‘One more sobaka to welcome into the world,’ he said, a little breathlessly, as he hurried forwards with his bag. ‘As if there aren’t too many already. In a few years’ time he’ll be throwing stones at us when we go past.’
There was a small group waiting outside the house when we arrived. The nurse took the clean cloths and the medical bag the doctor had brought with him.
‘You stay here,’ she said, pointing to a spot outside the door. I glanced at her furiously. ‘Unless, that is, you want one of these men to blow your brains out.’ Her small hand swept around, indicating the crowd of men who had gathered near the door. They gazed at me sullenly, their beards straggling over long soiled shirts. The nurse ducked in through the doorway. I raised my gun apprehensively.
‘Give a yell if you need some help,’ the doctor shouted after her. He grinned and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. Knocking the packet against the palm of his hand, he flicked a cigarette towards me. Nodding to the stooped young father-to-be he offered him one too. The young man smiled shyly and took one of the Russian cigarettes. The jangle of patriotic music drifted across the mud-brick walls from the Agitprop APC. From inside the building came the sound of a woman shouting. I could not tell whether they were cries of pam or anger.
‘You think she’s OK in there on her own?’ I said.
The doctor grinned. ‘Zena? Sure she is OK. What do you think they’re going to do, shoot her when she has delivered the baby? That isn’t how it works, you know that: they’re all nice and friendly when we’re here. We’ll give them some sacks of rice, medicate their problems, hand out a few leaflets and everybody will grin and say what a great thing the revolution is. And then when we’ve gone, the men will be off to the mountains to join their mates, bombing our bases and laying mines and sniping at us.’
The nurse appeared twenty minutes later, wiping her hands on a cloth, the medical bag tucked beneath her arm.
‘They’re both fine,’ she said.
She had a dirty stain on the front of her shirt, which she dabbed at with the cloth. As we paused in the courtyard while she spoke to the stooped young man, I watched her. She had a good body, barely disguised by the unflattering khaki uniform. When we walked back up towards the marketplace, she stumbled in a rut in the dusty road, and I felt the weight of her body press against my own. A rush of excitement surged through me. Glancing up, she must have noticed the expression on my face. She shook my hand from her arm aggressively.
‘You speak the local language?’ I said, to hide my embarrassment.
‘I speak Pashtu, Dari and Russian,’ she said, matter-of- factly, as if anybody might.
‘How did you learn?’
‘Pashtu from my mother and Dari at school.’
‘You’re one of them?’
‘Don’t look so shocked, I’m not going to shoot you.’
‘No, it’s just that… it’s unusual.’
‘It’s a long story,’ she said, waving her hand impatiently. A bead of perspiration ran from her hairline and clung to her forehead.
‘You work in Jalalabad?’
She nodded. ‘Mainly at the hospital in Jalalabad, but I like to come out with the brigade, and they find me useful.’
Turning the corner, we left the village. The crowd was clearing away from the APCs, bustling back into the narrow lanes and sheltered courtyards, uninterested in the propaganda leaflets that a member of the Agitprop Brigade was distributing. The doctor had packed away the flimsy table. Lieutenant Zhuralev, seeing me, beckoned me over angrily.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he shouted, above the noise of the local songs blaring from the loudspeaker. He turned on a soldier from the Agitprop Brigade who was leaning up against the side of his APC, smoking a cigarette. ‘Turn that irritating music off.’
Before I went over to him, I stopped the nurse. She looked at me questioningly, the beads of perspiration rolling down her forehead and settling in her eyebrows.
‘Maybe I could see you, when I get a day free in Jalalabad?’ I said.
She looked at me and narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
‘I’m not a whore.’
Before I could say anything more, she turned away and marched quickly over to the other two doctors. Faintly, above the noise, I heard the sound of their laughter.
‘What the fuck have you been up to?’ Zhuralev demanded again when I reached the APC.
‘Escorting the doctors, sir.’
‘Well, next time, get fucking permission.’
Vassily was on the back of the APC. He grinned as he pulled me up.
Chapter 17
The address the receptionist had given me was on Warsaw Street in the Rasa district, just behind the railway station. On the trolley bus home I stared at the slip of paper. I had not, I remembered with regret, asked the receptionist whether she knew what Kolya was being treated for. The chances were, however, that she would not have told me.
My first memory of Kolya was of when we were six years old. He was sitting in the brightly painted, metal-framed playhouse in the garden of the children’s home. Ponia Marija pushed me through the door and pointed towards the sunlit lawn.
‘Go play, Antanelis,’ she whispered in my ear. Her voice tickled. I could not remember anybody whispering to me before. I brushed my ear and stepped out into the garden, leaving Ponia Marija to speak to the woman who had brought me to the children’s home.
Shrinking back into the shadows, I watched as the children dashed past, screaming and shouting. A small girl paused, staring at me curiously, before she was tugged away by another child. I wandered across the grass towards the fence. Beyond the garden the land sloped away towards a copse of trees and a large lake. Looking out over it, I wondered whether my house lay that way.
‘Hey!’ a voice called from behind me.
A square-faced boy with small dark eyes was hanging out of the playhouse on the grass.
‘I’m a cosmonaut,’ the boy shouted, ducking back into the shade of the hut.
I trotted over to the playhouse and stood by it, gazing in at the boy.
‘I’m a cosmonaut,’ he repeated.
I climbed in beside him and sat on the hard wooden bench.
‘Five!’ he shouted.
I joined in, pressed close to his side, feeling the warmth of his leg against my own.
‘Let’s be soldiers,’ he said after a while, bored with counting from five to blast-off.
‘I’m not here long,’ I told him. ‘Just until my mama comes out of hospital.’
He gazed at me for a moment. ‘Let’s play soldiers,’ he said.
The centre of the Old Town was crowded with people finishing work and the trolley bus I caught was packed tightly. I jumped off a few stops before my apartment and walked slowly up the hill, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. The clouds that had hung over the city for the past week had broken up; they sailed like the high snow-capped mountains around Jalalabad, far above us.
As I approached my apartment block, the door of a car opened, narrowly missing my leg. I jumped back against the wall, stumbling in my panic.
‘Are you OK?’ Zinotis said, stepping out of the car.
I nodded, shakily.
‘I gave you a shock.’ He smiled.
‘I thought you were somebody else,’ I said.
‘Oh?’
‘It’s nothing.’ I waved my hand, self-consciously. ‘Come up for coffee. I found that book Vassily borrowed from you some while ago.’