25

John’s aunt offered us a room in her home on the outskirts of Quetta. To her we were just a couple of happy newlyweds enjoying an extended honeymoon. Even though my home was eighteen hours away, John and I agreed that it was better for his aunt to know as little as possible about my background. Since I dressed like a Christian and went by my Christian name, we let John’s aunt and family assume that my background was just like theirs. John and I agreed that it was safer that way.

Several weeks into our stay, I discovered I was pregnant. We were delighted. John soon found work in a nearby medical lab, while I spent my days studying the Bible, resting, and thinking about the future that lay ahead for the three of us.

As the heat of summer grew more intense, I made a habit of reading Scripture to the baby growing within me. I would work through Revelation and preach about the future that awaited us, or I’d read Psalm 103 and give thanks for all the blessings God had given us. Sometimes, when John and I were the only ones in the house, I would walk the cool-tiled floor and sing the worship songs I had learned as a secret believer. John would cover his ears in mock pain over my off-key singing, and we’d laugh. Then I would go right back to singing.

John got a reasonable salary with his new job, and he had plenty of savings, yet we knew we had to be careful with our money, especially since we wanted to move into a place of our own before the baby arrived. His aunt advised us to spread out our costs by buying baby clothes and supplies in the months leading up to the birth.

As soon as we had our ultrasound in the second trimester and found out we were having a girl, I started shopping. There was a market just a short bus ride away, and we made a habit of visiting there every time John got paid. I would look for clothes while John wandered among the stalls that sold everything from diapers to strollers.

One day, when my belly had grown large enough for the stallholders to notice I was pregnant and inflate their prices accordingly, I heard someone call my name. Not Esther, the Christian name I used with every person I’d met since I was baptized, but Zakhira, the name my father had given me.

I turned, and just ten feet away from me was one of my father’s sisters. I had not seen her for years—not since a family wedding back when I had been a dutiful Muslim daughter. But there was no mistaking her. And as she pointed an accusatory finger at me, it was clear that she recognized me too.

“It is you!” She walked up to me, her gaze fierce. For a moment I feared she was going to strike me, but when she got a few feet from me, she suddenly pulled back, as if afraid to get too close. “They are looking for you at home. I will tell your father you are here.”

I thought about trying to convince her that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. I thought about begging her not to say anything. If I started pleading, would it make any difference? If I lied, would she believe me? It would never work, and I knew it.

So I ran.

The market was not as big as those back home, but it was crowded. I had to push my way through the crowds, one hand clearing the way ahead, the other protecting my unborn child.

After taking several wrong turns, I finally found John.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Please come.” I was so out of breath I could barely get the words out. “We need to leave Quetta right now.”

“Why?”

“Let’s go first. I’ll tell you on the way.”

“Has someone found you?”

“Yes.”

We took the first bus back and cleared out of his aunt’s house. By evening, we were on another train.

†

I assumed that life would carry on much as it had. I hoped that we would find a new place to live and that John would get a new job. Then we would settle down in preparation for our baby’s birth. I knew we would probably never return home, but I hoped we would at least be able to make a new life for ourselves, much like we were beginning to do in Quetta.

I was wrong. John called his various cousins, aunts, and uncles, but none of them would let us stay with them for any length of time. They had all heard I was a former Muslim, and none of them wanted to place their own families at risk. We spent almost two weeks shuttling from place to place, but we knew this could not last.

We had savings, but nowhere near enough to rent a place to live on our own. We could pay for our own food, but we needed to rely on the generosity of others to put a roof over our heads. Besides, without the protection of family, we knew we could not live as a Christian couple in a Muslim area. And with names like John and Esther, people would know right away that we were not Muslims. We needed to live quietly, away from prying eyes. We needed to disappear.

†

I had spent hardly any time in a Christian neighborhood before. When I was a secret believer living at home, I would offer food and water to the Christians who swept the street. I knew they were poor and guessed that their homes were in parts of the city that people from my neighborhood would never go near. I knew a little about the conditions some of these people lived in, but I had never seen the depths of their poverty with my own eyes.

As soon as we ran out of family to stay with, I experienced it for myself.

Ali, one of John’s friends, offered to let us stay with him until the baby was born, and one afternoon when I was seven months pregnant, we made the long walk from the train station to his home. I was tired from the heat of the sun, my body protesting with all manner of aches and pains. As soon as I saw Ali’s home, I felt a whole lot worse.

There was an open sewer running outside, and the inside was not much better. The single room was dark and damp, and there was no electricity and no running water. An old, faded curtain hung limply from the ceiling. From what I gathered, this curtain would partition off the corner of the room that would be ours. The area was no bigger than the two sleeping mats that were stacked against the wall.

Nothing in my life so far had prepared me for this. I’d grown up the daughter of a successful merchant in a wealthy northern city. John’s family was not as well off as my family, but they had cars and cell phones, access to higher education, and jobs that offered stability. Neither of us had ever known hunger. Ali’s home, which he shared with his wife and four children—and now us as well—seemed to belong on a different planet.

As Christians, Ali and his neighbors were the victims of continual discrimination. They struggled to find jobs, their businesses were boycotted by Muslims, and their children were unable to access education. Even those like Ali, who had been educated before converting from Islam, were barred from employment. They were viewed as toxic in their community, living like lepers. Some families relied on the meager wage of one person working a menial job, and others had friends and family overseas who were willing to help.

Even so, they saw themselves as fortunate. Ali described a neighboring community of Christians whose homes had been bulldozed with barely any warning so a developer could build on the land. They were given no money, no support, and no help to find another place to live. All they could do was find an unused corner of a slum and try to construct new homes out of trash.

Ali also told me about one Christian man he knew of who, against the odds, had managed to get a job working in a factory. Almost all of his fellow workers were Muslims. The man was good at his job, and one day, after years of working hard, he was told he would be promoted to section manager. That night, two men with pistols shot him inside his own home. “How can a Christian manage us?” they shouted before they walked away.

The pain these Christians were living with was palpable. But their generosity was even greater. Ali and his family shared their home with John and me, and the community welcomed us warmly. Though the thought of giving birth in the middle of such poverty scared me at first, I trusted that God was in control.

†

A few weeks before giving birth to our daughter, we moved away from Ali’s home. A friend who worked at a Christian college in our home city invited us to stay in the basement while the college was closed for the students’ vacation. I was unsure about being so close to danger, but the idea of giving birth in a clean environment, close to a hospital, was appealing.

We moved in at night, being careful not to attract any attention. John was brave enough to leave the basement to run errands and visit other Christians, but I stayed inside with the door locked. There was a bed and clean water—I had all I needed.

While I was grateful to be somewhere clean, I felt incredibly alone. I missed having Christians around me, and I missed my family. I longed for my mom and my aunts, my sisters and my cousins to be with me, to fill the air with laughter and conversation. I wanted to give birth the way every other woman in my family had: surrounded by relatives.

By the time my labor started, I was beginning to feel fearful. Soon I was in agony.

John had found a Christian nurse who agreed to help me, and while I labored in pain with no sign that the birth was progressing, the nurse gave me this warning: “If something doesn’t change soon, we’ll need to go to the hospital.”

I was desperate not to go, worried that if I left the basement, I would be seen by someone who knew me. So I prayed. “God, you promised you would help. Have you left me?”

Almost that very minute, I felt something change in my body. The pain vanished, and within an hour, I was holding her—a beautiful daughter we named Amiyah. As I stared at her mop of dark hair and deep eyes, I thanked God for his assurance and his help. I knew that I had been wrong to ever doubt him.

John’s response to a daughter could not have been more different from my father’s. The moment he first held his baby girl, his face was wet with tears. “My father always wanted a daughter,” he said. “He loved his sons, but he always said that to have a daughter is a special blessing.”

The nurse left soon after, and the three of us lay on the bed for hours, soaking in God’s faithfulness in the form of this eight-pound bundle. It was dark in the basement, but I knew we were safe.