There was a taranta waiting outside. On the floor between the seats, there was a film projector and a boxed reel of film. Two Red Army men, small and rather frail-looking Russians, were leaning up against the vehicle, rifles cradled in their arms.
The taranta creaked alarmingly as they all clambered aboard, and the axles squealed as the driver set the ponies in motion. McColl was pleasantly conscious of Caitlin’s thigh against his own, but she was in animated conversation with the other two women. Soon they were crossing a dry riverbed and entering the old town, drawing stares from the local population. Shurateva shouted directions at the driver, who gave no sign of hearing her but went where she directed.
“What’s the film?” McColl asked Caitlin.
“Makul-Oi,” Shurateva answered him. “It’s the story of a Muslim girl who refuses to marry the old man her parents have promised her to.”
And who wins out despite many setbacks, McColl thought but had the sense not to say. Why did propaganda always sound faintly ridiculous, even when it made such perfect sense?
The taranta rattled down a narrow street and crossed a square that housed a large mosque. The sky was rapidly darkening, and a large flock of birds was drawing wide circles in the air above, cawing fit to burst. McColl felt a chill run up his back, leaving a sense of unease that he couldn’t begin to explain. He closed his eyes for several seconds, then opened them just in time to see a scrawny tortoiseshell cat slither under a gate.
They arrived at the meeting place. McColl and one of the soldiers carried the projector through an arched wooden doorway and into a large courtyard. Rugs covered the ground, and about thirty Uzbek women were sitting cross-legged, their veils lowered, chatting with one another. When McColl and the soldier appeared, they turned their faces away, raising the veils as they did so.
“You’ll have to stay outside,” Caitlin told him.
McColl nodded and withdrew, joining the two soldiers outside the main doorway. This was set back from the street, on the rim of a semicircular space. A row of small trees on either side provided daytime shade for the wooden benches that lined the compound walls. Seating himself on one, McColl examined the scene. It was a wide street for the old town and seemed unusually quiet for the time of day.
As if to confirm his suspicion, two young Uzbek men squatted down across the way, taking occasional glances in his direction.
Through the door he could hear Caitlin talking in Russian, then pausing while Shurateva translated her words into Uzbek. The two women were setting the scene for the film they were about to show.
One of the soldiers offered McColl a cigarette. He took it, feeling his hands needed something to do. Was he imagining the tension in the air? The two young Uzbeks across the street were staring straight at him.
The whir of the projector was suddenly audible through the door, and flickers of light danced on the higher walls.
McColl got up and placed his eye against one of the star-shaped holes in the wooden door. The film was flickering on the earthen courtyard wall, which had the strange effect of dragging it into the past, offering only sepia when black and white was required. But the women, once more unveiled, were drinking it in, wonder in their eyes and upturned faces. On the other side of the courtyard, Caitlin was seated on the edge of a veranda, elbows on knees, her attention switching back and forth between the film and its audience, a smile of serene contentment lighting her face.
McColl felt a surge of sadness. For what? For whom?
Back in the street, the two young men had turned into five. They stared at him, and he stared back, then ostentatiously slid his pistol out of his belt and laid it on the bench beside him. One man began whispering excitedly to the others; then all turned their heads in the same direction, looking down the street at something he couldn’t yet see.
He was not in suspense for long. Another dozen men of varying ages walked into view, and the whole assemblage squatted down in a circle, like a bunch of soldiers receiving their last instructions before setting off on a mission. Which wasn’t an encouraging thought.
After a few minutes, the meeting seemed to break up. They all rose to their feet, and two of the older men started across the street, walking slowly but with obvious purpose. McColl picked up his pistol as his Red Army companions reached for the rifles they’d leaned against the compound wall. When the Uzbeks were about twenty feet away, he raised his hand to halt them. “Good evening,” he said cheerfully in their language. “How may I help you?”
The use of their mother tongue seemed an unexpected development. The shorter, more intelligent-looking of the two offered a respectful bow. Like his partner he was dressed in a white linen shirt, matching trousers, and embroidered cap. “We wish to speak with our wives and daughters,” he said.
“The meeting will soon be over,” McColl told him.
“We wish to speak most urgently.”
Too bad, McColl thought. “I regret that that is not possible,” he said. “This is a party meeting, a government meeting,” he added, remembering Komarov’s advice. “It cannot be interrupted. But it will be over in a very short time,” he promised, hoping it was true. A fresh contingent was approaching up the street opposite, and some of the newcomers were carrying flaming torches, which seemed to wrench the scene back several centuries.
“It is not right,” the other Uzbek was saying, revealing several gold teeth in the process. “These are our women.”
McColl just looked at him. The torches, the whining husband, the ludicrous religious trimmings. He thought of Ulugai, sliced into pieces by men like these.
“It is not right,” the man repeated patiently, as if McColl hadn’t heard him the first time.
“There is nothing more to be said,” McColl snapped, and dismissively turned his back. When he looked again, the two men had recrossed the street, but an imam had also arrived, and was intoning passages from the Koran, jabbing away with his fingers to emphasize each point. McColl stood and watched, thinking it must have been scenes like this that had greeted suspect witches in medieval England.
He considered advising Caitlin to end the meeting before matters got out of hand, but loud applause and a quick look through the star told him the film had just finished. Two women were lighting kerosene lamps and hanging them from veranda beams; Caitlin and Shurateva were taking up position where the “screen” had been. When questions were asked for, several hands shot up.
Across the street the imam’s voice grew louder and shriller. McColl had no idea where the nearest telephone might be, and any kind of search would mean leaving his post. The two soldiers were looking increasingly nervous and casting frequent glances in his direction, as if willing him to conjure up the magic carpet that would whisk them back to the safety of their barracks.
McColl made up his mind. “Tell Comrade Piatakova what is happening,” he was telling the nearer soldier, when a stone bounced off the man’s shoulder, knocking him back a pace. Two more thudded into the wall close by. The crowd was advancing slowly across the street, all except for the imam, who was urging them on from behind, wearing the sort of facial expression that Haig might have worn at the Somme. McColl wondered if shooting the man would help. The rest might be shocked into flight. Or tear him limb from limb.
He fired into the ground ahead of the advancing feet. The effect was dramatic: the voices both inside and out broke off abruptly, leaving only the city’s murmur.