Veiled Freedom (52 page)

The ritual was one he'd never seen, but he knew it because it was part of childhood hero worship, stories told and retold by elders to a wide-eyed next generation. The prayers were those of a warrior going into battle and for absolution of sins. He could understand now why so many chose this route, because there was indeed a euphoria, an adrenaline rush and sweet release of knowing oneself completely clean inside and out, forgiven, all worries of past and future, all ties to this earth, relinquished. Ahead, only one quick step into eternity.

The very potency of that euphoria became the strength of the doubt that shook him.
Forgive me if I have chosen wrong. Let me not waver now from my pledge.

Then they were rising to their feet again, his companion embracing him gingerly. “The guests are in place now. The ceremony will start shortly. Then the delegates will proceed to the loya jirga. You must be in place before them, or questions will be asked. It would be most prudent if you remain in here—” a gesture indicated the stall—“until I signal you. Keep your phone on vibrate. I will call you when it is time. Now, may Allah be with you. May Allah give you success so that you achieve paradise.”

He gave the ritual response. “Inshallah, we will meet in paradise.”

A moment later he was alone. But for once he did not obey his orders. Instead he retraced his steps to the back entrance and walked to the corner where he could witness the opening ceremonies gearing up to start. As his visitor had stated, the folding seats were now full. Though these were all strangers to him, images of their bodies broken and bloodied aroused no pity. If any single group in Afghanistan could be singled out as responsible for the state in which his country now languished, it was these men, and every morality he'd ever been taught said they were all deserving of death. But his eyes were drawn inexorably to a single face.

He'd wondered what it would be like to come face-to-face with his target, his enemy. He'd dreamed of this moment. Its hate and rage and triumph. First as fantasy. Then as a mission. And yet now that triumph was in his grasp, it was not rage and hate that added to his cold sweat a hot prickle behind his eyelids but grief and longing.

Longing for a world no retribution would ever return to him.

He closed his eyes, breathed quick and shallow to retrieve that serene resolve with which he'd risen from his prayers.

Do not think. Do not feel. Only do what I have determined in my heart.

Shrugging his heavy burden more comfortably into place, he turned and headed back inside the building.

The ostensible reason Becky Frazer had showed up this morning was a follow-up clinic. Already a group was camped out in the hall outside the infirmary. Najeeda was among them, her cough still worrisome. So was Najeeda's son, his quiet hacking a replica of his mother's, which was even more worrisome.

The other reason lay in the two volumes Becky was digging from her medical bag. Both used Arabic script. Amy would have to take Becky's word that one was a Dari and the other a Pashto New Testament.

“I tried to get full Bibles, but those are hard to find these days.”

“That's okay. The person who requested them will be happy enough for these.” Amy hadn't told the American nurse for whom the New Testaments were intended, and Becky hadn't asked.

“Your contact is aware of the need for discretion?” Becky added as Amy tucked the volumes out of sight between her shawl and tunic. “It isn't technically illegal for us to hand these out to a local who asks for them, not like Taliban times. The receiving end is a little more iffy. And unlike an English version, which few of the mullahs would recognize, much less read, they can all read these.”

“He's aware of the risks,” Amy said more sharply than she intended. “Excuse me. I'll get these stored away.”

She had to step over feet and laps to reach her apartment. The patients were spilling out of the hallway into the stairwell. Beyond them were the padlocked doors leading into the second floor of that unused wing.

That would make a perfect infirmary over there. We need more room.

Only yesterday the women's prison had called to ask if New Hope could take a dozen more tenants. Amy was hesitating, not because she couldn't find room for a few more tushaks, but because all other services were being stretched to breaking.

I want the whole building, maybe even the whole property, including that mechanics yard. I'm going to talk to Mr. Korallis about it tonight. If we come up with a big enough rent offer . . .

Part of that conference call was the pending issue of a permanent country manager. Amy still wasn't sure if she wanted the job. And even if she agreed to extend her interim commitment, Amy had already made it clear to Mr. Korallis that among her conditions would be adding on a deputy country manager.

I can't keep doing it all myself. I can't remember when I last had a day off other than those few hours at Camp Phoenix. With Eid and the break-in, I haven't even been to the expat worship gathering in weeks.

Amy stored away Becky's delivery by sliding the volumes under her mattress, then headed downstairs. She and Becky needed additional hands before they opened the clinic. Soraya was to have been back from her extended weekend by now. But Amy hadn't yet seen her housemate, and when she'd asked Fatima, she'd just received an uncomprehending look as though the teacher couldn't understand her Dari.

No, Amy refused to think about Soraya now. Farah would be pleased to help, though Amy hated to pull her from classes, especially since she'd become Fatima's de facto assistant with the younger children. But at least for Najeeda's son, Amy would have to call on Jamil. For male patients beyond the six-year-old milestone when boys typically left their mothers for the men's quarters, it would be inappropriate for a female to do the physical examination.

But Jamil's phone number went straight to voice mail, and when Amy walked out to the guard shack, Wajid ambled out to say with a yawn, “He went to the bazaar, but he returned long ago. Perhaps he has returned to his quarters to sleep. He left very early.”

“Well, if you can take a minute to check, please let him know we need his help in the clinic.”

Jamil's phone might be dead. With no power in his quarters, he could only charge it when there was electricity to do so in the office. Looking around, Amy noted another absence. “Where's Gorg?”

The German shepherd puppy had been immediately and unanimously designated Wolf by the New Hope residents. Keeping the puppy from being loved to death had been the biggest challenge, and since she wasn't housebroken, there'd been a certain amount of cleanup. But seeing even Aryana's somber expression break into delight at Gorg's antics was worth any mess. Had Steve any idea how therapeutic the cuddly animal might prove to these women and children? Or was perimeter defense the only thought on the security contractor's mind?

And speaking of perimeter defense, Amy had forgotten to turn off the fiber-optic fencing in the rush of setting up the clinic. Not that there was any real urgency until the children finished morning classes. Digging Frisbees out of the barbed wire and off the roof tiles had become a sport in itself.

Amy thrust away an unwelcome pang as she glanced around the yard. She hadn't seen or heard from Steve since Thanksgiving. Had she irretrievably offended him? Or now that he'd satisfied his curiosity that Amy was indeed the teenager in that old photo, had he decided Amy—and New Hope—held no further interest for him?

Did Amy even want to see Steve again?
I can't change who I am nor can he, so what's the point?

“The child took the gorg.” Wajid yawned again. By his listlessness, last night had involved opium again. Amy was going to have to talk to Rasheed about an assistant, if not a replacement.
We need a night guard who's actually awake.

“What child?” But even as Amy made the sharp demand, her survey landed on a slight figure stepping out from behind the jungle gym, a wriggly bundle clutched close to a thin chest. Tamana's older brother.

“Fahim, what are you doing here? Why aren't you in classes? And why aren't you wearing your sweatshirt?” The blue material identified a winter pullover all the children had received for Eid.

Then Amy took in fever-bright eyes and flushed cheeks. Fahim bent to cough into his squirming burden before he explained. “The teacher said I was making too much noise. Farah said I should go upstairs to see the doctor. I just wanted to see the gorg first.”

“Well, you're going up right now.” Unraveling the puppy, Amy sent her scampering into the guard shack as Fahim tugged the sweatshirt over his head. “Now come.”

Fahim obeyed, sliding a hot, small hand into Amy's as they walked back up the cobblestone path. He doubled over to cough when they reached the marble steps. But as they stepped into the hall, his fever-bright eyes held joy as he lifted them to Amy. “The gorg—she is so beautiful! And though her teeth are sharp, she does not bite. Is this how the first man and woman played in the garden with the animals? Do you think when the savior comes, we will truly be able to play so with the snow leopards and tigers and lions like Simba?”

“There
is
no savior!”

Amy's heart jumped as a door slammed shut behind Rasheed's burly frame. The chowkidar had walked out of the storage depot in time to hear Fahim. A large hand came down on the boy's shoulder as he said sternly, “Such stories are infidel teaching, not Muslim. Miss Ameera will not tell such a story again.
Illaha illa Allah. Muhammad rasul Allah.
There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.”

As Fahim obediently repeated the shahada, Rasheed stared at Amy with a coldness that sent a chill through her. “Now go back to class!”

As the boy turned toward the schoolroom doors, Amy roused herself to interfere. “No, he's sick. He needs to see the doctor. Go on up, Fahim. I'll be right there.”

Rasheed slammed the door behind him, then explained curtly, “As you requested, I have looked for more shelves to hold the supplies the foreigners brought. But there are no more. We will have to purchase new from the bazaar.” Turning a key in the lock behind him, he strode away.

Amy looked after him with dismay. Despite the chowkidar's recent sullenness, this was the first time he or anyone else had directly challenged one of the stories Amy had told the children, and she didn't know whether to be more worried or angry at his blanket interdiction.

He may manage the property, but he has no authority over my project. What does he think he can do—call the cops on me?

That this was not, in fact, out of the realm of possibility fanned Amy's anger higher. She'd thought little about Islam before coming to this place. Like Buddhism or Hinduism or atheistic Communism, it was simply one of many belief systems that happened not to be her own, all jostling for human hearts and power and position.

But Amy was fast coming to hate this one with a passion that dismayed her. Not as she'd seen it operate in her own homeland, where its followers were at least free to choose its tenets.
Free because Christian values guarantee their right to worship as they choose.

Ironically such fundamentalist regimes that would never even allow someone like her to operate on their soil inflamed Amy less than her current circumstances. But this was a country inundated with an international community giving time and funds to help at every level, much of it coming from those Christian nations Rasheed dismissed as infidel. The very government of this place was propped precariously in place only because of the efforts and weapons and money of those same infidels.

Steve is so right.

How much so was suddenly clear. All that Amy had come to admire about these people's resilience, hospitality, and deep spirituality could not weigh against the grim reality that any Afghan could be condemned to prison or death if they followed their own conscience in matters of faith or even their own reading material. That women could still be possessed and dispossessed as chattel. That dress, food, learning, and even the smallest actions within the privacy of one's own living space had to conform to some rigid code. And all because Islam and the sharia law that gave it teeth dominated every waking and sleeping breath its subjects took.

It seemed so vastly unfair Amy wanted to scream out in rebellion, rail her fists in frustration against that solid wall behind which a billion of the planet's population were locked away in the greatest totalitarian regime humanity had ever known. The more so as Amy had come to know and love individuals bound beneath its powerful grip and blinded by its mockery of the truth. To share, however vicariously, in their suffering and their despair.

When Amy went up the stairs, she found Fahim beside Najeeda's son, the two boys' heads together in whispered conversation and a duet of coughing.