Veiled Freedom Read online

  The Welayat women too had pitched in. Roya and two others would go along to serve. But all had helped with food preparation and were now hoisting heavy pots, five-gallon water containers, and other supplies into the truck bed. Even Aryana had ventured out to deposit a load of drink mix cans, her toddler in one arm. In return each would earn their first small wage.

  Only Soraya was missing. Several times now the Afghan woman’s Thursday and Friday visits home had extended to an afternoon during the week as well. Amy hadn’t objected since Soraya always requested leave first and worked long and hard, even into the evenings, when she was here. But now it was halfway through Sunday, well into the Afghan work week, and Soraya still wasn’t back from her weekend. Nor was she answering her cell phone.

  A screech of air brakes drew Amy’s hopeful gaze. But a bus drawing up at the corner disgorged only a man in an Afghan security uniform.

  Amy’s attention moved on to a large jinga truck idling just up from the bus stop that hadn’t been there a few minutes earlier. Wildly painted with intricate patterns and stylized scenes, Afghanistan’s jinga or jingle trucks derived their name from chimes and bells and clanging tin strips strung along the vehicle’s underbelly to frighten away jinn or just for decoration, depending on the piety of the owner. In a society where art and color and music held so many constraints, the jinga trucks seemed to Amy a delightful rebellion of Afghan creativity. A pride of peacocks spreading their tails on this one’s wooden sides might have stepped down from an ancient Persian tapestry.

  Unfortunately, it happened to be blocking her team’s exit. Amy turned back to the cargo truck. “Jamil?”

  But her driver had followed Amy’s gaze and was already starting toward the truck. By the time he returned, the loading was finished, blue burqas that were Roya and her team sitting among the pots in the truck bed, the others drifting back inside the compound. Behind Jamil, the jinga truck was backing up around the corner where the street was wider.

  “We’ll just have to go without Soraya. We can at least do the feeding. I’d ask you to take Soraya’s place, but you need to be free to run the video camera. And keep an eye out for trouble.”

  From the men, Amy didn’t add aloud. New Hope’s program, like so many others, was geared to the most needy and neglected of this society. But even during registration, there’d been trouble with neighborhood men who figured if there were to be handouts, they should be first in line. Another plus for the literacy class as the men were less likely to stand around through ABC’s.

  “I will teach.”

  Amy whirled around, surprised. Farah had been herding children back through the gate, her burqa flipped up over her head so Amy could see her young, eager face. Farah could have understood only Soraya’s name in the other two’s English conversation, but Amy didn’t ask how the girl knew of their dilemma. Soraya’s AWOL status was public knowledge.

  “But you’re not a teacher, Farah. You’re just learning to read yourself.”

  “I can teach what I have already learned.” The girl’s eyes were pleading. “I will teach the first letters and tell your story of paradise. Please, I know I can do it.”

  “Well, I guess it can’t hurt to try.” Amy pulled out a key. “Why don’t you get the story box. It’s sitting just inside my room by the wall.”

  Jamil turned his back as Farah scurried up the cobblestone path.

  Amy eyed him. “What is it? Do you think I shouldn’t let her try?”

  “That is not for me to say. I was only thinking—” as Jamil turned around, Amy saw that it was a half smile, not a frown, that curved his mouth—“this woman Farah is very like a sister of mine.”

  One more personal tidbit from Amy’s companion. “You have a sister Farah’s age?”

  “No, she was small, in her first years of school, though she would now perhaps be this woman’s age. But she too believed there was nothing she could not do, though she was female.”

  The half smile disappeared, and Amy probed no further. Whatever had happened to Jamil’s family clearly held horrors he preferred to forget. Farah quickly returned with the story box as well as a portable blackboard she’d grabbed from the schoolroom. It was Farah’s first outing since the move from prison, and she happily joined Amy in the truck cab, her face pressed eagerly to the window.

  The selected neighborhood was not far from the New Hope compound. Their route led through a new housing development whose towers and cupolas and gabled peaks thrust up above high walls in the gaudiest colors Amy had ever seen.

  Farah clutched Amy’s arm with a squeal of excitement. “Are they the king’s palaces?”

  “No, they’re just people’s houses,” Amy answered.

  Farah didn’t look convinced, and Amy didn’t blame her. She felt none of the Afghan teenager’s wide-eyed admiration. In a city filled with such desperate human need, the garish new structures seemed not only tasteless but borderline criminal. Amy studied one particularly ostentatious mustard yellow structure whose glass-and-chrome tower dominated the skyline where mansions gave way again to mud-brick hovels. Was Steve Wilson among the armed men patrolling any of these balconies and lookout towers? One of those colorful structures must belong to her landlord, since it was Steve who’d put Amy on to this particular neighborhood.

  Amy had contracted with a local brickmaker to use his sizable courtyard two afternoons a week. While Roya and her team warmed up a protein-rich lentil stew, Farah set up her blackboard and story materials.

  Soraya’s absence was almost worth it, Amy decided on the way home, just to witness Farah’s performance.

  “I taught well, did I not?” the girl announced back at New Hope. The downstairs TV had been moved to the empty salon so Jamil could hook up the video footage he’d taken of the project inauguration as well as New Hope compound activities. Women and children alike buzzed with excitement to see themselves on the screen, and Farah justifiably preened herself on her own role.

  “Yes, you did wonderfully well,” Amy answered warmly. “I think Soraya has found herself a new assistant.”

  “Someday, inshallah, I will be a teacher, and I will start schools like you, Ameera-jan, for children who have none,” Farah said with such determination that Amy’s eyes burned. In a just world, this beautiful sixteen-year-old would be thinking of prom and college applications, not hiding from forced marriage to a brutal old man.

  Why do I have so much when they have so little? And so much of it has nothing to do with available resources but just plain human meanness. If I accomplish nothing else here, I’m determined to make sure Farah gets a chance at an education. That girl is a natural teacher.

  Amy was feeling none of her charges’ elation as she climbed the stairs to her own quarters. The afternoon’s success hadn’t solved the problem of Soraya’s continued absence. Was it possible her assistant had simply quit?

  What am I going to do if she doesn’t come back? One way or another Amy needed something in place before the next neighborhood feeding. Would Fatima be willing to stay on two afternoons a week?

  Amy couldn’t even go looking for her assistant since she’d no idea where Soraya lived. That Soraya herself had never invited Amy to meet her family puzzled Amy, even hurt her, as she’d come to know the Afghan reputation for hospitality. She’d only to walk the streets around their neighborhood program for women to urge Amy into their meager homes for a glass of chai.

  Where Soraya went every weekend, Amy had determined never to ask nor to intrude unless by her assistant’s own invitation. But now she’d have to confront the Afghan woman, one part of leadership Amy loathed.

  I’ll give Soraya till morning, see if Fatima’s heard anything. Then if Soraya isn’t back, I’ll get Fatima to direct Jamil and me to her house.

  Locking the suite door behind her, Amy dropped a metal security bar into place. The bar had been more Soraya’s insistence than Amy’s own security concerns. In truth, Amy hadn’t expected to feel safe living as the only foreigner here. But
she did feel safe, and not just because of that bar on the door. Afghans took hospitality more seriously than perhaps any other virtue. Whatever Rasheed’s failings, Amy, Soraya, and the women and children were his charges, part of his household. The caretaker, along with Jamil and Wajid, were honor bound to protect their lives and this compound.

  That Amy also felt lonely was harder to admit. Now that she could speak a child’s level at least of Dari, the courtyard women were warming to Amy’s persistence. They swarmed around her when she appeared, touched the sunshine of her hair, chatted about their children, and complained about each other.

  But neither their conversation nor interest went beyond the compound. Since she’d gone to the airport to see off Alisha Chan and Debby Martini, Amy hadn’t seen or talked to another Westerner, her only English conversation, beyond exchanges with Soraya, Rasheed, and Jamil, her Skype sessions with Miami or a sat-phone call from Bruce Evans or Nestor Korallis.

  If I just had one other person to talk with at any real level. I’d have thought there’d be an international church, but it’s not listed on any of the expat Web sites. I guess I can always check out the Thursday circuit. It was not an appealing thought.

  “Ameera-jan. Miss Ameera!” The voice was Farah’s and frantic.

  Amy lifted the security bar. “What is it, Farah?”

  “It is Aryana. I think she’s gone—” Farah tapped her temple.

  Amy didn’t know the Dari term, but she understood Farah’s gesture. Amy grabbed the first aid box. But once she’d followed Farah downstairs, there was nothing in it that was any help.

  Amy hadn’t noticed whether Aryana had been present at their home movie night. She was huddled now on her tushak, rocking steadily back and forth. Her eyes were shut, but tears streamed down her cheeks, and she was emitting the low, continuous mewl of some small, trapped animal. At her feet crouched her son, wide-eyed and frightened. The other women were gathered around, even the Hazaras, patting, murmuring helplessly. Quarrel though they might among themselves, for this moment they’d come together to share another woman’s pain.

  “What happened?” Amy asked.

  Heads moved from side to side; hands waved as Amy strove to understand an excited babble.

  “They say she’s been like this all afternoon,” Farah summed up, “and she will not stop. She has said only that she is afraid.”

  Amy hoped her panic didn’t show on her face. Every one of these women had to be a prime candidate for post-traumatic stress disorder. That they maintained any sanity to function at all was a miracle and testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. Who knew what was going through Aryana’s tortured mind? Unfortunately, here one couldn’t call 911 or a trauma counselor.

  Kneeling beside Aryana, Amy put her arms around the young woman and held her tight. “It’ll be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  It was just as well Aryana couldn’t understand Amy’s inane soothings. Not yet twenty years old, Aryana was wife of a murdered husband, mother of a two-year-old, and survivor of more horror than Amy could even picture. What possible remedies could Amy offer?

  Soraya, where are you? I don’t know what I’m doing here. And even if I had the Dari or she spoke English, I still wouldn’t have the words to help her, to tell her how sorry I am—and angry too—that any human being should have to endure such pain.

  Amy didn’t realize tears were pouring down her own cheeks until a hand reached up to touch her wet face. The empathy of Amy’s grief seemed to penetrate where she’d had no words to reach, because after a while Aryana relaxed and her head came down on Amy’s shoulder.

  It was late before Amy got back upstairs. She’d coaxed ibuprofen and an over-the-counter sleep aid into Aryana and left her curled up with her son. But though Amy had held it all together until the other women and children returned to their own tushaks, as soon as she closed the door of her room, Amy threw herself on the bed and burst into tears.

  I can’t do this, God. These people are hurt too badly. Who am I to even think I can help? Especially on my own. Steve Wilson and Bruce Evans were right—and Dad was wrong. This is just too big for me.

  On impulse, Amy sat up and reached for the sat phone. It was still office hours in DC. “Mr. Korallis, I’d like to talk with you about additional personnel. I’m wondering what’s happened as far as that permanent country project manager. Things are getting more than I—”

  The New Hope executive interrupted. “We’ve just been discussing you. We got the first video clips you uploaded. They are truly inspirational. I’ve got to tell you the board is impressed—only one expat staff, and a woman at that; employment opportunities for any number of local professionals. A new project manager? Are you kidding? I’ve been talking to the board about making your promotion permanent, and they are thrilled. Congratulations, young woman.”

  Only a conference call coming in on another line allowed Amy to hang up. I don’t believe this. I’ve worked my own way out of assistance.

  Amy straightened suddenly. What was the noise she’d just heard? She sat still, straining to hear. Yes, it was the creak of the suite door being quietly opened. She’d forgotten to put the bar back down.

  Noiselessly, Amy got up from the bed. She reached for the light switch, but the evening hours of electricity were over. Amy felt for the battery-powered lantern she kept by her bed, but she didn’t turn it on. Was the intruder a thief after office equipment? Rasheed should be making the final rounds about now, locking the big entrance doors from the inside, and Wajid had been on guard all day. But the perimeter walls were still an easy hop, as Jamil had once proved.

  Amy hoped it was no more than a thief. Thoughts of recent kidnappings, Taliban attacks, and suicide bombers were making it hard to keep her breathing quiet. The living room was as dark as her bedroom as she silently eased her door open. But Amy could hear quick breathing, the furtive movements of someone trying to move as stealthily as herself. If I can just get by and out into the hall . . .

  Amy was feeling her way through cushions when the noise of a body bumping into a hard object was followed by a soft cry. Amy relaxed instantly. Switching on the lantern, she lifted it high. “Soraya!”

  Soraya was pulling a burqa from her head. The two women stared at each other for a moment.

  Then Amy set the lantern on the table against which Soraya had stumbled. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick that something might have happened to you.”

  Soraya’s hands fluttered. “Please forgive me. There was a death in the family. It was necessary I remain for the funeral. There was no electricity to charge the phone, so I could not call. And tonight I could not find transport before curfew. It took long to find my way around the police. Wajid let me in the gate, but I did not wish to disturb you with my tardy arrival. I am so sorry that you should have worried. Fatima was to give you news of our emergency. Tomorrow she will ask forgiveness for her oversight.”

  Soraya looked unhappy and red-eyed enough for a funeral—were it not for that mention of Fatima. And I’m sure you’ll have her briefed by tomorrow. But this morning she had no idea where you were.

  “And your escort? Surely you didn’t send him back out this late. Rasheed can certainly find a place for him to sleep downstairs.”

  “No, no, he did not wish to stay. He has work in the morning.” Soraya stared at Amy’s face highlighted in the lantern beam, and Amy suddenly remembered her own tear-streaked cheeks and reddened eyes.

  “Has something happened?” Soraya demanded.

  “No, of course not. I’m just tired.” Amy lowered the lantern. “I’m glad you made it back safe. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Amy watched Soraya’s door close before retreating to her own room. She’s lying to me, but why?

  As was I, Amy reminded herself ruefully.

  From his perch atop the metal shed, Jamil had recorded Soraya’s return. The camera manual spoke of night vision, ambient lighting, remote control, and other features
he’d wanted to test. So when he’d stored away the video equipment after showing his footage to the children and their mothers, he’d slipped the camera into a vest pocket. That Ameera trusted him to lock up the equipment made Jamil shake his head. Though he wouldn’t abuse that trust, his employer could not know that. Such innocent faith in other human beings was dangerous.

  Though darker than useful, the zoomed-in image of a blue burqa stepping through the gate and hurrying up the cobblestone path was amazingly recognizable on the tiny screen. Less recognizable was Soraya’s escort hurrying now back down the street. At first Jamil had thought the man to be the teenager he’d seen before delivering Soraya and Fatima. But this was a stockier build and taller, though he’d turned so quickly Jamil had caught only his back on film.

  Jamil focused the camera instead on a kaleidoscope of peacocks spreading their tails on the side of a jinga truck parked across from the compound. He’d seen those peacocks before. Zooming in, Jamil made out human shapes in the cab. But they were too grainy for details. Out-of-town customers for the mechanics yard?

  Satisfied he understood the features, Jamil slid the camera into his vest pocket and reached for Ameera’s gift. Up the slope of the shed roof, music had begun playing next door, a foreign offbeat that was jarring and unpleasant to Jamil’s ear. Though this was not a Thursday night, the neighbors were celebrating.

  Perhaps he should expend enough of his next paycheck at the bazaar for a flashlight so he could read in his own room. Meanwhile Jamil inched up the roof to the pool of light the security lamp next door cast across the metal sheeting. Blanking his mind to the alien music, he flipped pages until he found where he’d left off reading: “Forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

  This time Jamil didn’t allow his anger to fling the book aside but made himself read on. Forgiveness. Not just man’s but God’s. And there was the catch. How could there be not just the hope of forgiveness but assurance? “God forgave” spoke of something already finished. But no one knew how the scales would tip before the day of Allah’s judgment. That was presumption. Perhaps even the presumption that had led Jamil to this place.