knew: he was capable of walking much longer distances. She sat with him while he drank his tea, trying not to stare at him, thinking: You lied to me. When he had rested for a little while, she said: "Let's go out, like we used to."
He was a little surprised. "Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere. Don't you remember, last summer, how we used to go out just to enjoy the evening?''
He smiled. "Yes, I do." She loved him when he smiled like that. He said: "Will we take Chantal?"
"No." Jane did not want to be distracted. "She'll be fine with Fara.''
"All right," he said, faintly bemused.
Jane told Fara to prepare their evening meal—tea, bread and yogurt—then she and Jean-Pierre left the house. The daylight was fading and the evening air was mild and fragrant. This was the best time of day in summer. As they strolled through the fields to the river, she recalled how she had felt on this same pathway last summer: anxious, confused, excited, and determined to succeed. She was proud that she had coped so well, but glad the adventure was about to end.
She began to feel tense as the moment of confrontation drew nearer, even though she kept telling herself that she had nothing to hide, nothing to feel guilty about and nothing to fear. They waded across the river at a place where it spread wide and shallow over a rock shelf, then they climbed a steep, winding path up the face of the cliff on the other side. At the top they sat on the ground and dangled their legs over the precipice. A hundred feet below them, the Five Lions River hurried along, jostling boulders and foaming angrily through the rapids. Jane looked over the Valley. The cultivated ground was crisscrossed with irrigation channels and stone terrace walls. The bright green-and-gold colors of ripening crops made the fields look like shards of colored glass from a smashed toy. Here and there the picture was blemished by bomb damage—fallen walls, blocked ditches, and craters of mud amid the waving grain. The occasional round cap or dark turban showed that some of the men were already at work, bringing in their crops as the Russians parked their jets and put away their bombs for the night. Scarved heads or smaller figures were women and older children, who would help while the light lasted. On the far side of the Valley the farmland struggled to climb the lower slopes of the mountain, but soon surrendered to the dusty rock. From the cluster of houses off to the left the smoke of a few cooking fires rose in pencil-straight lines until the light breeze untidied it. The same breeze brought unintelligible snatches of conversation from the women bathing beyond a bend in the river upstream. Their voices were subdued, and Zahara's hearty laugh was no longer heard, for she was in mourning. And all because of Jean-Pierre. . . .
The thought gave Jane courage. "I want you to take me home," she said abruptly.
At first he misunderstood her. "We've only just got here," he said irritably; then he looked at her and his frown cleared. "Oh," he said.
There was a note of imperturbability in his voice which Jane found ominous, and she realized that she might not get her way without a struggle. "Yes." she said firmly. "Home."
He put his arm around her. "This country gets one down at times," he said. He was not looking at her but at
the rushing river far below their feet. "You're especially vulnerable to depression at the moment, just after the birth. In a few weeks' time, you'll find—"
"Don't patronize me!" she snapped. She was not going to let him get away with that kind of nonsense. "Save your bedside manner for your patients."
"All right." He took his arm away. "We decided, before we came, that we would stay here for two years. Short tours are inefficient, we agreed, because of the time and money wasted in training, traveling and settling down. We were determined to make a real impact, so we committed ourselves to a two-year stint—"
"And then we had a baby."
"It wasn't my idea!"
"Anyway, I've changed my mind."
"You're not entitled to change your mind."
"You don't own me!" she said angrily.
"It's out of the question. Let us stop discussing it."
"We've only just begun," she said. His attitude infuriated her. The conversation had turned into an argument about her rights as an individual, and somehow she did not want to win by telling him that she knew about his spying, not yet anyway; she wanted him to admit that she was free to make her own decisions. "You have no right to ignore me or override my wishes," she said. "I want to leave this summer.''
"The answer is no."
She decided to try reasoning with him. "We've been here a year. We have made an impact. We've also made considerable sacrifices, more than we anticipated. Haven't we done enough?"
"We agreed on two years," he said stubbornly.
"That was a long time ago, and before we had Chantal."
"Then the two of you should go, and leave me here."
For a moment Jane considered that. To travel on a convoy to Pakistan carrying a baby was difficult and dangerous. Without a husband it would be a nightmare. But it was not impossible. However, it would mean leaving Jean-Pierre behind. He would be able to continue betraying the convoys, and every few weeks more husbands and sons from the Valley would die. And there was another reason why she could not leave him behind: it would destroy their marriage. "No," she said. "I can't go alone. You must come, too."
"I will not," he said angrily. "I will not!"
Now she had to confront him with what she knew. She took a deep breath. "You'll just have to," she began.
"I don't have to," he interrupted. He pointed his forefinger at her, and she looked into his eyes and saw something there that frightened her. "You can't force me to. Don't try."
"But I can—"
"I advise you not to," he said, and his voice was terribly cold.
Suddenly he seemed a stranger to her, a man she did not know. She was silent for a moment, thinking. She watched a pigeon rise up from the village and fly toward her. It homed in on the cliff face a little way below her feet. I don't know this man! she thought in a panic. After a whole year I still don't know who he is! "Do you love me?" she asked him.
"Loving you doesn't mean I have to do everything you want."
"Is that a yes?"
He stared at her. She met his gaze unflinchingly. Slowly the hard, manic light went out of his eyes, and he relaxed. At last he smiled. "It's a yes," he said. She leaned toward him, and he put his arm around her again. "Yes, I love you," he said softly. He kissed the top of her head.
She rested her cheek on his chest and looked down. The pigeon she had watched flew off again. It was a white pigeon, like the one in her invented vision. It floated away, gliding effortlessly down toward the far bank of the river. Jane thought: Oh, God, what do I do now?
It was Mohammed's son, Mousa—now known as Left Hand—who was the first to spot the convoy when it returned. He came racing into the clearing in front of the caves, yelling at the top of his voice: "They're back! They're back!" Nobody needed to ask who they were.
It was midmorning, and Jane and Jean-Pierre were in the cave clinic. Jane looked at Jean-Pierre. The faintest hint of a puzzled frown crossed his face: he was wondering why the Russians had not acted on his intelligence and ambushed the convoy. Jane turned away from him so that he should not see the triumph she felt. She had saved then-lives! Yussuf would sing tonight, and Sher Kador would count his goats, and Ali Ghanim would kiss each of his fourteen children. Yussuf was one of Rabia's sons: saving his life repaid Rabia for helping to bring Chantal into the world. All the mothers and daughters who would have been in mourning could now rejoice.
She wondered how Jean-Pierre felt. Was he angry, or frustrated, or disappointed? It was hard to imagine someone being disappointed because people had not been killed. She stole a glance at him, but his face was blank. I wish I knew what's going on in his mind, she thought.
Their patients melted away within minutes: everybody was going down to the village to welcome the travelers home. "Shall we go down?" Jane said.
"You go," Jean-Pierre said. "I'll finish up here, then follow you."
"All right," said Jane. He wanted some time to compose himself, she guessed, so that he could pretend to be
