Vassily was absently picking at a wound on his leg, a cut that refused to scab over properly and seemed to be growing by the day.
‘If you have lost the ability to kill, you have lost the ability to live,’ he concluded.
‘That’s it?’ I said. ‘It’s that simple?’
‘You shouldn’t make it any more complicated,’ he said.
‘But what if I don’t think my life is worth the killing of innocent children and women, the demolishing of villages. What makes my life so valuable?’
Vassily’s brow furrowed.
‘That girl has been filling your head with rubbish,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t bring Zena into this,’ I snapped. ‘She is one of them. She is trouble, Antanas. If you need a woman, fuck one of the Russian girls, pay them and do it. Anything else is not healthy.’
I flicked the cigarette away; watched it bounce on the dusty ground, scattering sparks.
‘Leave me be,’ I said.
Vassily grabbed my arm as I turned away.
‘Comrade, listen to me. She is not worth it. She’s putting you in danger, filling your head with nonsense.’
I shook his hand off my arm and left him sitting outside the hut. Already the walls we had built had begun to crumble; the roof was covered with dust and stones. It looked as if it had been there for years. Purple clouds rolled down from the knot of mountains, advancing across the plain towards us. A hot gust of wind blew up the dirt. I tasted the moisture in the air, the coming of the rain.
It reached us later that afternoon. It moved across the base like a sodden blanket dragged down from the mountains. The water ran away in a million little rivulets, pooled in every dip in the earth, battered the walls of our huts, eating them away. I sat on my bunk smoking, listening to its thunderous beat on the roof of corrugated tin, drowning out the hard rock pounding from Kolya’s cassette player. Kolya lay slumped in the corner, grinning stupidly.
‘Legend says opium poppies sprang from the tears of Aphrodite,’ he had told me, apropos of nothing, one evening, as he smoked in the stifling heat, a thick, oily cloud hanging darkly around his head. ‘Mourning for Adonis.’
The rain pummelled the earth, warm waves of water irrigating the new crop of poppy fields. Aphrodite’s tears, I thought listlessly, as I lay on the bunk. I wrote a letter to Zena and gave it to Sasha, who would be escorting the supply convoy the following week. When Sasha returned he brought a reply with him. I sat on my bunk with the envelope before me, not daring to open it.
‘Antanas,’ she wrote, ‘try as I might, I cannot erase you from my mind. You think I’m being cruel, when I am only trying to do what is right. What will become of us? I remember our nights together and long to have you here again. I try not to think these things because they can bring no good. Call me when next you come to Jalalabad.’
But when I next volunteered for escort duty, Lieutenant Zhuralev rejected me, putting me instead on guard duty. Angrily, I confronted Vassily.
‘What have you been telling Zhuralev?’ I demanded.
He shrugged his shoulders, turning from me.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he said.
‘You know what I am talking about.’
‘Listen, comrade,’ he said, ‘it’s for your own good.’
‘It’s none of your fucking business,’ I shouted.
I lashed out at him. Vassily stepped back, a furious look crossing his face. He slipped on the wet earth, sliding to his hands and knees. Standing slowly, he faced me, raising his fists. His eyes burnt angrily and his trousers were dark with mud. I threw another punch at him. It hit him hard and he flinched. For a moment he stared at me, perfectly still, like a snake on a rock disturbed in its sleep. The punch he threw knocked me from my feet. I heard the sharp smack as his fist connected with my jaw, felt the pain as my neck wrenched suddenly. Felt the mud sliding beneath my body, the dirty water in my eyes, in my mouth.
‘Antanas,’ Vassily said, bending over me, his voice shaking with concern. ‘Comrade, are you OK? Can you hear me?’
My eyelids flickered open, and I gazed up at him; saw his large face, his dark beard quivering in the air above me. I was acutely aware that my head was resting in a puddle, the water seeping into my ear, but I could feel no pain. Vassily lifted me from the earth and carried me over to the medical hut. I heard his voice, apologetically explaining to the medic what had happened.
‘Stick him over there,’ the medic responded, unconcerned.
Gently, Vassily lowered me on to a bed. He bent over me, staring at me anxiously, listening to my breathing, feeling my pulse. The medic came over and pushed him out of the way. Roughly, he seized an eyelid, pressed it back and shone a torch into my eye. He repeated the process with the other.
‘How you feeling?’ he asked me with evident lack of interest. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. I nodded, sending little pains shivering down my spine. ‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Split lip.’ He felt my jaw. ‘Nothing broken. Concussion, perhaps.’ He held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers?’ he asked.
‘Three.’
‘Better shape than me.’ The medic grinned, dropping his hand. ‘Rest for a couple of hours, you’ll be fine.’
Later Vassily seemed mortified by what had happened.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said.
‘About the girl,’ he said. When I raised my eyebrows, he held up his hands. ‘Please, I just wanted to say, it is not my business. I apologise, comrade.’
Vassily approached me the next weekend I had leave and offered to take me to Jalalabad with him. I left him with Kirov at their favourite café, and hurried over to the hospital, hoping the hurried message I had sent had got through. Zena was waiting, sheltering from the rain beneath the spread branches of an old oak. She smiled. We stood for a moment, awkward in each other’s presence. Then, taking my hand, she led me out into the rain.
‘Come,’ she said, ‘I have somebody to meet.’
We caught a tram across the town, its lights glittering in the dark, rain-swept streets, to a district close to the river. I alighted from the tram, nervous, feeling conspicuous in my uniform. I swung my Kalashnikov around from my shoulder and followed Zena, who was hurrying towards the doorway of a newly built apartment block.
A young boy of about six opened the door when Zena knocked softly. He gazed up at us, eyes wide. Zena whispered something to him and he disappeared.
A moment later a young woman appeared in his place. She opened the door with a smile and ushered us into a small, tidy apartment. When I entered she looked apprehensive. She drew Zena aside and I heard the quiet, guttural tones of their whispered Pashtu. When they emerged, she shook my hand and greeted me in perfect Russian. Her hand was slim and cool.
The young woman was earnest and intelligent. Her hair, which was long, was tied back under a colourful scarf. Purposefully, she moved around the tiny kitchen, boiling water for coffee and tidying as she talked. Zena sat by the table, listening to her quietly.
‘Even here in Jalalabad,’ the young woman said, ‘there are girls who are not getting an education, though legally their families could be punished for preventing it. But in the villages there has been little movement on the issue. And it isn’t just the education, there are the clinics and medical care that women in rural areas need, and are being denied.’
I sipped my coffee and said nothing. After a while the young woman settled on a chair by the table. She folded her hands in her lap, and spoke in her quiet, educated voice. Mainly she spoke in Russian for my benefit, but occasionally she slipped into Pashtu; sometimes Zena interpreted and sometimes she did not. From the doorway of the kitchen the young boy watched me, his eyes fixed on my gun, which stood by the side of my chair. When I offered him a sweet, he ducked away, out of sight.