Ellis nodded. "That puzzled me at the time. But I'm more important to them than you are; and I think he decided that, while he wants eventually to capture you, in the meantime he has another use for you."
"What use? What could they want me to do?"
"Slow me down."
"By making you stay here?"
"No, by coming with me."
As soon as he said it she realized he was right, and a sense of doom settled over her like a shroud. She had to go with him, she and her baby; there was no alternative. If we die, we die, she thought fatalistically. So be it. "I suppose I have a better chance of escaping from here with you than of escaping from Siberia alone," she said.
Ellis nodded. "That's about it."
"I'll start packing," said Jane. There was no time to lose. "We'd better leave first thing tomorrow morning."
Ellis shook his head. "I want to be out of here in an hour."
Jane panicked. She had been planning to leave, of course, but not so suddenly; and now she felt she did not have time to think. She began to rush around the little house, throwing clothes and food and medical supplies indiscriminately into an assortment of bags, terrified that she would forget something crucial but too rushed to pack sensibly.
Ellis understood her mood and stopped her. He held her shoulders, kissed her forehead and spoke calmly to her. "Tell me something," he said. "Do you happen to know what the highest mountain in Britain is?"
She wondered if he was crazy. "Ben Nevis," she said. "It's in Scotland."
"How high is it?"
"Over four thousand feet."
"Some of the passes we're going to climb are sixteen and seventeen thousand feet high—that's four times as high as the highest mountain in Britain. Although the distance is only a hundred and fifty miles, it's going to take us at least two weeks. So stop; think; and plan. If you take a little more than an hour to pack, too bad—it's better than going without the antibiotics."
She nodded, took a deep breath and started again.
She had two saddlebags that could double as backpacks. Into one she put clothes: Chantal's diapers, a change of underwear for all of them, Ellis's quilted down coat from
New York, and the fur-lined raincoat, complete with hood, that she had brought from Paris. She used the other bag for medical supplies and food—iron rations for emergencies. There was no Kendal Mint Cake, of course, but Jane had found a local substitute, a cake made of dried mulberries and walnuts, almost indigestible but packed with concentrated energy. They also had a lot of rice and a lump of hard cheese. The only souvenir Jane took was her collection of Polaroid photographs of the villagers. They also took their sleeping bags, a saucepan and Ellis's military kitbag, which contained some explosives and blasting equipment—their only weapon. Ellis lashed all the baggage to Maggie, the unidirectional mare.
Their hurried leavetaking was tearful. Jane was embraced by Zahara, old Rabia the midwife, and even Halima, Mohammed's wife. A sour note was introduced by Abdullah, who passed by just before they left and spat on the ground, hurrying his family along; but a few seconds later his wife came back, looking frightened but determined, and pressed into Jane's hand a present for Chantal, a primitive rag doll with a miniature shawl and veil.
Jane hugged and kissed Fara, who was inconsolable. The girl was thirteen: soon she would have a husband to adore. In a year or two she would marry and move into the home of her husband's parents. She would have eight or ten children, perhaps half of whom would live past the age of five. Her daughters would marry and leave home. Those of her sons who survived the fighting would get married and bring their wives home. Eventually, when the family grew too large, the sons and the daughters-in-law and the grandchildren would begin to move out to start new extended families of their own. Then Fara would become a midwife, like her grandmother Rabia. I hope, Jane thought, that she'll remember a few of the lessons 1 taught her.
Ellis was embraced by Alishan and Shahazai, and then they left, to cries of "God go with you!" The village children accompanied them to the bend in the river. Jane paused there and looked back for a moment at the little huddle of mud-colored houses that had been her home for a year. She knew she would never come back; but she had a feeling that, if she survived, she would be telling stories of Banda to her grandchildren.
They walked briskly along the riverbank. Jane found herself straining her ears for the sound of helicopters. How soon would the Russians start looking for them? Would they send a few helicopters to hunt more or less at random, or would they take the time to organize a really thorough search? Jane did not know which to hope for.
It took them less than an hour to reach Dasht-i-Rewat, "The Plain with a Fort," a pleasant village where the cottages with their shaded courtyards were dotted along the northern bank of the river. Here it was that the cart track— the pitted, snaking, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dirt path that passed for a road in the Five Lions Valley—came to an end. Any wheeled vehicles robust enough to survive the road had to stop here, so the village did a little business horse trading. The fort mentioned in the name was up a side valley, and was now a prison, run by the guerrillas, housing a few captured government troops, a Russian or two, and the occasional thief. Jane had visited it once, to treat a miserable nomad from the western desert who had been conscripted into the regular army, had contracted pneumonia in the cold Kabul winter, and had deserted. He was being "reeducated" before being allowed to join the guerrillas.
It was midday, but neither of them wanted to stop and eat. They hoped to reach Saniz, ten miles away at the head of the Valley, by nightfall; and although ten miles was eo great distance on level ground, in this landscape it could take many hours.
The last stretch of the road wound in and out between the houses on the north bank. The south bank was a cliff two hundred feet high. Ellis led the horse and Jane carried Chantal in the sling she had devised, which enabled her to feed Chantal without stopping. The village ended at a water mill close to the mouth of the side valley called the Riwat, which led to the prison. After they had passed that point, they were not able to walk so fast. The ground
began to slope up, gradually at first and then more steeply. They climbed steadily under the hot sun. Jane covered her head with her pattu, the brown blanket all travelers carried. Chantal was shaded by the sling. Ellis wore his Chitrali cap, a gift from Mohammed.
When they reached the summit of the pass she noted, with some satisfaction, that she was not even breathing hard. She had never been this fit in her life—and she probably never would be so again. Ellis was not only panting but perspiring, she observed. He was in quite good shape, but he was not as hardened to hours of walking as she was. It made her feel rather smug, until she remembered he had suffered two bullet wounds just nine days ago.
Beyond the pass, the track ran along the mountainside, high above the Five Lions River. Here, unusually, the river was sluggish. Where it was deep and still the water appeared bright green, the color of the emeralds which were found all around Dasht-i-Riwat and taken to Pakistan to be sold. Jane had a fright when her hypersensitive ears picked up the sound of distant aircraft: there was nowhere to hide on the bare clifftop, and she was seized by a sudden desire to jump off the cliff into the river a hundred feet below. But it was only a flight of jets, too high to see anyone on the ground. Nevertheless, from then on Jane scanned the terrain constantly for trees, bushes and hollows in which they might hide. A devil inside her said You don't have to do this, you could go back, you could give yourself up and be reunited with your husband, but somehow it seemed an academic question, a technicality.