A Cup of Friendship by Deborah Rodriguez Read Free Book Online

Hadi worked the kitchen, Sunny took orders, Halajan, his mother, bossed everybody around, and Yazmina kept the place clean and orderly.
    Yazmina, now there were two eyes, Ahmet thought, as his own followed an old man who was crossing the street in front of him surrounded by sheep. He was hitting a particularly fat sheep on its backside with the long stick he was holding.
    Yazmina’s eyes were like the bottomless pools of the Band-e Amir, the lakes of the northern mountain region, which he’d seen in pictures. He was convinced she had probably been a whore before Sunny brought her here and was up to no good, because her eyes were the only pair that he couldn’t read.
    He turned to look through the front courtyard into the coffeehouse. And there was Yazmina, wiping a tray, laying it on the counter, placing two saucers, then two cups on each. Then a basket of sweets. Look at me , Ahmet thought, let me see those eyes of yours. They will tell me the truth . As if she heard his thoughts, she did, and he immediately turned away, back to the street.
    Most certainly a fahesha , a prostitute, he said to himself, as he lifted his rifle high on his shoulder and nodded at two foreign women approaching the gate. Their heads were covered, but they wore the pants and shoes of the West, probably with NGOs working futilely to help a people who needed no help. Such women, like his own sister, might be intelligent, with good intentions, but there were rules, and respect must be paid. His beloved country had survived various regimes in the past and it would survive whatever came its way. But if traditions were ignored, if the Koran was not read faithfully and understood literally, then his people were just as low as the snakes crawling in the brush in the desert.
    And Sunny, like all the Americans—except for Jack, Ahmet admitted, who showed some respect—flaunted the traditions. No wonder his mother was so comfortable in the café. Sunny and she fought like dogs but were as connected as two cats from the same litter. They’d hired Bashir Hadi, a Hazara! And then they gave him a raise and a bigger job. Now he was almost running the place. How could they give that kind of responsibility to a Hazara? And then came Yazmina, a mountain girl from Nuristan, a Kafir. Ahmet kicked at the dirt. The café was becoming a UN of its own.
    Even Ahmet was changing. Yes, he still heeded the muezzin’s call five times a day, praying on his own rug or at the mosque. And he kept the rules of Islam, but he could feel himself bristle at talk of the Taliban’s resurgence in his country. Tradition was one thing, but cruelty and violence were another. One could argue that that wasn’t what Muhammad intended at all. He frowned at the setting sun behind him to the west. Still, it was up to him to uphold the traditions of his home. Inshallah , he would. The world might be changing, but the word of Allah was forever, and it was Ahmet’s lifework to watch over his mother’s house, to keep it safe, and to keep it righteous under Allah’s watchful eyes.
    Rashif sat at a table in the back of his shop, behind the sewing machine, behind the counter and wall covered with spools of thread, behind the curtain that separated his living space from his working space. He opened the drawer at the table’s base and pulled out a piece of ivory paper, the vellum he’d bought at the art supply store on Paint Street. He held the corner between his thumb and index finger, and confirmed again how much he liked the feel and the weight of this paper. It was smooth enough to accept the ink of the pen, and opaque enough to prevent the writing from showing through to the other side, yet textured and light enough to make it elegant when folded. And the matching envelopes were equally fine. He opened the ballpoint pen’s cap and attached it to the back of the pen.
    Dearest Halajan , he wrote, in his simple penmanship. He wanted to be sure every word could be read, not because what he had