Lie Down with Lions (1985)

wrote Anatoly—KGB in European letters and stuck the label on the container, then put the container into an empty drug box which was marked POISON! in fifteen languages and three international symbols. He tied up the box with string.

Moving quickly, he put everything back in his medical bag and replaced the items he had used at Astana. He took a handful of diamorphine tablets and put them in his shirt pocket. Finally he wrapped the POISON! box in a threadbare towel.

He left the house. “I’m going to the river to wash,” he called up to Jane.

“Okay.”

He walked quickly through the village, nodding curtly to one or two people, and headed out through the fields. He was full of optimism. All sorts of risks attended his plans, but he could once again hope for a great triumph. He skirted a clover field that belonged to the mullah and climbed down a series of terraces. A mile or so from the village, on a rocky outcrop of the mountain, was a solitary cottage that had been bombed. It was getting dark when Jean-Pierre came within sight of it. He walked slowly toward it, picking his way gingerly across the uneven ground, regretting that he had not brought a lamp.

He stopped at the pile of rubble that had once been the front of the house. He thought of going in, but the smell as well as the darkness dissuaded him. He called out: “Hey!”

A shapeless form rose from the ground at his feet and scared him. He jumped back, cursing.

The malang stood up.

Jean-Pierre peered at the skeletal face and matted beard of the mad fellow. Recovering his composure, he said in Dari: “God be with you, holy man.”

“And with you, Doctor.”

Jean-Pierre had caught him in a coherent phase. Good. “How is your belly?”

The man mimed a stomachache: as always, he wanted drugs. Jean-Pierre gave him one diamorphine pill, letting him see the others, then putting them back in his pocket. The malang ate his heroin and said: “I want more.”

“You can have more,” Jean-Pierre told him. “A lot more.”

The man held out his hand.

“But you have to do something for me,” said Jean-Pierre.

The malang nodded eagerly.

“You have to go to Charikar and give this to a Russian soldier.” Jean-Pierre had decided on Charikar, despite the extra day’s journey it involved, because he feared that Rokha, being a rebel town temporarily occupied by the Russians, might be in a state of confusion, and the package could get lost, whereas Charikar was permanently in Russian territory. And he had decided on a soldier, rather than a post office, as the destination because the malang might not be able to deal with the business of buying a stamp and mailing something.

He looked carefully at the man’s unwashed face. He had been wondering whether the fellow would comprehend even these simple instructions, but the look of fear on his face at the mention of a Russian soldier indicated that he had understood perfectly.

Now, was there any way Jean-Pierre could ensure that the malang actually followed these orders? He, too, could throw the package away and come back swearing that he had carried out the task, for if he was intelligent enough to understand what he had to do, he might be capable of lying about it.

Jean-Pierre was inspired with an idea. “And buy a pack of Russian cigarettes,” he said.

The malang held out empty hands. “No money.”

Jean-Pierre knew he had no money. He gave him one hundred afghanis. That should ensure he actually went to Charikar. Was there a way to compel him to deliver the package?

Jean-Pierre said: “If you do this, I’ll give you all the pills you want. But do not cheat me—for if you do, I shall know, and I will never give you pills again, and your bellyache will grow worse and worse and you will swell up and then your guts will burst like a grenade and you will die in agony. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Jean-Pierre stared at him in the faint light. The whites of his mad eyes gleamed back. He seemed terrified. Jean-Pierre gave him the rest of the diamorphine pills. “Eat one every morning until you come back to Banda.”

He nodded vigorously.

“Go now, and do not try to cheat me.”

The man turned away and began to run along the rough path with his odd, animallike gait. Watching him disappear into the gathering darkness, Jean-Pierre thought: The future of this country is in your filthy hands, you poor mad wretch. May God go with you.

A week later the malang had not returned.

By Wednesday, the day before the conference, Jean-Pierre was distraught. Every hour, he told himself the man could be here within the next hour. At the end of each day, he said he would come tomorrow.

Aircraft activity in the Valley had increased, as if to add to Jean-Pierre’s worries. All week the jets had been howling overhead to bomb the villages. Banda had been lucky: only one bomb had landed, and it had merely made a big hole in Abdullah’s clover field; but the constant noise and danger made everyone irritable. The tension produced in Jean-Pierre’s clinic a predictable crop of patients with stress symptoms: miscarriages, domestic accidents, unexplained vomiting and headaches. It was the children who got the headaches. In Europe, Jean-Pierre would have recommended psychiatry. Here, he sent them to the mullah. Neither psychiatry nor Islam would do much good, for what was wrong with the children was the war.

He went through the morning’s patients mechanically, asking his routine questions in Dari, announcing his diagnoses to Jane in French, dressing wounds and giving injections and handing out plastic containers of tablets and glass bottles of colored medicine. It should have taken the malang two days to walk to Charikar. Allow him a day to work up the nerve to approach a Russian soldier and a night to get over it. Setting off the next morning, he had another two days’ journey. He should have got back the day before yesterday. What had happened? Had he lost the package, and stayed away in fear and trembling? Had he taken all the pills at once and made himself ill? Had he fallen in the damn river and drowned? Had the Russians used him for target practice?

Jean-Pierre looked at his wristwatch. It was ten thirty. Any minute now the malang might arrive, bearing a pack of Russian cigarettes as proof that he had been to Charikar. Jean-Pierre wondered briefly how he would explain the cigarettes to Jane, for he did not smoke. He decided that no explanation was necessary for the acts of a lunatic.

He was bandaging a small boy from the next valley who had burned his hand on a cooking fire, when there came from outside the flurry of footsteps and greetings which meant someone had arrived. Jean-Pierre contained his eagerness and continued wrapping the boy’s hand. When he heard Jane speak he looked around, and to his intense disappointment saw that it was not the malang but two strangers.

The first of them said: “God be with you, Doctor.”

“And with you,” said Jean-Pierre. In order to preempt a lengthy exchange of civilities he said: “What is the matter?”

“There has been a terrible bombing at Skabun. Many people are dead and many wounded.”

Jean-Pierre looked at Jane. He still could not leave Banda without her permission, for she was afraid he would get in touch with the Russians somehow. But clearly he could not have contrived this summons. “Shall I go?” he said to her in French. “Or will you?” He really did not want to go, for it would mean an overnight stay in all probability, and he was desperate to see the malang.

Jane hesitated. Jean-Pierre knew she was thinking that if she went she would have to take Chantal. Besides, she knew she could not deal with major traumatic wounds.

“It’s up to you,” Jean-Pierre said.

“You go,” she said.

“All right.” Skabun was a couple of hours away. If he worked quickly and if there were not too many wounded, he might just get away at dusk, Jean-Pierre thought. He said: “I’ll try to get back tonight.”

She came over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.