Amber

by Stephan Collishaw

  Under the trees there were children playing. The bright colours of their clothes shimmered in the dappled shade. As we drove past, clouds of dust rose lazily from our wheels. The scent of oranges hung in the air. Security measures demanded we train our weapons on the passing village, but I could not suppress a shudder as we turned the big guns on the children. The sudden flash of their movements ceased as they saw us. They drew closer, a small group. A child pulled close to her elder brother, hugging his thin leg. The boy’s arm snaked around the girl’s shoulder and he folded her close, his large eyes staring out from beneath the trees.

  The old man by the well looked up too, hearing our engines. He wore a grubby white turban. As we passed his eyes caught my own and locked on to them. In his hand he held an orange, given to him, perhaps, by one of his grandchildren playing among the trees. The morning was still apart from the noise of our vehicles passing. A slight breeze stirred the trees. The air was cool. The old man held my gaze.

  ‘You look at me like I’m a piece of shit,’ I commented. ‘Do you have any idea what it is like to be out there?’

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, thrusting her face forwards, indicating with a jab of her index finger the livid scar down the side of her face.

  I shook my head. ‘Zena,’ I said, ‘you live in this moral world, this world of good and bad. I don’t know how you do it. We are soldiers, we have to do our job. We have to survive.’

  ‘That kishlak was your job?’

  ‘I’m defending your fucking country against the rebels. What do you think life would be like for you if we were not here?’

  ‘My father fought for my country but he did not do what you have done.’

  ‘Your father was killed,’ I shot back.

  Immediately I regretted my words. The brush in her hand fell to her side. She stared at me for a moment, her face twisted with contempt, then she turned away to the small broken fragment of mirror and finished tidying her hair.

  We were mobilised late one evening after dark. As we scrambled to the helicopters, dressing as we went, we learnt that there had been an attack on a convoy close to a village at the foot of the mountains. There were casualties. The helicopters rose noisily into the night sky. Trembling, the new recruits gazed out into the darkness, eyes bright with trepidation.

  Kolya undid a twist of silver paper, revealing a small quantity of opium. He flicked his lighter, a red plastic Chinese one he had bought from the market in Jalalabad, and held it beneath the silver wrapping. As I had been leaving our building on the base, I had paused for a moment in the doorway, oppressed by a sudden strange heaviness. I looked up. It was a clear night, and the sky was littered with stars. A wave of sorrow washed over me. Is this it? I thought. Am I to die? But it was sorrow I felt, not fear. I had heard of many soldiers having these premonitions. ‘Visits’, they were called. Death’s calling card.

  As the helicopters turned heavily, clattering low across the fields, flares falling away into the darkness, I looked out through the open door and realised, too late, where we were heading. Already visible, illuminated by a bright moon and nestled in the arms of its orange grove, was the village we had passed a couple of days previously. The mountains rose, ominous shadows overhanging the village. On the road a few kilometres out of the village was a short line of APCs and BMPs. The first in the line was smoke blackened. A large crater opened out in front of it. The carcass of an APC lay beside the crater, split open, as if it were a tin can. It had toppled on to its side, displaying its shattered belly to the night sky. We circled the convoy and came down on the road behind them. Wild-eyed soldiers surrounded us almost immediately, the stench of battle fresh on their skin.

  ‘An ambush…’

  ‘A mine took out the APC…’

  ‘They were all round…’

  ‘Half the fucking platoon is gone.’

  ‘Fucking muj…’

  They were climbing in, squeezing into the corners. A boy was pulled in on a makeshift stretcher, whimpering. As they shoved past, his leg brushed against my arm, coating my sleeve with blood.

  ‘Close the fucking door,’ the pilot shouted back, ‘the rest are gonna have to wait.’

  The helicopter rose unsteadily and turned above the line of vehicles, leaving behind those who had not been able to squeeze into one of the choppers. It headed low and fast across the fields towards the village. The bright light of the moon looked like a soft layer of snow fallen across the orange orchard. The village was dark and nothing stirred in its streets or small courtyards. We hovered above the low houses, the down-draught of air raising a cloud of dust and stirring the leaves on the trees.

  I pushed open the door and trained the heavy machine gun on the dark doorways. Behind me the boy on the stretcher had started to howl. The pitifulness of his wail chilled my heart.

  ‘Mama,’ he cried, ‘oh, Mama, please, I want Mama.’

  ‘Shut him up,’ I said, turning to the stretcher-bearers.

  The floor beneath my feet was wet, and my foot slid. I looked down. It was dark with blood.

  ‘Oh God, oh God,’ the boy moaned. ‘It hurts so much.’

  I stared out into the darkness, my eyes searching for movement in doorways, windows, in corners where the light of the moon did not penetrate. Were the children asleep beneath these fragile roofs? I wondered. I recalled the small girl, arm around her brother’s leg, his snaked protectively around her shoulder. The old man with the bright, fresh orange in his hand. Oh God, I prayed, give my heart an eye that I may see here a family sleeping, children.

  ‘Don’t let me die,’ the boy was pleading, ‘please don’t let me die.’

  God, give my heart an eye that I may see…

  ‘There!’ A finger stabbed in the direction of a movement in the darkness below us. The pilot saw the movement too, and shouted out. The earth rumbled and burst into flame. My finger tightened on the trigger of the machine gun, even as I was praying. The village shuddered. The dust rose in thick, bulging clouds. The boy’s cries were lost for a moment beneath the whistle and thud of rockets, the metallic chatter of the machine gun.

  ‘It was so noisy, the machine gun, the blades of the chopper,’ I said to Zena’s back, ‘but behind all that – no matter what noise we made – I could hear the cries of one of our boys, dying. Knowing he was dying. Pitifully fearing the approaching darkness. Wanting only to be in the arms of his mother, a little child again. Safe.’

  The helicopter lurched and turned and settled by the side of the kishlak. As soon as it was down I was out and running. I was screaming. Unable to hear my scream, yet aware of it.

  The dust hung over the village, a choking cloud obscuring our vision. We plunged forwards into the darkness. Flames licked along wooden beams and rushed through the dry grass roofs with a hot crackle. Mudbrick walls crumbled with a soft thump. From somewhere in the darkness came the muffled sound of cries and the rattle of machine-gun fire. In a side street I came upon a locked door. I pressed my weight against it, my shoulder to the peeling blue paint. I kicked it hard with the heel of my boot and the wood splintered and fell away.

  ‘He was just a child,’ I whispered to Zena. ‘Barely eighteen. Only a few years ago, if he had fallen and scraped his knee, his mother would have taken him in her arms and kissed him and soothed him.’

  Zena did not turn to me. She leant against the cupboard, staring vacantly into the mirror.

  ‘He was just a child,’ I said.

  Kicking the jagged edges of the door aside, I pressed through into the courtyard. Almost immediately a flicker of movement caught my eye and I turned and fired without hesitation. A dark figure crumpled into the shadows. I ran across to the door of one of the buildings, my hand feeling for a grenade.

  ‘Come out!’ I screamed into the darkness.

  There was the sound of movement behind the door. For one moment I hesitated. Kicking open the door, I pulled the pin and tossed the grenade in through the doorway. I stood back, flattening myself against a m
ud wall, warm still from the day’s heat. My fingertips dug into the dry clay. Faintly I heard the sound of cries above the explosion.

  Turning, then, I ran, plunging in through the blackened cavity. The machine gun shuddered in my hands and I heard the clatter of its ejected shells bouncing on the polished clay floor.

  I stood in the doorway, catching my breath. The moon was suspended over the courtyard, hazy and red behind the rising pillar of dust. Vassily entered through the small gate, Sasha close behind him.

  ‘You OK?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What happened?’

  I stepped forwards into the centre of the courtyard. There was a well and I lowered my head over it, felt the damp coolness rising from its depths.

  ‘Shit!’ Vassily turned from the doorway. I heard him gag.

  ‘What is it?’ Sasha asked.

  Vassily did not answer. Sasha pushed past him and entered the room.

  How deep is this well? I thought. How deep? How long would it take to fall into the water? The water would be cool and fresh. It would not be a bad way to die. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I felt Vassily’s breath warm against my face.

  ‘What happened?’ he whispered, close to my ear.

  ‘What happened?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘They are children,’ he said. ‘Little children.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I haven’t looked.’

  The children. They stood beneath the orange trees and the light seeping through the leaves lay on their skin like refined sugar. They drew close as we passed. The little girl hugged her brother’s leg tight and his arm curled around her shoulders. Their dark eyes gazed out at us as we passed. The games that had amused them, had sent their small limbs tumbling through the grass, ceased as we drew close.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Vassily said.

  ‘Cover this fucking mess.’

  Sasha ran a hand through his hair. He scratched the palm of his hand against the stiff bristles of his new beard. ‘We’ll be in deep shit if this is discovered.’

  I squatted down by the wall and closed my eyes. I heard their grunts as they lifted the bodies from the room and dragged them out into the courtyard. The first splashed, far down, and so did the second. But after that they landed with hollow thuds that echoed slowly up from the depths. Sasha tossed a grenade down after the last body and its dull thud shook the earth. I helped them to pour rubble from the buildings into the hole.

  We discovered Kolya sitting at the corner of a street. In the light of a candle he had wound his belt around his upper arm and was preparing a syringe. He looked up and grinned.

  ‘They found a whole stash of arms. Swiss Stinger missiles, English T-6.1 mines, heavy-calibre Degterev-Shpagin machine guns, the lot,’ Kolya said, tightening the belt around his arm.

  The syringe he was using was a Soviet-issue ‘Rekord’. They were notoriously blunt and unpredictable and the medics preferred to use the Japanese disposable syringes we were sometimes able to capture from the Afghans. In the medical stores on base we had a store of Western syringes as well as plasma bags and bandages seized in a couple of successful raids on mountain hideouts. Kolya must have stolen the syringe from the helicopter. He winced as he plunged the needle into an engorged vein.

  ‘Bring him back to the chopper,’ Vassily said to Sasha.

  Leaving him with Kolya, we worked our way back through the narrow dirt lanes of the kishlak. Dull explosions rippled across the rooftops and, turning a corner, we walked into a hail of bullets as a lone insurgent, caught behind a crumbling wall, defended his position. Ducking down, we plunged for cover in a family compound.

  The room we stumbled into was dark. Leaning back against the wall, listening to the rattle and whine of machine-gun fire as the insurgent was flushed out, we became aware that the room was not empty. A dark shape moved in the gloom. A pair of shadowed figures struggled in the corner. We heard a grunt of amusement and the frightened whimper of a girl. Vassily raised his gun.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  Kirov rose from the darkness, hauling his trousers up from around his knees. He grinned. Visible behind him then, slumped across a table, was a girl of no more than twelve. She seemed to have fainted for she lay dead still.

  ‘You want her?’ Kirov asked, companionably.

  Mutely I shook my head.

  ‘No?’

  Kirov removed his Makarov pistol and, turning, casually fired a single shot. The girl’s body bucked slightly then lay still once more upon the table.

  Vassily put his arm around me and we walked out through the narrow streets to the edge of the village. In the back of the helicopter the boy we had picked up was lying quietly. Vassily raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘He’s gone,’ the young medic said. He was sitting beside the boy, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘I want you to leave,’ Zena said, not turning. ‘I want you to go now.’

  I went to her, tried to touch her shoulders, but she turned and the look on her face was ferocious. She brandished the brush before her, keeping me back.

  ‘Go.’

  Chapter 23

  Kolya stumbled on to the helicopter, his Kalashnikov slung carelessly from his shoulder, a small, private smile playing on his thick lips. Slumping beside me, his hand clutched my knee, squeezed it. I turned to look at him. His eyelids were closed. They opened slowly, revealing tiny pupils, bloodshot whites. He grinned, catlike.

  ‘You ever read Malraux?’ he said. ‘You know what he said? Opium teaches one thing only – aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real.’

  The lids of his eyes slowly slid back down.

  Squatted down in the corner of our room, back on the base, I accepted a bottle from Sasha. It was not the Stolichnaya we had got from Hashim, it was samogonas; moonshine. Water mixed with sugar and left for a week, then boiled. We drank and smoked hashish. My darkness came just before dawn. It was deep and dreamless. When I woke later the next day, Vassily placed a bottle of good vodka by my side. My fingers were not strong enough to crack open the bottle, so he did it for me.

  Technically, in the medical station, where I was referred the next day, I was not allowed to drink any more. The medic preferred, however, to have me drinking something good, rather than sneaking the surgical spirits. He provided me with a bottle.

  ‘Enough,’ Vassily said, two days later. He bent down over the low, uncomfortable bunk and grabbed the front of my vest, pulling me up sharply. I gasped, woken from a stupor.

  ‘That’s enough now.’

  Dragging me from the bed, Vassily pushed me, stumbling, towards the door. When my legs gave way and I crumpled in a heap, he pulled me up roughly. The young medic, who had raced out of his office, hearing the commotion, mounted a feeble protest. A look from Vassily quietened him; he stood back against the wall and let Vassily take me.

  The brightness of the light split my skull. I begged Vassily, but he did not listen. Hauling me across the dusty parade square, he threw me to the ground close to the latrines. Turning on a hosepipe, he doused me with water. I lay on the earth, my knees pulled close to my chest, hugging them tight, burying my face in the sodden cloth of my trousers. He left me there for a while and I lay still, feeling the heat of the sun slowly warm me, feeling the cloth dry against my skin. I smelt the burnt scent of the Afghan soil, the fresh odour of wet earth, the sharp stink of my body, the heavy stench of the latrines hanging in the air like a sour cloud of gas.

  ‘Get up,’ Vassily said.

  When I did not respond he kicked me hard in the ribs. Involuntarily I let out a whimper.

  ‘Get the fuck up,’ he snarled. ‘It’s enough. Now it is time you got on with things.’

  Lifting me to my feet, he put his large hands on either side of my face to steady me and drew me close.

  ‘Antanas, comrade, it is time to get on with life. Come on, my little brother, it’s enough.’

  I staggered around after him. He pushed me, prodd
ed me, kept me working. He boiled tea and mixed large spoons of raspberry jam into it. Forced the metal cup to my lips and made me drink the sweet infusion while it was hot. I sweated hard. He sent me to shower, dressed me in clean clothes, threw my sweat-stained uniform at one of the recruits to wash. He woke me early in the morning and took me to the parade ground and forced me through exercises with the new recruits. Slowly, hour by hour, I began to improve. I threw myself into the routines of the base. Up before reveille, I exercised hard. I volunteered for extra duties. I worked and did not think.

  ‘Our soul is cut out bit by bit,’ Kolya said, smoking his pipe. ‘And soon we will have none left.’

  ‘It is better not to think about it,’ Vassily said, smoking, watching one of the recruits polish our boots.

  ‘Malraux again,’ Kolya said. ‘“Don’t think with your mind – but with opium”.’

  ‘Where did you get that fucking book?’ Vassily snapped, picking up the dog-eared paperback that lay at Kolya’s feet.

  ‘The bazaar in Jalalabad.’

  After Zena had told me to leave, I went angrily.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I said, as I left. ‘What do you know? What do you understand?’

  Almost as soon as I reached the street, though, I regretted having shouted at her. I waited in front of her apartment for her to come out. When, after half an hour, she still had not emerged, I trudged back up the crumbling concrete stairs and knocked on her door. Nadia answered.

  ‘I’m sorry, Antanas,’ she said, ‘Zena left. She slipped out through the other exit. One of the girls told her you were waiting in the street.’

  I asked for paper and a pencil and wrote Zena a note, which I left on her bed, asking her to meet me the following evening, in a café not far from the river. I slept that night in the compound on the outskirts of Jalalabad.

  I went to the café early, and sat outside drinking tea and watching the motorised rickshaws buzzing past. In front of the café stood an old eucalyptus. I moved my chair into its shade and thought about what I would say to her. When a soldier from the supply convoy came and sat with me, I was not able to join in with his chatter. I wished only that he would leave, fearing that he would still be there when she arrived and would carry on with his inane conversation, his stream of weak jokes and tales of his exploits with the whores from Russia.