‘Listen, my little brother, my comrade,’ Vassily said. He leant over the table, grabbing my arm. ‘This is what we will do. We will go to Kaliningrad, I will borrow a truck, I know where I can get one, and we will bring back our own amber, good stuff, and we will make jewellery. Good jewellery, not cheap rubbish, beautiful jewels like I used to make before the war. We will open the shop and be known as the best jewellers in Vilnius. Niet?’
‘In Vilnius? In the whole of Lithuania!’
‘In the whole fucking reach of the inglorious former Soviet fucking Union.’
‘And we will be rich.’
‘Rich?’ He put down his glass and looked at me seriously. ‘No, my little friend, not rich. Fuck riches. What is money? Money is nothing. Money is shit, a pocketful of shit. Start to want it and it is like a disease, it will grab you around the throat and throttle you. It will kill you. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a rich man? They’re empty. Empty, I tell you. Fuck money, money is the opposite of beauty, and, comrade, I love beauty. She is my goddess.’
‘To beauty,’ I said, raising my glass.
Vassily raised his own glass. The excitement had slipped from his face. His brow was furrowed and his eyes gleamed darkly. ‘Once I got mixed up◦– thought jewellery should be prized only for its worth. I was wrong.’
The telephone rang loudly, suddenly, making me jump. I levered myself from the armchair and crossed over to it. Daiva spoke before I had a chance to say anything.
‘It’s me,’ she said.
She sounded composed, but quiet. It took me a few moments to respond.
‘Hello.’
Silence lapped around our words. I could hear the sound of her breathing; tense, short breaths. I imagined her lips close to the telephone, the rise and fall of her chest. The way her hair fell down across her cheek and tickled her nose.
‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘Are you OK?’ she said, ignoring my question.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You found the food I left you?’
‘Yes, I found it.’
I could hear the quiet murmur of a voice behind her. Perhaps it was just the television. When she spoke again her voice was strained, but she spoke clearly and loudly enough for me to understand she was on her own.
‘I’m sorry, Antanas, I’m sorry, but I had to get away, just for a while. I couldn’t think.’
I said nothing. She paused, as if waiting for me to respond. If I had had a drink perhaps I would have said something. Perhaps she was trying to gauge that; how much I had drunk. My silence seemed to make her more nervous, as if it were an accusation.
‘Your drinking is getting worse and I don’t know how to help you any more,’ she said, her voice cracking with emotion. In the subtle change in her tone, I heard the first tear slip down her cheek. A wave of sorrow washed across me.
‘Daiva,’ I said, ‘I understand.’
‘You don’t, Antanas, you don’t understand at all. That is the problem.’
‘There are lots of problems, Daiva.’
‘And drinking won’t solve any of them,’ she shot back. It was a line she had delivered many times before, and I knew it had come out before she could stop it. She paused and drew a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’ I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the wall. I desperately needed a drink. My mouth was so dry I found it hard to speak, and in my chest I felt the familiar heavy press of dull despair.
‘I love you,’ she said, quietly, almost whispering.
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. ‘Me too.’
‘Then why are you so distant? What’s happening to us, Antanas?’
‘Daiva,’ I said, ‘not now, let’s not argue now.’
She didn’t reply. For a minute we remained like that, listening to the silence of the telephone line.
‘I’ll call again,’ she said finally, her voice catching on the edge of her tears.
‘OK,’ I said.
There was another short silence, and then I heard the soft click of her receiver sliding into its cradle. For some moments I continued to stand there, my forehead pressed against the wall, the receiver to my ear, its buzz tickling me.
Chapter 18
Girls were brought to the base intermittently. Mainly they were Russian girls who worked in offices in Jalalabad◦– civilian employees who had volunteered, doing their International Duty alongside their brothers, or earning some hard cash, which it was impossible to do in their towns and villages back home, saving up for their weddings. Zhuralev had picked one up fresh from Kabul and installed her in his building on the base for a couple of months before she managed to escape. Bringing them to the base for parties was one of Kirov’s little business ventures. He rarely took part in military duties any more, paying off the commanding officer with the profits of his drug deals and prostitution.
One evening, as I squatted outside our barrack hut, rinsing grease from plates, a shadow approached in the swelling darkness.
‘Do you have a cigarette?’ she asked.
I dried my hands on my shirt and took the crumpled packet from my pocket. She took one nonchalantly and waited for me to light it.
‘You not enjoying the party?’ I asked nervously.
She exhaled the cheap smoke slowly. ‘They’re all drunk.’
She had prominent, wide cheekbones and blue eyes. Leaning against the dusty wall of the hut, she was illuminated by the thin pulse of light coming from the bulb dangling just inside the door.
She made no secret of her name or background. She was, she said, Masha from Krasnoyarsk. She worked in an office, she told me; typing, mainly.
I rinsed the last of the plates and took them inside. When I came back out we stood for some time in silence, smoking, listening to the noise of the party. An argument broke out briefly, and there was the sound of a glass shattering. A young woman’s voice screeched shrilly, angrily, and the argument subsided.
‘I hate it here,’ she said with some feeling.
‘The base, you mean?’
She shook her head. ‘Afghanistan. Don’t you?’
I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I don’t really think about it. There doesn’t seem to be anything else. It’s not like I have any choice.’
‘Do you have a girl?’
‘Here?’
‘Don’t be silly. Back home.’
‘No.’
‘I can’t stand the dust here. Or the noise.’
She dropped the butt of her cigarette on to the earth, and ground it into the dust with the heel of her shoe.
‘I can’t stand the smell. Anything. Every night I dream about the dark green of the trees of my home town and the river that runs by the foot of the garden of my mama’s house. My little sister.’
She was wearing a neat cotton shirt and a little red scarf tied tight around her throat. Her hair was brushed out. She smelt fresh and perfumed.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Do you want it?’
I nodded mutely. She did not look at me. We walked out of the base, slipping behind the huts and disappearing into the darkness at the back of the camp, through a hole in the fencing, across the narrow, well-worn track through the minefield.
We settled beneath a tree on the edge of the field and made love mechanically. When I had given her the money she asked me for (gauchely, I had to ask how much was required) she walked back to the base on her own. I watched her recede, not having told her she was the first. When I went to sleep that night, I thought of her and decided I would call her again when next I was in Jalalabad.