At least she no longer sat so ramrod stiff against him. At least she’d left her hair loose so the long strands ran against his face like a memory of her palm.
#
Daylight, two days later, and Khadija looked around her as Michael stopped their horse in a narrow stone defile of the mountains.
They’d been riding through a maze of narrow, boulder-filled gorges south of Ghowrayd Gharam. The mountains had sharpened here; the side-hills were too steep for the trusty brown gelding. Now, in the nighttime, they rode in the narrow valleys between the mountains, sometimes venturing out to the silver-slicked river by the light of the moon. In the daylight they dry camped at the edges of dry glacial lakes.
“We’ll make camp here.” Michael helped her down off the horse and she was too aware of his hands at her waist.
While Michael took care of the horse, Khadija cleansed herself in a palmful of water and spread her shawl on the ground. Then she knelt, facing Mecca for her morning prayers.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of Worlds,
The Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful,
Thee we worship, and in Thee we seek help.
Owner of the Day of Judgment
Show us your straight path,
not the path of those who earn your wrath
nor those who go astray.
Allah help me reclaim my honor.
When she finished she found Michael looking at her.
“What?”
He looked away.
“What?”
“It’s nothing. But sometimes I question every faith. Christ on a cross. How the Taliban treated people over the years. I saw friends hung bloody and dying from a tripod in a village square at the order of a Taliban Imam. And women, prostitutes some of them, but still good women, stoned by the same men who used them the night before. The Imams demanded the crowd applaud.”
He went silent a moment, and glanced at the sky.
“Now I focus on saving the living.”
He moved stiffly as he finished unsaddling, but often his gaze went up to the sky where the moon faded towards rebirth.
“What is it you watch for? What are you expecting?”
“It seems like we’re caught in that moment of silence before an earthquake. When the birds sing again, the quake will begin.”
“You’ve kept us hidden from Hashemi.”
“Khadija, if he finds us again, I want you to run. Don’t trust him. He comes from a form of Islam so harsh, the world will break under it because it has no tolerance for anything but itself. We’ve been lucky so far—he wants my information. But with each mile closer to the Panjshir Valley and Kaabul, Hashemi’ll have to rethink his tactics. Dead, I might not provide information, but I also can’t betray the Taliban’s plans.”
Plans? What did Michael know?
He left the horse to graze the desiccated grass. The animal had lost the glossy plumpness it’d had when they got it.
“Tea?” she asked, wanting him to talk further and hoping for some rations.
“There’s no fuel to heat water.” He scanned the sear landscape. Little grew here.
His lips quirked in a genuine smile that lit his face. “When we reach the Panjshir we’ll have tea everyday.”
The offered friendship made her pull back. Since that night on the ridge top she’d been careful to keep well away from him, except when they rode together. He seemed to study her even more than he had done in the past. In unguarded moments she thought she saw a look of open self-loathing that confused her.
He settled himself against a boulder.
“If it means anything, I didn’t want it to be so hard.”
She hauled her gaze back from a falcon high in the sky.
“I mean the travel. Leaving your father. Being alone with me.” His pale gaze looked away. “If it’s any comfort, your honor’s safe.”
She couldn’t help how she startled. She pulled her petu over her head to hide her uncertainty.
“My honor was lost when you brought me with you and when I failed to wear the chador. Everyone will think we were lovers.”
“Not even if I swear it didn’t happen?”
“And who will listen to a kofr?” Bitterness soured her tongue.
“Khadija, I’m not kofr. I worship Allah—something beyond—in my own way.”
“You don’t pray.”
“Many Muslims don’t do the daily prayers, but they still follow the Word.”
“Then they aren’t Muslims.” But she knew that wasn’t quite true. Her father’s second cousin had taken her in when she was in London and he was a good Muslim man, even though he didn’t pray at all required times.
“All beings are of the same breath, Khadija.”
Anger snapped her head up, the petu sliding back on her head.
“You sound like my father—always quoting Rumi. Well, I’m not Sufi. I’m Sunni and don’t believe in Sufi lies.”
“What I say isn’t Sufi. It’s the Quran.”
That almost stopped her. She pushed herself to her feet.
“You twist my words. Why should I even listen to you?”
“Because we travel together. Because I want to keep you safe. Because I want us to understand each other. I’m not your enemy, nor the enemy of the Afghani people.” He stood to face her. “I was born of Afghani-American parents.”
“My father told me, remember? Your great-great-grandfather was an Afghani spy for your country.” She shook her head. “A family tradition, this spying?”
“I’m not a spy.”
“What are you then? You come to this country and run little plots that get innocent…animals…killed. How many have died for your plots, Michael Bellis? How many more will?”
He looked away.
“I…deserve that. I’ve deserved to die many times over, but sometimes one must….”
“… do what is necessary.” She finished the old refrain and it made her furious. “Damn you Americans,” she swore in English. “Damn the Canadians and the British and the Russians and all your kind.”
She stomped off after the gelding, stopping to run her hand down over the animal’s soft neck, its shoulder. She leaned into it, burying her face in the rough mane and the safe, warm scent of living animal.
She heard him approach.
“Khadija.”
She would not let him near her again.
“You and the Arabs. You fight wars in my country. You seduce our people one way or another so we no longer know our own minds. What is Afghani anymore? Taliban? The vision that the West has of a democratic Afghanistan? That is my father’s vision. Why not something different? Why not an Islamic state that lives under the Law?”
“Where women are locked away?” he asked softly. She heard rock-fall above them on the slope. The horse’s head went up and it snorted.
“Where women are safe.” She faced him and the landscape lurched.
Lurched again as tectonic plates squabbled, and she fell against the gelding. Michael staggered and then the landscape stilled. Pebbles skipped down the slopes around them.
“Aah, but are they loved?”
The question made the landscape seem to lurch again. Michael’s open look changed to wariness. Did he know what he asked?
“My father loves me.” It came out stiff.
“Yes. He does.”
There seemed more he would say, and oh, Allah, the open wound of his eyes.
Before she could stop herself she was on her toes pressing her lips to his, tasting vibrant life and hope. The world seemed to explode.
Horrified at what she’d done, she fell back before his arms came around her. She turned to run, but he grabbed her.
Then he threw her on the ground.
Chapter 27
The gelding squealed and cantered away as Michael yanked her down behind a massive boulder. Khadija fought against his too-tight arms, against his body on top of hers, his breath coming fast.
She was a fool. A bigger fool and si
nner than she’d ever been in London. She’d been fascinated by the way a man and woman’s body fit together, and by the feelings it raised. She’d been hungry for it, to learn, to experiment, only to be made a fool of. Then she’d been shocked at what she’d done and at James’s betrayal.
And now she opened herself to such a thing again. She had no honor and deserved what he was going to do to her.
“No! Please, Michael, Stop! I…I shouldn’t have done that.” She pounded his back with her fists, scratched his face. He raised his head.
“You shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but now’s not the time.” He held her down as he unslung his rifle.
She stiffened. “You’ll kill me after, won’t you?”
His gaze dropped to hers.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
A bullet pinged off the boulder. Another slammed into the earth to one side of their hiding place and she suddenly realized what was happening.
“I didn’t pull you here for my health, woman. Or to take advantage. We’ll save that for later.” It was as if he read her thoughts again.
His grin cut her and she felt herself color. Another bullet slammed into the earth beside them.
“Shit.” He rolled away to peer around the boulder.
“Stay here. The bastard’s up along the ridge, but he’s alone. I have to stop him before he calls reinforcements.”
He was on his feet and moving like one of the snow leopards that lived in the high mountains, somehow bringing life to the dead landscape even as he blended to become part of it. She managed to follow his movements a few moments, but then he was gone, leaving her huddled behind the stone with the shreds of her dignity.
Another shot echoed off the valley walls. Was it Michael’s rifle or the other one? Silence. This was her chance to leave. If she stayed with Michael, no good would come of it.
On her knees, she scanned the landscape. No one there.
If she could follow the valley until the eastern mountain ended, then she could make her way to the river and the road. It wasn’t that far. Even someone as ill-equiped for the mountains as she was should be able to make it. Then she just had to avoid Hashemi and she’d find help and get back to her father and safety.
He must be frantic. How was he managing with no one to help him?
She picked out a shelter not too distant—a flattened slab of stone leaned against a boulder. Guilt bent her low as she half-ran, half-limped, across the open space. A rifle report sent her diving for cover, the bullet slamming into the ground where she had been.
Her hands shook. Her knees shook, but she had to keep moving. There. The next boulder. She wormed her way there. Ahead, the horse stood with its nostrils flared, ears twitching as it scanned the defile for what caused the danger.
Khadija aimed towards it. The animal must be beyond rifle range. She would be able to run, then, no matter what happened to Michael Bellis.
She glanced back,not knowing if she wanted him to live or die. “If you die, it’s because you deserve it. I wish I’d told you that.”
But she left him the horse. At least give him a chance to complete his mission, because she’d be on her way home soon enough. Past the animal she ran openly down the valley, sun in her face, wind at her back, but the sound of rifle shots stopped her. Ahead, the mountainside ended. Two long defiles ran eastward, but one angled northward, the other south. Michael Bellis would go south if he lived. That meant her path lay northward.
She jogged now, the terrain rough under her boots.
“Allāhu akbar,” she intoned as she ran. God is greater than anything we can conceive of. “Inshallah, let me end this now. Let me be free of this madness.”
Her thigh burned with effort. The sun rose higher. Behind came the echo of more rifle shots. She didn’t stop this time.
She stopped just as the earth lurched again and went still. So many earthquakes in this unsteady land. The wind picked up dust and in the silence she heard it pattering against the stone.
Faith was not something that could be swept away like dust. Faith—tawhīd—was something that swelled you with certainty. Once faith had been a shield, a fortress that would help her avenge Yaqub’s death. But now—now she was like Kaabul’s ancient walls—or—or the earth under her feet.
The thought brought the memory of warm arms steadying her.
“Damnation. Michael Bellis, get out of my head!”
Gravel slid on the mountainside behind her. She spun, but the morning had passed and the sun was from the west, blinding against the hillside.
Something moved there. Animal? Man? She squinted. There was nothing that could mean her any good. She turned and ran.
Her feet slipped on the loose stone. She tripped on an outcropping of rock. She went to her knees, scraping the heels of her hands and her knees through the thick cloth of the jalabiyya. The sun beat at her back. Her blood was loud in her ears. Her breath tore through her chest and her leg screamed for relief, but she dared not stop.
A shout behind her and she stretched her stride. Ahead the defile narrowed. The rush of water filled her ears. The river. She had made it. The road beside it would bring safety. If she turned north she would find the last town. They would help her to her father, give her life back to her. If only Papa were safe.
The shout came again, but this time from in front. How could Michael have moved so fast? She slowed, wondering if she’d erred again. So many of her actions had turned back on her like a snake.
She was right to escape. Her father needed her and she would not forget that again. She darted past the mountain spur towards the bright flow of water and the road.
Right into the arms of Abdullah Hashemi.
Chapter 28
Khadija fought, but Hashemi held her firmly. His breath carried the sour scent of old tea and cigarettes.
“Whore! Have you enjoyed fornicating with the enemy? Has he paid you for your time?”
She fought harder, trying to twist away from the darkness of the words and the guilt they brought.
“I’ve done nothing to shame myself.”
He snorted his disbelief, his grip tightening on her arms. His black gaze bit into her, cold as a cobra’s. This man would kill her and feel justified doing so. Michael had warned her, she realized.
He shoved her towards three waiting men.
“You show yourself like a brazen. What man could not have you?”
The men’s hands held her arms. The stench of garlic and naan clung to their clothing. Hashemi looked from Khadija back the way she had come. “Where is your lover, now?”
“He’s not my lover! I escaped. I came because I wanted to get back…to you.”
“A lover’s quarrel, then? Is that what sent you scurrying to my arms?” He looked thoughtful a moment, the sunlight catching on the few grey threads in his beard. “Bring her. We might use her to flush him.”
They marched southward along the hard-packed road to where two Jeeps sat beside the river. One of the men whistled what sounded like a falcon cry and from the slopes came an answer. Another came from farther down the river. And farther.
The number of men Hashemi had hunting told how badly he wanted Michael. The thought gave her pause. Not a spy? It was what she’d heard American medics in the refugee camps call a “bald-faced lie.”
They made camp beside the river as the sunlight failed. Khadija they shoved to a spot close by the water.
“Leave this spot and I kill you,” growled the armed man she recognized as the lookout from the house in Feyzabad. Two of the men ranged along the riverbed, seeking debris for a fire. Two more men appeared along the road from down river, the dust on their clothing and the fatigue in their faces, suggesting hours searching the mountains. One carried a brace of partridge along with the automatic weapon slung over his shoulder.
“Has anyone seen Babrak?” Hashemi scanned his men.
The others looked at each other and shrugged.
“He took the slope, j
ust there,” said one man, nodding at the mountain north of them. “I went father north and kept him in sight until he passed the first ridge.”
Hashemi glanced in her direction. “Then we might assume good Babrak is no longer with us.” He turned to her. “What do you say? Do I have the right of it? Shall Babrak’s wife and children sing of his passing into Paradise?”
The look in his eyes sent chills up her spine. He hated her—possibly all women. Finally she nodded. “Your man shot at us. Michael—the Amrikaayi—he went after him. I heard many shots.”
“And he left you in safety and yet you left him. Interesting.”
“I told you. I escaped. I need to get back to my father.” Khadija kept her eyes averted. Once, when he needed her, she had goaded this man to carry water for her. Now fear of him left her weak. She needed to be strong, to make Hashemi understand.
“He cares for me. I see it in his eyes. I lulled him into thinking I felt the same, and waited my chance to get free. That’s when you found me. I was trying to get back to Feyzabad—and you.” Why did bile sour her mouth as she spoke the words? She did want to get back to Feyzabad, and Hashemi’s faith was a clean wind, wasn’t it?
She must have hidden her confusion better than she thought because Hashimi considered her and nodded.
His men placed a kettle to boil and Hashemi settled beside the fire, his gaze still on her. The shadows lengthened about them, the sunlight abandoning the river valley to the wind that blew down from the snow fields of the Hindu Kush. Khadija shivered. In the silence the kettle boiled and one of the men brought Hashemi a cup of the steaming liquid.
They brought nothing to her.
The sky turned indigo and the men roasted the partridge whole in the coals of the fire. The smell of burning feathers changed to roasting meat and set Khadija’s stomach rumbling. Another man brought rounds of bread from the Jeep and they dipping the bread in their tea, wrapping the seared meat in naan and eating. Their voices were harsh as the ridge of mountains caught against the sky.
What were they waiting for? What were they going to do to her? She realized she was shivering.
Ashes and Light Page 17