‘A soda water?’
After choosing two sodas, he sat in the armchair opposite her.
‘The hotel wasn’t full so I was upgraded to this executive suite, but it’s all smoke and mirrors and it’s going to disappear tomorrow when I’m being kicked back to the cubbyhole in the new wing, after which I’ll probably be moved into some tiny shared accommodation.’
‘I’m flying out tonight.’
Daniel leaned back in his chair, watching her. ‘I guessed as much. When?’
Leaning across the coffee table between them, she took his wrist, turning it so she could see his watch face. ‘Four and a bit hours.’
‘I see. Anywhere else you need to be before then?’
‘Not that I can think of. Tell me how Jabril really is.’
‘He’s picked up a staph infection in the last couple of hours.’ Sofia groaned and shook her head. ‘His body’s fighting hard and he’s in the very best hands. They’re pretty good with gunshot wounds and they’ve got everything they need, so all any of us can do now is wait.’
‘He can’t die, Daniel,’ she said, shaking her head as she bit her bottom lip. ‘He can’t die. I haven’t said goodbye to him and I might never see him again.’ She ran her hand though her hair. ‘I owe him so much. It’s because of him I have this life here … had this life here.’
‘I know.’
She sat back in her chair. ‘Chief Wasim says I might be able to stay if I promise not to say anything about Massoud and bacha bazi ever again.’
‘So I heard.’
‘You did?’
‘Wasim told me when he rang this morning to try to convince me again that I must have been mistaken about Massoud’s threat. Look, Sofia,’ he said, sitting forward, ‘you’re probably not going to like what I’m about to say, but it seems to me that whoever ordered Jabril’s killing is so powerful they’ll never be caught. So perhaps another way for you to look at Chief Wasim’s offer is that you’re being given the chance to stay and continue your work if you keep out of Afghan affairs.’
‘What would you do?’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, sitting back again and shaking his head as he held up his hands as if to ward off the question. ‘Wrong question, wrong person. I won’t be responsible for anyone else’s decisions. Besides, it’s irrelevant what I’d do.’
‘But I’m asking you anyway.’
‘Sofia, I’m not going to decide for you, but I can offer some advice. I don’t think you should be so hard on Chief Wasim. He can’t afford to cross someone like Massoud. I also imagine he’s under a lot of pressure to make this all go away, but at the same time he wants you to stay, and he wants you to be safe. If I was the chief and those were my goals then a deal with Massoud is probably the only way that’s going to happen. Presenting that sort of proposition to Massoud or you couldn’t have been easy for Wasim, to say the least.’
‘I know he’s trying to help,’ she said, smiling, ‘although it might also be an effort to please his wife.’
‘So,’ he said, nodding as if considering the possibilities, ‘the chief of police has the choice of confronting the powerful and murderous warlord or his wife and he chooses the warlord. From what I’ve seen, that’s probably a wise decision.’
Sofia smiled before kicking her shoes off and curling her feet up under her on the chair. ‘Do you ever think about the village?’
‘Yeah, a lot lately.’ Daniel took a swig of his drink from the bottle.
‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot too. When you left that last time you didn’t say goodbye.’
‘That’s because I didn’t know it was goodbye.’
‘But you didn’t come back.’
‘I did.’ His words, simply stated, dared her to doubt him.
‘But I waited. You couldn’t have come back.’
‘You didn’t wait long enough.’
Sofia stared at Daniel as she began to understand. Had he come back for her? He had come back for her. And if he’d come back then everything she had imagined about him for the past five years had been based on a misunderstanding.
Daniel sat forward on the lounge again, facing her with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. ‘After I left you that last morning, a messenger from the village down the valley arrived to say that someone I’d been treating was dying. I thought I’d only be gone for maybe half a day, but by the time I got there he was dead and others had come down with the sickness. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I’d left you a message to tell you what was happening. I also thought about sending someone back to tell you but I worried that you’d insist on coming to help, or that the messenger would pass the sickness on to you and the village. For all I knew, I was contagious. There wasn’t an hour that I didn’t think about getting back to you but I couldn’t. By the time the threat had passed the weather had closed in and I should’ve headed back down the mountain, but instead I came back only to find you’d already gone. Back in Kabul I learned that you’d returned my dictionary and hadn’t wanted to leave a message. What was I supposed to think?’ Daniel leaned forward and took her hands across the coffee table. ‘Back then I didn’t know what the ending was supposed to be between us. Fuck,’ he said, letting her hands go to run both of his through his hair, ‘I didn’t even know what was between us, but I never wanted it to end the way it did.’
‘All these years I thought you’d gone without a word.’
‘It was in a strange time back then for me. I’ve already told you about
