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He nodded stiffly. “Amira is fond of you.”
“And I am fond of her. She’s a wonderful young woman.”
Feroz’s gaze softened for a moment. Then he pointed to the car. “You get in the back.”
“How long will it take to get where we’re going?” she asked, her hand on the door.
Feroz shrugged. “Three hours. Maybe four.”
“Thank you,” she said, sliding into the car. It smelled of goats and dust. The pungent aromas of garlic and coriander. Feroz must have eaten his dinner in the car.
She settled on the back seat and pretended to look at her cell phone. Feroz and Bahram spoke in low voices in the front seat. She couldn’t hear everything they said over the noise of the car, but she heard enough.
According to Feroz, everything was set for tomorrow. The Taliban would arrive in the morning. He asked Bahram to make sure Amira stayed home from school. He’d tried to spread the word to the families of the other girls -- keep your daughters home today. Don’t let them go to school.
Dear God. She hoped her girls had paid attention. Didn’t go to school. Even if they didn’t, the Taliban would find her books. The ones her girls liked to read. If she had a chance, she’d ask Bahram to hide them when he got back to the village. For Amira.
She closed her eyes, thinking about the six girls who came to the small school every day. She’d miss them. And she hoped they’d be safe.
She spent the next three hours bouncing on the seats, a spring jabbing her rear every time they hit a rut on the rough road. Finally, as the mountains towered above them, Feroz slowed the car. Stopped.
Bahram turned in his seat to face Laila. “We will have to walk the rest of the way.”
She nodded. “Is there a specific cave you have in mind?”
Bahram’s gaze shot to Feroz. Back to her. “Yes. It’s well hidden. No one will find you. You’ll be safe until we can return and drive you to Baghlan.”
“Good,” she said, reaching for the door. “I’m tired. Ready to sleep.”
Bahram nodded once. “It won’t be long.” He opened the trunk and pulled out a tattered-looking blanket. “Something to sleep on.”
“Thank you,” she said, although the sight of the blanket was disturbing. Were they planning to use it to wrap up her body?
She shrugged into her backpack and waited for Feroz and Bahram to lead the way. Feroz carried a bag as they trudged toward the mountains, and Laila followed.
It took almost an hour to reach the cave they’d selected. They’d had to scramble up to it over a scree slope made up of sharp rocks and unstable boulders. By the time they led her into the cave, her hands were scraped and bloody.
The cavern was large enough for them to stand upright. Behind them blackness lurked, making it impossible to know how deep it was. Bahram handed her a flashlight. “So you can see in here,” he said.
“Thank you, Bahram. That’s very thoughtful.” She wanted to hand it back to the boy but didn’t want to make him suspicious. She wanted to shine it on the dense blackness behind her, but she wasn’t about to use anything from Bahram.
He took two bottles of water out of his tunic and handed them to her. “You’ll need this.” He nodded at the two bottles in her pack, and said, “You’ll need more than those two bottles.”
“Thank you,” she said, holding them carefully. She looked from Bahram to Feroz. Back to Bahram. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he said. “Allah willing.”
Feroz handed her the bag. “Some food. My mother is a good cook, and she always makes extra. So you have something to eat.”
“That was very thoughtful, Feroz. Thank you.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see you tomorrow. Or the next day.”
She nodded and watched the two teens trudge toward the opening of the cave. Once they’d disappeared, she hurried toward the opening and watched them climb down the rocky slope. At the bottom, they used flat stones to erect a cairn about two feet tall. The signal for where they’d left her.
Once the stones had been placed, they hurried to the car. Got in and drove away without looking back.
When they were only a speck on the horizon, Laila moved away from the opening and carefully placed Bahram’s flashlight on the stone floor of the cave. Then she pulled her own out of her pack. The main cavern was twenty or thirty feet deep. She approached the back wall and found several small openings. Tunnels, but too small for a person to enter. From what she’d read, these caves were a warren of tunnels and passageways formed by the slow erosion of the limestone.
