Veiled Freedom (19 page)

“Unmarried? Alone?” Amy wasn't sure whether Jamil's shocked exclamation held disbelief or disapproval as he glanced in the rearview mirror at Amy's finery, then quickly away. “Yes, I have heard of such things. Then this date of which you spoke, it is a party? With men and dancing and alcohol, as in the movies? This is permitted in your country for two women without brothers or father or husband to protect them?”

Amy turned pink, only now recognizing the pitfall into which she'd stepped. “Things are done a little differently in my country. But tonight isn't that kind of date. An open house is just a gathering of other foreigners.”

Amy hoped Jamil's nod indicated comprehension. They'd reached the wide, paved streets of Wazir Akbar Khan. Amy slid forward across the seat as Jamil slammed on the brakes.

“Miss Ameera, is this not the proper direction of your lodging?”

For a moment, Amy too thought they must have taken the wrong turn. Like many of Kabul's guesthouses, the Sarai was an aristocratic residence refitted for the expat trade on a quiet side street not far from the New Hope compound. At least it had been quiet when Rasheed picked Amy up this morning.

Now barrel-shaped movable barriers blocked the street. A red and white security bar rose for a white Land Cruiser. Beyond it, SUVs filled both sides of the streets.

A Gurkha guard strode over to the Corolla, tapping his automatic rifle against the driver's window. As Jamil rolled it down, a blare of reggae spilled into the car.

“Only foreign passports permitted. Please reverse the vehicle.”

“I live here.” Amy handed him her passport.

The Nepalese soldier frowned at Jamil. “You may proceed, but due to the presence of alcohol, Afghan citizens are not permitted entry.”

“He's just dropping me off.” Amy winced as the crash of steel drums over the wall morphed into mariachi brass.

Jamil's expression was closed again, his hands so tight on the steering wheel his knuckles were white. After all she'd said, was he getting the wrong idea about her evening plans? Or was something else on his mind?

“I'll walk in from here,” she said quietly. “You go on and enjoy your evening. I'll see you in the morning. No, Friday's your day off, isn't it? Then I'll see you on Saturday.”

As the car backed away, Amy allowed the Gurkha to probe her shoulder bag, then detoured the red and white security bar. The Land Cruiser had found parking, and a Caucasian man in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans headed toward the guesthouse gate. Recognizing Amy, a guard waved her through as a companion ran a metal detector wand over the Hawaiian shirt.

Inside, unroofed parking was also crowded with vehicles. Amy followed the music into the two-story residence's communal lounge. French doors opened onto a veranda, beyond which stretched the rosebushes and grape arbors, lounge chairs and swimming pool of an extensive backyard. Had she just stepped through a space portal from the streets of Kabul, the New Hope compound, that awful women's prison?

People swarmed everywhere, splashing in the pool, eating around tables, stretched out on lounge chairs, gyrating on a makeshift dance floor in the middle of the lawn. Under a thatched shelter, tables held food and meat sizzled on several grills.

Amy hadn't dreamed Kabul held so many expatriates. The chatter around her encompassed English, French, German, and Italian. She noticed tall, blond Scandinavians and small-framed Asians, Africans with Nigerian and Kenyan accents, and East Indians.

And every one of them dressed for the perfect September garden party—back in Miami.

It was no sin of his employer that consumed Jamil as he drove away but his own. He did not like to tell lies. Not only because the look in the foreign woman's eyes was the trusting one of an Eid lamb, but because with each, he added another grain to the scales of Allah's justice already weighed damningly against him. Still, what choice had been left him? At least Ameera had been easily distracted from his doings.

Medical school. Those days were so long in Jamil's past, he'd thought them forgotten, as his fingers had forgotten their skill until he'd touched the child. Now Islamabad's finest university rose up around him, the laboratories and computers, the white-robed professors, the books.

A carefree existence it had been, even privileged despite the deprivations of war, with no greater concern than the results of his latest exam. There'd been companionship. Debate. The excitement of intellectual challenge. The warm, noisy safety net of family. And more freedom than he'd recognized until it was taken away.

Freedom, above all, from shame and guilt.

It had seemed so simple then, to be pure before Allah such an all-consuming aspiration it hardly required thought, the five pillars of Islam giving framework to every hour of life.

The
shahada
—the declaration of faith made over and over on every occasion since the moment of birth.
Illaha illa Allah. Muhammad rasul Allah.
There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.

The
salat
—the five prayer times that divided each day into its rhythm: the sun's first rays, its zenith, the western arc of afternoon, sunset, the coming of night.

The
zakat
—almsgiving that the poor and widows and orphans might share some small measure of Allah's bounty.

The
sawm
—the Ramadan fast that could be onerous on a growing, young body and yet so purifying and uplifting in the challenge of its discipline.

The
hajj
—the pilgrimage that outweighed in merit all other acts but one of submission. As his father and his father's father and his father's father's father had earned merit, so he too had planned one day when life was not so pleasurably full.

And within the framework of those five pillars, countless other requirements of Jamil's faith studied and memorized in careful emulation of that most righteous of lives, Allah's apostle Muhammad. The proper cleansing ablutions so that one's prayers were not nullified. Which foods to eat. How to sit cross-legged with the right foot above and soles carefully inward. How to brush one's teeth. Which hand to use for eating. Which
rakats
to recite at each succeeding cycle of prayer.

Until in time the smallest detail of daily life became a habitual act of submission to Allah.

And each act an offering piled up into the scales so that at the end of life they might outweigh the stray loose thought. The glance of lust at a woman's bared ankle or eyes. The unintended defilements that lurked when one was not attentive. Even willful disobedience.

The mullahs stressed that in Allah's implacable sovereignty even the most untainted could not be assured of divine favor. But as long as the scale was safely tipped toward purity and submission, there was no need to lose sleep over one's eternal destination. Was not his very choice of vocation—to mend the bodies and souls of his fellow men—a daily meritorious offering of zakat?

Had the Creator, the Mighty One, the Reckoner of Deeds, who humbled and exalted at his own unfathomable pleasure, laughed at Jamil's blind arrogance? taken away his present, his future, his hope, his confidence as punishment for such overwhelming presumption?

The car slid into a courtyard opening, the bazaar closing around Jamil as he continued on foot. A musty sweetness of dried fruits. Pungent spices in red, yellow, green, orange mounds. Meat sizzling in vats of sesame oil. Bamboo cages fluttering with noisy parakeets and budgies and fighting partridges. Threading a narrow alley of canvas-covered stalls, Jamil ducked his head to enter a carpet shop, then followed its bearded merchant through neatly rolled cylinders to a door in the rear.

No, the foreign woman Ameera meant well. He'd seen it in her eyes. And there'd been a time when Jamil still clung to hope, believed that he could one day step back into that life, the future once laid out in front of him as wide and clear and inevitable as the Kabul-Kandahar Highway.

Even that hope was so long ago he'd forgotten the feel of it.

It was dangerous to let such thoughts return. To let so much as the memory of hope rear its head. Or of freedom. His future, his family, his eternal destiny lay now in the grip of the man who'd summoned him here tonight.

For himself all that remained was the expiation of sin.

“
Ay, querida
, you must be new. Did no one send you the memo about Thursday night dress code?”

Amy's face burned as a young woman in a bikini with Mediterranean coloring offered Amy a pitying smile. Women in strapless cocktail dresses, tank tops, and shorts were wandering by. Amy let her scarf slide from hair to shoulders, its exquisite blue green silk making her feel less a princess now than the court jester.

I can run upstairs and hide or go out there looking as much an idiot as I feel!

Or Amy could lift her head high and walk out there as though there was absolutely nothing out of place in her wardrobe.
Mallorys don't run away. Besides, I promised to meet Debby Martini.

Tilting her chin, Amy stepped forward carefully because her ridiculous high heels weren't made for the veranda's ornamental tiles.

“Amy? Amy Mallory, is it not?”

The hail came from the nearest table. At first Amy hadn't recognized the graying blonde in tank top and shorts. The fortyish German was the only other woman currently boarding at the Sarai. “Elsa Leister, right? We met at supper the other night.”

“Yes, you are the American. I have been visiting with one of your countrymen. Come join us. You have met Peter,
ja
? And give no attention to Marleni.” Elsa waved toward the retreating bikini. “There isn't really a dress code. It is just Thursday nights are when we all let loose and forget we're stuck in this godforsaken end of the earth.”

“Yes, and thumb our noses at all those screaming mullahs and their ridiculous rules. No women. No pork. No booze. Speaking of which, I'm off for another round.” Peter lumbered to his feet, barbecued rib in one hand and empty margarita glass in the other. “Amy, what can I get you? A margarita? Rum cola?”

From empty glasses around his plate and slurred words, he'd amply sampled both. Amy took an empty seat with some reluctance. “Nothing for me, thank you.”

She wouldn't have responded so eagerly to Elsa's hail had she noted the German woman's companion. Peter Dunsmore worked for an American mineral consortium and was one of several reasons—all male—Amy preferred to escape to her room in the evenings.

As Peter wandered toward the bar, Amy turned to Elsa. “It
is
nice to lose the head cover. To think I'd never heard of ‘chador hair' when I came here. But I must say I'm a little overwhelmed. I'd seen mention of an open house, but this wasn't what I pictured.”

“On Thursday nights you will find parties like this all around the Wazir,” Elsa explained. “All very tight security, of course.”

“The Thursday circuit,” Amy hazarded.

“Ah yes, I have heard it called such. The objective is to see how many parties one can hit before the police start cracking down on curfew. A game for the young and undignified. Though one I will play myself tonight as I must make my good-byes. My contract here is complete, so this will be my last Thursday in Kabul.”

“Oh, really?” Amy said with disappointment. It seemed like every contact she made was on her way out of Afghanistan. “So what type of project were you working with?”

“A work-study on the advances women have made here since the Taliban in comparison to the considerable aid my government has invested on their behalf.”

“I see.” This was at least of interest to Amy. “So what is your evaluation?”

“Hey, I thought we weren't in Kabul tonight.” Peter was back, swaying slightly on his feet, a cup of beer in one hand and a margarita in the other. Though his plate was across the table, he dropped into a chair beside Amy. “Let's leave the poor, victimized Afghans at the office.”