Now, was there any way Jean-Pierre could ensure that the malang actually followed these orders? He, too, could throw the package away and come back swearing that he had carried out the task, for if he was intelligent enough to understand what he had to do, he might be capable of lying about it.
Jean-Pierre was inspired with an idea. "And buy a pack of Russian cigarettes," he said.
The malang held out empty hands. "No money."
Jean-Pierre knew he had no money. He gave him one hundred afghanis. That should ensure he actually went to Charikar. Was there a way to compel him to deliver the package?
Jean-Pierre said: "If you do this, I'll give you all the pills you want. But do not cheat me—for if you do, I shall know, and I will never give you pills again, and your bellyache will grow worse and worse and you will swell up and then your guts will burst like a grenade and you will die in agony. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Jean-Pierre stared at him in the faint light. The whites of his mad eyes gleamed back. He seemed terrified. Jean-Pierre gave him the rest of the diamorphine pills. "Eat one every morning until you come back to Banda."
He nodded vigorously.
"Go now, and do not try to cheat me."
The man turned away and began to run along the rough path with his odd, animal-like gait. Watching him disappear into the gathering darkness, Jean-Pierre thought: The future of this country is in your filthy hands, you poor mad wretch. May God go with you.
A week later the malang had not returned.
By Wednesday, the day before the conference, Jean-Pierre was distraught. Every hour, he told himself the man could be here within the next hour. At the end of each day, he said he would come tomorrow.
Aircraft activity in the Valley had increased, as if to add to Jean-Pierre's worries. All week the jets had been howling overhead to bomb the villages. Banda had been lucky: only one bomb had landed, and it had merely made a big hole in Abdullah's clover field; but the constant noise and danger made everyone irritable. The tension produced in Jean-Pierre's clinic a predictable crop of patients with stress symptoms: miscarriages, domestic accidents, unexplained vomiting and headaches. It was the children who got the headaches. In Europe, Jean-Pierre would have recommended psychiatry. Here, he sent them to the mullah. Neither psychiatry nor Islam would do much good, for what was wrong with the children was the war.
He went through the morning's patients mechanically, asking his routine questions in Dari, announcing his diagnosis to Jane in French, dressing wounds and giving injections and handing out plastic containers of tablets and glass bottles of colored medicine. It should have taken the malang two days to walk to Charikar. Allow him a day to work up the nerve to approach a Russian soldier and a night to get over it. Setting off the next morning, he had another two days' journey. He should have got back the day before yesterday. What had happened? Had he lost the package, and stayed away in fear and trembling? Had he taken all the pills at once and made himself ill? Had he fallen in the damn river and drowned? Had the Russians used him for target practice?
Jean-Pierre looked at his wristwatch. It was ten-thirty. Any minute now the malang might arrive, bearing a pack of Russian cigarettes as proof that he had been to Charikar. Jean-Pierre wondered briefly how he would explain the cigarettes to Jane, for he did not smoke. He decided that no explanation was necessary for the acts of a lunatic.
He was bandaging a small boy from the next valley who had burned his hand on a cooking fire, when there came from outside the flurry of footsteps and greetings which meant someone had arrived. Jean-Pierre contained his eagerness and continued wrapping the boy's hand. When he heard Jane speak he looked around, and to his intense disappointment saw that it was not the malang but two strangers.
The first of them said: "God be with you, Doctor."
"And with you," said Jean-Pierre. In order to preempt a lengthy exchange of civilities he said: "What is the matter?"
"There has been a terrible bombing at Skabun. Many people are dead and many wounded."
Jean-Pierre looked at Jane. He still could not leave Banda without her permission, for she was afraid he would get in touch with the Russians somehow. But clearly he could not have contrived this summons. "Shall I go?" he said to her in French. "Or will you?" He really did not want to go, for it would mean an overnight stay in all probability, and he was desperate to see the malang.
Jane hesitated. Jean-Pierre knew she was thinking that if she went she would have to take Chantal. Besides, she knew she could not deal with major traumatic wounds.
"It's up to you," Jean-Pierre said.
"You go," she said.
"All right." Skabun was a couple of hours away. If he worked quickly, and if there were not too many wounded, he might just get away at dusk, Jean-Pierre thought. He said: "I'll try to get back tonight."
She came over and kissed his cheek. "Thank you," she said.
He checked his bag quickly: morphine for the pain, penicillin to prevent wound infections, needles and surgical thread, plenty of dressings. He put a cap on his head and a blanket over his shoulders.
"I won't take Maggie," he said to Jane. "Skabun is not far and the trail is very bad." He kissed her again, then turned to the two messengers. "Let's go," he said.
They walked down to the village, then forded the river and climbed the steep steps on the far side. Jean-Pierre was thinking about kissing Jane. If he succeeded in his plan, and the Russians killed Masud, how would she react? She would know he had been behind it. But she would not betray him, he was sure. Would she still love him? He wanted her. Since they had been together he had suffered less and less from the black depressions which used to assault him regularly. Just by loving him she made him feel that he was all right. He wanted that. But he also wanted to succeed in this mission. He thought: I suppose I must want success more than happiness, and that is why I'm prepared to risk losing her for the sake of killing Masud.
The three of them walked southwest along the clifftop footpath with the rushing river loud in their ears. Jean-Pierre asked: "How many people dead?"
"Many people," said one of the messengers.
Jean-Pierre was used to this sort of thing. Patiently he said: "Five? Ten? Twenty? Forty?"
"A hundred."
Jean-Pierre did not believe him: there were not a hundred inhabitants in Skabun. "How many wounded?"
"Two hundred."
That was ludicrous. Did the man not know? Jean-Pierre wondered. Or was he exaggerating for fear that if he gave small numbers the doctor would turn around and go back? Perhaps it was just that he could not count beyond ten. "What kind of wounds?" Jean-Pierre asked him.
"Holes and cuts and bleeding."
Those sounded more like battle injuries. Bombing produced concussion, burns and compression damage from falling buildings. This man was obviously a poor witness. There was no point in questioning him further.
A couple of miles outside Banda they turned off the cliff path and headed north on a track unfamiliar to Jean-Pierre. "Is this the way to Skabun?" he asked.
"Yes."
It was obviously a shortcut he had never discovered. They were certainly heading in the right general direction.
A few minutes later they saw one of the little stone huts in which travelers could rest or spend the night. To Jean-Pierre's surprise, the messengers headed for its doorless entrance. "We haven't time to rest," he told them irritably. "Sick people are waiting for me."
Then Anatoly stepped out of the hut.
Jean-Pierre was dumbfounded. He did not know whether to be exultant because now he could tell Anatoly about the conference, or terrified that the Afghans would kill Anatoly.
"Don't worry," Anatoly said, reading his expression. "They're soldiers of the Afghan regular army. I sent them to fetch you."