Veiled Freedom (25 page)

Amy had wondered how Jamil and Rasheed would take the addition of an Afghan female colleague. It proved simpler than expected. Both men ignored her existence as Soraya ignored theirs, all parties dealing directly with Amy. Which was fine with Amy. What mattered was how quickly—and successfully—it had all come together. Included in that courier package was a glowing commendation from Nestor Korallis.

It's not so hopeless. There are people here willing to work together, to change this country, even if it's one small project at a time.
Why had she allowed a single jaded opinion to discourage her so much?

A screech broke into that exultant thought.

At first Amy thought it was the TV. But as the screech rose to a wail, she rushed down the hall. If her multiethnic experiment was proving successful, it was not without snags. For the first days, her new residents had seemed too dazed at their good fortune to do more than reiterate gratitude and scramble silently and eagerly to do as they were asked. But though enforced intermingling had pushed the women out of their shells, a side effect was the quarrels.

Amy could guess at some of the tension, though Soraya proved reluctant to translate their bickering. In the eyes of their countrymen, Roya and the Hazara women were guilty only of economic disadvantage. The older Hazara was an honorable war widow, she'd informed Amy through Soraya. Why should her offspring associate with criminals?

Amy had been forced to make a stern announcement that anyone was free to leave. The Hazaras had chosen to stay, but
bad women
and
immoral
were Dari words Amy now knew.

A man's angry voice rose above the woman's cries. Rasheed. Amy groaned, her steps quickening. If she'd been foolish in assuming that as mutual victims these women would automatically empathize, it hadn't even occurred to Amy that the caretaker might have a problem with New Hope's new project. Her own burqa experience should have been a warning.

If Rasheed had been cooperative in readying the New Hope compound, even producing an elderly cargo truck to transport their new residents, his bearded face had darkened to fury when he recognized where Amy was directing him.

“They aren't criminals; they're abuse victims,” Amy insisted. “And our authorization is from the landlord's own offices.”

The MOI seal on the release papers ended Rasheed's objections, but he'd maintained a sullen distance from his new tenants—except when outbursts spilled over into the chowkidar's quarters. Two days earlier when a fight degenerated from name-calling to actual hair pulling, Rasheed had burst into the courtyard before Amy or Soraya could interfere, separating the women by tossing them apart. No one was hurt, but Amy had felt it necessary to ask Rasheed not to interfere again.

No, to order him. Not without trepidation, because the look on Rasheed's face carried Amy back to her original burqa episode. But with a curt nod, he'd acquiesced.

So why was he back? Amy hurried to the balcony railing as the shouting rose to a crescendo, anxiety twisting at her stomach. She didn't want to confront the burly chowkidar again.

But the woman Rasheed was harrying furiously by the arm toward his side of the compound wasn't one of Amy's charges. It was Hamida. This wasn't the first time Amy had seen her slipping in to sit with the other women in the courtyard. How isolated Rasheed's wife must feel all day in her own quarters.

A slammed door under the stairs cut off stifled sobs. Down in the courtyard, the women returned to their activities, cheerful chatter now muted.

Amy turned to Jamil, who remained standing in the doorway. “Why is Rasheed so angry?” she demanded as she trailed him back down the hall. “Hamida served his meal before mine, so it wasn't like she skipped out on his lunch.”

“His wife did not have permission to visit these women,” Jamil said dispassionately over his shoulder. “She should have been in her own home working, not mixing with troublemakers and immoral women.”

“Is that what you think of these women?” Amy asked incredulously. “You know their stories. You know how unfairly they've been treated. And Rasheed—how can he treat his wife like that? She's not a child to be told who she can speak to.”

They'd reached the office again. Jamil looked at Amy, his expression perplexed. “But I have told you what Rasheed said, not what I think. Still, he is right to chastise his wife. How else will he maintain discipline in his home? The Quran says women are to be silent and obey. And it is only natural he would not wish his family to mix with such women. You say they are not truly criminals. But they were in jail because they were not obedient.”

“Seen and not heard, you mean.” Amy swallowed back disappointment. Had she thought because Jamil was younger and educated, he couldn't be as prejudiced? “I guess I should be glad he doesn't treat me like his wife and the other women.”

“But you are not a woman.” Even as Jamil said the words, an apologetic glance slid to Amy, then away.

Amy didn't let it go. “What do you mean by that?”

“I only meant that you are a foreigner, not an Afghan woman. You speak, you think, you walk like a man. You are—” The hunch of Jamil's narrow shoulders was expressive. “What is permitted for you is not permitted for Afghan women.”

Like some kind of third gender, neither woman nor man. Amy understood perfectly the logic, infuriating as she found it. Afghan men
knew
what women were supposed to be and do. But that conflicted with accepting generous salaries from Western women.

So they just turn us into some kind of asexual creature rather than admit they're wrong about women to start with. And someone like Soraya they just ignore. Fine, I'm not a woman, so let's forget about being bashful.

“What do you think? You said your mother was an educated woman.”

Jamil was silent, and at first Amy thought she'd pushed too hard. Then he said slowly, “That was long ago. Before the Taliban. She studied under the Russians, and they were godless, as all know. Even so, she was a good Muslim woman. She would not answer back to a man or dispute what my father ordered her to do. Besides—” contempt flared in his dark eyes—“these women are ignorant and unruly. Rasheed is right. It takes discipline to keep them in order and properly subject to men. As my mother was to my father.”

“And what about love?” Amy demanded, outraged. “I have no problem with women being respectful to their husbands. My faith teaches that too. But men are also supposed to love their wives like they love their own bodies. And take care of them. And treat them kindly if they want their prayers to be heard.”

Jamil's eyebrows knit together. “That is not in the Quran.”

“Maybe not, but it's in the Bible. That is the Christian holy book.”

“I know it is your holy book. But I did not know it contained such sayings. May I see it for myself?”

Amy hesitated. Jamil had been talking so freely for a change, she might have been in one of the frequent philosophical discussions Hindu and Muslim and secular, as well as Christian, colleagues enjoyed back in the refugee camps or even in Miami.
Not an Islamic fundamentalist regime,
she reminded herself.

At her hesitation, Jamil added, “I have seen the book you read during the calls to prayer. That is your holy book, is it not? I have wondered what it contains. I would like to see this
hadith
—this teaching—about marriage for myself.”

“Of course, if you'd like.” Amy took out the Bible she kept in her desk. Now that she was living submerged in Afghan life, the calls to prayer had become part of her own daily routine. The interruptions weren't as burdensome as Amy had expected, the memorized Arabic prayers repeated so swiftly the whole process took only a few minutes.

Until Soraya's coming, Amy had wondered if the prayers, like so many other rituals here, were only for males. Her housemate not only religiously followed the salat—schedule of prayers—but superintended the other women's observance, descending to the courtyard each time the high, undulating call rang out from a neighborhood minaret.

“They must be taught to be good women, moral women,” she'd told Amy decisively.

Though Amy didn't like the flavor of coercion, the other women seemed to take it for granted, so she'd left it alone. As a Christian and infidel, Amy knew she wasn't expected to follow suit nor indeed that it would be appreciated were she to mimic their actions. Instead, she sat at her desk, praying and reading her Bible until Soraya returned to the office. Amy hadn't realized Jamil had taken note.

“I just wouldn't want to get you into any trouble if reading the Bible isn't permitted in your culture,” she finished diplomatically.

Jamil's face darkened, his voice sharp as he answered, “If you think the foreigners can forbid us to read your holy book as they forbid us to drink their alcohol or enter their buildings, we are not children. We do not need you to choose for us what is right and wrong.”

“That's not what I meant. And I don't think it's the foreigners who make those rules. I've been told on pretty good authority that it's your own Ministry of Vice that makes those laws.”

Jamil considered, then seemed to accede to the justice of that because he went on more mildly. “There is nothing in the Quran forbidding the reading of the Christian holy book. It is simply not customary. I have never seen them available to be purchased. But Isa Masih, your Jesus, is one of our prophets, and Muhammad himself spoke of your holy book as containing the word of Allah. Of course, it is said that which the Christians use has been corrupted. That is why it was necessary for Allah to send Muhammad a new holy book.”

“I can promise you that isn't true,” Amy said decisively. “There are manuscripts today of the Bible that predate Muhammad, some of the Old Testament from even before the time of Christ. What's in my Bible certainly hasn't been corrupted. But why don't you read it for yourself and see what you think? Here are the passages I was talking about.” She flipped her Bible to Ephesians 5, then 1 Peter 3. “See? God won't even hear all those prayers if a man doesn't treat his wife kindly.”

Jamil read again, his lips moving silently as he sounded out the English words. “So it does say. But this book is in English. The Quran is in Arabic alone, the sacred words exactly as they were given to Muhammad. If this is not in the original language, how can you know what has been corrupted?”

“The Bible has been translated into hundreds of languages, including Dari and Pashto. But the original languages and old manuscripts still exist, so anyone can go back and see if it's been translated truthfully. You don't have to take my word for it. Check it out on the Internet.”

Amy glanced at Jamil as she put the Bible away. “I didn't realize you spoke Arabic. But if the Quran is in only Arabic, how do most Afghans who don't speak that language know what it says?”

Jamil's shoulders rose and fell. “I do not speak Arabic. But we memorize the
surahs
and the hadiths in school. And the mullahs tell us what they mean.”

“So you can't be so sure either what the original really says.” Amy's wry grin robbed the comment of any offense.

Turning suddenly to her desk, she rummaged through her shoulder bag. “You know, if you'd really like to see what our holy book says for yourself, I can give you this. It's only the second half of the Bible that tells about the life of Jesus and his teaching and his disciples, but you're sure welcome to it. Please, I'd like to give it to you as a thank-you for everything you do for me.”

The olive green volume extended in the palm of her hand was a pocket-size New Testament Amy kept in her bag in preference to lugging around her larger study Bible. Jamil looked at it but didn't touch it, showing as much reluctance as though the book contained a cobra's venom.

As the moment extended to awkwardness, Amy let her hand drop. “That's okay. It was just a thought. Here, let me turn the computer on, and I'll see if I can pull up the program Soraya was using to do that translation.” As she spoke, Amy discreetly turned to slide the New Testament back into her bag.

But before she could do so, Jamil snatched it, tucking it into his vest. “No, wait. It is a fine gift. I . . . I wish to read it. Thank you.”

Jamil walked swiftly back toward his quarters. It had taken the rest of the afternoon to finish the translations Ameera had requested, so long was it since he'd read or written the Western script. His evening meal awaited retrieval in the guard shack, but Jamil had chosen to fast. The food Rasheed's wife set aside for him and the elderly Wajid was nourishing enough, better than he'd eaten in years. But the acid twisting unendingly at his stomach did not permit him to enjoy it.

And now confusion tore at his insides as well. Jamil had told Ameera she was like a man to him. But it was not true. However he might try to pretend it wasn't so, her femaleness troubled him in its closeness. The flower scent of her hair, a shimmering gold he'd thought artificial when he'd seen it in photographs or on the satellite television channels. The shape, definitely not male even under the enveloping attire she now adopted.