Amber

by Stephan Collishaw

  I rinsed the last of the plates and took them inside. When I came back out we stood for some time in silence, smoking, listening to the noise of the party. An argument broke out briefly, and there was the sound of a glass shattering. A young woman’s voice screeched shrilly, angrily, and the argument subsided.

  ‘I hate it here,’ she said with some feeling.

  ‘The base, you mean?’

  She shook her head. ‘Afghanistan. Don’t you?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I don’t really think about it. There doesn’t seem to be anything else. It’s not like I have any choice.’

  ‘Do you have a girl?’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Back home.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can’t stand the dust here. Or the noise.’

  She dropped the butt of her cigarette on to the earth, and ground it into the dust with the heel of her shoe.

  ‘I can’t stand the smell. Anything. Every night I dream about the dark green of the trees of my home town and the river that runs by the foot of the garden of my mama’s house. My little sister.’

  She was wearing a neat cotton shirt and a little red scarf tied tight around her throat. Her hair was brushed out. She smelt fresh and perfumed.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Do you want it?’

  I nodded mutely. She did not look at me. We walked out of the base, slipping behind the huts and disappearing into the darkness at the back of the camp, through a hole in the fencing, across the narrow, well-worn track through the minefield.

  We settled beneath a tree on the edge of the field and made love mechanically. When I had given her the money she asked me for (gauchely, I had to ask how much was required) she walked back to the base on her own. I watched her recede, not having told her she was the first. When I went to sleep that night, I thought of her and decided I would call her again when next I was in Jalalabad.

  A week later we once more accompanied the Agitprop Brigade on one of their visits to a village in the mountains. Zhuralev swore continually; he hated these trips. ‘At best they are pointless, at worst they are a fucking security nightmare,’ he commented.

  The Afghani nurse, Zena, was with the brigade once more. She worked hard, examining the patients queueing in the sun, treating their diseased limbs, suppurating sores and whimpering, pale children. I repeated Zhuralev’s words to her, later in the day, when she took a short break. She drank from a battered canteen in the shadow of the APC, her forehead slick with perspiration, the khaki of her shirt dark beneath her arms and down the length of her spine.

  ‘There is no medical care in most of the villages of Afghanistan,’ she said, eyeing me disdainfully. ‘It is the women who suffer most. The men won’t let them be treated by male doctors and will rarely allow them to go to one of the hospitals in the city if they need care.’

  She emptied a small handful of water into the cupped palm of her hand and splashed it against her face, running her fingers through her thick black hair, curling it back behind her ears.

  ‘Why do you think you’re here?’ she said, her eyes closed, fingers pushing the cool water into the corners of her eye sockets, flushing out the dust. ‘Just to shoot the locals and destroy their villages?’

  ‘We’re here to protect the locals from the American-backed rebels,’ I said, a little stiffly, discomfited to find the Political Officer’s words emerging from my mouth. Annoyed at her prickliness, I was unable to stop myself. ‘The American imperialists want to destabilise the country and we’re here to stop them.’

  Zena grunted. She opened her eyes and gazed at me for a moment. A bead of water clung to her eyelash.

  ‘Don’t deceive yourself,’ she said softly. ‘They don’t want you here any more than they want the Americans. But as you’re here, you may as well do some good.’

  I flushed. Her tone embarrassed me. She held my gaze for a moment longer, then wandered back to the queueing sick.

  As I watched her, a middle-aged man wandered shiftily from a doorway. He paused for a moment, glancing around at the soldiers and the rows of APCs and BMPs. He wore a dark turban, which seemed to be unravelling. When his eyes alighted on Zena, he took a step back. After a moment’s hesitation he stepped forwards, determinedly, the palm of his hand beating against his forehead. Seeing him approach, I stepped forwards myself. I was about to call out to him when Zena looked up and noticed his arrival.

  As their eyes met, he began to shout. At first he spoke in the local language, but after a few moments broke into heavily accented Russian.

  ‘Russian whore… hair uncovered… prostitute…’ For a moment Zena gazed at him, then she dropped the arm of the woman she had been examining, shooting back at him a stream of Pashtu. He stiffened visibly. The colour of his face changed as he realised Zena was a local girl. He snatched at his beard and pulled it furiously. Ducking down, he plucked a stone from the dirt, and, before I could move, lobbed it forcefully towards Zena. The line of patients scattered. The stone fell short, rolling to a stop by Zena’s feet. She did not flinch. She stood with hands on hips, confronting him, willing him even, to approach her.

  The turbaned man glanced around at the soldiers closing in on him. Turning, he disappeared into the shadows of a doorway, a stream of abuse drifting behind him. We laughed.

  The Agitprop Brigade worked through the heat of the afternoon, until the last of the sick had been attended to, the sacks of rice had been handed out and leaflets distributed to the thinning crowd. A bowed figure approached Zena from behind, as we began the process of packing our things away. A hand reached out from beneath the large cloth wound around the figure and touched her shoulder. As she turned, he lashed out.

  I heard her startled cry and looked up. Zena had bent to examine the hand of the man, but suddenly she dropped to her knees and crumpled to the earth. The figure turned and ran, the large cloth dropping away from him, revealing the man who had abused Zena earlier in the afternoon. Kolya shouted, but he did not stop. As I ran towards Zena I saw Kolya raise his gun and heard its sharp metallic retort.

  When I knelt beside her, she was trembling. Lifting her, I noticed the blood flowing down her face, pooling in the socket of her eye.

  ‘What did he do?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t realise he had done anything.’ Her voice shook. I pressed a cloth against the wound that tore down her face . ‘But then there was blood,’ she continued, ‘such a lot of blood. His fingers were covered in blood and I thought the blood had come from him, that he had come to get some medical attention. I bent down to examine his hand and then I saw the blade between his thumb and finger.’

  One of the doctors came over and cleaned and bandaged her wound. The razor blade had cut a thin line down her face, beginning at her scalp and finishing at her jaw.

  ‘Let’s hope the blade was clean,’ the doctor commented. When she felt a little stronger I helped her to her feet. She gazed across the market to the place where the body of her attacker lay sprawled in the dirt. She took my hand and led me across to the corpse. Kolya had hit him twice; once in the back, the other bullet catching him cleanly through the neck. The sand soaked up his blood.

  ‘This is what a woman’s body does in Afghanistan,’ she said as we stood over him. Her voice was full of bitterness. ‘Just the sight of her uncovered face and hair and arms. That is what we learn here from being a child. Look what happens when a woman does not obey the rules. Look and learn.’

  The village marketplace was deathly quiet; apart from our convoy it was deserted. We pulled out quickly.

  Chapter 19

  It had already begun to grow dark when I set out, with Kolya’s letter in my pocket, across the city to the Rasa district. The buildings here were dilapidated; shabby curtains pulled across dimly lit rooms, litter-strewn gutters and, in a doorway, a mangy dog that did not even stir as I passed.

&nbs
p; Warsaw Street lay behind the railway station. I hesitated when finally I found the address given to me at the hospital. The idea of seeing Kolya after so many years troubled me. I glanced around at the run-down buildings, the conspicuous deprivation, and felt a spasm of painful shame that I had done nothing to track him down after Afghanistan, to offer him support.

  I pressed the buzzer by the street door. The metal plate covering the intercom panel had been prised away from the wall by vandals and wires protruded from behind it. After a few moments a tinny woman’s voice answered my call.

  ‘I’m looking for Kolya,’ I called into the twisted metal grille.

  ‘Who is it?’ the voice crackled.

  ‘Antanas – I am an old friend of Kolya’s.’

  There was a short pause. The intercom hissed. It had begun to rain. Large drops splashed against the crumbling bricks, blotching them. I turned up my collar.

  ‘He’s not here,’ the woman said.

  ‘Can I come up?’ I shouted.

  Again she hesitated. A sharp wind drove the rain against me. The door clicked and I pulled it open and slipped inside out of the sudden downpour. The rain beat heavily against the door behind me. The stairwell was warm and dry and smelt clean. It was almost pitch black inside. I felt along the wall and pressed the light switch.

  The woman was waiting by the door of her apartment when I reached the fourth floor. She showed me inside and insisted I have a cup of coffee. The apartment was neat, but barely furnished, with a few photographs displayed. After a short while she brought in the coffee and went to sit on a hard chair close to the window. Nervously, she brushed at a loose strand of hair. She was a small woman, her face worn and tired and rutted already with deep lines.

  ‘I’m looking for Kolya,’ I said.

  She grunted, and a bitter smile lifted the corners of her thin lips. Turning her head, she gazed out of the rain-smeared window.

  ‘Nu, well, you’re not the only one,’ she said in Polish.

  My Polish was not very good and I struggled to grasp her implication.

  ‘There is somebody else looking for him?’ I clarified.

  ‘Someone else?’ she said. ‘Always someone else. He’s been here two months and nothing paid.’

  ‘But did somebody else come here? A man? Kirov – his name?’

  She shook her head, and I was not sure whether she had not understood me or whether she was confirming that Kirov had not been there.

  ‘Have you any idea where Kolya is?’ I tried.

  ‘The last I saw of him was Thursday. He went out for cigarettes.’

  ‘He didn’t say where he was going?’

  The woman laughed at that.

  ‘Are you not concerned?’ I asked.

  She shook her head despondently.

  ‘Kolya and I grew up together,’ I told her, ‘in the children’s home. We were drafted to Afghanistan together.’

  She turned away from the window. ‘You understand,’ she explained, ‘he is not well. He has morphine addiction, his little gift from Afghanistan. He is sick.’ She shrugged. ‘There is only so much you can do. What, am I to throw him out?’

  She stood up and wandered over to a large old bureau. Leafing through a pile of letters, she took a pen and wrote something on a scrap of paper. Handing it to me, she pointed to a woman’s name and an address. ‘It’ll be as good a place to start as anywhere,’ she said.

  I thanked her and drank the last of the bitter coffee. As I stood she was staring out of the window into the darkening, rain-swept street. Standing in the doorway, I told her I was leaving. She glanced back over her shoulder.

  ‘If you see him,’ she said, ‘tell him…’ but she turned away and didn’t finish the sentence. When I emerged into the rain, she was standing there still, a ghostly shadow behind the window.

  The address of the woman was on Pylimo, which was not far so I decided to walk, even though the rain had grown steadier. The clouds had fallen so low they snagged against the roofs of the city. The church spires had disappeared. The traffic was thick, moving slowly, lights shimmering on the wet surface of the road. The few pedestrians hurried by, newspapers covering their heads. I walked close in against the wall, crouched into my jacket with the collar turned up.

  The young woman on Pylimo had a v1cious bruise beneath her left eye. She was a short dark girl, no more than twenty. I thought possibly she was a Gypsy, and perhaps she was, but when she spoke her Lithuanian was coarse enough to be her mother tongue.

  ‘I’m looking for Kolya Antonenko,’ I said when she opened the door a crack.

  She peered at me suspiciously through the narrow space. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m looking for Kolya,’ I repeated.

  I tried to peer into the dark room behind her, but could see nothing.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m an old friend of Kolya’s,’ I told her.

  Ridiculously, I took out the letter Kolya had sent to Vassily and showed her. She took the paper from me and examined it.

  ‘You’re Vassily?’ she asked, and something in the way she said it suggested she knew of him. For a moment I considered lying to get past the door.

  ‘No,’ I explained. ‘Vassily gave me the letter. He asked me to find Kolya.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘So?’

  She continued to eye me, suspicious still. Finally she seemed to come to some kind of decision and nodded. ‘Fine. Come in, then.’

  She showed me through to the tiny kitchen and indicated I should sit at the table.

  ‘He’s not here at the moment,’ she said, ‘but he shouldn’t be long.’

  She pulled a chair around the table so she was closer to me. The sleeve of her blouse was hitched up, revealing a thin row of scars across her forearm. She made no attempt to pull it down to hide them.

  ‘How did you know to find him here?’ she asked, extracting a cigarette from a packet. She offered me one and I took it.

  ‘I was given an address on Warsaw Street,’ I told her honestly. ‘The woman sent me on.’

  The young woman wrinkled her nose and laughed mirthlessly. ‘His landlady? That old witch! He comes here when he can’t stand any more of her nagging him for his rent, among other things.’ She snorted. ‘I think she has a thing for him.’ Inhaling the oily smoke of the cheap cigarette, she added, ‘I’m a little more understanding of his needs.’

  The apparatus of Kolya’s heroin addiction was scattered about the small apartment.

  ‘Kolya has been waiting for this Vassily to contact him,’ the young woman said. ‘Reckons he owes him money.’ She looked at me as though I might volunteer some.

  ‘Vassily’s dead,’ I told her.

  She looked disappointed rather than upset. I smoked the cigarette while the girl chatted inanely about her life. She fell silent suddenly and I heard a faint scuffling sound as somebody tried to insert a key in the lock of the door. It clicked open and a few moments later Kolya appeared in the kitchen. Seeing me he stopped short, a startled look passing across his face. I gasped audibly. Kolya’s once thick figure had shrunken away. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes had receded to dark shadows burrowed beneath his brow. His shaking hand reached out to steady himself.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he muttered.

  ‘Kolya,’ I said, standing.

  ‘Antanas?’

  He paused, gazing at me, an irritated frown furrowing the waxy skin of his forehead. In his hand he held a small brown paper package. He darted a glance at the girl, but she avoided his eye.

  ‘You’re going to have to excuse me,’ he said, and turned away sharply, disappearing into another room.

  ‘Kolya,’ I said, following him.

  The girl held out her hand and grabbed my jacket.

  ‘Leave him,’ she said.

  I turned to her.

  ‘He has his needs,’ she said, quietly. ‘Just leave him for a while.’

  When I looked at her stupidly, her hand s
wept over to the syringes on the edge of the sink. The burnt spoons, crushed foil, straps. I sat back down by the table. The girl went out, following Kolya into the other room. I heard their hushed voices through the wall.

  When she reappeared some time later, the young woman was wearing a very short skirt and a low top. She had combed her hair and applied some make-up carelessly. She pulled on a leather jacket. ‘I have to go out to work now,’ she said. ‘He will come out soon. He asked me to tell you not to go. Wait for him.’

  I nodded. She slipped a small handbag over her shoulder and left. I glanced at my watch. It was almost ten o’clock.

  Chapter 20

  It was a month before the opportunity arose to go into Jalalabad. The new recruits seemed hopelessly unprepared and had to be assessed and allocated to different units depending on their expertise, if they had any.

  It was Vassily who suggested I volunteer to escort the supply trucks on a trip into the city. He had some business in Jalalabad, he told me.

  ‘It’s simple,’ he explained in a café in the centre of the city, grinning over the rim of a steaming glass of tea. ‘Hashim supplies me with jewels – sometimes it’s worked pieces he gets, gold inlaid with stones, sometimes it’s unworked lumps of lapis lazuli, beautiful pieces. Now, as you know, there is no way I am going to be able to get these pieces out of the country; they would be confiscated on the border. And selling them here isn’t an option; here it’s a buyer’s market.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what we do is slip the stuff into coffins.’

  ‘Coffins?’

  I spluttered tea across the table. Vassily motioned with a finger to his lips that I should keep my voice down. I glanced around, but there were only a few Afghanis morosely sipping tea at the high tables.

  ‘Obviously it means taking in more partners, and that splits the profits, but it’s that or nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean, coffins?’

  ‘Kolya gets the stuff into the coffins here in Jalalabad. He knows somebody who works in the morgue.’

  ‘That’s where he is now?’