Lie Down with Lions (1985)

really frightened of and whether it was true that men shook the drops off after peeing; and in turn she would tell him that her father had been an alcoholic and that she had a fantasy about being raped by a black man and that she sometimes sucked her thumb when she was anxious. But Jean-Pierre seemed to think their relationship after marriage should be just what it had been before. He treated her courteously, made her laugh in his manic moods, fell helpless into her arms when he was depressed, discussed politics and the war, made love to her expertly once a week with his lean young body and his strong, sensitive surgeon’s hands, and behaved in every way like a boyfriend rather than a husband. She still felt unable to talk to him about silly, embarrassing things such as whether a hat made her nose look longer and how angry she still was about having been spanked for spilling red ink on the drawing room rug when in fact her sister, Pauline, had done it. She wanted to ask someone Is this how it’s supposed to be, or will it get better? but her friends and family were all far away and the Afghan women would have found her expectations outrageous. She had resisted the temptation to confront Jean-Pierre with her disappointment, partly because her complaint was so vague, and partly because she was frightened of what his answer might be.

Looking back, she could see that the idea of a baby had been creeping up on her even earlier, when she was seeing Ellis Thaler. That year she had flown from Paris to London for the christening of her sister, Pauline’s, third child, something she would not normally have done, for she disliked formal family occasions. She had also started baby-sitting for a couple in her building, a hysterical antiques dealer and his aristocratic wife, and she had enjoyed it most when the baby had cried and she had had to pick him up and comfort him.

And then, here in the Valley, where her duty was to encourage the women to space their babies for the sake of healthier children, she had found herself sharing the joy with which each new pregnancy was greeted even in the poorest and most overcrowded households. Thus loneliness and the maternal instinct had conspired against common sense.

Had there been a time—even just a fleeting instant—when she realized that her unconscious mind was trying to get her pregnant? Had she thought I might have a baby at the moment when Jean- Pierre penetrated her, gliding in slowly and gracefully like a ship into a dock, while she tightened her arms about his body; or in the second of hesitation, immediately before his climax, when he shut his eyes tightly and seemed to retreat from her deep into himself, a spaceship falling into the heart of the sun; or afterward, as she was drifting blissfully into sleep with his seed hot inside her? “Did I realize?” she said aloud; but thinking about making love had turned her on, and she began to caress herself luxuriously with her butter-slippery hands, forgetting the question and letting her mind fill with vague swirling images of passion.

The scream of jets jerked her back to the real world. She stared, frightened, as another four bombers streaked up the Valley and disappeared. When the noise died away she started to touch herself again, but her mood had been spoiled. She lay still in the sun and thought about her baby.

Jean-Pierre had reacted to her pregnancy just as if it had been premeditated. So furious had he been that he had wanted to perform an abortion himself, immediately. Jane had found that wish of his dreadfully macabre, and he had suddenly seemed a stranger. But hardest to bear was the feeling of having been rejected. The thought that her husband did not want her baby had made her utterly desolate. He had made matters worse by refusing to touch her. She had never been so miserable in her life. For the first time she understood why people sometimes tried to kill themselves. The withdrawal of physical contact was the worst torture of all—she genuinely wished Jean-Pierre would beat her instead, so badly did she need to be touched. When she remembered those days she still felt angry with him, even though she knew she had brought it on herself.

Then, one morning, he had put his arm around her and apologized for his behavior; and although part of her had wanted to say Being sorry isn’t enough, you bastard, the rest of her was desperate for his love, and she had forgiven him immediately. He had explained that he was already afraid of losing her; and that if she were to be the mother of his son he would be absolutely terrified, for then he would lose them both. This confession had moved her to tears, and she had realized that in getting pregnant she had made the ultimate commitment to Jean-Pierre, and she made up her mind that she would make this marriage work, come what may.

He had been warmer to her after that. He had taken an interest in the growing baby, and had become anxious about Jane’s health and safety, the way expectant fathers were supposed to. Their marriage would be an imperfect but happy union, Jane thought, and she envisaged an ideal future, with Jean-Pierre as the French Minister of Health in a Socialist administration, herself as a member of the European Parliament, and three brilliant children, one at the Sorbonne, one at the London School of Economics, and one at the New York High School for the Performing Arts.

In this fantasy the eldest and most brilliant child was a girl. Jane touched her tummy, pressing gently with her fingertips, feeling the shape of the baby: according to Rabia Gul, the old village midwife, it would be a girl, for it could be felt on the left side, whereas boys grew on the right side. Rabia had accordingly prescribed a diet of vegetables. For a boy she would have recommended plenty of meat. In Afghanistan the males were better fed even before they were born.

Jane’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang. For a moment she was confused, associating the explosion with the jets which had passed overhead several minutes before on their way to bomb some other village; then she heard, quite close by, the high continuous scream of a child in pain and panicking.

She realized instantly what had happened. The Russians, using tactics they had learned from the Americans in Vietnam, had littered the countryside with antipersonnel mines. Their ostensible aim was to block guerrilla supply lines; but since the “guerrilla supply lines” were the mountain pathways used daily by old men, women, children and animals, the real purpose was straightforward terror. That scream meant a child had detonated a mine.

Jane jumped to her feet. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere near the mullah’s house, which was about half a mile outside the village on the hillside footpath. Jane could just see it, away to her left and a little lower down. She stepped into her shoes, grabbed her clothes and ran that way. The first long scream ended and became a series of short, terrified yells: it sounded to Jane as if the child had seen the damage the mine had done to its body and was screaming with fright now. Rushing through the coarse undergrowth, Jane realized that she herself was panicking, so peremptory was the summons of a child in distress. “Calm down,” she said breathlessly to herself. If she were to fall badly there would be two people in trouble and no one to help; and anyway the worst thing for a frightened child was a frightened adult.

She was near now. The child would be hidden in the bushes, not on the footpath, for all the paths were cleared by the menfolk each time they were mined, but it was impossible to sweep the entire mountainside.

She stopped, listening. Her panting was so loud that she had to hold her breath. The screams were coming from a clump of camel grass and juniper bushes. She pushed through the shrubbery and glimpsed part of a bright blue coat. The child must be Mousa, the nine-year-old son of Mohammed Khan, one of the leading guerrillas. A moment later she was beside him.

He was kneeling on the dusty ground. He had evidently tried to pick up the mine, for it had blown off his hand, and now he was staring wild-eyed at the bloody stump and screaming in terror.

Jane had seen a lot of wounds in the past year, but still this one moved her to pity. “Oh, dear God,” she said. “You poor child.” She knelt in front of him, hugged him, and murmured soothing noises. After a minute he stopped screaming. She hoped he would begin to cry instead, but he was too shocked, and lapsed into silence. As she held him she searched for and found the pressure point in his armpit, and stopped the gush of blood.

She was going to need his help. She must make him speak. “Mousa, what was it?” she said in Dari.

He made no reply. She asked him again.

“I thought . . .” His eyes opened wide as he remembered, and his voice rose to a scream as he said: “I thought it was A BALL!”

“Hush, hush,” she murmured. “Tell me what you did.”

“I PICKED IT UP! I PICKED IT UP!”

She held him tight, soothing him. “And what happened?”

His voice was shaky but no longer hysterical. “It went bang,” he said. He was rapidly becoming calmer.

She took his right hand and put it under his left arm. “Press where I’m pressing,” she said. She guided his fingertips to the point, then withdrew her own. The blood started to flow from the wound again. “Push hard,” she told him. He did as she said. The flow stopped. She kissed his forehead. It was damp and cold.

She had dropped her bundle of clothing on the ground beside Mousa. Her clothes were what the Afghan women wore: a sack-shaped dress over cotton trousers. She picked up the dress and tore the thin material into