Out of Range: A Novel Read Free

erstwhile partners in a growing movement to liberate the Uzbek people from decades of darkness.
    Byko’s handsome face was flushed with excitement as he approached Julie and kissed her on the cheek, then pumped Charlie’s hand, brazenly demanding, “See what you started?”
    “Me?” Charlie responded implausibly.
    “This is all because of your article,” Byko insisted. “I took the liberty of translating it and printing up samizdat copies. They’ve been circulating for days. Very powerful work, Charlie.”
    “I’m surprised you’re here, Alisher. This could be risky for you.”
    Byko smiled. “Karimov and his cronies don’t give a shit about anything but their Swiss bank accounts. The U.S. and Britain only care about basing troops here to support the war in Afghanistan. I simply had to decide whether I stood with my countrymen or not. At any rate, I want to thank you. Your story has made quite a stir here.”
    “So far it hasn’t made much difference in the States, I’m afraid.”
    “Just the fact that it was published in a major magazine shows that someone finally cares. Someone other than Julie, that is.” This Byko said with a flirtatious wink and Julie could feel Charlie shift on his heels, a hint of jealousy that ushered Charlie’s hand onto the small of her back. The jealousy didn’t bother her in the least. As a matter of fact, she had to admit she enjoyed it. Especially now that, in her eighth month of pregnancy, she was tipping the scales at 150 pounds, her husband’s proprietary energy was a boon to her hormonally imbalanced ego.
    Someone shouted and beckoned toward Byko from a few yards away and he excused himself with a flourish.
    “He still has a thing for you,” Charlie noted.
    “It was a million years ago,” Julie sighed. “He’s married now, and so am I . . .” She leaned in and kissed him. “Thank God.”
    A few minutes later, Charlie was snapping photographs of the crowd. As a seasoned journalist, he normally kept a certain detachment from the events he was covering, but today he was flooded with anticipation. He’d witnessed popular uprisings before, in countries even more repressed than this, but there was something in the spirit of the people here that gave him hope this could be more than just a one-time expression of pent-up fury. Today could be the beginning of something historic. And as Byko himself had said, Charlie was very much a part of what was happening here.
    That idea—that he might actually be influencing and not merely reporting on events—filled him with pride and excitement. And there was no one he would rather have at his side in a moment like this than Julie. He was nearly thirty-eight now, and in all of his years of travel, he’d never met anyone quite like her. He lowered his camera and watched her handing out placards to the locals, laughing and bantering in her fluent Uzbek. She might have been raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, but she had the common touch, an ability to immediately connect with people on their own terms.
    Just for fun, Charlie turned his camera on her and snapped a few candids. An old Uzbek woman was rubbing her pregnant belly. Julie threw back her head and laughed in that unbridled, carefree way that had slayed him the first time they met. It was as if her joy—her very life force—was contagious. In her presence, he could recognize and approach his best self, and in reaching for that self, he could then be worthy of her. Of course, the flip side of her unmitigated optimism and faith in humanity was a stubborn resolve that could be impenetrable, and the old woman’s hands on Julie’s belly only served to remind him of this.
    He and Julie were in the midst of an ongoing argument—she wanted to stay here for the birth, he wanted to go to London where they could be sure they were getting the best medical care. To Julie, it had become almost a moral issue. Leaving here for the safety of London would be, in her words, “a