A Cup of Friendship

by Deborah Rodriguez

  Petr was spiffed up and decked out, all raffish charm, with a cashmere scarf around his neck and a Persian lamb jacket, carrying a Porsche man bag in one hand and talking on his cellphone with the other. With him was one of those women who could wear baggy pants loaded with pockets, scruffy hiking boots, a baggy sweater under an oversized safari jacket, and a scarf to cover her head, and still look glamorous. Her face was strikingly beautiful, with pale skin, large black eyes, and a wide mouth. As the woman took off her outer clothes, and then the baggy sweater to reveal a tight T-shirt, one couldn’t help but notice how petite she was, with slim legs and a tiny waist that made her big boobs look even bigger—Petr’s weakness, if Sunny remembered correctly. The woman’s black hair was very short and raggedly cut, which only accentuated her large eyes and good-gene cheekbones. From one wrist dangled a two-inch-wide swath of leather bangles, but her hands were delicate. She was working hard to look tough, thought Sunny.

  This woman had to be an idiot to be sleeping with Petr. Sunny knew this from firsthand experience, because she had been exactly such an idiot herself. So who was she to judge?

  Ahmet had followed them in, carrying Petr’s shiny silver handgun, meant for close-up business, and handed it to Bashir Hadi, who put it in the back. Sunny looked at Ahmet as if she were going to say something about sticking close, and he nodded and said, “I’m here if you need anything,” before returning to his post just outside the gate.

  Immediately Petr headed to Sunny, his arms outstretched, and said in his thick Russian accent, “Hello my dear. Preevyet kak dyela? How are you?”

  He asked the way all of Sunny’s Russian acquaintances and customers asked—like they meant it. He held her arms and kissed her on both cheeks. “Where’ve you been hiding? Haven’t seen you once at L’Atmo—”

  “Petr, nice to see you.” All right, she told herself, try a little harder. Be nice. They kissed on both cheeks, and breathing in his scent, she experienced a rush of déjà vu.

  He lingered a moment too long on the second kiss. “This I remember,” he said in her ear, holding her arms firmly. But she pulled away and then he introduced his friend, Isabel Hughes, who was visiting from London.

  “Petr’s told me much about you. Apparently this coffeehouse is considered Kabul Central,” said Isabel in a thick British accent, reaching out her hand.

  Sunny shook it. “Yeah, well, it’s not L’Atmo,” she said, with sarcasm. She looked at the couple before her and decided she didn’t trust them for a second. Petr’s story was that he was a “consultant” working in “counter narcotics,” as if anybody would believe that, since work of that kind didn’t pay enough to buy his Gucci shoes, much less his entire lifestyle. She was fairly certain that Petr was an opium dealer, and if not a dealer, then a middleman. He knew where the poppy fields were, whom to contact, and how to get what to whom. He was Russian, fluent in Turkish and Uzbek, which were helpful for the poppy trade in the north, with connections including an Uzbek warlord’s son. And Sunny had no doubt he made millions from it. And Isabel? Though her clothes were cliché college student attire, she was older than that and obviously just another of his many women, who’d come to Kabul to find adventure and maybe a high-rolling boyfriend or husband in the process. But those women usually found themselves doing whatever it took to make a living. If she was with Petr, enough said.

  They sat at one of the empty tables, Halajan served cappuccinos and the illegal wine in a teapot, and they chatted with some foreign aid workers and the other people who’d come in. No Jack yet, but a much better crowd than last time. And it was still early. The doctor hadn’t even arrived.

  “Look,” whispered Bashir Hadi. “This place, it is rockin’!”

  Sunny chuckled at his slang. “Well, it’s not bad. For our first.”

  Isabel had apparently been listening. “It’s brilliant,” she said, reassuringly. “Look at you. Look at all this. It’s magnificent.”

  “Bashir Hadi, I think she’s lecturing me on the power of positive thinking.” Sunny smiled, but she couldn’t hold back her cynicism.

  “Rubbish. Relatively speaking, you seem to be doing okay.”

  She was trying to be nice, Sunny thought. Give her a break. “And what about you? Why are you in Kabul?”

  “I’m on a story.”

  “You’re a journalist?” She couldn’t conceal her surprise. She’d thought the woman was a bimbo. Guilt by association.

  “Freelance. A private foundation’s hired me to do a story for the BBC on the effect of the government’s plans to spray the poppy fields.”

  Impressive, Sunny thought. The plan was highly controversial, and anything to do with poppies was dangerous, given the money involved in opium.

  “The people are worried,” Isabel continued. “The women for their children, for other crops. It’s going to be indiscriminate aerial spraying and if the chemical kills poppies, it kills vegetables, and if it kills vegetables, it may not kill people, but it’ll make them sick. Dr. Malik has spoken on this subject before. Thought I could get a minute with her. People will lose their farms, their livelihood. They’ll starve. Don’t get me started.

  “And of course it’s the women who feel strongest on this issue. They’re the ones who have to feed their families and watch over their children. But they have no protection and no voice. They’re not allowed to protest. It’s really become this insane issue, mothers siding with poppy growers, with drug lords.”

  “But the story, it’s good,” Sunny said, raising her brows. “Dangerous, though. Anything involving opium. You be careful.”

  “Now who’s giving the lecture?” Isabel smiled.

  And Sunny smiled back. This woman with the Playboy body, the punk haircut, and the stupid boyfriend might just be okay.

  “And Petr’s not my boyfriend,” Isabel said, as if she heard Sunny’s thoughts. “He’s just a friend. With friends.”

  And she was smart. And the way she talked made Sunny realize this was not a regular Petr woman at all.

  “Want some tea?” Sunny held up her teapot filled with wine.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Isabel held up her cup. Sunny poured, and the two women toasted to being positive.

  The doctor arrived about a half hour late, having gotten lost on her way to the coffeehouse. There were no street signs in Kabul, so the only way to find a new place was to use markers, like the herd of sheep grazing on the garbage, or the green gate under the Nokia billboard, two houses down the muddy alley, or the third gate with the blue metal door.

  But the driver had missed the green gate and ended up a mile away. So he called from his cellphone and Sunny had to navigate him through the streets. By the time they arrived, there were almost twenty customers—nineteen more than the usual Wednesday night. The doctor was wearing a beautiful punjabi, a long dress with baggy pants, in a deep blue with gold embroidery, and a long blue scarf that she wore on her head and then wrapped over her shoulders like a shawl. Once inside, she took the scarf off to reveal beautiful long black hair that had been woven into a single thick braid.

  She spoke in Hindi, which most Afghans had some familiarity with because of their obsession with anything Bollywood, with an English translator repeating what she’d said. She cited statistics most people in the room already knew: that the Afghan fertility rate was the second highest in the world, but that Afghanistan was second only to Sierra Leone for maternal mortality rates, that every twenty-eight minutes a woman died in Afghanistan during childbirth. But she spoke mostly about her recent visit to the Badakhshan province, where the maternal mortality rate was known to be the highest in the world. For every sixteen babies born, the doctor said, one woman died in labor. Clinics were too far away, and even if a woman in distress could reach one, they weren’t well enough equipped to help. Besides, the doctors were men. Given the strict separation of the sexes, women would rather die than be helped by a male doctor.

  She told a story about a pregnant woman in the village of Shattak who
had complications during labor. The nearest hospital was thirty-seven miles away and there was no car. So what were the villagers to do? They got a ladder and laid it on the ground, then they laid the woman on the ladder and lifted it up, and twenty men took turns carrying the makeshift stretcher along the windy, rocky path, rarely used by a vehicle. The pace was slow, and the mother died on the way.

  The room was silent. Sunny noticed from the other side of the room that Yazmina had stopped washing dishes and was listening with rapt attention from the kitchen. Watching Yazmina, her eyes full of concern and questions, Sunny knew she’d have to talk to her soon, even if it shamed her. For the health of the baby, if nothing else. Yazmina looked her way and Sunny smiled reassuringly.

  Dr. Malik continued, explaining the midwife-training program she had created for young women from districts throughout the province, from which she already had more than fifty graduates. She spoke passionately about the need for donations of medication and supplies, for food and shelter, for education, for volunteers. With the illiteracy rate so high and the disrespect for women so deep, women didn’t have a chance to deal with their own health issues without more support. The crowd bombarded her with questions, with ideas, but she eventually prepared to leave in order to make an early morning meeting with the NATO health agency. She promised to return the following week to talk about the issues of children’s health, if people agreed to give some time to her cause.

  “I’ll be right back. Got to meet Dr. Malik before she leaves,” Isabel whispered into Sunny’s ear, with Petr looking on. “Provide her with some insights about NATO.”

  Sunny watched Isabel as she pushed through the crowd, and as it slowly dispersed, she could see her deep in conversation with the doctor. Isabel was one tenacious woman.

  Later that night, after the customers left, Halajan said to Sunny, “When the doctor comes back, there will be more people. And the next time, more still. Like the saying goes, drop by drop a river becomes.”

  Sunny felt as if she’d awakened from a long sleep. The night had been a success and she was invigorated. “And we’re helping the doctor. If we can get her some volunteers and make some money while doing it … So, how’d we do, Bashir Hadi?”

  He was counting money at the coffee bar. He looked at her and smiled. “Very well, Miss Sunny. We did okay. But at this rate, a wall is months away. And winter’s just beginning. You know how difficult it is to get people to go out at night in the cold. We’ll have to work harder to get people here next week.”

  “Let’s plaster the coffeehouse—a sign on every table, the front door, and I’ll email everyone I know in town and ask them to email everyone they know. Maybe I can get the email list from the UN.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Bashir Hadi said.

  Sunny went to her room carrying a teapot and a cup, turned on her computer, and checked for email. There were the usual news reports (Taliban insurgents fighting in the south, Pakistani nuclear weapons suspected) and promotions from her meat distributor in Dubai and from her oil company.

  Jack was trying to reach her on the instant chat. She opened it.

  Tried to get there, held up in a meeting. Miss me?

  To which Sunny replied:

  Don’t you smiley face me. Someday when you’re the head of the CIA, I’ll tell everyone that you use emoticons. That’ll get their respect.

  She sipped the wine and awaited the reply.

  You disparage the smiley face? What am I to think of a woman who would do that? Speaking of which, did you get people tonight? Or do I have to feel ashamed?

  Sunny answered:

  It wasn’t bad. You can hold your head high. But we’ll do even better next time. The doctor is coming back. She is incredible.

  She took another sip while waiting for Jack’s response.

  So … I’m waiting.

  Sunny smiled and wrote:

  Thank you. Seriously. It was a great night.

  It seemed like forever before Jack responded:

  So, when do you start work on the wall? Maybe then you’ll smiley face me.

  Sunny typed furiously:

  Stop being such a nudge!!! My god, you’re a pest.

  And she laughed when Jack sent this:

  Only if you stop with the exclamation points. And the smiley faces.

  She responded:

  Good night, you.

  And then he did, too:

  I have to go out of town. I’ll be back in a couple weeks. I know you’ll miss me. Stop crying. And go to bed.

  She left her room, walked down the hall and up two flights of stairs to the roof. This was her place. There was a small table and chairs, pots for planting flowers once spring arrived, and her easel and palette. If riding in the car was where she could see, the roof was where she could breathe. In Kabul, in the coffeehouse, she was sometimes lonely, but never alone, except in the small space where she slept. And so, she made this roof her own.

  It was windy and the sky was clear, black, and littered with stars, one of the wonderful perks of living here. Without electricity at night, there was little man-made light to diffuse the natural light that emanated from above. It was as if you could see into the sky, she thought, through its layers and into its core. Layers of stars, like translucent blanket upon blanket. The beauty was overwhelming. The wind blew her hair, and she willed herself to stop, to breathe, to feel.

  It was a good night, tonight. She felt it was the beginning of something, more than just making money for the café’s safety features. People had come to her place to learn something, to talk and listen and be moved. It felt good, it felt like she was doing something important and not just making a good cheeseburger.

  She wondered what Tommy would think when he got back. She shrugged. He’d have liked the crowd. He was a people guy. But he wasn’t impressed much by ideas, and he hated politics. Now, Jack, well … she stopped herself. No use comparing them. They were very different men. Not to mention that one was hers and one was her friend.

  Finally she went downstairs to her room, wishing Tommy were waiting for her there. It was in bed where they got along best, she had to admit. And it was in bed at night when she missed him the most. Tonight, feeling the buzz from the coffeehouse, the passion of the doctor’s words, all the people, the emails from Jack, she was acutely aware of feeling lonely. As she spread her favorite orange-scented lotion over her arms and then her legs, giving more attention to her elbows and her heels, she allowed herself to think that maybe Tommy would come back soon. Another month, hopefully. He never wrote, he never called, so there was no way to know. No contact from the field, he’d told her. The only times he called was to get her to Dubai to meet him for a two-day furlough.

  She climbed into her bed and covered herself in the warm soft blankets of rusts, reds, and russets. And then she turned over on her side, as she did every night. But tonight, she admitted to herself that she’d felt lonely even with Tommy the last couple of times he was home. Her mind shifted to Jack and how, if she were honest with herself, she’d like to be touching him, laughing with him, holding him against her body there in her bed under her roof, under the stars. But like Tommy, he was gone, too. And if he was thinking about anybody in his bed under the stars, it was surely his wife back home.

  Candace looked out at the valley from her apartment in the tower that rose high above Wakil’s compound, past the tops of the trees. From this vantage point, the trees appeared sparse. The Taliban had cut many of them down during the war to prevent the enemy from hiding in them, and local people had cut down many more since to burn for heat. The forest had been nearly wiped out and it occurred to her that the thick grove of trees they’d driven through to get here existed only because it had been situated along a river.

  To the west, she could see the dry, dusty wasteland that led to Kabul, and to the east, the Hindu Kush that rose dramatically, their jagged peaks silhouetted against the early morning sky, their barren sides partly shadowed so that they looked like fold
ed paper. From this vantage point, the problems of the country seemed as small as the houses far off in the distance. She felt like a queen surveying her vast kingdom.

  The guards outside her door, and the female servants who would bring her breakfast and take her to Wakil’s private hammam to help her bathe and give her a massage, added to her feeling that she was part of Wakil’s royal retinue. He attended to every detail except the one that she wanted most: to spend private, intimate time with him. She felt a wave of desire, to hold him, and feel his body under her, but this was not going to happen. They hadn’t made love since they’d arrived.

  Wakil said it was because he was here in his home, his school, and he could not. It was impossible. He said she was his soul mate, that his heart had found its home, that making love to her was one of the great pleasures of life, and that she was almost impossible to resist. But that they should not, not here anyway. It would have to wait until after they arrived in Kabul.

  They were leaving for the city today and Candace had mixed feelings about it. Though she respected all he had done for these children, and loved seeing him with them and at his work, she’d rather have Wakil the man than Wakil the prince. And yes, she had to admit that she was ready for nice restaurants, to wear pretty clothes, and to sleep with Wakil in his house. Of course, they couldn’t really sleep together, and they’d have to stay on separate floors, but in the night, when everyone else was asleep, he could come to her room.