“Where can I find Ismail?”
Another shrug. “You do not need to concern yourself. If you insist on this, I will speak to Ismail myself as soon as there is opportunity.”
And with that Amy had to content herself. But the tension didn’t leave her stomach as she returned to the upstairs office. Soraya was at her computer, still looking exhausted and unhappy but clearly intent on making up for lost time.
When Fatima arrived this morning, she had hurried to find Amy. “Please forgive me. I forgot to inform you that a cousin died on Friday and my—yes, my cousin Soraya was needed to help with the funeral.” Fatima had avoided Amy’s eyes, and Amy chose not to press the matter.
At Amy’s desk, Jamil was bent over her laptop, where the two of them had been picking through digital video clips. Always withdrawn, today he added agitated and restless.
What a gloom fest. In the wall mirror Amy caught her own tired face and puffed eyes. Yeah, and I’m such a ray of sunshine.
Picking up the week’s chore list, Soraya headed downstairs.
Amy tapped the laptop screen with approval as a neighborhood project boy announced with the widest of gap-toothed grins, “I am learning to read so I can be a pilot someday and fly a plane.”
“That’s good. We’ll need to put subtitles in English on the screen. Can you do that?”
Jamil nodded. His vest hung open as he bent over the keyboard. Tucked into an inside pocket, Amy spotted an olive cover. “I see you’ve been reading the book I gave you. So what do you think?”
Jamil’s face darkened immediately. Snatching the slim volume from his pocket, he pushed it away from him along the desk. “Yes, I have been reading it, and you may have it back. It is not, as you say, the Christian holy book. It is lies!”
Amy was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
Jumping to his feet, Jamil paced around the office. “I have now read many teachings of your book. They are good teachings. Many the Quran teaches as well. But they are not what Christians follow. The Quran teaches Muslims the five pillars of Islam, and every Muslim obeys. But your teachings? Your book says to be holy and pure, to commit no adultery or fornication. But Christians have no respect for marriage. They do evil things, men with women, men with men, too. When I saw such things on your television and movies, I thought them only stories for men’s imaginings. But now I have seen with my own eyes, and I know they are not imaginings but true.”
Amy stared in astonishment as Jamil reached the window and spun around, clenching his fists. She wouldn’t have believed the silent young man capable of such fervor. “You’ve seen with your own eyes? What are you talking about?”
“The foreigners next door. I saw them bring food from the Chinese restaurant. And more than food.” Jamil flushed. “Please, I cannot even discuss such things. And there is the alcohol and opium. The Christians condemn my countrymen for growing poppy to keep their families from starving. But is it not Christians who buy and consume the opium? As it is Christians who make alcohol, which the Quran forbids above all other drugs. They use the power of their armies to bring it into my country against our laws even as they use their armies to destroy the poppy. Is that not hypocritical?
“Your book says to obey parents. But your children on your television and movies show no respect to parents or teachers, and no one dares rebuke them or discipline them to do right. No, if this book is true, then it is not the Christian holy book. If it is indeed your holy book, then it is a lie because Christians do not live according to its words.”
Jamil’s agitation was now making sense. Amy too had heard the Scandinavian firm partying last night, and even the expat guidebooks listed Kabul’s growing network of Chinese restaurants as the latest front for brothels that serviced the foreign presence in the city.
“All the things you’re saying, the things you’ve seen on TV—that’s not Christianity,” Amy said. How could she explain that the very freedoms Christianity’s influence had originated could become the freedom to be very unchristian? “Being American or European isn’t the same as being Christian. Far from it. America is simply a country where Christians and others are free to practice their faith. Including Muslims. And free to live any way they choose.”
“And this freedom is better than behaving in a way that respects Allah and religion and family? I have read that most people in your country claim to be Christian. Is this not true? And now that I have read your holy teachings, I see they are not so different from being a good Muslim. So why do your people not obey these teachings? Why does your law not require it?” Jamil stopped his pacing to add, “Though, please, I do not say these things of you. In truth, you live as a Muslim. A very good Muslim.”
Amy was silent. She couldn’t even imagine how much of what Hollywood represented as the American way of life must look to these people. It offended her, and she’d grown up in Miami. Could Amy honestly even make a case that the rampant sexuality, immorality, and materialism of the West were more pleasing to God than the puritanical and often brutal tyranny of the East? In reality, there were things she was finding admirable about Jamil’s people. Not the warlords and corrupt officials but the ordinary people who worked hard to survive and took their faith as seriously as Amy did.
In fact, they could teach the Western churchgoer much in that regard. Their dedication to prayer. The way they lived consumed with pleasing the implacable, unknowable God the mullahs presented to them, while people back home obsessed over the latest clothing style, electronic gadget, or luxury vehicle. The warmth and hospitality that would give their last piece of bread to a stranger as a matter of course.
Then murder their daughter or sister for speaking to a man. And keep half the population from ever reaching its potential. There was the dichotomy.
“Part of freedom is making choices,” Amy said slowly. “And that is a good quality of my country. People are free to choose to do right or wrong, whether to follow God or turn away. Many do turn away. But it isn’t a real choice to serve God if it’s not from your heart. Christians believe that real change must come from inside by personal choice, not be forced from the outside. That goes for countries as well. A friend of mine told me once that no country could really free another because freedom and the choice to change has to come from inside, from the people of a country.”
“And you believe this will work? The Quran teaches that the world must be brought into submission to Allah. Only then can there be peace.”
“Has there been peace where Islam has conquered? Did Islam bring peace to Afghanistan? Don’t your Wahhabis and Shias and Sunnis fight each other? And the Pashtuns and Tajiks and Uzbeks and Hazaras?”
“That is because they are not good Muslims.”
“Look,” Amy said gently, “I can’t condone everything done in my country as right before God, any more than you defend all the years of killing here or abuse those women downstairs have endured. I guess that’s why our standards can’t be how human beings choose to behave in any country but God’s law. For a Christian, that standard of behavior is laid down in our holy book, the Bible. If you want to know what a Christian really is, don’t look at TV or even politics. Read the Bible. A Christian is just someone who follows Jesus Christ and his teachings. If they don’t, they’re not a Christian, plain and simple.”
Soraya reentered the office. Returning hastily to his seat, Jamil bent over the computer keyboard. But a moment later, his hand shot out and the New Testament disappeared within his vest. He was advancing to the next clip when Amy’s cell phone rang. The voice on the other end was American and female.
“Amy Mallory? My name is Becky Frazer. I’m a nurse practitioner and trauma counselor. I’ve been working for about twenty years with an aid organization here in Kabul. Debby Martini thought you might appreciate an invitation to the weekly gatherings some of the expats take turns hosting.”
Even over the phone Amy could hear a smile. “Maybe even a friend?”
Jamil went back to reading. This
time he returned to the beginning and read without skipping. There’d been a time when Jamil devoured learning, relished pushing his sharp mind to its limits. Then an aeon when he’d schooled himself not to think at all. To maintain his mind assiduously blank and so survive horrors within and without.
But now curiosity and the old thirst for understanding were rekindling in him. If Ameera was a Christian, and a Christian was truly and simply no more than a follower of the prophet Isa Masih, Jesus the Christ, then to know what that meant, he had to know who this Jesus was.
That his predominant interest was to make sense of this very unusual woman, Ameera, who had entangled herself inextricably into his life, Jamil could admit. Yet as he read, the personage slowly emerging from shadows to sharp focus on these pages was fascinating, so that Jamil found he was no longer reading to wear himself into dreamless slumber nor thinking of Ameera at all.
Why Ameera had chosen this prophet to emulate was easy to understand. Isa’s compassion for the sick and hungry never faltered. Yet the prophet was not always meek and mild as Jamil had first considered. He spoke up with uncompromising wrath against the Pharisees and teachers of the law, who seemed to be the Taliban and religious police of his day. Jamil approved when the prophet picked up a whip against those who enriched themselves from worshipers going up to pray. Were there not merchants even today who grew fat off credulous and desperate pilgrims swarming saints’ tombs and holy places in search of miracles and answered prayers?
That the rulers did not kill him, unarmed though he stood before them, suggested the protection and favor of angels. Perhaps though he wielded no sword nor conquered territory for Allah, Isa had his own strength.
And his teachings! Some thundered with the power and fury of a mountain storm. Others were stories that one might tell to a child. And yet, like the one he’d read of treasure hidden in a field, the more Jamil pondered them, the more hidden meaning they seemed to contain.
Jamil pored over Isa’s teachings on prayer. He’d wondered just what it was Ameera did while Jamil and the others were prostrate on their faces. True merit-earning prayer followed a strict pattern of posture and recited words, and at first the model Isa had given his disciples didn’t seem a prayer at all.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
This time Jamil tamped down his anger to ponder the words. Did Allah truly count forgiveness as so meritorious an act it could in any way cancel out Jamil’s own insurmountable debt?
“Your kingdom come, your will be done.” That Jamil understood. But to pray to the Creator of the universe as to a father? It made no sense. Allah was the all-knowing and yet unknowable. Though one might cry out for mercy and forgiveness, Allah was infinitely remote from his creation, demanding submission and obedience, not communication.
And yet that image of a child approaching a loving father with unquestioning confidence that his needs and hurts would be attended induced a pain in Jamil’s chest.
The teaching that most gripped Jamil’s imagination was a story. A simple one like those Ameera told the children. Two builders. A wise one who built a house on the rock. A foolish one who built a house on the sand. And when the storms came and the streams rose and the wind blew to gale strength, the house on the sand was destroyed, but the house on the rock stood firm. Here the analogy was not veiled. “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice,” the prophet Isa had said, “is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
That night the story entered Jamil’s dream. He was standing on a hilltop. Below him stretched Kabul, and though he couldn’t see it, he knew that beyond his sight was all of his birth land. Afghanistan, land of his heart, his people. In the streets the people were rejoicing because the storms were over and they could rebuild their houses, their land. But as they built, the storm clouds rose, the sky grew dark, the wind began to howl until it was a gale driving the people before it in search of shelter.
But the new houses and tall buildings they’d erected did not offer shelter because, horribly, irreversibly, they were folding in on themselves, crushing those within. And as Jamil watched, helpless to intervene, he saw that all had been built upon sand. Floodwaters washed the sand away beneath the foundations, leaving the city and land once more in ruins as though by war.
Jamil sat up straight in the darkness, his heart pounding as though he’d run a hard race. Even as he recognized that it had been only a nightmare, his face was wet with tears.
“The fiber-optic fencing came in while you were gone. The new camera system should be here within the week. Totally noninvasive. They’re so small Khalid’s visitors won’t even know they’re under surveillance—” Phil broke off his status report as a blast rattled the CS command suite’s picture window.
Steve beat his friend out onto the second-story terrace. A distant plume of smoke was already fraying out of shape under a brisk November wind.
“I’d say at least a kilometer,” Phil commented, walking out between the two columns that held up the terrace roof to study the horizon. “That’s number three in twenty-four hours.”
As a wail of sirens started up, Steve frowned. This last month’s travels embedded in the protection of military escort and constant movement had insulated Steve—and his principal—from Afghanistan’s recent upsurge in violence. There’d been a spate of suicide bombings in Kabul and a dozen insurgent attacks around the country just in the few days since Khalid and his detail arrived back in the capital.
The plume of smoke was drifting away now, the same wind ruffling Steve’s hair so that his teeth ached with cold, a reminder he hadn’t grabbed up jacket, tactical vest, and helmet. Steve was retreating behind the shelter of a column when the shrilling of his cell phone rose above the sirens.
“You hear the blast?” It was Cougar. “Word just came in—a car bomb hit a local police precinct. Nowhere near the ministry building. Or you, of course.”
That casualties didn’t even come up was a sign of how commonplace large numbers of people dying had become. As Steve snapped the phone shut, he became aware of a fresh disturbance. And this one was close.
To Steve’s right, a Guat patrolling one of the balcony walkways was peering over the perimeter wall, his M4 clutched nervously. Stepping over a flower bed, Steve joined him. The open balcony was even windier than the terrace as Steve leaned out beside the guard.
“Un alboroto.” The Central American indicated the maze of flat roofs and mud walls that was the adjacent slum, then translated his Spanish to halting English. “A fight? It is coming this way.”
The tumult audible above sirens could be a fight, a riot, or a sporting event. And it was definitely coming closer. Then the sirens went dead, and Steve relaxed at the shrill pitch of excited shouts.
“It’s just children. And look!” Steve pointed at a blotch of yellow and blue taking to the sky among the rooftops below. A moment later, a red and green diamond rose to snap at the yellow and blue’s tail. This was kite-flying weather in Kabul.
Children or not, prudence dictated checking out any large group coming this close to their primary. It wouldn’t be a first for children to be used to cover an attack. Steve returned to the terrace. “Phil, would you mind driving for me? I’d like to see something.”
“I’ll meet you out front.” Phil limped toward the stairs with alacrity. The medic’s disability limited the active-duty roles Steve could offer, a reason he’d chosen his former comrade-in-arms for this little jaunt. Besides, there was no one Steve would trust more at his back if the chips were down.
Steve stopped in the command suite long enough to grab tactical vest, helmet, and coat. By the time he reached the front gate, Phil was backing out a dented Toyota Corolla, its rusty yellow proclaiming it had once been a taxi. At least for personal tr
ansport, Steve had attained the low profile he preferred. Taking shotgun position, Steve settled his M4 in his lap.
Steve kept an eye on fluttering blotches of color as he gestured to his companion to turn right or left. Deep ruts cut by truck and cart wheels scraped against their underbelly as Phil eased the hatchback through the dirt streets. Steve waved the vehicle to a stop short of their destination, the lane ahead too narrow to take the car.
“I’ll be right back.” The noise had not abated as Steve stepped out. But spurts of delighted laughter and the cheerfulness of voices were reassuring enough to push the M4 back up over his shoulder. Sheer joy was impossible to feign.
The alley ended in a dirt patch currently open because mud-brick walls were just going up around the perimeter. Above nearby roofs, Steve could see the mustard yellow of Khalid’s mansion, a guard pacing a second-floor balcony. In the middle of the empty lot, several dozen ragged and unkempt children clustered around two kite strings. So did two taller figures, their shapes as well as heavy winter cloaks and headscarves female. All heads were craned skyward with such concentration that Steve’s quiet strides carried him unnoticed to the edge of the group.
“Ms. Mallory, what in heaven’s name are you doing here?”
The effect was electrifying. With startled screams, children whirled around or bolted away. Then mingled cries of triumph and dismay rose—along with the red and green kite. Most of the pack took off running after the drifting kite. Which allowed Steve to glimpse the other kite flyer winding his string.
One of the female shapes had scattered with the children, but the taller one first stiffened and then turned around. “Mr. Wilson, did you have to scare everyone half to death? And just when I’d finally talked Farah out of her burqa. Now look what you’ve done.”
Steve felt apologetic as he took in frightened faces sheltering behind partly raised mud walls. The other female shape stood her ground staunchly at Amy’s back, but her headscarf was snatched tightly over her face so Steve could catch no glimpse of her features. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Veiled Freedom Page 23