24
I woke to the feeling of someone touching my shoulder. My mother leaned over and whispered so quietly that I could just barely hear. “It’s nearly 2 a.m.,” she said. “You have to go.”
I followed her out of my room and to the back door. Lord, I prayed with every step, keep my father in a deep sleep. My mother eased the lock open, handed me my schoolbag, which I always kept by the door, and pulled me to her to say good-bye. When she spoke, her breath was warm against my ear. “I might never see you again,” she said. She fought hard to swallow her tears. We both did. Neither of us wanted to make any more noise than we had to.
She closed the door quickly behind me. We lived in a busy part of town, and I had never experienced such a deep silence in the streets. I slipped through the metal gates and looked both ways, scanning the pools of light cast by the streetlights. Nothing moved. The world was on pause.
I took a few steps but stopped when I saw a car cross the intersection at the end of the road. Had I been spotted? I listened, but the sound of the car’s engine faded away.
Pulling my head scarf tighter, I started walking again. I crossed the road to avoid streetlights and paused on the few occasions when I heard a car. I was tempted to give in to the panic that surged within me and break into a run, but I knew I couldn’t. I calmed myself by trying to remember the items I had in my bag. Some pocket money. My high school diploma. A few pens. My copy of the Qur’an, covered with highlighter ink and scribbled notes. For some reason it had not occurred to me to pack any clothes.
I hadn’t had time to think through any of this. Once my mother had persuaded me to escape, the final hours of the day had been a blur. She’d managed to get my father out of the house for a few minutes, giving me enough time to call John at work.
“I’m in trouble,” I told him. “My mother will get me out of my house, but I need to go soon. Can you help me?”
“Okay.” His words were clear and firm—there was no hesitation in his voice. “What can I do?”
“Meet me tonight at 2:15 near the tree outside the old infant school. If you see I’m being followed, ignore me and drive off.”
With every step I took, I thanked God for John. I had a death sentence hanging over my head, but nobody knew anything about John. He was risking everything for me.
I thanked God for my mother, too. I tried not to imagine what would happen when my father woke up. If he suspected that she was involved in my escape in any way, he would turn the full force of his rage on her.
As I turned a corner, I saw that John was waiting. I was desperate to look behind me to see if I was being followed. John stayed where he was, looking left and right, straining his neck to look behind me. When I was about a hundred feet from him, I started running.
“Let’s go,” he said. He pointed me toward his motorbike, which was parked on a side street.
We rode across the city, and after a few minutes, I stopped watching where we were going. I closed my eyes and held on to the back of the bike, resting my head against John’s back. I could feel him turning around constantly to make sure we weren’t being followed.
When we finally stopped and John cut the engine, we were in a part of the city I had never seen before. I followed him through a narrow alley and up some stairs to a small apartment. John introduced me to a man and a woman in their twenties who told me I could stay with them for a few days. They assured me that I didn’t have to tell them anything about what had happened to me. I suddenly felt shy and vulnerable, even though their kindness was unmistakable.
“You can sleep in here,” the husband said quietly, showing me a room where his three young daughters lay asleep on floor mats.
“We’re Christians too,” he said. “You’re safe here.”
I sat on a spare mat and listened to the low murmurs as John talked with the man in the next room. I looked over at the girls, who slept with their arms and legs draped over each other. They were barely old enough to attend school.
I felt even younger than the smallest one of them, weak and vulnerable. I’d been ripped from the protection of my mother. I had never felt so alone.
I tried to clear my head to pray. I thanked God for this kind, brave family. I thanked him for saving me and asked him to continue to protect me. As I drifted off to sleep, I tried to keep my fears at bay. Did Paul and the apostles ever feel this way? I wondered.
†
“Please, find a husband. Get married.” Those were some of the last words my mother had said to me as we embraced by the door the night before. As the girls’ bedroom filled with sunlight and my fears began to subside, my mother’s plea came back to me.
As I thought about the future that lay before me, I knew my mother was right. It would be hard enough for me to survive in Pakistan as a single woman, and it would be almost impossible for me to make it on the run. But how could I get married? Who would have me?
There was only one person I could ask.
When John arrived later that morning with fresh naan and sweet chai for me, I waited for the right moment. He asked me how I’d slept, and I told him how kind my hosts were. Then we ate and drank in silence. My insides were twisted so tight that I was not hungry at all, but I forced down tiny mouthfuls.
I was safe, but I’d never before felt so vulnerable. I was surrounded by people I could be completely open with about my faith, yet I had never felt so alone.
“Please,” I said when the silence grew heavy between us, “I have no choice. My mother told me not to live with a man, and she wants me to get married. If you could marry me, it would help me so much.”
I watched a smile begin to play across John’s face. Then he got a serious look and took a deep breath. I prepared myself for rejection, my eyes dropping to the morsel of bread in my hands. In Pakistan, women simply did not propose to men. What was I thinking, asking him such a question? And why would a Christian like John accept a woman like me?
“Yes,” he said. “I will marry you.”
I looked up. The same serious expression was there, but his voice was full of warmth and love.
“I’ve liked you ever since you started asking me for a Bible,” he said. “But you never said anything.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to say. I liked him too, but I had buried my feelings deep inside. Never had I dared to hope that he would accept me.
We started to talk about the details. John said he would need to meet with his mother and his pastor, since his father was dead. We did not need the permission of John’s family and church, but we wanted their blessing—and their protection.
I was still in a daze. Was I really getting married—and to a Christian man?
After John left to talk with his pastor, I spent the day in the apartment on my own. I borrowed a Bible and lost myself in its pages.
When John returned later in the day, he looked anxious. “My pastor won’t marry us,” he said. “He says it’s too dangerous for the rest of the congregation.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“What about your mother?” I asked.
“I talked to her and some of my friends, and they’re all concerned for me. But I’m not worried about them—just my pastor. If he doesn’t agree to marry us, we’ll have to get a court marriage. Are you prepared for that?”
I was. A public ceremony would mean more risk, but we had little choice. Even so, I did not want to give up on the idea of a Christian wedding so easily. For years I had wanted to get married in a white dress, and now that I had left behind so much of my old life, this one dream felt like something worth fighting for. There would be no crowds or extended celebrations like in a traditional Muslim wedding, but that did not matter. I wanted to start my marriage by standing before God, making our vows in his house. That was what mattered most.
“What if I spoke with your pastor?”
John agreed, and after a phone call to the pastor, the two of us took the short ride over to the church.
“Pastor,” I said as I stood in front of him, trying to persuade him once again to put himself and his congregation at risk. “It says in the Holy Bible that God is like the shepherd who has one hundred sheep. When one is lost, he leaves the ninety-nine and goes in search of the one.[24] I am the one. He came and found me—he rescued me. But I’m not safely home yet. So please, would you marry us?”
The pastor wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at John and then back at me. “You have to promise that you won’t tell anyone I’ve done this.”
“I promise,” I said.
“You’re not going to tell your family where you got married?”
“I promise,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.”
†
After the flurry of the past couple of days—fleeing from home on Thursday night and proposing to John on Friday—I faced a whole week of waiting until we could get married. I wanted to have the ceremony sooner, but the pastor insisted that we hold the ceremony when the streets were at their emptiest. So we waited until the end of the week, when the mosques were full of faithful Muslims attending Friday prayers.
I continued to stay in the apartment with John’s friends, and the wife brought a selection of wedding dresses for me to try on. In those moments, with white, flowing dresses filling the cramped bedroom and the young girls giggling shyly until their mother shooed them away, I almost felt like a carefree teenager again.
But my secret was never far from the surface. For the family’s safety, I told them nothing of my former life, other than that I had run away from home. Even John did not know the full story of how close I had come to strapping on a suicide vest and murdering innocent Christians like him and the kind family who now offered me shelter.
Should I tell him? I wrestled with the question all week long. There was a part of me that wanted to tell him everything about my past—to begin our marriage without secrets. But how could I expect him to understand the darkness I had come from and the way my heart had been twisted by pain, lies, and hatred when John and I knew so little about each other as it was?
In the end, I decided to wait. I promised myself that I would tell him everything as soon as the time was right.
†
The closer we got to our wedding day, the more I reminisced about the weddings of my two older sisters. Both had been lavish events, with hundreds of people celebrating over several days. Memories of the food and the music, the colors and the crowds filled my senses. I’d never seen my father as happy as he was at both of those events.
My wedding could not have been more different. Only a handful of people were there: John’s mother and brother and the friends whose apartment I had been staying in. We had to make the ceremony quick and quiet, and there were moments when I looked down at my white dress and felt a little self-conscious. Why had I chosen the whitest, most billowing skirt when I was about to be married in front of strangers?
I missed my mom, too. It felt wrong that she and my siblings were not present, doubly wrong that none of them even knew the ceremony was taking place. But for everyone’s safety, my family’s absence was a price worth paying.
In the end, my nerves and faint whispers of melancholy dispersed. I looked at John as he turned to me and told me that he would take me as his wife from this day forward.
When it was my turn to speak, my voice was quiet. Not out of doubt or fear, but because of the solemn weight of the words. “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
It seemed strange to talk about death on the day we married, especially knowing the threats that were close behind me. But to do so together, knowing that we would face whatever lay ahead side by side, changed something deep within me. I was no longer alone. God had brought the perfect man along to be my partner. Finally, at long last, I was safe.
†
After the wedding, we moved in with John’s mother. I was grateful to have someone to call ami after leaving my home in such an abrupt way. But I was also glad to have her fill in some of the many blank spaces in my knowledge about the man I had just married.
I listened in awe as she described what he had been like as a child. “John wasn’t like the other children in our village,” she said. “Even among the Christians in our community, he stood out.”
While other believers kept quiet about their faith, John saw no reason to hide. Instead, he boldly proclaimed his love for Jesus. She shared story after story while John sat to one side, smiling politely and waving the air with his hand whenever he grew embarrassed by the attention. I cherished every moment.
Of all the stories about John’s past, one stood out as my clear favorite. John was only five years old at the time, but his courage and passion eclipsed that of most adults I knew. When he began to understand that Muslims and Christians had profoundly different views on Jesus, he decided to do something about it.
One Friday afternoon, he slipped out of his home and made the short walk to the local mosque. He was holding a Bible in his hands.
When the leaders at the mosque saw him holding the Holy Bible, they asked, “What is this?”
“It’s my Bible, and I want to read it inside,” John said.
One of the leaders saw John’s mother coming toward him and said, “Go back to your home.”
At this point John’s mother got a thoughtful look on her face. “I believe this was a sign for his father and me,” she said. “God had a plan for John’s future.”
In the years that followed, John continued in much the same way, living with courage and a sense of freedom that many other Christians in Pakistan lacked. John’s parents continued to encourage him, teaching him and his brother how to apply the Bible to real life.
When John was old enough to read for himself, he began to see what Jesus, the disciples, and the apostle Paul had in common: they were beaten, jailed, and killed in their service to God. It was a revelation that had a lasting impact on him, filling him with courage and compassion, and teaching him to listen for God’s voice, even if it meant risking his life.
†
My hand shook as I dialed the number.
In the week since our wedding, I had begun to tell John a little about my father. I explained how angry he was that I had turned my back on Islam, and I told him a little about the debates. I shared with him my hope that now that I was a wife and the responsibility of another man, perhaps my father would feel less obligated to make a public example of me. “If he no longer feels responsible for me, then maybe he’ll accept who I am now.”
John listened, nodding gently.
“Perhaps he’ll allow me to return home for a visit,” I added. “Maybe the Lord will soften his heart, just as he did with my mother, sister, and brother.”
We decided I would call home and share my news. It seemed so simple when we talked about it, but as I waited for someone to pick up, I felt anxiety clamp my throat.
“Hello?”
I sighed with relief. We had not been apart that long, but I drew such comfort from hearing my mother’s voice. “Hello, Ami,” I said. “I have some news for you. I got married! To John, the man who told me about Jesus.”
“That’s really good, Zakhira. I’m so happy! Are you happy?”
“Yes!” I laughed. “I’m happy.” I paused, knowing what I needed to say next. “Can I talk to Father?”
He came to the phone more quickly than I anticipated. When he said hello, his tone was impossible to read.
“I got married,” I said. “To a Christian man.”
“A Christian man?” His voice was warm and friendly, which surprised me. “That’s good. That’s really good. What is our son-in-law’s name?”
“John.”
“John. That’s a good name. And does he have a job? We need to make sure that he can look after you!”
“Yes, he has a good job in a medical lab.”
“That’s good. And where are you living? Is this your new phone number?”
I told him which part of the city we were in and that he could call anytime. It felt so good to be able to talk to him like this. It had been years since we’d spoken for so long. And not since the days of panda ice cream had I sensed such warmth in his attitude toward me.
I decided to take a risk.
“Can I come and see you? If you’ll allow it, I would like to come and see you and Ami and everyone else.”
“Yes! Of course you can come. And bring our son-in-law with you. We must meet him. Come tomorrow night.”
When I came back into the bedroom, John looked at me, trying to read my face. “Well?” he said. “Did you talk to your father?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling confused by the conversation.
“Is your family okay?”
“Yes, I think they are. He said we can visit them. Tomorrow.”
“That’s good, right?”
†
The next day John was in the shower and I was fixing my hair, getting ready to head to my parents’ home, when the phone rang.
It was my mother.
“Don’t come here.” Her words came out in a rush. “Your father took down all the details you told him, and he has people gathering downstairs. They have pistols. They’re talking about killing you both. You cannot stay wherever you are. You have to run!”
She ended the call before I could say anything in response, but even if she had stayed on the line, I doubt I could have found any words to say. I felt hollowed out. The hope that I’d clung to since leaving home in the middle of the night had been ripped from my heart. And now it was not just my life that was in danger; it was John’s as well.
I knocked on the bathroom door. “John?” I said. “We can’t go.”
I told him about the call, trying to rein in the panic. John looked worried, but as soon as I was done talking, he pulled out two bags from behind the door. He filled them with a few of his clothes, along with all the items he’d bought for me in the previous week.
“We have to go now.”
Thirty minutes later, I once again found myself standing in front of an open door, hugging a woman and saying good-bye. This time it was John’s mother who was crying with me.
“If they come here,” John said, “tell them that we left many days ago and that you don’t know where we are.”
Minutes later, we were in a rickshaw, heading for the train station. Within the hour, our train was pulling out of the city, putting the first of nine hundred miles between us and my father. A sunset flooded the carriage with the colors of fire. John and I watched in silence as we made our way through flat, wide lands dotted with single-story houses and small farms. I squeezed his hand. “It will all be okay now, won’t it?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll take care of you.”