It was irrational, he knew. He had realized that when he came back from Paris and reflected for a while on how his job had ruined his life. He had decided to stop trying to redeem the sins of America. But this . . . this was different. Here was a chance to fight for the little guy, to fight against the lying generals and the power brokers and the blinkered journalists—a chance not just to fight, not just to pay a small contribution, but to make a real difference, to change the course of a war, to alter the fate of a country, and to strike a blow for freedom on a big scale.
And then there was Jane.
The mere possibility of seeing her again had rekindled his passion. Just a few days ago he had been able to think of her and the danger she was in, and then put the thought out of his mind and turn the page of the magazine. Now he could hardly stop thinking about her. He wondered whether her hair was long or short, was she fatter or thinner, did she feel good about what she was doing with her life, did the Afghans like her, and—most of all—did she still love Jean-Pierre? Take my advice, Gill had said; check her out. Clever Gill.
Finally he thought about Petal. I tried, he said to himself; I really tried, and I don’t think I handled it too badly—I think it was a doomed project. Gill and Bernard give her all she needs. There is no room for me in her life. She’s happy without me.
He closed the diary and returned it to the case. Next he took out a small, cheap jeweler’s box. Inside was a small pair of gold earrings, each with a pearl in the center. The woman they had been intended for, a slant-eyed girl with small breasts who had taught him that nothing is taboo, had died—killed by a drunken soldier in a Saigon bar—before he gave them to her. He had not loved her: he had just liked her and felt grateful to her. The earrings were to have been a farewell gift.
He took a plain card and a pen from his shirt pocket. He thought for a minute, then wrote:
To Petal—
Yes, you can have them pierced.
With love from Daddy
CHAPTER SIX
The Five Lions River was never warm, but it seemed a little less cold now, in the balmy evening air at the end of a dusty day, when the women came down to their own exclusive stretch of the bank to bathe. Jane gritted her teeth against the chill and waded into the water with the others, lifting her dress inch by inch as it got deeper, until it was up to her waist; then she began to wash: after long practice she had mastered the peculiar Afghan skill of getting clean all over without undressing.
When she had finished she came out of the river, shivering, and stood near Zahara, who was washing her hair in a pool with much splashing and spluttering, and at the same time carrying on a boisterous conversation. Zahara dipped her head in the water one more time, then reached for her towel. She scrabbled around in a hollow in the sandy earth, but the towel was not there. “Where’s my towel?” she yelled. “I put it in this hole. Who stole it?”
Jane picked up the towel from behind Zahara and said: “Here it is. You put it in the wrong hole.”
“That’s what the mullah’s wife said!” Zahara shouted, and the others shrieked with laughter.
Jane was now accepted by the village women as one of them. The last vestiges of reserve or wariness had vanished after the birth of Chantal, which seemed to have confirmed that Jane was a woman like any other.
The talk at the riverside was surprisingly frank—perhaps because the children were left behind in the care of older sisters and grandmothers, but more probably because of Zahara. Her loud voice, her flashing eyes and her rich, throaty laughter dominated the scene. No doubt she was all the more extroverted here for having to repress her personality the rest of the day. She had a vulgar sense of humor, which Jane had not come across in any other Afghan, male or female, and Zahara’s ribald remarks and double-meaning jokes often opened the way for serious discussion. Consequently Jane was sometimes able to turn the evening bathing session into an impromptu health education class. Birth control was the most popular topic, although the women of Banda were more interested in how to ensure pregnancy than how to prevent it. However, there was some sympathy for the idea, which Jane was trying to promote, that a woman was better able to feed and care for her children if they were born two years apart rather than every twelve or fifteen months. Yesterday they had talked about the menstrual cycle, and it transpired that Afghan women thought the fertile time was just before and just after the period. Jane had told them that it was from the twelfth day to the sixteenth, and they appeared to accept this, but she had a disconcerting suspicion that they thought she was wrong and were too polite to say so.
Today there was an air of excitement. The latest Pakistan convoy was due back. The men would bring small luxuries—a shawl, some oranges, plastic bangles—as well as the all-important guns, ammunition and explosives for the war.
Zahara’s husband, Ahmed Gul, one of the sons of the midwife Rabia, was leader of the convoy, and Zahara was visibly excited at the prospect of seeing him again. When they were together they were like all Afghan couples: she silent and subservient, he casually imperious. But Jane could tell, by the way they looked at one another, that they were in love; and it was clear from the way Zahara talked that their love was highly physical. Today she was almost beside herself with desire, rubbing her hair dry with fierce, frantic energy. Jane sympathized: she had felt that ways herself sometimes. No doubt she and Zahara had become friends because each recognized a kindred spirit in the other.
Jane’s skin dried almost immediately in the warm, dusty air. It was now the height of summer, and every day was long, dry and hot. The good weather would last a month or two longer, and then for the rest of the year it would be bitterly cold.
Zahara was still interested in yesterday’s topic of conversation. She stopped rubbing her hair for a moment to say: “Whatever anyone says, the way to get pregnant is to Do It every day.”
There was agreement from Halima, the sullen, dark-eyed wife of Mohammed Khan. “And the only way not to get pregnant is never to Do It.” She had four children, but only one of them—Mousa—was a boy, and she had been disappointed to learn that Jane knew of no way to improve one’s chances of having a boy.
Zahara said: “But then, what do you say to your husband when he comes home after six weeks with a convoy?”
Jane said: “Be like the mullah’s wife, and put it in the wrong hole.”
Zahara roared with laughter. Jane smiled. That was a birth control technique which had not been mentioned in her crash courses in Paris, but it was clear that modern methods would not arrive in the Five Lions Valley for many years yet, so traditional means would have to serve—helped, perhaps, by a little education.
The talk turned to the harvest. The Valley was a sea of golden wheat and bearded barley, but much of it would rot in the fields, for the young men were away fighting most of the time and the older ones found it slow work reaping by moonlight. Toward the end of the summer all the families would add up their sacks of flour and baskets of dried fruit, look at their chickens and goats, and count their pennies; and they would contemplate the coming shortages of eggs and meat, and hazard a guess at this winter’s prices for rice and yogurt; and some of them would pack a few precious possessions and make the long trek across the mountains to set up new homes in the refugee camps of Pakistan, as the shopkeeper had, along with millions of other Afghans.