The Esther Paradigm (A Contemporary Christian Romance) Read online

  I let out a long breath, thankful Daher had interrupted. Karim would listen with respect to the leadership and advice of one who had been sheikh to his people for more years than himself. Daher had effectively taken the reins back and steered us off the course my self-doubt had taken us and back to the road we never should have left.

  A finger hooked under my chin and brought my face up. Karim’s black eyes seemed fathomless as they bore into mine. “This is not over. There is much I have to say on the matter, and much you need to hear.”

  I tried to keep the floor of my stomach from bottoming out, but it slipped through my fingers, my heart sinking to my toes. I didn’t wish to hear how much of a disappointment I’d been. How different I was from the wife he needed me to be. One befitting his position and legacy.

  I followed him down a small, dark hall and into the main room, where Daher sat on a low couch with Radina. Karim lowered his tall frame to the seat barely raised above the floor, and I sat beside him.

  For a second I indulged in a daydream, pictured Karim reaching over and plucking my hand from my lap and threading his tapered fingers through mine. He’d squeeze, a secret message that all would be well. One I’d foster in my heart until we were alone once more and he could verbalize his reassurances.

  And his love.

  “Have you seen her bruises?”

  Daher’s question shattered my daydream and chastised me. Again, I’d left the path of importance, if only this time in my mind.

  “I have and would like an answer for it.”

  “I could never apologize enough and offer my own back to receive your anger. Blow for blow as I failed to keep your wife safe in your absence.”

  “Were you the one to strike her?”

  “No, but I was too late in preventing it.”

  Karim cut a look in my direction before facing forward again. “As I have been, as well. You are forgiven, but I’d have the name of the man responsible and his reasons.”

  Daher shifted his weight on the couch, drawing even closer to Radina until their shoulders touched. “His name is easy enough to give. His reasons are not.”

  Karim stiffened beside me. “You do not know them?”

  Daher’s chin dipped. “I do.”

  “Then?”

  The big man’s chest sunk in, and he looked away.

  Radina, on the other hand, squared her shoulders. “Hannah was teaching me the truth as found in both the Taurat and the Injeel.”

  I honed in on my peripheral vision to gauge Karim’s reaction without giving myself away. How would he react to the news that I’d shared with Radina from both the Old Testament and the New?

  He sat like a statue, not a muscle moving. Slowly he turned toward me, and the tender look he’d showered on me in private had been replaced with one of accusation.

  “We agreed.” His voice was controlled and low, his lips barely stirring, as if afraid too much movement and he’d lose the restraint he held on to with a firm grasp. “We agreed you would not strive to convert others from their beliefs.”

  “If your wife made such a promise, she did not break it.” Radina’s words brought Karim’s head back around. “It was I who approached her to learn.”

  “And not just for herself.” Daher sat up straight again. “I, too, wished to learn about Isa, and her father was not around, having left with you.”

  Only the tilting of his head by a fraction witnessed to any reaction by Karim. “You, Daher?”

  “Yes.”

  He paused, and I offered a silent prayer for him. It was risky, admitting any sort of interest in Jesus and Christianity. Even if to a friend. Brothers had been known to kill brothers; fathers, sons. Blood that flowed through veins to unite families too often spilled by their own hands.

  I watched Daher as courage enveloped him and steeled his resolve. As he chose to be true to himself and the man who’d been visiting him during the night. “For almost a year now, I have been having Jesus dreams.”

  “They’re just dreams, my friend.”

  “You know they are not.” He settled back against the cushions on the couch. “Last year I went on Hajj.” His eyes shifted to include me. “That’s the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are required to take at least once in their life.”

  I smiled, but Karim cut in. “She has lived here since she was seven. She knows the five pillars of Islam.”

  Shaahada—faith. Salat—prayer. Zakat—charity. Sawm—fasting. Hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca.

  “I went on Hajj thinking I would get closer to Allah through the experience.” Daher continued to recount his experience. “One night in my tent, a man appeared to me out of nowhere. He wore a white robe, but it wasn’t a thawb like we wear. He held up a hand in greeting and was covered in light. The light seemed to reach from Him and enter me with an unearthly warmth. I felt a peace I’d never felt before. He smiled, and I knew who stood before me even though I’d never seen Him before and He never spoke his name. It was Isa. I was filled with love as if a vessel filled to overflowing. Jesus looked at me and spoke two words before he vanished into thin air.”

  “What did he say?”

  I tried to detect an emotion from Karim’s question—curiosity, scorn, rebuke—but he might as well have asked about the weather, for all the interest he showed.

  “He said, Follow me.” Daher tugged at his full beard. “But how does one follow if one does not know the way?” He leaned forward. “I needed someone to show me the way, my friend. I have so many question. Why did Isa appear to me? What about Him brought so much peace? How is the Bible different from the Qur’an?”

  “And in your search for answers, you risked my wife’s life.” The accusation fell like an executioner’s scimitar. He shook his head and shifted his body away from me.

  I immediately felt the absence of his warmth. Like condemnation, his rejection, disapproval, hammered down upon my heart. A judge’s gavel echoing my guilty sentence. But when I gathered enough courage about me to look into his face and bear the disappointment, all I saw was weariness.

  I was torn. Ripped in half with ragged edges exposed.

  Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. That went for husbands and wives as well. But obedience didn’t mean the absence of pain, and my heart wept as I stared into Karim’s face. Already he took too much upon himself, not knowing the release of giving burdens over to the Lord. As his wife, I was to be his helpmate, someone to help shoulder the load. Yet my faith had only added to the weight that threatened to crush him.

  He rubbed at his temples. “Let me guess. Someone overheard you.”

  I stared at my hands clasped in my lap. “Yes.”

  His head fell back, face to the ceiling, and he whispered under his breath, “What am I going to do?”

  My chin dropped to my chest, not in defeat but in prayer. Karim might not know what to do, but God did. We needed His wisdom now more than ever.

  A warm palm slid behind my neck, the pad of a thumb across my cheek. “Foolish woman.” A rebuke in the words, a caress in the tone. And I caught the question he didn’t voice: What was he going to do with me?

  His hand dropped away, and he stood. “I need to think. To pray.” A second later the door shut with a click. The three of us sat there in silence with our thoughts, each one consumed with what was and what could be.

  What would Karim do? Samlil was his best friend…

  I shot to my feet, Radina and Daher staring at me with wide eyes. “We never told him it was Samlil who overheard. Samlil who is behind the mysterious illness in the flocks.”

  “Maybe you should give him some time to process the information he does know,” Daher advised. “When he is ready, he will return, and then we can inform him of the rest.”

  Would that be the best? The inside of my cheek caught between my teeth.

  There should be no secrets between us, if love is to grow.

  Funny how one’s mind could talk, even bringing back conver
sations and letting you hear them in the other person’s voice. Karim’s words, spoken in our cave before we were husband and wife, when we were just friends and naïve in thinking marriage vows could somehow shield us from the winds of strife set against us, came to me. They coated me with the tenderness in which they were spoken, warmed me like the sun to a delicate shoot.

  But I wasn’t a fragile sapling any longer. Nor was my love for Karim. It had grown roots, deep and strong, like the massive white oak tree planted in the middle of campus at the university in Tennessee. The one whose shade shielded me from the sun while I’d studied, its trunk a perfect cradle for my back. I’d literally stumbled upon it, my feet tripping over its exposed roots that spread out far and wide. Not even the strong gusts from storms threatening tornadoes could topple that stalwart tree.

  Daher said Karim needed space to deal with everything. His feelings for me, the disappointment and confusion I’d brought on a part of that. If I approached him before he was ready, before he had everything under his control once more, there was a chance I could feel the lash of his unrestraint. Even so, my love for him could weather it. Could weather anything. It was stronger than my fear, and now I found an opportunity to help unburden some of his load. When he found out Samlil had been poisoning the sheep, he’d no longer have to worry about the tribe’s livelihood and preserving their way of life. The threat on that front would have vanished.

  I dashed across the room and opened the door.

  “Hannah, you really should—”

  Click. The door shut. What I really should be doing, I was. For once this day I thought of others instead of myself. The sheep and the whole tribe must be saved. Who knew how much more their small bodies could take or how long before Samlil gave them a lethal dose, blaming both me and my parents with the excuse of righteous retribution?

  Which way had he gone? I looked down the road to the right, then to the left. The mountains loomed above, still kilometers away. If we’d never come here, had stayed at the encampment pitched when I’d first arrived back, I’d know exactly where to look. Caves called to my husband like the ocean calls sailors. But he’d never shown me a special place to him here, and I couldn’t recall any from my childhood memories.

  Lord, I could use some help here. It wouldn’t be safe for me to wander around the village alone. Samlil or another with views bent to the same extreme could happen upon me. The chances I’d come away with my life a second time were slim.

  I needed to use my head. My heart. Let the Holy Spirit guide me. Being in the desert, I wouldn’t object to a cloud or a pillar of fire to lead me like Moses. But no supernatural phenomenon appeared.

  I looked again down the long, dusty road to my right and then to my left. Felt a tug. A Scripture song my parents and I used to sing flooded me with lyrics.

  I lift my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?

  A grin stretched my mouth. “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” I’d look for Karim in the mountains.

  A door opened and closed behind me, footsteps approached. “Follow the trail along the canal to the base of the mountain where the water pours out the mouth. You will find him there, if I’m not mistaken.”

  I looked up at Daher. “How far?”

  “Too far to walk. You’ll need to take a camel or horse, unless you have the keys to the Toyota?”

  If only. Which left an Arabian stallion I couldn’t control or the camel that had tried to kill me in the dunes. “Camel it is.”

  Daher whistled, and a small boy popped around from the back of the house. He received some instructions, then ran off.

  “Asoud will deliver her in a moment.” He hesitated. “Are you sure about this?”

  Since I’d arrived back, when had I ever been sure of anything? If I wanted to put on the mantle of Esther, that Bible story that had never been too far away from my thoughts of late, I’d quote the famous line for such a time as this. The phrase seemed…momentous. A culmination of events that climaxed in a great cosmic script. Brave Esther had been chosen as the new queen, and she’d saved her people. Me? Well, I was just going to find my husband to tell him something I should have told him an hour ago instead of wallowing in my personal insecurities. A small thing. Nothing grand or heroic.

  I took a step back to wait under the shade of an awning, and my sandal caught on the ground, scooping up a mound of dirt between my heel and sole. It crunched when I put my weight down, and I lifted my foot and shook to displace the grains. They fell in a thin line like from an hour glass, one on top of the other. Insignificant and yet I felt a push within, an inaudible voice to look harder, to grasp a meaning, learn a lesson.

  I squinted but didn’t see anything different. A small pile of sand in an ocean of it. If I’d brushed it away, erased it somehow, it would make no difference. Not like if one of the large dunes just suddenly vanished. That would change the landscape forever. But what was the difference between my small mound and a towering dune? They were both made up of the same thing.

  Which was I? No question, I was the few grains stuck to my heel. Those big dunes? Those were people like Moses, Elijah, and Esther. People who changed the landscape of history with their faithfulness.

  I bent down and brushed my fingers across my heel to dislodge the last bit of clinging sand there only to look down and find them now on my fingers. They glistened in the sunshine, begging not to be ignored.

  I squinted as I glanced up at the sky. There was an object lesson here that I feared I was missing. Looking back down, I studied my fingers and the tiny beige granules attached.

  “For such a time…”

  If that was a culmination, then that meant building. Moments built on each other. Decisions along the way. Small ones. Little by little.

  What was a looming dune but the substance of its smallest member?

  Noah choosing each day to put hammer to wood. Joshua choosing to continue the march around Jericho. Rahab choosing to lower a scarlet cord. Hammering, marching, placing a rope out a window—not difficult or momentous things. But the outcome of those small decisions gave witness to God’s amazing power.

  To be faithful in the big, one must be faithful with the small. Jesus had said something like that in a parable to his disciples.

  One choice at a time. Moment by moment. The surrender of will. It was the only way God could use any of us.

  Use me, Lord.

  Maybe one day the grains of sand that made up my decisions for God would amass and make an impact that would change the landscape of time forever. Even if only in those that I loved.

  Chapter 30

  Karim

  The water flowed through the canal, its trickling sounds magnified by the dome of the cave like I’d remembered. The temperature dropped the farther inside I trekked, and the reprieve of the heat cooled the sweat on my skin.

  Caution had my feet slowing, then stopping altogether. I had no light source, and if I went any farther, I’d be swallowed in total darkness. A part of me played with the idea of throwing off the cloak of responsibility and plunging deeper into the cave. I felt wild, and the risk appealed. If I closed my ears to the voice of reason, the excitement of toying with danger almost wrestled the anger within.

  I turned my back to the darkness and faced the light shining into the mouth of the cave. I’d come seeking to silence the anger long enough to hear out wisdom, but the path behind me wasn’t the way.

  If only the peace I usually found in caves would wash over me the way the water ran over the rock dug and carved out centuries ago. Instead a dam had built, and I was dry and parched for the quietness of spirit.

  I should have stayed. Should have faced Hannah, Daher, and Hannah’s accuser. But with each revelation it had felt as if a physical blow to my body. When I realized my grasp on control was slipping, I’d left to regroup. But now, alone, I still seemed to be faced off against three opponents, each one vying for my attention, for a piece of my flesh. Three against one,
I fought a losing battle.

  Hannah had endangered herself to share her faith. A sucker punch to the ribs right above my heart. In truth, I’d only made her promise not to try and convert me, but how could she put herself in danger when I’d done all I could to protect her?

  Daher interested in converting from Islam to Christianity? Left hook to the jaw that caused me to stumble backward. A blow I’d never seen coming. How could this faithful mentor turn his back on all he held true?

  My failure yet again to keep Hannah from harm threatened to knock me out cold. If anything, this opponent attacked the most viciously.

  Bruised in spirit, I lifted my head, no closer in knowing what to do, how to win this fight.

  “Karim. I saw you enter, my friend. Where are you?”

  A silhouette outlined the center of the mouth of the cave while Samlil’s words bounced off its walls. Weary, I walked forward. No use pretending I wasn’t there if he’d already seen me. Besides, maybe I needed a friend by my side. One who could add a perspective I hadn’t considered before. Heaven knew I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own.

  I let the light touch my feet but kept the rest of my body within the shadows of the cave. My soul needed respite more than my body, but I’d take what I could get. Already heat built from the friction inside me. Add the temperature of full sun exposure, and I’d burn like paper to a match.

  “How is your mother?” Samlil asked, his brows lowered in concern.

  “Better. She and Ethan should be returning to us shortly.”

  “Good. That’s good. I was happy to learn that you had returned. Much happened in your absence.” Samlil looked at me with a steady regard, and unease crept into my stomach. The feeling had tiptoed across my skin, making the hairs on my arms rise, pushing out the report I’d known with him all my life. The feeling had come slowly, gradually, over the last several months, but I’d been loath to face it and confront the reason. Still was. Samlil had done nothing that I’d seen to cause this hesitation in his presence. But unlike a dog’s ease to shake off water from his furry coat, this feeling clung to me, refusing to be shaken.