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eyes off them. They nodded. He opened the gate. Then two more, this time Americans. “Good afternoon,” they said in halting Dari. “ Salaam alaikum, ” he answered them. Ahmet never stopped to talk or ask questions, and he didn’t use a metal detector, like the fancy restaurants. But he had what he considered the surest method for safety clearance. He never failed to look into the eyes of the customers, because they reflected deeper truths than any momentary feelings of impatience or hunger or disappointment. The eyes of a man betrayed his heart. Even with a smile, the evil man’s eyes were as hard and shallow as a dry riverbed; even with a furrowed brow, the eyes of a good man were deep. In the Koran, the eyes were the gateway to the mind. “You will see” in the Koran meant “to know”; “thine heart and thine eyes” referred to your feelings and your thoughts, as Ahmet had been taught since he was a young boy in school.
    After the busy mornings, the café quieted down until the afternoons, when people came for business meetings or just to talk politics, war, and the latest game of buzkashi before going home for dinner. On Fridays, the day of rest, when nobody went to work, the café was open and busy all day. No matter how hard Ahmet tried, he wasn’t interested in his people’s version of polo, played with a dead calf instead of a ball. Soccer was his game, or “football,” as the Brits called it. He enjoyed watching it on the big TV that hung on the wall inside the café. Foreign men bet on the games, but he could not participate. Betting was forbidden in the Koran.
    He chuckled to himself at the memory of Sunny bringing a big TV home one afternoon. It was in a huge box, sticking halfway out of the trunk of her car, the hood tied down with twine to keep the thing from falling out as the car bounced over the severe potholes and plentiful rocks in the road.
    Sunny had gotten out of the car, slammed her door shut, and turned to Ahmet. She flipped her hair out of her face, put her hands on her hips, and said, “You’re going to love this, Ahmet. Wait until you see today’s game.” She was referring to his favorite team—the Brazilians, who were in the finals against South Africa.
    For years they’d watched the games on that big color TV, which sat on a small wobbly table in the back corner of the café. Ahmet was sure that one day its legs would go, falling to the floor under the weight of the huge TV. But it was better than what they had before—a small black-and-white one, with rabbit ears, as Sunny called them, laughing, making fun, when she first arrived.
    Getting the new TV to work had been another matter. It had taken three weeks, a new satellite dish on the roof, three friends to help run the wires, countless trips to the electronics and hardware stores, and several prayers to Allah that Ahmet wouldn’t miss the entire football season.
    But when the TV finally worked, it was a beautiful thing! Ahmet had never seen such color. The games seemed so alive! The TV brought more customers into the café and Ahmet felt new respect for Sunny. Here was a woman unafraid of hard work, one with the perseverance of a goat that banged its head against the fence in the hopes of getting to the other side. However, here, too, was a woman like his mother and his sister, who challenged his expectations of the weaker sex and made him uneasy as well.
    Two Afghan men who Ahmet knew approached the gate. He greeted them, held the gate open, and reminded them they’d need to check their weapons. Too many guns, he thought, his eyes following them as they walked through the courtyard and were welcomed by Bashir Hadi. If everybody has a gun, everybody is prepared to kill and to die.
    Though today maybe half the people inside were locals, the café’s customers were mostly foreigners, both men and women, who found the place so comfortable that they would sit for hours, in groups talking or alone with a book, while Bashir