25
“No, not like that. Like this.” Even through the thick gloves, the touch of Sky’s fingers on top of her own made Kat tingle. It was as though a charge ran between them, like when you reach for a doorknob after walking across a carpet. He had to have noticed. But with his head so focused on the work to be done in the vineyard, it was hard to tell. She allowed his hands to guide hers down the thickening stems, sending the fresh leaves fluttering to a pile at their feet. “You got it?”
“I do,” she said, struggling not to laugh at his seriousness. What she really wanted to do was grab his curls and plant a big one right on those juicy lips. But he was gone in a flash, off toward the spot three rows over where Layla was wrestling with her own vines.
It all seemed kind of stupid to her, throwing away perfectly healthy leaves. But Sky had carefully explained to both of them how important it was to make way for the sunlight to reach the grapes, to allow the fruit to ripen fully and evenly. Besides, watching the way he worked with the vines was something she could do all day. It was as if they were his babies, the way he cared for them so tenderly.
She had been up before dawn this morning, leaving him behind in the barn to sneak back under the covers on the living room couch before anyone could see her. They hadn’t been caught, so far. It didn’t seem as if anyone had really noticed, not yet, which was a good thing. Who knows what Sunny would think? She’d probably throw a fit about Layla being around that kind of thing. Besides, it really wasn’t anybody’s business, anyway.
Kat worked her way down her own row of vines, her strokes growing quicker and surer, her mind calmed by the repetitive nature of the task, her skin turning warm and brown under the rising sun. “You’re a natural. You’ve got the touch.” She felt Sky’s breath on the back of her neck and smiled.
“You don’t know that about me already?” she answered as she turned around to face him. Sky placed his hands on her hips and pulled her against him. “Wait.” She held up a hand to his chest. Across the vines, Kat could see Layla unfurling her cotton shawl onto the dirt. The girl stood at an angle toward the eastern sky and set her feet squarely below her as she raised both hands to her shoulders. Then she placed her arms across her chest, her right wrist over the left, and stood with her eyes focused straight ahead, mouthing words only she could hear.
Kat rolled her eyes. “There she goes again. I swear, who needs a watch when Layla’s around?”
Sky stepped back a little. “What’s it to you?”
Kat shrugged. “She’s in America. Why is she even bothering?”
“And America’s a free country. If she chooses to take a break to speak to her God five times a day, that’s her right. Who knows?” he shrugged. “Maybe she likes it.”
“Yeah, right,” Kat snorted. “Just like she must enjoy wearing that blanket around her head in the middle of summer.”
Sky narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s with you today, anyway?”
“Nothing’s with me today. I just think it’s kind of like brainwashing.” She jerked her head in Layla’s direction.
“So what if she’s proud of who she is, and where she came from. It’s more than I can say for some people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means just what I said.”
They stood in silence for a minute watching Layla as she bowed down to touch her knees, her back as flat as the top of a table. She rose and then dropped down to a kneel, her forehead and nose coming to rest on the ground below.
“Ridiculous.”
“Whatever, Kat. I think it’s kind of cool.”
“Whatever.”
Sky turned his back on her and focused his attention on the vines. She continued to work in silence by his side. The sunlight hit the grapes in dappled patches as the sacrificed leaves sailed silently to the ground with the touch of their hands. What had happened to a perfectly good morning? She knew she probably shouldn’t get so worked up about this stuff, but how could she help it, with Sunny and Layla throwing all that Afghanistan shit in her face every day? It wasn’t good for her, being here, on this island. What she needed to do was to forget, and this wasn’t exactly turning out to be the best place to do that.
But seriously? The house on Twimbly was beginning to feel more like home than any place had since her mother died. And how could she not see Sky every day?
“Did you used to pray?” It was Sky who spoke first.
Kat nodded.
“So why did you stop?”
“I stopped when my mother died.”
“Me, I like to believe in a little bit of everything,” Sky said after a beat. “Sort of like those bumper stickers you see around the island that spell out coexist with all the different symbols, like the crescent moon and Jewish star and cross?”
“Hmm. That must be nice for you.” Kat couldn’t stop the cynicism from creeping back into her voice.
“You don’t believe in anything?”
“I believe that you’re born, you live, then you die. And sometimes things suck a little in between, and sometimes they don’t.”
Sky’s arms fell to his sides. “That’s kind of random. And sad.”
“It’s just what I think.” Kat pulled at the leaves with a new intensity.
“You’ve got some anger issues, girl.”
“I’m not angry!” she insisted, knowing he was right.
“Okay.” He held out his palms in a halting gesture. “You’re not angry. Whatever you say.”
“Don’t act that way with me,” she heard herself snap.
“Well then don’t act that way with me, with us,” he said, pointing to Layla across the vines.
“What way?”
“C’mon, Kat. You know what I mean. You can be all fine one minute, and then it’s like a switch goes off, and you’re another person.”
“That’s not true!” she protested.
“It is true, and you know it.”
“You don’t understand anything.” She turned away from him.
“Whatever,” he said to her back. “Maybe I don’t understand. And maybe you don’t either. But you need to at least try to deal with whatever is going on in your head, cause you’re the only one who can fix what’s broken in there.” He knocked at the top of her head with a light rap of the knuckles, and moved on to the next row.
As if what was broken could ever be fixed. How she hated herself for arguing with Sky. But sometimes her mouth seemed to have a mind of its own, spitting out words she didn’t really mean and things she didn’t really feel. She ran to catch up with him, already five vines ahead and nearly finished with the row. He continued to pull at the stems, even as she ran her fingertips down the sides of his bare arms. “Sky-guy,” she whispered into the back of his ear. “Sky-pie.”
“Cut it out, Kat.” He shrugged off her hands with a heave of his shoulders.
She plucked a greenish-purple grape from its stem, stuck it between her front teeth, and pushed her way between his body and the vines, smiling. Now Sky laughed, and bent to take the fruit from between her lips. His tongue had just begun a little dance with hers when Kat heard a gasp. Sky stiffened and stepped back, and from over his shoulder Kat saw Layla watching them, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes as round as pennies. “Stop looking at me like that!” Kat yelled over the vines. “You’re giving me the creeps.”
“Whoa. Chill, Kat.” Sky brushed the hair out of his face, his eyes on Layla as she scooped up her shawl and began to run toward the house.
“I mean it,” Kat continued, an unwelcome rage showing its teeth. “I’m so sick of feeling like I’m being judged all the time!”
“Well you’re the one always trying to be careful, reminding me not to say or do the wrong thing around her, you know.”
“Yeah? Well I’m sick of that too. Why are her stupid ways more important than our ways?” Her eyes struggled to hold back the tears she wanted no one to see.
“Jesus, Kat, get a grip, will you?�
�� He threw his gloves down onto the dirt and took off after Layla.
Kat remained behind among the piles of rejected leaves, feeling confused, ashamed and angry all at the same time, holding fast to the one thing she knew to be true and good—the earthy taste of Sky’s kiss as it disappeared into her own lips.
26
“And what did we do today, little one?”
“Magic city!”
“That’s right. We went to the magic city. And the school with the cars. What is that?”
“Special secret.”
“That’s right. It is our special secret.”
Halajan laughed to herself as they walked together toward Qala-e-Fatullah road. Such a clever girl. Just like her own daughter Aisha, now a big-shot professor at the German university. She had high hopes for this one as well.
“Poppy!” Najama held out her arms as the shaggy beast came tearing down the street toward them.
“Damn dog, on the loose again,” Halajan muttered as she watched Poppy run right past them, her pointy ears pinned back flat against her head and her tail invisible between her legs. Strange, she thought as she turned back to continue toward home.
It wasn’t until they made the last left onto their street that she noticed something was truly not right. Things were far too quiet for a Thursday afternoon. Where was everybody? A red bicycle lay on its side, abandoned in the hot dusty road, next to a lone goat rooting greedily through a pile of rotting garbage. She caught sight of two women in blue burqas huddled behind a parked car, and her eyes went straight to the skies in search of trouble. But she could hear no planes, see no flames, smell no smoke. Halajan tightened her grip on Najama’s hand and quickened her pace. They had just hurried past the shuttered bread shop when she felt an urgent tug on the back of her chador.
“Please, you must not!” Halajan turned to find herself face to face with Fattanah. The baker’s eyes flashed out a grim warning. “We have heard shooting.” Fattanah placed her hand on Halajan’s chest, as if that would be enough to keep her away from what she was now beginning to fear might be a situation that could change the lives of her family forever. The wailing of sirens rose in the distance. “Watch the baby,” she said as she thrust the girl into Fattanah’s arms and hurried toward home, her spindly legs carrying her with the speed of a horse.
The sirens seemed to be chasing her as she neared the coffeehouse gate. A quick look into the guardhouse showed that it stood empty, Daoud’s gun leaning idly against the back wall, the only motion coming from the small TV screen, where a man was trying to win a million dollars. The first real movement she saw was a customer stumbling out onto the street, dazed and dusty, his pants torn at the knees. “My family!” Halajan screamed at the man. “Where is my family?”
“You don’t want to go in there,” the man said in an eerily quiet voice as he fumbled for his phone.
Suddenly a parade of armed men in uniform was racing past them, through the gate and into the courtyard, disappearing through the coffeehouse door. Halajan hesitated only briefly, until it seemed clear there was to be no more shooting. Then she ran in behind them.
The sight before her eyes stopped her dead in her tracks. The patio was a bloody battle zone, the ground littered with bodies, some moving, others not. Daoud’s motionless body was sprawled across the path as if he had been caught in midair. A man she didn’t know lay facedown on the pebbles, his arms covering his head, a pool of urine seeping out from under one leg. One woman cradled the head of another in her lap, rocking back and forth as she offered a stream of quiet, comforting words. Like animals at the slaughter, Halajan thought as she heard the sound of wailing, deep and desperate. Never before had she seen such brutality. It was as if the coffeehouse itself were bleeding. And in the middle of it all stood a trembling witness—Najama’s little peahen, her grey beak suspended in a silent scream.
“Halajan!” Yazmina screamed out from the coffeehouse door, her arms wrapped around her rounded body. “Where is my baby? Where is Najama?” The old woman picked her way across the wreckage, the broken glass and shards of pottery, the rose petals smashed like the skin of a peach, the spilled coffee pooling in warm little puddles, the chairs and tables lying abandoned on their sides.
“She is safe. But Ahmet? Where is Ahmet?” she cried, the name like a sharp stone in her narrowing throat as she whirled around in search of her son.
Yazmina shook her head. “I do not see him. Bashir Hadi is injured, but I think he will be all right.”
Halajan ran her wrinkled hands slowly down over her face and breathed in deeply. “Then it is us who must help these people, Yazmina.” She squared her shoulders and turned to assess the situation around them. Most seemed to be more stunned than injured, and to those Halajan pleaded for help with others in need, placing tablecloths over torsos shivering in the summer heat and tearing strips of napkins to be tied around torn limbs to hold back the bleeding. She sent Yazmina inside for water and towels. Around her the desperate symphony of pings and rings of those checking on their loved ones rang out as word of the attack spread rapidly throughout the city.
Then she turned her attention to the far end of the patio, where an overturned wooden bench lay on the pavement, two legs in jeans and a small pair of bloody sneakers sticking out from behind it. She knew who it was right away. Zara’s eyes were open, searching Halajan’s face for answers.
“It is all right, little one. Shhh, don’t try to talk.” She bent down next to the girl and took her cold hand in her own. A river of red flowed from beneath Zara’s torso as the color drained from her face.
“Khoda rahem kona,” Yazmina gasped at the sight of the girl. May God have mercy.
Halajan took the towels from her hands and placed them gently against Zara’s side. “She needs help, fast. She is leaving us quickly.”
“But what can we do? It will be forever until the ambulances arrive.” Beads of sweat ran down Yazmina’s face, which was looking as pale as that of the girl on the ground below.
Halajan ordered her back inside. “Go get me my scissors. And more towels.” She lowered herself down onto her knees and brushed the hair out of Zara’s eyes with her hand. The girl was awake, her eyes filled with pain. “It is all right, young one. Be strong. We must all be strong.” She turned her face toward the sky. “Where is my son?” she cried out desperately, her voice ringing across the patio.
Two arms embraced her from behind. “Ahmet! You are here!”
“I’ve just arrived.” Ahmet nodded toward the coffeehouse. His chest heaved with exhaustion, his face looking as if it had aged ten years in ten minutes. “Shokr-e-khoda, I thank God that my family has been spared. Bashir Hadi is injured, inside.” Halajan gasped. “I think he will be all right, Mother. It is a wound on his leg. It was he who killed the gunman.”
Halajan sat frozen, holding her son’s shaking hands in hers. This madness, this evil, how men can use the veil of religion to wage such barbarity, was always beyond her understanding. And now they had dared to come to her door. Her home! Her family! And then they would proudly claim their responsibility for the attack, as if they had done something noble and righteous. It made an anger so fierce rise inside her that she could feel it pounding from head to toe. How can our people stand for this? Sometimes it seemed to her as if the whole world was mad, some joke made up by an insane puppet master for his own demented entertainment.
“We must help this poor child.” The girl’s body was limp, her blood smeared across Halajan’s lap.
“She must go to the hospital!” Yazmina yelled as she made her way across the devastation.
“But I cannot leave the coffeehouse. We must tend to all these people, I must watch out for Bashir Hadi.” Ahmet turned toward the carnage on the patio with tears in his eyes.
“Ahmet!” his mother suddenly barked. “Pick up the girl and bring her out back. To the alley.”
“But why?”
“Don’t ask. Just do!”
A dazed Ahmet looked at
his mother, and then at his wife, then bent down to lift the moaning Zara into his arms and followed the two of them through the coffeehouse, out to the alley where the old Mercedes stood idle. Halajan opened the back door, and ordered Ahmet to lay the girl down across the seat.
“Mother, I told you I cannot leave now.”
“Get in.” She nodded at Yazmina and pointed to the back where Zara lay.
“But …”
“Get in!” Then Halajan opened the driver’s side door and inserted herself firmly behind the wheel. With a flick of the wrist she turned the key sitting in the ignition, and the motor began to purr. Ahmet stepped back, his jaw dropping down to his chest. Halajan slammed the door. “We’re going to the hospital.”
“Yes, they are all fine. Ahmet and Rashif are at the coffeehouse now, doing all that must be done.” Yazmina paced back and forth across the waiting-room floor, her phone glued to her ear. Halajan had left her there at the hospital to return, alone, in the car, to gather up Najama and carry her home. On the other end of the line Sunny’s friend Candace was pressing for details. Candace had been the first to call, the news traveling straight to her Los Angeles hotel room from her people in Kabul within minutes of the massacre. At first Yazmina had no desire to talk, but now the words seemed to pour out like the tears she had yet to cry.
“I am at the hospital, waiting for a friend to get out of surgery,” she told Candace. “She is a girl we have met. I’m trying to track down her family.”
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