Veiled Freedom (38 page)

Amy's upward gesture encompassed the universe. “God chose to become human, to be born of a virgin as a man, Jesus Christ, so we might know God's love and love him in return. Being born as a baby, Jesus became God's Son, and the one and only God his heavenly Father. And when he allowed himself to be killed on the cross, it was to offer himself in our place to take our sins on himself. It's like—”

Amy's mind flashed to the upcoming holiday she'd been researching, Eid-e-Qorban, celebrating Abraham's offering of his only son Isaac, or Ishmael in the Muslim retelling, and God's provision of a lamb as a substitutionary sacrifice.

“Well, it's like God providing a sacrifice for Abraham in place of his son. I know with all my heart there's no sacrifice I can make, not even my own life, that could ever make up for all the sins I've committed before God. Jesus gave himself as sacrifice in my place. And in so doing, he demonstrated just how wonderfully and immeasurably the very Creator of the universe loves me—and you and every other human being.”

Amy smiled wryly. “And if you find that hard to understand, you're sure not alone, even among theologians. And yet the more you get to know Jesus, the more it makes sense because he's so much more than just another human being—or even a prophet. He is God's gift of love to us. And like that verse says in John, if we accept that gift and put our trust in him, he offers us eternal life and freedom from sin and the fear of death.”

There'd been no sound of footsteps in the hall, so the clearing of a man's throat was the first warning they were no longer alone. Amy jerked around in her chair. Rasheed stood in the doorway, his glance darting back and forth between Amy and Jamil, his disapproval patent. Amy was only glad he'd come upon her at her desk, not with a hand on her driver's shoulder. How much had the caretaker heard of Amy's final statement?

“If you are satisfied with the permits,” Jamil murmured, “then I will take my leave.” Eyes lowered deferentially, he slid past Rasheed into the hallway.

Amy discovered her hands were trembling and buried them in her lap. It disturbed her just how alarming she'd found Rasheed's sudden appearance, how rapidly her heart was racing. It was a warning just how comfortable she'd become—in some ways even more so than stateside, personal faith in God so taken for granted here, her Bible story times even a freedom this job wouldn't permit back home—that Amy had stopped considering any danger to herself . . . or others.

Had she been wise in giving Jamil that New Testament? Did she have a right to put him in possible harm's way by encouraging him to question the dictates of his own faith? to explore forbidden truths?

And yet Jamil knew the risks as well as Amy. More so. And he was not only a grown man but an intelligent one. Didn't he have a right to weigh the risks and rewards for himself? When did prudence become cowardice?

The gaze Amy raised was clear and uncompromising, her voice composed. “Is there something I can do for you, Rasheed?”

“No, I came only to inform you I will be traveling out of Kabul this weekend. With the bombings in the city and the man who frightened your women, I did not feel it wise to go before. But now your protection no longer requires my presence, so I am able to go. Hamida will travel with me to attend to my needs. We will return Saturday.”

The chowkidar's flat tone held only statement of fact, but a cold scrutiny still roamed from Amy's face to stare down the hall. She could almost hope his displeasure stemmed from the new perimeter defenses. Amy watched Rasheed leave with dismay. After all her earlier brave words to Steve, had she just made an enemy where she desperately needed an ally?

Ameera's recoil at Rasheed's sudden appearance told Jamil his employer was not as unaware of the perils their discussions could occasion as he'd assumed. His question had been burning on Jamil's lips all day, but he was so rarely alone with Ameera, and he hadn't ventured to ask with Soraya or others present. Ameera's gift was a treasure most safely kept secret.

The furious pounding of his heart, the involuntary clenching of his fists had eased so that Jamil could stride with equanimity through workers loading the last cement-encrusted wheelbarrows and buckets into a truck outside. As Jamil hurried head down toward the mechanics yard, the three foreigners climbed into their vehicle without a perceptible glance in his direction.

The alarm had startled Jamil even as his fingers encountered the unfamiliar wire duct-taped along the top of the cinder-block partition. But it was the shock of finding himself face-to-face with the American soldier that had driven every question from Jamil's mind. Worse, there'd been instant recognition in the gray eyes, though their past encounter was so fleeting.

Jamil gave a quick shake of his head as he stepped into the mechanics yard. Was it truly the foreigner's invasion of his sanctuary that had so enflamed his emotions? Or seeing Ameera speaking so easily with her countryman?

Jamil could still feel the warm comfort of her fingers under his, see the sympathy in her face that said she truly cared he was upset, the frankness of her gaze as she carefully thought out her answers. Honesty could admit he'd come to count such personal discussions as uniquely his privilege. And yet in her own country, Ameera was surely allowed such interaction with any number of men.

Well, the American warrior with the narrowed stare so penetrating Jamil had feared it could read his thoughts was gone now. The man's association with his own landlord could be a danger—or a bonus.

And with Ameera? Little though he liked to see his employer beholden to the foreigners, Jamil couldn't disapprove of the compound's new fortifications. At least fretting over a decrepit Wajid's ineffectual watch would no longer be such a distraction to his own purpose here.

“Tu! Jamil!”

Jamil turned around as Rasheed's rapid steps overtook him. To his relief, the chowkidar made no reference to his earlier eavesdropping but pushed past to head toward the Russian jeep, barking over his shoulder as he did so a succession of directives. He would be back within two days. Wajid would be responsible for securing the premises at night. The clients parked inside the mechanics yard had an engine part on order and would be tendered the customary hospitality and protection from the city's lawless nighttime streets until after the holiday. Rasheed's departure was unexpected news. But then the caretaker wasn't in the habit of sharing personal affairs with underlings.

Jamil closed the gate behind the jeep, then headed across the mechanics yard. He'd noted the jinga truck with its now-familiar peacocks when he'd detoured earlier to avoid the work party crowding the pedestrian gate next door. Its crew had started a campfire behind the massive rear tires. There were three in all, passing a water pipe around the crackling flames, a Pashto music station blaring from a radio perched on the back fender. If the truck carried cargo, it wasn't perishable from their lack of concern over the delay.

At Jamil's approach, the driver he'd already encountered, a large-framed, well-nourished Pashtun, raised the water pipe, a grin of invitation splitting his long beard.

“Salaam aleykum,” Jamil greeted courteously as he waved away the offer. The warmth of the fire he left behind less easily. As November advanced, the temperature in the high mountain valley was plunging ever more sharply each time the sun dropped behind the western ranges so that Jamil's concrete cubicle now offered little more protection than the shed roof.

Jamil had appropriated two of the blankets he'd purchased in bulk at Ameera's request from the bazaar. Wrapping both along with his patu around him until he was as swaddled as a baby, he maneuvered loose a now well-worn small volume and leafed to find the John injil Ameera had mentioned.

John was a close companion of Isa Masih, Jamil already knew from the other narratives of the prophet's life and death, and though this injil proved more difficult to comprehend, Jamil liked the music of its words. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Whatever they meant, the phrases sang with the mystic and lyrical ambiguity of a Persian court poet.

Jamil read until he came to Ameera's earlier quotation. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

He broke off at the children's call to story time and to retrieve from Wajid the cold plate of food Rasheed's wife had left behind for them. He remained with the old man to lift heavy bars into place across the double doors at each end of the main hallway and lock exterior doors upstairs and down. Wajid accompanied Jamil to the mechanics yard to lock that gate behind him with shaky hands, then retreated to his guardhouse. Jamil waited to hear the lock click on the other side of the wall before heading back to his own quarters.

The campfire was now out, the jinga truck party retired to their assigned guest quarters. The city power had gone off again as well, and night's darkness would have been profound except that a brief shower earlier in the afternoon had settled the worst of Kabul's dust, allowing the stars and a full moon to penetrate the usual haze of smoke and pollution.

Digging out his flashlight, Jamil returned to his cocoon and his reading, trying this time to place the narrative against Ameera's disturbing statements. The freedom of which she spoke was the desire of every man. The yearning for so many long years of Jamil's own country.

But to be free of sin's guilt and shame? of the all-consuming fear of death? of standing deficient before Allah's judgment seat? That would be a greater freedom than any army could secure. Ameera had spoken with conviction. But how could such freedom be more than a wish, a man's hopeless desire?

As Jamil flipped the page with an impatience that wrinkled thin paper, words jumped out at him. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Jamil slapped the volume shut.
The truth will set you free?
But what was truth? A powerful political leader had asked that same question during Isa Masih's own trial and had received no answer.

And which truth? Love or hate? Forgiveness or vengeance? Isa Masih's or Muhammad's?

The impossibility of decision pressed on Jamil's mind so heavily he felt paralyzed with its vacillation. A soft shuffle of sandals on gravel, the murmur of men's voices was a welcome distraction. The jinga truck drivers tending to final bedtime needs. Leaning his head against the cinder blocks, Jamil allowed his fatigue to carry him into lassitude until new sounds jolted him to full wakefulness. The jingle of padlock and chain. The creak of a gate needing oil.

Sliding out of his cocoon, Jamil slipped noiselessly to the window. There was no real reason, but with natural wariness he shut off the flashlight before cracking open shutters closed against the night chill. Outside the full moon was not strong enough to show more than dark shapes slipping past his quarters through the gate that now stood open in the rear partition wall of the mechanics yard.

“Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”

Jamil had come across that in his reading tonight, the words branding themselves into his mind because they resonated so with his own cynicism. If it was legitimate business these men conducted, why skulk around in the night like thieves or assassins? And there were no longer just three of them. There must be at least a dozen.

Jamil's heart was racing far more than it had earlier, so fast it seemed those dark shadows had to hear its pounding. He stilled even his breathing as he watched, bracing himself for one of those furtive shapes to turn its head. But the roof's overhang came down far enough to cast his window in black shadow, and Jamil's noiseless immobility these last hours had simulated slumber because not one shape paused to focus awareness his direction.

Jamil waited until he could no longer hear the stealthy footsteps before slipping outside. His bare feet made no sound on the gravel, and he darted across moonlit open ground to the concealment offered behind the open gate. The padlock with its chain still hung from the dead bolt. Jamil's fingers felt out that it was not broken but opened as though by a key.

Or a burglar's tools. Because any lingering hope that this was some legitimate activity dissipated as Jamil took in the back of the jinga truck, its wildly colored rear panels no longer reflecting the moon's dim glow, but standing open to reveal a black maw that was its cavernous interior. Jamil could now put together the sounds he'd heard, those too-many dark shapes. Not cargo but men had sat patiently and silently inside that painted frame while the foreign soldiers and their subordinates completed their task, night fell, and sleep overtook the inhabitants of the compound.

But why? This place held no treasure worth such planning and effort. Unless—

The threads wove together with a surety Jamil knew was truth even as his cautious steps carried him through the open gate. The jinga truck driver was no client as he'd presented himself to Rasheed, but what Jamil had first feared, a male family member who'd come searching for Ameera's charge and her child.