A Cup of Friendship

  They were sometimes serious and sometimes nothing, simple stories of what happened on a given day, where the tailor went, what he saw. A fat old man needed a new kameez. His grown son asked for some money. A family of birds built a nest in a tree in his backyard. Some refugees greeted him with chai when he delivered ten new shalwaar kameezes to their tents outside Kabul. They were full of details, and some even made him chuckle from the truths of an observant eye.

  This man, this stranger to his family, this modernist had been writing his mother letters for several years, going against every teaching, threatening their position in the world and their place in the afterlife. Everything Rashif represented went against Islam and therefore, everything Ahmet believed. Without the proper introductions, without Ahmet’s agreement—for he was the authority of his mother’s house—there could be no letters, no communication whatsoever! If anyone were to find out, his mother would be called a whore and he an infidel. Women were sent to prison—or worse—for smaller offenses than this. Wasn’t a woman stoned to death just recently for leaving a husband who had beaten her? This man, this Rashif the tailor, deserved punishment. How dare he violate his mother like this? He was godless and he could ruin her.

  But what bad thing did his mother really do? Receive some letters that she couldn’t even read?

  And was Rashif really so bad? Helping the Afghans who could not help themselves? He worked hard; he was thoughtful, if not religious enough for Ahmet’s taste.

  And then Ahmet realized something far more illuminating than finding these letters: He was arguing with himself about the right and wrong of his mother’s liaison with Rashif. He was truly a mix of his mother’s son, a child of the Koran, and an Afghan. His heart saw gray when his brain saw only black and white.

  But a man does not go unpunished for such a violation. Ahmet knew what had to be done. He put the letters back very carefully in their neat stacks and tucked them in the back of their drawers.

  But one he kept for himself. It wasn’t a recent one, but one from the middle of a stack, one that wouldn’t be missed. He folded it in half and put it deep into the pocket of his pants.

  Halajan made her way on the bus, across the dry riverbed on foot, and into the Mondai-e. Something made this trip, on this day of this week, more urgent than ever before. Her concern about Ahmet seeing the letter on the floor or Yazmina and her pregnancy or that stupid old Candace talking about love and men or Sunny having taken that stupid trip to Mazar-e Sharif with Tommy … something. She walked as fast as her two spindly legs would carry her, looking down at the rough ground, careful not to turn an ankle, until she got to Rashif’s shop.

  She entered. He stood. He walked to her, and, alone in the shop, he took her hands in his and put his forehead against hers. She backed away, looked around to be sure no one was watching. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “You,” he said.

  “Yes,” she answered, “me.”

  “I can’t wait much longer. I’m tired of these stupid letters.”

  “You don’t look tired,” she said, smiling. “You look like a boy.”

  But he did not return her warmth. He was impatient. “No more letters. I want you, your inane son, and your life with mine.”

  She looked at him closely, wondering if he knew, wondering if she’d read the wrong Rumi poem that day, and said, “Do you have a letter for me or not? Maybe, Inshallah, if Allah smiles on you, I will write you back.”

  “The day you write me back is the day everyone leaves Afghanistan—the Americans, the Pakistanis, the Russians, everyone—except us Afghans.” He sounded bitter.

  “Okay, that is a challenge that I accept. Now give me the letter.”

  “Here it is. Read it.”

  “How can I? I must go.”

  “Why will you not read it in front of me? Go on, read it!”

  He knew and he was angry. “Then I will read it to you.” He tried to grab it from her hand, but she stuck it deep into her pocket.

  Read it to her! Blood rushed to her face and she feared he’d notice her excitement. To actually hear him read a letter! She swallowed to contain herself. “It’s too late.”

  “Do you think I need the letter itself to know what it says?”

  Halajan knew this was improper, but her feet were glued to the floor, as if they were weighted by her love. She could not walk away from Rashif.

  He recited the letter:

  “Dear Halajan, On Christmas Eve I visited you in your place of work. And look: We survived! Ahmet didn’t hurt me, of course he would never hurt you, and lightning from the heavens did not strike. There are no rules to keep us apart. I will win your son over. You shall see. And he will be my friend, like a son.

  “I wish I’d said something funny in there, but I did not.”

  “It’s good,” said Halajan. “Keep reading, or reciting, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “And do you know why, Hala, that this is so?”

  And now, Rashif whispered, his tone softening, his voice like the sweet music of a summer’s night:

  “Because when two people are meant to be together, it is as if their souls are entwined like the roots of an elm, needing each other for support, helping the other to find water under the soil.

  “A little corny, right? When I write it, the words sound like magic. When I recite it, they sound silly.”

  Halajan’s heart went out to him. “Go on. Your words are good.” She wanted to kick herself. Good? Stop saying good! Say good-bye!

  He continued. “I have made a decision. This is the year we will happen. This is the year we will begin our lives as one. Good night, my Hala. Yours, Rashif.”

  Rashif put his hands together and bent his head as if in prayer. He stood that way for what felt like minutes and then he looked up, directly at Halajan, and said, “All these years, and you have never read one, have you?”

  She could feel all the blood in her body rush to her face, where it burned through her cheeks like wildfire. She turned toward the door.

  “You knew,” she said, her back to him.

  “Not long,” he answered.

  “I was ashamed.”

  “I know.”

  “But I have found someone to read them to me, and we’re almost caught up.”

  “I am so pleased,” he said. “Yazmina?”

  She heard his footsteps behind her, felt his breath on her neck. She locked her knees so they would not buckle under her.

  “Yes, and she will teach me, too. You will see. I will write back.”

  “And I will be here, waiting.”

  … and so I said to the boy, why do you steal? You know it is wrong. No matter how hungry you are, no matter how the pain gnaws at your insides, there is no acceptable human reason to steal. Only the rat in the gutter, who cannot reason, steals when he is hungry. And then, my dear, do you know what this wise old man did to teach this boy a lesson? I handed him some afghanis—enough to buy a week of food. I’ve gotten soft in my old age …

  Yazmina was reading Rashif’s newest letter to Halajan when Ahmet stormed in.

  “Did you ever hear of knocking?” asked Halajan, as she and Yazmina tried in vain to gather the letters and hide them under their clothing.

  “You!” he yelled at Yazmina. “You are involved in this?”

  Yazmina’s green eyes widened. “I am only reading her a shopping list.”

  Ahmet laughed with anger. “A shopping list? Are these the words of a shopping list?” He grabbed the letter from her and started to read it.

  “Ahmet!” yelled Halajan. “I am your mother. You bring disrespect into my home.”

  “You both bring shame upon this family,” he answered. “Your actions are outside the law of Muhammad. You must stop with these letters now!” His bellowing shook the thin windows.

  “Shame can only be brought by the man who allows himself to be shamed,” said Halajan.

  She tried to take the letter back from him. But he held it, and then tor
e it in two, and then again and again. Then he threw it on the floor and spit on it. His face was red with anger.

  “You will destroy everything we have worked hard for. If anyone else found out, we would be—”

  But Yazmina groaned loudly, and then again, grabbing her stomach and breaking out in a terrible sweat.

  Ahmet stood still, his eyes popping out of his head, his brows furrowed in concern and confusion.

  Halajan went to Yazmina, sat behind her, and held her head against her chest, wiping her sweaty face with her dress. “It is time.” To Ahmet she said, “Go get Sunny. We need hot water.”

  Yazmina moaned in pain, her green eyes dull, unfocused.

  He stood there frozen. “What is happening? Is Yazmina all right? We should get her to a hospital!”

  “Don’t ask, just go!” Halajan yelled, thinking that for once it was to their benefit that her Afghan son was as ignorant as other Afghan men. To the Afghan man, there is sex and then there is a baby. “Get Sunny!”

  He turned and slammed the door behind him, his footsteps loud on the stairway.

  When he was gone, Yazmina said, “I am wet.”

  Halajan looked under Yazmina’s chaderi and saw that her water had broken. The baby was coming now.

  In seconds Ahmet returned with Sunny, who knelt down next to Yazmina and asked, putting a hand on her cheek, “What is it? Is she sick?”

  “Not really,” said Halajan. Then she looked up at Ahmet and said, “You need to leave. This is a woman’s affair.”

  Ahmet didn’t know what to think. But facing Yazmina’s pain and possible illness, he knew he couldn’t just leave her. “What is it? Will she be all right?”

  “You have to leave, Ahmet. You haven’t always listened to your mother, but now you must.”

  And Yazmina screamed in pain.

  “This is what I need from you.” And, though it had been almost twenty years since she’d practiced, all the years of midwifery came back to her. “I need towels and hot water, I need the shears Sunny uses to cut her hair, and—”

  “Shears? You will not cut my Yazmina’s hair!”

  When he said that, Yazmina stopped moaning, and all eyes were on Ahmet.

  “No, I will not hurt her, nor will I cut her hair. But if you want to help, then get out of here and help!”

  And he ran out the door. Yazmina looked at Halajan. And Halajan said, “And why shouldn’t he love you? How could he help himself?”

  And then Halajan took off Yazmina’s heavy chaderi, and she and Sunny were wide-eyed with how large Yazmina had become since they last saw her.

  “Halajan, the hospital.”

  “We cannot. They will—”

  There was a knock on the door. It was Ahmet, this time knowing he should give the women time to prepare. They covered Yazmina and told him to enter. He was carrying towels, a steaming teapot of water, and the other supplies his mother had asked for.

  “And now, Ahmet, you must stand guard outside and not let anyone in,” said Halajan. When he was gone, she said, “Now, no more talk. We have a baby to bring safely into the world.”

  Ahmet was sick with worry. What illness could possibly possess Yazmina, making her so suddenly, so violently ill? As he stood outside at the top of the stairway looking east, he could see the reflections of the setting sun in the windows of Kabul and the glow on the mountains beyond. What beauty would allow another to suffer so? he wondered. The world was not always a fair place.

  And then he heard her scream. It was as loud and as blood chilling as the scream of that soldier whose leg was torn off right in front of his eyes in last year’s suicide bombing on Chicken Street. But those screams stopped when the soldier lost consciousness. Yazmina’s continued for an hour or more, but in his frustration over his powerlessness, he lost count. All he knew was that she didn’t deserve the pain she was in.

  He almost opened the door several times. But it was only when he heard another scream, which at first sounded like the cat out his back window, the one that cried in the night, that he finally couldn’t stop himself. He opened the door and then he saw it: his mother handing Sunny a baby, covered in blood and thick fluids, and Yazmina, finally lying quiet, exhausted, her face covered in sweat, her hair damp with it.

  “Wha—?” he began.

  “Come in and keep quiet,” interrupted his mother with a harsh whisper. “You’ll disturb the baby.”

  Just as Yazmina had known, her baby was a girl. Halajan’s experience came back to her, and both baby and mother were well. Sunny washed the baby, wrapped her in one of Halajan’s chadors, and laid her on Yazmina’s chest so she could hold her.

  The baby’s tiny head was covered with wispy black hair. Her eyes were closed, but Yazmina knew they were Najam’s eyes.

  Only Ahmet couldn’t understand what he was seeing. “But how?” he demanded. “You have no husband! Who is the father? Who did this to you?” His head was spinning, he felt as if he were in someone else’s body, and he couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth. “Whose baby is this?” he bellowed.

  “This is my baby,” answered Yazmina. “My Najama. Daughter of my dead husband.”

  “Your baby? You disgust me. You are a dirty kafir! Like the foreigners in the coffeehouse who bed down with anyone, like animals.” He felt as if his whole world was collapsing. Not just the traditions forsaken, not just her betrayal, but his dreams of love, his hope for a future, his heart itself, all were shattered.

  Halajan stood up, put her hands on her hips, and faced her son. “Najama is my baby,” she said.

  Sunny looked at her and understood. She stood, too, and faced Ahmet and said, “She is my baby, too.”

  Ahmet looked at them, thought about how he’d be seen in the coffeehouse, how weak and not in control of his own home, and he spit out these words: “Then you’re all the same, all fahesha. And you will pay for your willful ways.”

  “Now do you see what I meant when I said that you cannot keep this baby?” Halajan asked Yazmina after Ahmet left, slamming the door behind him. “It’s dangerous, not only for the baby, but for you.

  “Now, Sunny, you see why she had to hide it,” she explained. “A woman without a husband, who is with child, is nothing. Or less than nothing.”

  “Now what do we do?” asked Yazmina, stroking Najama’s head. “You gave me a bed and a roof and a purpose. Now it’s not only me. It is too much. Please, Miss Sunny, I beg you. Do not fire me. I am so happy here. I work hard, I—”

  “I would never fire you, Yazmina. You are part of our coffeehouse family—my family. And your baby, well …” She laughed. “I don’t love all babies, to be honest, but I will love yours.” She was lying, a little. But look at what happened with Poppy. She couldn’t imagine life in Kabul without that mangy mutt, as Jack called her.

  “Now we have something to celebrate.”

  “No, Sunny,” warned Halajan, “this is not a happy occasion. Don’t you see that this birth, with no father—”

  “But there was a father,” Sunny said.

  “—with no living father, could mean the death of Yazmina and of us all? What is Bashir Hadi to say? And we heard Ahmet. We bring shame on their heads. To have a baby means you have to have made the baby, and with no husband—”

  “But I did have a husband—”

  “But nobody knows if he is really the father. And it doesn’t really matter. He’s not here. For all concerned, there is no father. Yazmina’s life will be in danger. She will be seen as impure, or as a woman who makes money from men, and she works in the coffeehouse with khaareji, foreign men, so people will think it is a khaareji’s baby, so no khaareji who speaks to her will be safe. They’ll think she is selling more than coffee, and you know the power men have in Kabul.

  “Do you see, Sunny, that this is why a pregnant woman in Afghanistan does not discuss her condition? She barely acknowledges it. Do you not see? It’s very embarrassing to discuss it because it is admitting that you did the thing that got yo
u pregnant in the first place. Those things are not discussed in our world. I know that’s difficult for a khaareji like you to understand—”

  “Like me?” Sunny was surprised at Halajan’s use of that term, usually used only to insult or demean. “But I thought we were friends, and friends help one another.”

  Halajan answered, “We are friends. But there will always be the distance of oceans, customs, and history between us. Besides, you’re the boss.” She smiled.

  “Really? I thought you were the boss.” She smiled back.

  The baby let out a cry.

  “She is hungry,” Halajan said. “It’s time to learn to feed her.” But what Halajan really wanted to say was, Don’t let yourself love this baby, because soon, when she is strong enough, she will be gone. So don’t let yourself love.

  Ahmet answered the muezzin’s call and went to the mosque for the evening prayer. He usually prayed on the small rug in his own home, but tonight he felt he needed the mosque and his community around him, as did others, apparently. It was very crowded. He greeted the familiar faces and wished his father were there with him. Attending prayer at the mosque made him think of ancient traditions and family, of fathers and sons, of loyalty and responsibility to the faith. He knelt on his prayer rug facing east and put his nose to the floor in front of him and begged God to reveal the truth and show him the way. How does one love God, he wondered, and love a woman? A woman with a baby? A baby who’s not your own? How do the teachings deal with such issues? He knew the Koran to be a book of patience and wisdom, of love and kindness, and not the book of violence and retribution that some had attributed to it. He knew Muhammad married many widows with children and that loving Yazmina and her baby would be a righteous thing to do—if it was true that she really was a widow.

  And yet. Had he been a man for whom crying came easily he would surely be crying now, in frustration, in sadness, in pain.

  There were expectations. There were ways a woman was supposed to behave in Kabul and ways a man was supposed to react. There were obligations to fulfill and lessons to be learned. The Koran wasn’t always explicit about what to do under which circumstances. Sometimes it was vague and up to interpretation.