Veiled Freedom (35 page)

Amy grimaced. “I'm not sure the children would define what I speak as Dari. But a five-year-old's vocabulary isn't hard to pick up in any language. Which is as far as I've progressed. Just don't ask me anything complicated.” This time her smile was comic. “Anyway, it's been over two months since you pulled that crowd off me. I haven't been sitting around, whatever your opinion of NGO types.”

“Has it been that long?” Steve seemed momentarily startled. He took another leisurely look around, his gaze sweeping across the jungle gym and ball field, where the children had now stopped their games to watch the strange intruder in wary stillness. “No, I'd say you haven't been sitting around. So tell me about these kids. Why aren't they used to men?”

Amy looked up at Steve doubtfully. His expression had gone unreadable again. Was he getting bored? “Are you sure you want to hear all this? I don't want to waste your time.”

“I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.” Steve's dry tone was more what Amy was used to from him. He shrugged. “My client owns this place after all. As head of his security, I'd be remiss if I didn't acquaint myself with the layout and your personnel while I'm here.”

Amy kept her account deliberately brief as she led Steve on a tour, peeking first through the double doors into the inner courtyard before opening them for a quick view. An unnecessary concern. Now that cold weather had set in, the women remained mostly indoors. The extra downstairs salon next to the schoolroom had become the communal living area. A clatter from there indicated supper setup was in full swing, while the TV blaring in the background signaled the electricity was currently on.

“It's just as well we get power only a few hours a day or that thing would be on 24-7.” Amy sighed. “I feel like I've unleashed a monster, but there's so little for the women to do once their chores are finished. My next agenda will be some long-term planning. Maybe some job training, cottage industry, some way to integrate these women back into society. Unfortunately, while for us they're victims, to most Afghans they're still considered criminals. At least some of them are helping now in our neighborhood program.”

As Amy led the way upstairs, Steve nodded toward the locked doors on the other side of the entryway. “And what are these?”

Amy shook her head. “We don't rent that part of the property. Storage of some sort, I guess. Same goes upstairs. New Hope has this wing over here to the left.”

From the entry porch steps, Amy had glimpsed Rasheed's cargo truck Jamil had used for transport that afternoon back in its usual parking spot over the cinder-block partition in the mechanics yard. But upstairs the New Hope wing was silent as Amy and Steve entered, all doors still locked as Amy had left them.

“Infirmary, office,” Amy identified, unlocking them. She pushed open the door to her own suite. “And this is my apartment.”

Steve frowned as he stepped past Amy into the living area. “You're living here full-time? I thought you were in an expat guesthouse.”

“Sure, when I first arrived. I've been living here over a month.”

Steve's frown deepened as he looked around, taking in the two bedroom doors, then walked over to a window that overlooked the front of the compound. “I'm assuming you've got more personnel than I'm seeing. Some expat roommates. This Becky Frazer?”

“Of course I've got more personnel. You met Jamil, my driver, and Wajid, our guard. Soraya, a translator and my assistant, shares this apartment with me. She and Jamil left the project before I did, so they must be somewhere around.”

Crossing the room, Amy looked out the window to see what Steve was studying so intently. With their Ameera exhibiting no fear of the large invader, the children had returned to play. The older ones had started a soccer game, two pairs of cinder blocks marking the goals.

“There's a chowkidar too, Rasheed. And all the women and children, so I'm hardly alone. But if you mean other expats, no, there aren't any. And I haven't missed them either,” Amy added resolutely, if not with complete accuracy.

She steered the conversation from herself, a gesture indicating the playing children. “As you can see, play equipment is still in short supply. In fact, it's hard to find even if I had the budget. Of course they don't have Christmas here. But Eid-e-Qorban, their holiday celebrating Abraham sacrificing his son, is just a couple weeks away, so I'd thought of getting something for the kids then instead. Unfortunately, they need winter clothing even more than they need playthings.”

“What kind of playthings?” Steve said absently. “Your basic toys, balls, dolls? All the same or different for each kid?”

Amy shook her head. “Oh, nothing personal. These kids aren't used to a lot of individual possessions. What we really need are sports equipment and supplies they can all enjoy together. We're learning to improvise. We made play dough the other day with flour and salt and spices from the bazaar for coloring. A limited palette, but it sure smelled good.”

But Steve's attention wasn't on the playing children. A 180-degree scrutiny of front courtyard, street, and neighboring compounds went on so long Amy wondered if he'd forgotten she was there. She was debating a discreet clearing of her throat when he nodded toward the cinder-block partition dividing the property. “And over there? What's that?”

“Oh, that's a mechanics yard belonging to the landlord. And parking. That big truck is what we use for the neighborhood project. And there're some rooms out-of-town drivers stay in sometimes while their trucks are getting fixed.”

As Steve returned to his silent inspection, Amy ventured tentatively, “So what do you think?”

The contractor swung around abruptly from the window. “You may have a commendable project here, but your security is still lousy. A child could hop that wall or come over that roof.”

The jerk of Steve's head indicated the concrete guest rooms built against the divider wall. “Your outer perimeter isn't much better, as I've told you before. I'm guessing your workers next door and any neighbor with a pair of eyes must be aware by now a foreign female lives here. That's an attractive target in the current political climate. Did it ever occur to you that your presence here with such inadequate safety measures could be dangerous to those women and children and to yourself?”

As much as she'd like to reject Steve's criticisms, they echoed Amy's own continuing disquiet. “I'm not disagreeing with you. I feel safe enough myself, but I've been worried about the women and children. After the incident we had last week—”

Amy explained briefly as they left the apartment and descended the stairs. “Maybe it was nothing. But sooner or later some prison bureaucrat may let slip what we're doing—or sell the information. It worries me that some male family member might show up demanding to take the women away. From what Rasheed tells me, I'm not even sure I'd have a legal right to say no. I asked Rasheed to see about getting some rolled wire or spikes or something up around the perimeter wall. He said he had to get permission from the landlord's deputy.”

“You mean Ismail?” Steve asked. “Khalid's deputy minister?”

“Yes. But it's been over a week and still nothing. I hate to keep bugging Rasheed, but I'm not so sure he's really trying. He wasn't happy to start with about the Welayat refugees coming here, and he says putting up more defenses is basically hanging a billboard out for thieves. I would contact Ismail myself if I knew how.”

“Well, I do,” Steve said grimly, “and I will immediately.”

They were now outside. The children had stopped their games again to watch Amy guide her visitor down the cobblestone path. Wajid emerged from his guard shack.

Amy stopped to eye Steve. “I didn't mean anything like that. The last thing I need is for Rasheed to think I'm going over his head with his landlord.”

“You won't come into it, trust me. Like I said, Khalid's security is my province. I don't need Rasheed's permission. I'll be in touch as soon as I've talked to Ismail and rounded up some details. Meanwhile, let me see your phone.” His outstretched hand and the inflexibility of his expression brooked no discussion.

Snapping her jaw shut, Amy meekly dug her cell phone from the shoulder bag she hadn't yet shed.

Steve showed no hesitation with its controls. “There, I've programmed number one on your speed dial as an emergency number. If you run into any serious trouble, hit it. That's a backup your agency should have arranged.” Returning the phone, Steve dismissed himself as abruptly as he'd come upon Amy, striding rapidly toward the gate as Wajid hurried over to open it. On the threshold, Steve turned to look back.

Children had swarmed to Amy as soon as the contractor was beyond arm's reach. A preschooler was in Amy's arms, the rest clustered tight around her skirts. The child's tugging had freed Amy's hair, and so accustomed was she now to its cover, Amy refrained from pulling the scarf back into place only because it would have meant putting down the child.

A strange expression crossed Steve's face as his narrowed gaze rose from the children to touch the sunshine of Amy's uncovered head. Then Wajid snapped the bar into its lock behind him.

The prophet Isa Masih was a shaheed. A martyr.

It had been days after that terrible nightmare of the flood sweeping away his birth land before Jamil picked up Ameera's gift again. But his burning hunger to discover how this narrative played out overcame his terror of another dream-filled night.

He'd even forgotten his original skepticism over which stories were true and which were the corrupted pieces of which the mullahs spoke. The details were too precise and coherent to be anything but eyewitness accounts. And so Jamil had puzzled out page after page far into each night, reaching the prophet's final days with mounting apprehension, then horror so that he'd wanted to toss the small volume aside but found he could not.

Which was why Jamil had headed to the bazaar once he'd dropped the women and cooking utensils back off at the New Hope compound. Even with his patu wrapped close, the chill night winds sweeping across the shed roof were growing too cold for reading.

This morning Ameera had handed Jamil, Rasheed, and Soraya each an envelope filled with afghanis, their monthly salary. A flashlight and batteries would allow Jamil to read in his concrete cubicle. The truck Jamil had chauffeured was too big to maneuver through the bazaar, and Rasheed had taken the Toyota for some errand of his own, so Jamil had set out on foot. He'd been surprised to see a blue burqa gliding away from the New Hope pedestrian gate just as he left the mechanics yard. The compound women didn't go out, much less alone.

But neither the doings nor safety of that lone burqa were any business of Jamil's. He'd followed only because he was heading the same direction. He'd turned the corner when the burqa did only because—well, because the open shop fronts along this street might have his flashlight, saving Jamil the long walk to the bazaar.

Or so he told himself as he loitered just out of sight around a fruit stand from where the burqa was picking over ripe melons. An action that piqued Jamil's interest. He'd delivered a load of fresh fruits and vegetables to the New Hope kitchens just this morning. Curiosity became disquiet when a man leaning against the fruit stand straightened up to accost the burqa. The two moved a few feet down the sidewalk, conversing in low, urgent voices.

As the man raised his head to glance around, Jamil stepped quickly into the shadows of a shop entrance. But not so far he didn't catch the burqa's swift pass from under her blue polyester. Jamil stiffened as he recognized what the man now held in his hand. An envelope identical to the one stuffed inside his own wool vest. The burqa must be Ameera's female assistant, Soraya.

This man was older than Jamil, though measurably younger than Soraya, and Pashtun by feature. Now that Jamil knew who was under the burqa, the stocky build and height could easily be the escort who'd returned the Afghan woman to the compound a week earlier. Jamil stepped all the way into the shop as the burqa flitted past him toward the New Hope compound. When he emerged again, her companion was nowhere in sight.

Did Ameera have any idea her housemate was meeting men clandestinely? Such a liaison was not only immoral but a crime under the penal code, punishable up to death during Taliban years. But to whom could Jamil report this? He had his own reasons not to entangle himself with local law enforcement. As for his employer, he'd no desire to explain why he'd lingered to spy on the Afghan woman.

Besides, from all Jamil had seen and heard, he did not think Ameera's people would consider what he'd seen the transgression it was in Muslim eyes. In any case, Soraya's sins were her own to account for in Allah's scales of justice. Jamil had enough to concern himself with his own.

Jamil went back into the shop, glancing around the single small room. Its inventory looked to have fallen off a supply truck for the foreign soldiers because dusty floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked high with MRE rations, gallon-size cans with names like Del Monte, Kraft, and Heinz, bottled liquids called Gatorade and Starbucks Mocha, crates of nonalcoholic beer, strange sauces marked A1 and Tabasco.