"There's no point in speculating," Jane said. She put the maps together and rolled them up. "Someone must know.
"I guess so."
She stood up. "There's got to be more than one way out of this bloody country," she said. She tucked the maps under her arm and went out, leaving Ellis kneeling on the rug.
The women and children had returned from the caves and the village had come to life. The smoke of cooking fires drifted over courtyard walls. In front of the mosque, five children were sitting in a circle playing a game called (for no apparent reason) Melon. It was a storytelling game, in which the teller stopped before the end and the next child had to carry on. Jane spotted Mousa, the son of Mohammed, sitting in the circle, wearing at his belt the rather wicked-looking knife his father had given him after the accident with the mine. Mousa was telling the story. Jane heard: "... and the bear tried to bite the boy's hand off, but the boy drew his knife ..."
She headed for Mohammed's house. Mohammed himself might not be there—she had not seen him for a long time—but he lived with his brothers, in the usual Afghan extended family, and they, too, were guerrillas—all the fit young men were—so if they were there they might be able to give her some information.
She hesitated outside the house. By custom she should stop in the courtyard and speak to the women, who would be there preparing the evening meal; and then, after an exchange of courtesies, the most senior woman might go into the house to inquire whether the menfolk would condescend to speak to Jane. She heard her mother's voice say: "Don't make an exhibition of yourself!" Jane said aloud: "Go to hell, Mother." She walked in, ignoring the women in the courtyard, and marched straight into the front room of the house—the men's parlor.
There were three men there: Mohammed's eighteen-year-old brother, Kahmir Khan, with a handsome face and a wispy beard; his brother-in-law, Matullah; and Mohammed himself. It was unusual for so many guerrillas to be at home. They all looked up at her, startled.
"God be with you, Mohammed Khan," Jane said. Without pausing to let him reply, she went on: "When did you get back?"
"Today," he replied automatically.
She squatted on her haunches like them. They were too astonished to say anything. She spread out her maps on the floor. The three men leaned forward reflexively to look at them: already they were forgetting Jane's breach of etiquette. "Look," she said. "The Russians have advanced this far—am I right?" She retraced the line Ellis had shown her.
Mohammed nodded agreement.
"So the regular convoy route is blocked."
Mohammed nodded again.
"What is the best way out now?"
They all looked dubious and shook their heads. This was normaclass="underline" when talking of difficulties, they liked to make a meal of it. Jane thought it was because their local knowledge was the only power they had over foreigners such as she. Usually she was tolerant, but today she had no patience. "Why not this way?" she asked peremptorily, drawing a line parallel with the Russian front.
"Too close to the Russians," said Mohammed.
"Here, then." She traced a more careful route, following the contours of the land.
"No," he said again.
"Why not?"
"Here—" He pointed to a place on the map, between the heads of two valleys, where Jane had blithely run her finger over a mountain range. "Here there is no saddle." A saddle was a pass.
Jane outlined a more northerly route. "This way?"
"Worse still."
"There must be another way out!" Jane cried. She had a feeling they were enjoying her frustration. She decided to say something mildly offensive, to liven them up a bit. "Is this country a house with one door, cut off from the rest of the world just because you cannot get to the Khyber Pass?" The phrase the house with one door was a euphemism for the privy.
"Of course not," said Mohammed stiffly. "In summer there is the Butter Trail."
"Show me."
Mohammed's finger traced a complex route which began due east of the Valley, proceeding through a series of high passes and dried-up rivers, then turned north into the Himalayas, and finally crossed the border near the entrance to the uninhabited Waikhan Corridor before swinging southeast to the Pakistani town of Chitral. "This is how the people of Nuristan take their butter and yogurt and cheese to market in Pakistan." He smiled and touched his round cap. "That is where we get the hats." Jane recalled that they were called Chitrali caps.
"Good," said Jane. "We will go home that way."
Mohammed shook his head. "You cannot."
"And why not?"
Kahmir and Matullah gave knowing smiles. Jane ignored them. After a moment Mohammed said: "The first problem is the altitude. This route goes above the ice line.
That means the snow never melts, and there is no running water, even in summer. Second is the landscape. The hills are very steep and the paths are narrow and treacherous. It is hard to find your way: even local guides get lost. But the worst problem of all is the people. That region is called Nuristan, but it used to be called Kafiristan, because the people were unbelievers, and drank wine. Now they are true believers, but still they cheat, rob and sometimes murder travelers. This route is no good for Europeans, impossible for women. Only the youngest and strongest men can use it—and even then, many travelers are killed."
"Will you send convoys that way?"
"No. We will wait until the southerly route is reopened."
She studied his handsome face. He was not exaggerating, she could telclass="underline" he was being dryly factual. She stood up and began to shuffle the maps together. She was bitterly disappointed. Her return home was postponed indefinitely. The strain of life in the Valley suddenly seemed insupportable, and she felt like crying.
She rolled her maps into a cylinder and forced herself to be polite. "You were away a long time," she said to Mohammed.
"I went to Faizabad."
"A long trip." Faizabad was a large town in the far north. The Resistance was very strong there: the army had mutinied and the Russians had never regained control. "Aren't you tired?"
It was a formal question, like How do you do? in English, and Mohammed gave the formal reply: "I'm still alive!"
She tucked her roll of maps under her arm and went out.
The women in the courtyard looked at her fearfully as she passed them. She nodded at Halima, Mohammed's dark-eyed wife, and got a nervous half-smile in return.
The guerrillas were doing a lot of traveling lately. Mohammed had been to Faizabad, Fara's brother had gone to Jalalabad. . . . Jane recalled that one of her patients, a woman from Dasht-i-Rewat, had said that her husband had been sent to Pagman, near Kabul. And Zahara's brother-in-
law Yussuf Gul, the brother of her dead husband, had been sent to the Logar Valley, on the far side of Kabul. All four places were rebel strongholds.
Something was going on.
Jane forgot her disappointment for a while as she tried to figure out what was happening. Masud had sent messengers to many—perhaps all—of the other Resistance commanders. Was it a coincidence that this happened so soon after Ellis's arrival in the Valley? If not, what could Ellis be up to? Perhaps the U.S. was collaborating with Masud in organizing a concerted offensive. If all the rebels acted together they could really achieve something—they could probably take Kabul temporarily.
Jane went into her house and dropped the maps in the chest. Chantal was still asleep. Fara was preparing food for supper: bread, yogurt and apples. Jane said: "Why did your brother go to Jalalabad?"
"He was sent," said Fara with the air of one who states the obvious.
"Who sent him?"
"Masud."
"What for?"
"I don't know." Fara looked surprised that Jane should ask such a question: who could be so foolish as to think that a man would tell his sister his reason for a journey?