Homeward Bound Ch. 04

The medic and the Russian had stopped for the night. Bearing in mind that he was a city boy, the Russian was not so squeamish, the medic though. If he had to walk, he walked, if he had to sleep, beneath the sky, on the dirt, he slept. Even the medic was a city man, but he had more experience about the life in that country. Especially about how much it took to walk, down there. A few roads, a very few cars or trucks, the gasoline, even less, just forget it. And no trains, no railways. It was good that that guy was not a sissy, a burden.

Even the Russian had a good opinion of the medic. Especially after having seen him shooting. A very good performance, considering that it was his first fight. His first killing.

"You did good, today," he said. The medic looked at him. "Those two "dushmani". Very cool!"

"Beginner's luck!" the medic said, bitterly. The Russian snorted, then he looked to the sky.

"Do you see, the only decent thing in this country? The sky. It looks so close to you... especially at night... In Russia it's very high... it looks far... Very far... "

"Yeah... " the medic said. Indeed, even with the big full moon, he could see a lot of stars, and they looked very near. And the moon seemed almost within reach, at hand...

"Sure, a beautiful sky is not a good reason for a war... " the Russian sighed. "I wonder why I am here... Why have I fought..."

"We are here because we're here, because we're here, because we're here... " the medic sang, on the tune of "Auld Lang Syne". The Russian looked at him, surprised.

"What is it?"

"It was a song the British soldiers sang during the first world war... They were there because they had sent them there. As they send my grandpa on the Alps during that war, and my father in Greece and Russia in the second world war... And you are here because they send you here. East or West, it doesn't change so much... "

"And then why I have fought? For the Country? For the Afghan people?"

"Hmm... What do you think?"

"I thought i was so... But now... "

"Oh, it could EVEN be so... To avoid a fundamentalist or a pro-American State on your doorstep, etcetera. But people fight for more concrete things, indeed... "

"That is?"

"I had a friend, he was sent to Lebanon, in 1982, 83... There was a military contingent of ours, down there, then, together with French, Americans... Peace forces, so they said... The Western version of "brotherly help", I guess..." the medic snorted. "They told our soldiers that we were there to protect the Palestinian people: there had been mass murders at refugee camps called Sabra and Shatila... But my friend told me, later, that if he had to fight, to shoot, to really risk his life, he would have not done it so much for the Palestinians, even less for our country, our government... And let alone for the American interests down there... which had nothing to do with Palestinians... "

"And then, for whom?"

"For those who fight with you, and those who wait for you... To come back, at home... To this girl... " he said, touching the pocket of his shirt. "By the way, I have to give it back to you..." he added, unbuttoning the pocket.

""No, keep it... It seems it brings good luck to us, if you have it... " the Russian said. The medic snorted. Good luck, bad luck... Was it good luck to have to kill someone? Sure, better luck that way than to be killed by someone... And that was a close one... one second more, one second less... "And after all... She was not my girlfriend... "

"No?" the medic wonder. "Is she your sister? "Tvayà sistrà"?"

"No, she is... let's say just a friend... "

"Just a friend... " the medic smiled. "I don't want to intrude, but... is she the girl who taught you how to do it?"

"Yeah... " the soldier nodded, looking down, smiling.

"Ah!" the medic sighed, looking at the sky. "Virgin with rifles, a game of charades... "

"What is it?"

"Nah, just another song... Well, you know... most of the time, girls like that turned into sweet memories, but not... life companions... Are you in love with her?"

"No, I have said, we were just friends... Maybe he decided to do it because I had to go... to come here... If not, who knows, maybe nothing would have happened... I didn't even ask her anything, she did it all, on her own... "

"Even the darkest cloud has a silver lining... " the medic mused. The soldier nodded, snorting. "Well, she is a real friend then... Do you intend to do something with her, when you come back?"

"No... You're right... She is just a memory... "

"Hey, I am not the mouth of the truth... She is a REAL friend, if he did what he did. She really likes you, maybe she would like to become something more than a friend, for you... And when you come back, you will be a hero... " he smiled.

"There are no heroes in this war... Don't scoff... " the soldier said looking down.

"There are no heroes in ANY war, just fallen and survivors," the medic answered. "And even the survivors need a help to come back to the living world. And if she gave you a hand before, she could give it to you again... "

"I don't want his... pity... again... "

"And who has talked about pity? What do you have to raise pity? You are healthy, in one piece, not legless, not armless, not blind, not insane... yes, you have bad memories, scruples, remorse, nightmares, all have nightmares... With her, you will overcome all that stuff easier... " the medic said. If this is possible, he thought... Especially about nightmares... "She can help you!" he repeated.

"And if she doesn't want? if she says "come on, let's remain friends"?"

"Yes, it could even be... " the medic nodded. "Well, in that case, if we meet again, I hope you will introduce me to her... So we will get even... "

"For sure!" the soldier snorted. "But you will have to learn Russian language, because she doesn't speak anything else..."

"Whatever it takes!" the medic said, spreading her arms.

And both laughed.

Ahmad Dekhtah was sad to admit that cars were a good invention, but they needed gasoline, and gasoline does not grow along the roads, where the mules are more than able to find their own fuel on their own behalf. As he was seeing at that moment.

In the "aul" where he and his men have stopped, he figured to find exactly fuel, besides other more mundane things like food, water and ammunitions, but the fuel there was not. Someone should have snagged the Russians and Afghan soldiers who smuggled fuels, weapons and more in exchange for hashish, opium and more. Unlikely but very real traffics of that and every war, but very more volatile than the common trade his family knew so well. And then, no fuel, no go. Sit and wait.

Theoretically, the mules who were in the "aul" were more than enough to carry all the load of the pick up, but to ask the villagers about them, even offering a lot of good cold cash... forget it. After ten years of war, the mules were a precious commodities. Ahmad has heard in Peshawar that The Americans had sent their own mules, from places called Ohio or Kentucky, to replace all the beast who had fallen in the ravines, loaded to breaking point, or blown up on the mines, or shot up by the helicopters. Even for the Mules, Afghanistan was a bad, bad place.

Once it was never so. Once, the country was peaceful, though not rich, and he was a Law student, fresh from the University. "Ne cives ad arma advenient", So that the citizens don't come to the arms. How to solve the thing, peacefully. And he was even just married... From all that tranquil past, only his wife remained, but down in Pakistan. And she had given him two sons. Two males. Good for peace, good for war. Still small, but healthy. He had to thank Allah for that, as he did, every single day. And not only Him...

The soldier did not believe when the medic said that it was going to rain. And he was wrong. it was not raining, it was pouring.

They started running under the water, and got to a small cavern just before the real deluge came down. A very small cavern. It just took to sit down against the back of it and put the legs straight on the ground, to have the feet soaked in a second. So they kept their knees bent, almost in their mouths.

"Nàdo je... Tòlko èto niè kvatàlo..." the soldier mused.

"What?"

"That's all we needed!" the soldier translated, bitterly. Even the bumpers were almost full yet, so all that water came down with no use. It just kept them from continuing the trip. To get home. The soldier looked at the medic. "Do you have any idea, how can you get home from Kabul? It will be no easy at all... "

"I have an idea. It's not easy, but it's the one thing to do... "

"What is this idea?" the soldier asked. The medic looked at him, silent. "Don't you trust me? Do you think I will betray you?" the soldier wondered.

"Maybe not willingly. But if your officers start questioning you, to know how do you escape the Afghans and went all the road down to there, then you will have to tell them what they want to know. And you will better tell them. You would be stupid if you didn't do it. Except what YOU DON'T know..."

The soldier nodded, smiling. That medic was a smart guy too...

"Chem mènshe snàesh, tyem lùchshe spìsh... "

"That is?"

"The less you know, the better you sleep... " he snorted, nodding again, looking in front.

"And you? What will become of you?"

"Well... I was a "dèmbel", when they got me... "

"Dèmbel?"

"It comes from "demobilisàziya": demobilization. I'm a short-timer, a veteran, less than a month and I had to go home. So I think that they will send me home, However, we all are going home.

"And what will you do at home?"

"I want to go back to the university. They say they will make some laws for the veterans, maybe... " he said, looking out of the cave. "But I am worried, for the future... "

"Your future?" the medic asked. The soldier shook his head.

"My country's future..."

"Why?" the medic wondered. He shrugged.

"I am not against the change, the "perestroika"... Things have to change, al least for not to do other wars like that... But I am afraid that we are going too fast... You can't give too much freedom at once, we are not used to that... Someone says that we risk to go into pieces, that we will shoot at each other... There will be one republic against the other, one person against the other... Yesterday just neighbors, and tomorrow, foes... Each republic will want to decide for itself, figuring to gain much more trading with someone abroad, and not with the other republics. But it will not be so... just the economy will fall in a crisis, if the republics will try to do it: it will be worse for all...

The medic nodded. A bad scenario, but not so unlikely. For all he knew about the Soviet Union, the republics were integrated in a system where, in order to go on, everyone had to import something from someone else. If someone stopped exporting something to someone else in the club, it was bad news for all the systems. It can work well if all the republics understand that it was good for them to keep working so integrated, without correction, just for their common interest: the most durable of human factors. The old story of Menenius Agrippa and his apologue to the Roman plebs. But what if they did not understand it?

"And then, what do you intend to do?"

"Well... I hope it will be all right... But if there will be to shoot... I KNOW how to shoot... "

The medic would have liked to tell him to drop it, but sometimes you CAN'T drop it. When it's your home and your family at stakes, for instance. To choose the right side? What right side? With whom? Against whom?

"And if it will be all right, what will you do, besides university?

"I will marry. have kids. Maybe with my girlfriend, if she wants me yet. Or else, with someone else. There are a lot of good girls yet, at us...

The medic nodded again. Yes, there was nothing strange. Sometimes, even after a year of conscription, you stop thinking as a silly boy, even about girls. No more "one-offs", no more "provided she is breathing"... And conscription was a kindergarten, compared with what that guy has seen and lived. Living on the brink of the grave changes your perspectives... A home, a wife, some kids... something serious to live for...

"What do you mean for "good girls?"

"Well, it should be... nice... not too choosy, not a princess on the bean... educated, but not lofty... and virgin."

"Virgin?"

"Yes. It's no indispensable,, But I would like it."

"To be the first?"

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, well... I would not advise you..."

"Oh, yes, you are modern, in the West... "

"It's not that: in some region of Italy, till some decades ago, they hanged the bedding of the first bridal night out of the house, without washing it. Guess why?"

"Really?" the soldier wondered, looking at the medic. "Was it for to show that... "

"Really... And it was just for that... To show that the girl was still virgin... "

"Well... I've heard they do the same, in some southern republics... But not in Russia... "

"You see? It's not modernism. It's another thing. Why a girl arrived intact in the first bridal night? For three reasons: out of principle, out of disgrace, and out of fake. For principle means, she is religious, or she has had a rigid education, anyway. It can be good, but it can be a problem: if she thinks that sex is a dirty thing, it's hard to change her mind, and then, she is not the ideal wife at all: not this way, not that way, not today because it's Friday, etcetera. Got it?

"Right..." the boy convened. He would not have liked a "drova", a tree trunk, in the bed.

"The second kind, virgin out of disgrace. Nothing tragic, let's say she is timid, not so extroverted, maybe she has grown up too much protected, few friends, so she is clumsy, not so teasing, attractive... And so she has had not so many occasions of sin... "

""Sìny chulòk"... it means "blue sock"..." the soldier snorted, nodding. "I've got that too... "

"Now, if you are lucky, if you know how to get her, kindly, gently, etcetera, maybe you will find a treasury of love and sex, you know what I mean... hungry from way back, this kind of thing... you are the master she is the pupil, besotted and yearning to learn... in a nutshell, you've got a pretty sweet set up... "

"That's what I mean... " the soldier laughed.

"Yes, but, it's not always so easy... She can have more serious problems, something real pathologic. I mean, bad experiences, psychological blocks, phobias, anxiety, fixed ideas, depression... That is, she doesn't need a husband, she needs a psychologist, and a good one, or both. but, are you a psychologist?"

"Hmm, no... "

"Then steer clear of her. One or two phobias are normal, a bit of anxiety, but nothing more. And keep out of the depressed girls, you don't save them, not even if you are ready to be a clown for them... "

"You speak out of personal experience, don't you?"

"Yes, but I don't want to talk about that." the medic said, nodding. Then he breathed, looking outside, and smiled. "And then there is the third kind: the worse. The virgins out of fake... The "virgins with snow-candid gowns"... "

"That is?"

"We are the young virgins with snow candid gowns, we're broken behind, but intact on the front..."

"Oh, got it, got it... " the soldiers laughed, and hit himself on the head with a fist, three times. ""Sukhodèrevo"!"

"What is it?"

"It means "dry wood". It's again bad lucks. It would be better doing it touching some wood, but you can do it that way too... "

"Ah... " the medic said. Then he looked in front. "We touch another part... "

"I know!" the soldiers laughed again, stronger. And even the medic snorted.

They kept silent for a while, listening to the falling rain.

"Listen... But how did you end up here, if you were studying at the university?"

"Why?"

"Well, in Italy there is a deferment... for the purpose of study... "

"And so it is in Russia... If you are regular with the examinations, pass the tests... "

"And you were not regular... "

Silence. It was a delicate issue...

"You know when a professor sees you as a bull sees a red rag?"

Gored as a bullfighter at 5 o'clock in the evening, the medic thought. He too had been gored that way, at the faculty. He had had to repeat an examination four times. But it was nothing compared to being sent down there...

Who knows why that professor had played so dirty with that guy. Professors can be strange people: they can go with their nose worse than the dogs... "Cherchez la femme"? Who knows... Maybe the girl whose photograph he had in the shirt pocket was the son of the professor, and he was not happy about the affair between her and that guy? Anyway, don't ask, don't tell. Discretion. Not your business...

"Listen," the guy said. "You have asked me, whether I did something against civilians... "

"So?"

"Once I have killed a kid."

"Why?"

"He had a "kalash"... he was going to shoot at me... "

"Really? Was he really... "

"Yes. "

"Well... it's not the kind of memory someone would like to take home... " the medic mused. Then he looked at the soldier. "But I would have done the same. Very likely."

"Really?" the soldier wondered, looking at him. The medic nodded. "But he was a kid... He thought he was defending his... "

"Even the Hitlerjugend was just a bunch of boys and girls. And they too were sure to defend their country, what remained of the Great Germany, of the Master Race and so on. That doesn't matter. You have just defended yourself. No court would sentence you for that. This is not to kill a civilian. A boy with a gun is NOT a civilian. If that guy would have thrown a stone to you, it would have been different, you could disregard it. But a rifle aimed at you is another thing: you HAD to shoot."

The soldier looked in front, nodding, breathing.

"I could disarm him... "

"You couldn't move faster than a bullet. Either you were VERY close to him, or you just had to shoot... Were you close to him?"

"Not so much... Some meters... "

"Too far... " the medic said. And they kept silent again, looking at the rain. The medic had talked right away, telling what he thought, not to soothe the mind of the soldier, or to calm his conscience. The more he thought about it, the more he knew it. Yes, he would have done the same, or would have died in the attempt. Either him, or the kid, There can only be one. "And who was wrong, and who was right, it doesn't matter in the thick of the fight... "...

Yes, maybe that was the reason why the soldier was so calm, resigned, when they had got him and thrown him in the house where he worked, at the "aul". He felt guilty for the kid, and he saw all that could happen to him, even his own death, as a deserved retribution. "so I accept the cross, and let it be"...

If he thought that way, then he was wrong. The war is the war. Who takes a gun in his hands, no matter what his age is, must know that he will lose the right to be held as a civilian. And if he doesn't know that, all the worse for him. And for who gave him that gun.

The rain ended, and they went away.