybe it was just a tactic to get her to lower her asking price. Which, of course, she could do. But the thought of letting that creep manipulate her in such a way, when he was supposedly Jack's friend, made
her sick to her stomach. Regardless, she supposed she should offer to meet with Rick again to discuss the possibilities in more detail. But the next time she'd make sure to allow enough time to get lost en route. No way was she going to let herself be stuck for one more night than necessary on this fucking island, with nothing better to do than scrub the damn floors.

Zara woke to the smell of cooking eggs coming from the kitchen. How early her mother must have risen today. She stretched and stifled a yawn, careful not to rouse her little sister Mariam breathing softly and evenly on the
toshak
beside her. Still half-asleep herself, Zara's foggy thoughts turned to the lazy Friday ahead, when she and her sister would first help their mother serve the morning meal, and later partake in their own midday prayers as the men went off to the mosque. And then she remembered, the dread filling her veins like a crippling poison. Any day, even this one, could bring a proposal, and along with it the end of her life as she knew it. There would be no more waking with her sweet sister by her side, no more of her mother's warm breakfasts, or the touch of her hand as she smoothed Zara's hair into a tidy braid. Gone would be the days of burying herself in her schoolbooks, the feeling of satisfaction from a difficult problem solved or a question soundly answered. There would be no
more giggling and gossiping with her girlfriends as they hurried between classes. And there would be no more Omar.

Zara bolted upright, her bare feet landing on the rug beside her with a thud. If only her worries had all been a bad dream and things could still be just the way they were. But now she felt as though she were working against a giant ticking clock, trying to turn back its hands to a time before the specter of a proposal had reared its ugly head.

As she readied herself to join her mother in the kitchen her thoughts went to a day not long ago, a day when her future seemed as bright as the golden sun above, a day made all the more so delicious by its secrecy. A Wednesday, it was. She and Omar had agreed to skip class, borrow a friend's car, and escape for a picnic together at Qargha dam, about thirty minutes outside of the city. How badly they'd wanted to have some precious time together to talk, to sit and share their hopes and dreams for as long as they wanted, with nobody around to judge or tattle or condemn. Of course, even with no one who knew them anywhere in sight, the outing would have still aroused suspicions, would have caused heads to turn and questions to be asked about a young man and woman out alone, just the two of them, together. So rather than risk any complications that might come from that, she'd enlisted the help of her sister, to whom the promise of a break from school for a day by the lake was more than enough to ensure silence.

“Your smile seems to be saying a million words that your tongue leaves unspoken,” Omar had said to her as they walked along the pebbly shore, shoes in hand.

Ahead of them, Mariam hopped along the water's edge, the lower half of her long black school uniform turning even darker with dampness. “I'm just imagining,” Zara answered.

“Imagining what?”

“Oh,” she giggled a little, “just thinking of the day when we will be walking on a beach with a child of our own.”

“You are dreaming big dreams, my heart.”

“And why not? Isn't that what life is about? Capturing your dreams and turning them into what is real?”

“And what else is in those dreams, might I ask?”

“You know. Everything we have already talked about. First, we will get our diplomas. Then we will do some studies in another country, maybe Germany or even Australia. I will become a famous lawyer, and you will become a celebrated journalist. And we will have three children—two boys and a girl—who will all grow up to be strong and handsome and kind, and who will always remain devoted to Allah and to their loving parents.”

Omar laughed. “I see you have it all worked out. If only life were so.”

“And why would it not be so? My parents have been supportive of my studies. They are proud of my ambitions. And they have not been in a hurry to marry me off to some skinny cousin or an uncle once removed who barely reaches my shoulder. We are lucky.”

“Maybe we are lucky. But we must also be realistic. I am only a student who has to work two jobs just to get by, who lives in a house crowded with cousins. Your parents will not want me as a son-in-law either. My family is not important or rich—we're simple farmers from the Panjshir Valley. We have practically nothing.”

“Then I will change their minds for them. You will see.” Zara picked up a flat, smooth stone and flicked it across the lake's glassy green surface, watching until it disappeared behind a trail
of foam. She lifted both arms toward the blue sky and twirled under the midday sun, the hem of her
kameez
slapping against the legs of her jeans. Omar laughed as he reached out to steady her, the quick, illicit touch of his hand like a burst of flame through her sleeve. Zara smiled, and hugged herself in her own embrace, happy with the world and everything in it.

But she also remembered that later that day, after the three of them had been seated on the terrace of a waterside restaurant for lunch, a strange feeling had come over her, an unease that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. It began when they were digging into their
chopaan kabobs
, as the first hot pieces of charred lamb were pulled from the sticks and popped into their hungry mouths. The hair on Zara's arms had suddenly stood at attention, as if a stiff breeze had blown up off the lake. But the edges of the bright tablecloths remained still, and the water's surface appeared as smooth as a mirror. Zara's eyes scanned the tables around her, many still sitting empty under full place settings laid out by the hopeful owner. Even on such a beautiful day the tourists were still staying away, Zara thought, scared off by the memory of the horrific attack that had occurred at the Spojmai Hotel right next door, less than one year before. Dozens had died after being held hostage for hours. Others had escaped by jumping into the lake, clinging to a stone wall throughout the night as they waited to be rescued. The Taliban had claimed responsibility, just as they did for every attack that brought big headlines, whether they actually were the ones who did it or not. But whoever had stormed the hotel with their grenades and machine guns, Zara—like the rest of the Afghans dining peacefully around her—knew they wouldn't return. They had sent their message. Perhaps it was the ghosts from that day that were the cause
of her unease, Zara thought, as she pulled her scarf tighter around her shoulders.

They remained on the terrace, warmed by the afternoon sun, as Mariam savored a bowl of
sheer yakh
, scraping gently at the mound of ice cream with her spoon as if she could make it last forever. Zara pushed the new pair of fake Ray-Bans up higher onto the bridge of her nose and allowed herself to relax, her focus switching to a pair of yellow paddle boats, shaped like swans, gliding toward the dam. The lake sparkled with a million tiny pinpoints of light, as if mocking the dull brown mountains around it.

After Omar had paid the bill and they'd started across the patio for one last look at the shore before heading home, Zara was hit once again with a sense of apprehension. Her eyes darted from table to table with the fear that perhaps she and Omar had been spotted by someone who knew her family. But Zara saw no familiar faces. She turned to search the terrace of the hotel next door, and checked behind them, peering through the glass doors that led to the interior of the restaurant, but still no one seemed to be paying the slightest bit of attention to their little group of three. Even so, Zara just couldn't seem to shake the feeling that she was being watched.

Now, by the light of the morning sun streaming through the bedroom window, Zara thought she understood. On that perfect day, a day where promise floated through the lakeside air like a kite on a string, a day when anything seemed possible, perhaps that sense of menace had instead been the arrival of a dark premonition, the foreshadowing of the unwelcome turn of events that was soon to come.

“
Salaam
,” Zara greeted her mother good morning as the woman scooped a bowlful of chopped tomatoes into the pan
of eggs. Zara took out the plastic eating mat, carried it into the dining area, and unrolled it onto the floor. As she set out the plates and the thermoses of black and green tea, the rest of the household began to gather, her uncles and aunts lowering themselves to the floor to partake in their morning meal. Mariam was now awake and as chipper as a baby bird, chattering away as she fulfilled her job as the youngest in the household, pouring water over each pair of waiting hands and offering a towel to dry.

As she scooped up her breakfast with the warm naan torn from the flat loaf passed from person to person, Zara once again felt there were eyes upon her. But this time she was definitely right, and the little smiles on her aunts' faces and the looks shared among them turned the soft eggs in her mouth into a thick sludge that she could barely manage to swallow.

Perhaps she'd gather the courage to speak with her father today, she thought as she watched his strong fingers grip the cup at his lips. He had not yet said a word to her about a proposal, so there was still a chance it was not too late. Maybe what Yazmina had first suggested at the coffeehouse had been correct. Maybe her father
would
understand, and the whole matter would soon be forgotten. But then the rest of Yazmina's words echoed in her mind.
It is the way things are done. It is tradition.
And as the meal was finished, and the women stood to clear the dishes, and the call to prayer began to sound in the street outside, and the men hurried out the door to the mosque, Zara became leaden with the knowledge that her new friend had spoken the truth.