A Cup of Friendship by Deborah Rodriguez Read Free Book Online Page A

to say was so important, but because writing was the only way he could say it. And he did not want Halajan to be unable to read one single word.
Today is the most beautiful day. The air is chilled but the sky is blue and it is the day before I see you. You are the sunshine of my week .
I have news. The new sewing machine I have been waiting for has been shipped from Pakistan and is making its way across mountains and deserts to my little shop in the Mondai-e. Let us pray that it’s not confiscated by the warlords or destroyed by the fighters in the Khyber Pass. They say it will arrive in six weeks. What a celebration we will have!
    He looked up from his paper and laughed to himself. If only, he thought, or as the American kids from the International School who bought Coca-Colas and chocolate bars at his friend Ibrahim’s kiosk across the street said, “As if.” As if he could celebrate with Halajan, take her face in his hands and kiss her and twirl her in a midnight dance. If only!
    He went back to his letter and was about to write more, when the squeak of his metal door as it opened, and the clang as it shut, announced a customer. It’ll have to wait, he thought, as he stood up, brushed aside the curtain, and greeted the man with the dark suit folded neatly over his arm. My love will just have to wait.

T he car bumped and lurched on the dirt road, throwing stones up against the windshield. Through the cloud of dust Candace Appleton could see the green of the valley ahead. Here, on the outskirts of Kabul, it was brown, dry, and bleak, just like the city itself. But right ahead was a lush, fruitful paradise. It was everything Wakil had said it would be.
    He sat beside her, behind the driver of his new SUV, talking about his plans for the new roads he was having built out this way. She admired his strong profile, imagined his lovely body under his simple gray cotton tunic and pants. On his head he wore a turban made from such exquisite silk that it looked regal. She glanced once more at his meticulously trimmed beard, his dark-rimmed eyes. He was, indeed, a beautiful man. A young man, too; ten years her junior, to be precise. But it wasn’t just that. Maybe it was his commitment to his country, to helping boys without fathers of their own, to building them a clinic, a school, an orphanage out here in the vast green countryside. Or perhaps it was his attentiveness toward her and their passionate lovemaking. Or how he’d vowed to marry her when the time was right. To have a family. Or a combination of it all. Because she had fallen deeply in love with him, which made the fact that she’d left her husband for him easier to justify.
    All these years she’d never done anything for herself, except, of course, the shopping, the little nips and tucks, the necessary things to keep her looking good as she grew older, which was a requisite for being married to a man who was in the public eye. Leaving Richard was the first real thing she’d done for herself in eighteen years of marriage. Eighteen years! She looked out the car’s window and sighed. And still, it had been so easy to walk away since there had been no children involved. She’d wanted them, and not just one—the way she grew up, lonely and treated like an adult even as a young girl—but an entire brood! When she didn’t get pregnant instantly, Richard had no desire to find out why or explore their options.
    Then she met Wakil. It was at a conference her husband had attended at the U.S. consulate in Afghanistan for representatives of NGOs and local community organizers to meet and discuss priorities and funding. She sat with the other guests, in the back, behind the round tables of the participants. But she couldn’t keep her eyes off Wakil even then—he was so very passionate about his work, and he spoke with such eloquence. Later, at the reception, her husband introduced them. The connection was instant.
    “Your school sounds wonderful,” she had said to