Amber

by Stephan Collishaw

  When finally he left, in search of vodka, I breathed a sigh of relief. I waited until darkness fell, watching the street down which she would have .to walk from her hostel, but she did not appear. I found her on a street corner, head in her hands, one foot up against the wall on which she was leaning. She jumped when I touched her shoulder.

  ‘It’s not long till curfew,’ I said.

  She looked around, as if surprised that darkness had already fallen upon the city.

  ‘I got your note,’ she said.

  ‘But you didn’t come.’

  ‘I was coming and that is more than you deserve.’

  Her tone was softer, but she sounded tired and miserable. ‘I tore it to pieces and threw it out of the window,’ she said. ‘I wanted to forget you. I was coming to tell you that, perhaps.’

  She walked beside me, kicking disconsolately at the loose stones at the side of the road. Taking heart from the tone of her voice rather than her words, I put my arm around her shoulder. She shrugged it off.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said softly.

  ‘I love you,’ I told her.

  ‘Well, I can’t love you.’

  ‘You’re all I live for,’ I pleaded. ‘All that I think about when I am not with you is when I will see you next. I don’t know what I would do if I could not look forward to seeing you again.’

  She stopped and looked at me. Her eyes were dark. She had, I noticed, put on mascara and lipstick. She was wearing a thin cotton blouse beneath a soldier’s Pakistanka, and around her neck she wore the cross I had given her.

  ‘They brought in some of the injured from the kishlak, after you had been there,’ she said. ‘Children with limbs missing, old people. Of course, then I did not know you had been involved. There was talk of worse, of a massacre.’ She looked at me, as if hoping I might refute this. I said nothing. ‘A soldier from your division, Kirov, was with one of the girls a few nights later – one of the girls who does it for money,’ she said, not attempting to hide the disgust in her voice. ‘He was boasting about having been involved in the raid on the kishlak, said that it was a rebel hideout, said that a whole arms cache had been found and that there would not be an investigation because it had been proved to be a mujahidin stronghold.’

  I nodded. The commander considered the raid to have been a great success.

  ‘The children,’ Zena said, ‘you should have seen them.’ Her voice trembled and her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Women were raped.’

  ‘I didn’t do that,’ I said, quickly.

  She stared at me hotly.

  ‘Zena,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what to say to you. Don’t blame me for this mess. When I came here, to Afghanistan, I thought I was coming to do some good. The Political Officers told us we were fighting for the revolution here, that we would be protecting the villagers from the rebels, that we would be digging wells for them, building hospitals and schools. I thought we would be welcomed. Instead everybody wants to kill us. A child might smile at me, and when I turn around he could push a knife into my back. A village welcomes us in the daytime, they shake our hands, thank us for our help, and then darkness falls and the muj use their village to shell us.

  ‘A few weeks ago, there was a call from one of the villages. They needed help. Bandits were firing on them from the mountains. We sent a detachment out to the village to help them. When they got there it was empty. Suddenly there was shooting from all sides – rockets, automatic fire. Only three soldiers from the detachment managed to escape alive.’

  Zena was shaking her head.

  ‘I know this,’ she said, ‘I know. But still, these are my people.’

  ‘They are your people? You want them to force you back into the burqa? You want them to force you out of your job? You want them to treat you like a piece of shit?’

  Zena sighed. She leant back against the wall in the doorway of her hostel and closed her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know what to think any more,’ she said.

  ‘I love you,’ I said.

  She opened her eyes and looked at me sadly, but said nothing.

  ‘Can I see you next time I come to Jalalabad?’ I said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said simply.

  When I returned to the base I was sent out immediately on a raid. Afghan informants had passed on information that there were dukhi in a village near Hada, a centre for Buddhist pilgrims. Two divisions mounted a quick raid on the village. Information passed to Intelligence from local sources was notoriously unreliable and we entered the village with particular care.

  The streets were quiet. We fanned out, shadowing the sappers with their mine-clearing equipment and their dogs, yapping and straining on leashes. Ahead of me I saw Kolya in a doorway. He motioned for me to join him. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the gloom inside the mud hut. Against one wall slouched an old man, a dirty turban fastened loosely around his head. His dark skin was heavily lined, but his eyes were surprisingly bright.

  The room was bare. There was no furniture, not even a chair, in the room, only a threadbare rug covering the packed-earth floor. The sole other object was a dog-eared copy of the Koran, on the floor in the corner.

  The turbaned man crouched against the wall. He did not attempt to fight, and he did not appear to be carrying any weapons. Kolya left me to guard him.

  ‘Shoot the fucker if he moves.’

  For some moments I stood there, watching the old man, silently. He shuffled a little, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. He smiled at me, a sad, small smile.

  ‘I have no weapons,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders, showing his dirty, calloused hands, his broken nails.

  He reasoned with me gently. He spoke fluent, if heavily accented, Russian. His eyes showed no hint of fear. He watched me candidly. I shifted uneasily, the gun in my hands pointed directly at his heart. I thought of Zena, of her words the last time we spoke. I imagined her watching me. The clatter of the destruction of the village drifted in through the open doorway on the dust-clotted air. The drivers were rolling the heavy tracks of the BMPs across the demolished houses, flattening the village into oblivion.

  ‘We are just leading peaceable lives,’ the old man said. ‘We have nothing against you. We just want to farm – to live without fear.’

  ‘Are you not angry?’ I asked, watching his soft smile as he talked to me of his village. He laughed quietly.

  ‘Don’t you hate us?’

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You are a child of God as much as I. How could I hate you?’

  ‘Is there space left in this world for compassion?’

  ‘Compassion?’ A broad grin wrinkled his leathery face. ‘Listen, child, compassion is easy for me. Compassion is the gift of the powerless – the dying.’ He indicated my gun. ‘Now, if it was the other way round, if I held the gun and you sat here defenceless, you might not find me so understanding.’

  He coughed up a large gob of phlegm and spat on to my dusty boot. He smiled still, as though this was a normal thing to do, as though I could not mind.

  At that moment there was a loud explosion. The ground shook and dirt shivered from the ceiling. For a moment I thought the building was going to come down on top of us. I ducked down, covering my head. The old man did not move. A resigned smile twisted his lips.

  ‘Now you must shoot me,’ he said. ‘The village, you see, was mined. We set the mines and our “informers” gave you a little bit of information. We knew you would not be able to resist.’

  He stood up. He was the same height as I, broad shouldered, and despite his years still looked strong. He tightened the dirty cotton chemise across his chest. ‘Here.’ He grinned again. ‘Shoot me.’

  I could hear, as the rumble of the explosion drifted on the breeze, rolling away across the plain, banking against the rise of the foothills and echoing back, the sound of crying, the desperate weeping of young men whose legs and arms lay detached from their bodies. Young men crouched over
dead friends with whom, only moments before, they had been sharing a joke. A cigarette. The old man laughed.

  ‘Come on, shoot,’ he taunted. ‘I would, if I was in your position.’

  My hands trembled. I felt my heart pounding. I thought again of Zena. Of her eyes on me. The old man stepped towards me; I stepped back, waving at him, indicating he should not approach. I felt my back press up against the mud wall. A prickly sweat broke out on my forehead. I wiped it. My face was slick with perspiration. The old man’s grin was friendly. He reached out a large hand, stubby fingers, grasping at the Kalashnikov.

  The image of Zena’s face interposed itself between the old man and me. A fleeting image of her supple body twisting beneath me, the soft warmth of her ochre skin. I closed my eyes and felt the gun shift in my hands as the old man’s fingers wrapped themselves around it.

  A familiar metallic chatter jerked back the lids of my eyes. The old man stepped away. He held his hands to his chest. Blood seeped through the cracks of his fingers. It bubbled up like a warm geyser beneath his hands. He coughed, almost as if he were clearing his throat. Blood spilt, crimson, from his full lips, trickled on to his white beard. He fell to his knees before me. His face twisted and his throat gurgled and for a moment, as I stood there, bewildered, watching him, I thought he was laughing. A hand took hold of my arm and pulled me roughly through the doorway.

  ‘What the fuck is the matter with you?’ Kolya rasped. ‘If I hadn’t shot him he would have taken your gun.’

  I nodded, blindly. He pushed me forwards and we ran through the smoking, dust-hazed streets.

  Chapter 24

  ‘Warsaw Street?’ I said to Kolya. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. If Kirov or Zinotis did follow me tonight, they might be watching your apartment.’

  Kolya gazed at me for a second and I wondered if he was taking in what I said, or whether the fix he had had earlier and the vodka he had consumed since had dulled his comprehension.

  ‘If they followed you, they could well be outside now,’ he said, nodding towards the door. ‘It seems you have given them more than enough opportunity.’

  He continued to gaze at me, his expression remaining vacant as his tone grew more ironic.

  ‘If Kirov and Zinotis have any idea where I am, it will be because they followed you. I don’t really think you are in a position to advise me on my safety.’

  ‘OK,’ I agreed.

  Kolya pulled on a thick coat, turning its collar up around his ears. We left the apartment, slipping out through the doors into the street as unobtrusively as we could. Standing in the shadow of the doorway, I checked each parked car, each shadow, each pool of darkness. There was no sign of anybody. It was late and there were no pedestrians, no cars on the road. We hurried down the side streets, taking a longer route back to the Rasa district, looping up around the cemetery and back down towards Warsaw Street from the far side. As we approached Kolya’s apartment block, he touched my arm and indicated for me to follow him into the darkened area behind the buildings. A door at the back of the apartments opened on to a small yard of muddy earth, criss-crossed with lines for hanging out washing and beating rugs.

  We walked up the shallow stairs to the front entrance of the apartment block, where Kolya reached for the light switch in the stairwell. I told him to wait. Pushing open the door I scanned the street carefully. There were few cars and no sign of anybody watching, lingering in the shadows. I relaxed a little.

  We climbed the stairs to the fourth floor in silence. Kolya made slow progress, pausing every few steps to take a gulp of air into his lungs. At the end of every minute the light clicked off and I had to press the switch again. When we reached the fourth floor it did not come on.

  ‘It was working when I came here earlier,’ I said.

  ‘They’re always going,’ Kolya muttered. ‘It’s the cheap bulbs they buy.’

  The door to the apartment was open slightly. Kolya pushed it gingerly, to see whether the safety chain was on. The door swung open with a squeak. He looked up at me. I raised my finger to my lips. We stood in the silence of the early hours of the morning, listening for noises coming from within. There was none.

  ‘It looks like there have been visitors,’ Kolya said, his voice low.

  ‘Your landlady…’ I said, but he had turned away.

  The apartment was in pitch darkness. Kolya edged around the door, his trembling fingers feeling along the wall for the light switch. Beneath our feet, papers were strewn, barely visible in the pale light of the street lamp glowing through the dirty windows of the stairwell. Kolya’s fingers found the switch and pressed it. I heard the hollow click, but no light came on. From somewhere deep inside I heard a strange low muttering.

  I felt Kolya’s hand on my arm, his fingers gripping my sleeve tightly, the nails digging through the damp cloth and biting into my flesh. It was impossible to see his face in the darkness. We moved forwards, together, down the corridor. Beneath our feet shattered glass crunched; a large sharp object scraped my ankle painfully. We moved slowly, listening. The muttering had ceased and, apart from the soft crunch of our footfalls, the only other sound was of water running in the bathroom.

  Kolya flicked on the bathroom light switch and immediately the square around the door was illuminated brightly. Seizing the handle, he pulled the door open, the slab of light falling painfully brightly across the chaos of the corridor. The bathroom floor glistened, the old linoleum slick with water dripping from the overflowing sink. A mirrored-door cabinet hung from the wall, askew, disembowelled, its contents filling the sink, cotton-wool plugs stopping the flow of tap water escaping through the drains. Pills were scattered colourfully in the stained bath.

  ‘Shit,’ Kolya muttered.

  He turned from the bathroom and crunched quickly to the front room. The light from the window was enough to indicate the uselessness of trying to switch on the lamp. Its bulb was shattered. The old sofa on which I had been sitting only a few hours earlier had been slashed; its stuffing poured out over the floor. The large bureau was overturned, its contents spewed around it.

  ‘Kristina,’ Kolya called.

  The low muttering began again, closer, a little louder than before. I turned, trying to place where it was coming from. Kolya stepped away across the debris. He opened the door to a side room and disappeared inside. I followed him.

  The bed was rumpled, sheets strewn across the floor, the mattress slashed, stuffing exploding out, pictures wrenched from the wall, the nails pulled out along with lumps of plaster.

  In the corner Kolya was bent in the darkness. The muttering was louder, more pitiful. A moan, a thin wail, a sob.

  ‘Who was it?’ Kolya was saying, his voice impatient.

  He gripped the shadow and shook it.

  The shuddering wail grew louder, more strident. Kolya stood suddenly and turned. He pushed past me, hurrying back into the sitting room. For a moment I lingered, staring down at the small area of darkness in which the woman was hunched, listening to the sharp catch of her breath, her wail, the soft thud of her head banging against the wooden cabinet by her side, then I turned and followed Kolya.

  He was standing by the window, gazing out into the street. When he turned his face was twisted with tension. He ran his hand through his thinning hair and surveyed the damage done to the apartment.

  ‘You little bastard, Kirov,’ he said with venom.

  He stepped over the papers and fallen bureau, the sofa stuffing and the overturned chairs, out into the corridor. In the bathroom, he knelt down in the water pooling on the linoleum, wetting the knees of his trousers. Fitting his fingers into the corner of the wooden panel beneath the bath, he tugged it away. Reaching under the old bath, he pulled out a small parcel. A cloth wrapped tight and tied with string. With trembling fingers he untied the knot and opened out the flaps of the cloth. Inside the parcel was a Makarov pistol. Oiled and gleaming. Beside it a clip of ammunition.

  He weighed the gun in his shrunken hand.
Slotting the clip into the pistol, he checked the mechanism. He lifted the pistol and sighted it on the tap. Turning to me, he gazed into my eyes.

  ‘Antanas, tovarich, we grew up together.’ He put his hand on my shoulder. Through my jacket I felt it trembling. ‘We were boys together, we were called up together. We went all the way together, right into the very belly of hell. What happened to us there – it tore us apart. Gutted us. Every noble sentiment, every decent feeling, was reduced to ashes. We died then, on the fields around Jalalabad, in the mountains. It was not us that came back, it was our ghosts. Our spirits, forced to wander the world, empty, deranged.’

  He took his hand from my shoulder and wandered out into the corridor. From a peg behind the external door he took down a shoulder holster. Clipping it on, he fitted the pistol into it, pulling his thick jacket over the top.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There is nothing that will compensate for what has been lost. No jewel will pay for the pain we suffered, or relieve our nightmares. But there is one thing that will give me a little happiness.’

  He grinned. In the pale light that shone from the bathroom his face looked as though the flesh had been sucked from it, like the skull of a cadaver.

  ‘The idea of beating Kirov. The thought that I have something he wants. Come on. I will tell you about the bracelet. About what happened in Ghazis.’

  Chapter 25

  Ghazis lay in the east of Afghanistan, in Nangarhar province, on the road over the mountains to Peshawar, to Pakistan. The first time I heard of it was from Zena. It was a couple of weeks after the disastrous raid on Hada before I was able to see her again. When I tried to contact her she . put me off with excuses. She had become involved with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and was visiting villages, setting up literacy schemes, exerting pressure on the authorities to allow the girls in rural areas to be educated.