by Esther Ahmad
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 a
bout 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.”
[24] See Matthew 18:12-14.
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 Zak
hira, 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.
