Homeward Bound Ch. 08

The girls woke up. The "pattu" on her back, the man beneath her. She recalled everything, She shook her head, stood up and dressed up, before to wake the man up, shaking his body with her foot, just to reestablish the distances. She got out of the hut before the men could fully open his eyes.

Outside, the boy pretended he did not hear her coming closes, or maybe he had really nodded off. She did not inquire about that: just shook him too, and bear his harsh glance, without a wink.

"Poydyòm!" she said. Let's go.

The boy stood up without a word, while the man got out of the hut.

As all the days before, they did not have any breakfast. The food was the real problem, more than the eventual bad meetings on the roads. Afghanistan was a quite depopulated Country before the war, less than a man for each square kilometer, And then came the invasion, the flood of refugees bound to Pakistan and Iran. It was easy to meet nobody, day after day after day. The ideal place for a runaway. Provided you find something to eat. That was the rub.

The medic was keeping an eye on the soldier boy. He was gloomy and nervous, and likely not because the scarce food. Clearly, he knew what had happened in the night in the hut. Had he looked at them? Likely not: why pour lemon juice in an open wound? But he knew. Maybe he had heard something, a moan, a cry... Bad situation.

The boy had taken a new "Kalash" from one of the Afgan rebels, they had killed the day before: a collapsible rifle, the kind the airborne troopers used, smaller and lighter than the normal kind of rifle, for not to fatigue the wounded shoulder. Now he was holding the rifle with the weakened arm, and with the other hand, he was picking small stones from the ground and throwing them away. It was a way to blow steam off, but inadequate to the purpose.

The medic was embarrassed: he was partly responsible for the turmoil in the soldier boy's soul. But what could he do? To stop the girl the night before? He tried to do it, with no result. And likely nobody could do anything better. Apologize with the soldier boy, maybe early in the morning, before to go? It was totally irrational, even the soldier boy knew that. But he felt that way all the same.

Maybe it was because he was Russian, and he felt it was proper if HE could do it, with a Russian girl... Or maybe he was just a young man, and he would have loved to do it, regardless of any nationality... But the girl had chosen another male, another male... An older foreign man too... Hard to swallow... Especially for a young man...

The soldier boy threw some other little stones away, then he got a bigger rock, more or less the dimension of a football, and threw it with all his strength, high and away, then he turns his head towards the girl and screamed something in Russian, not exactly glowing. "Blyàd ty..."

And then the road exploded.

The medic, the soldier boy and the girl froze where they were, for a while, after the echo of the explosion faded away and the dust subsided. then the soldier boy dared to turn around and looked at the place where the explosion happened, in the middle of the road, some tens of meters in front of them.

"Mines again." said the medic flatly.

"These are not OUR mines," the girls said, and looked at the medic with a strange face.

"If they are connected, then we are dead..." mused the soldier boy, aghast.

"If they were connected, then we were ALREADY dead," the medic corrected him.

"But there could be other mines around: Not only that one," the soldier reacted.

"Right," the medic said. He carefully made a step behind, put the safe on his rifle on, took the rifle's strap between his teeth, and delicately put is backpack on the ground, on the longer side. then put the rifle on the backpack. "Come behind of me," he said.

The soldier boy and the girl did it, as if they walked on the eggs, trying to put their feet exactly on their own footprints, then they ducked behind the medic. He too ducked, selected "burst" on his rifle, aimed it a bit far on the ground, and pulled the trigger.

For some seconds nothing happened, then an explosion opened another crater on the road, and the same happened when the medic changed the mag and cleared another strip of ground a bit on the left-hand side of the first one. The two strips were close enough to exclude the presence of other mines in between. A safe passage, or something like that.

The girls stood up slowly, looking at the road and nodding. Then she patted the medic on his back, without looking at him. Well done, soldier...

"Otlìchny udàr!"

"A very good blow!" the soldier boy said.

Now he was standing up, looking at the medic without hostility, even with respect. Yes, it was a simple idea, even obvious, but he did not think about it, the medic did. For all he thought, now the other man deserved the girl. The Russian girl. Honor is due.

The medic stood up in front of the soldier. He was still a bit embarrassed, looking down.

"Have you learned that trick in the army?" the soldier asked, smiling.

"No. "Improvise, adapt yourself, overcome"..." the medic snorted. The soldier snorted too.

""Molodièz"... You're smart..." he said. The medic shrugged.

"Hmm... Ah, listen... I'm sorry for yesterday night... with the girl... I know, you feel bad about it, but... It did not depend on me..." he uttered. The soldier shrugged, raised a hand and let it fall.

""Nu làdna", let's drop it..."

Night. No hut, open sky. The medic watched first, then the girl came, and the medic went to rest, with the soldier. There was still quite a full moon, though it was waning already. When the girl came to rest, the soldier went away without a word. Maybe now he was embarrassed for those words cried in anger in the morning. The girl acted like she did not notice it. But this was hard to believe.

For a while, the medic and the girl lay down in silence. Then the girl spoke.

"I know you don't sleep," she said, calmly.

"No, but don't worry, I will not touch you."

"I know. I'm not worried," she snorted. She had a clear idea of what the medic could and could not do, no doubt. "Are you thinking about yesterday?" she asked.

"Yes," the medic answer. It was an almost rhetorical question.

"You are thinking that I should not do it, if I loved my man. And now you despise me," she said slowly, as if talking about another person.

"At a certain point, you have to leave the dead men underground." the medic answered.

"It's cruel," she whispered.

"It's not your fault if he is dead. You could do nothing. And you can do nothing now. It has happened. You have to live on. Me to have lost a woman I had loved. But I don't think I have betrayed her, yesterday. She would not think so, I'm sure."

"But you did almost nothing. I have wanted you to take me. You should have to be a saint to repel me, really. A warrior saint..." she snorted.

"Well, now I know I'm not a warrior saint. It's not compulsory. There are worse things in life..." the medic stated. The girl laughed silently, and kept silent for a while.

"I thought I would have never done it anymore. You are the first. After he..."

"How much time has passed?"

"Six month. Just six months. I'm a whore..."

"You are not. They have been not six normal months. Especially the last one," the medic affirmed. He tried to caress the girl's face, to calm her, but she turned her back to him.

"No!" she said firmly. Maybe he could insist and get her again, or maybe he could explain his move, but he did neither. The girl breathed.

"Do you really not despise me? I've told you, it was not for love, it was just..."

"I know that," the medic said. She turned her head to look at him. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's not so bad. You were over a barrel, tight as a rope. You needed it. If you were at home, safe and tranquil, you surely would have been faithful to his memory, but you are not at home, and let alone safe and tranquil. It's quite normal."

"Normal?"

"Once I have read an interview with the dean of Italian psychoanalyst, Cesare Musatti. He was talking about the mechanisms of fear, and he told about the battle of Stalingrad too. He said that among the defenders of the city, there were men and women, and they had two activities. First, to kill the Nazis, and to try not to be killed. And then, the sex. They did it a lot..."

"You know a lot of things, in the West," the girl said, sarcastically.

"Your psychologists know that too, though they don't write these things in the school books. They say that it was a reaction of the instinct of creation, say, of the conservation instinct, to ensure the survival, if not of the individuals, at least of the species. It could be so, and there would be no sin. But Musatti had another theory. He thought that in such extreme condition, as it was there, in that battle, the internal defenses of the individuals, the super-ego, the moral scruples, get weaker, because all the energies are mobilized and concentrated against the external danger... So it's easier to... hmm..."

"It's a strange place for a lecture on psychology..." the girl said, snorting. The medic nodded: so it was, indeed...

"It's just to explain. I reckon so. I know you love him, not me," he shrugged. Paradoxical but true.

The girl kept silent for a while. Then she asked:

"What was the name of your nurse?"

"Francoise," the medic answered.

"French?" she wondered. He felt the admiration, the envy for a model. Even a bit of inferiority complex. But why?

"Yes," he confirmed: The girl turned her back to him again.

"Then, she should be nice. Blonde, blue eyes... All well dressed... All perfumed..."

"Many Russian girls are blonde with blue eyes. And there is no way to be well dressed and perfumed, here. For nobody."

"I am NOT blonde with blue eyes!" she spouted, as she was under a sad booze, and proud to be. She always talked more or less that way, but now that tone was more evident. True, she had jet black hair, Tatar-like cheekbones and green, stern eyes. So what? She was nice, all the same. "Was she clever, making love?"

How can a man say that, the medic thought. Everyone has his or her style, his or her tastes...

"Well... She never assailed me..." he said. The girl laughed, briefly,

"Yeah... She was European, refined and I..."Yes, we are Scithyans, yes, we are Asians... with narrow, greedy eyes"..."

"Uh, coming from a half-German as Blok, it's a thing you have to take very seriously..."

"Hmm! You even know that Alexandr Blok was a half-German?" the girl said, approvingly. Alexandr Blok was the author of the verses she had quoted.

"On his father's side, if I well remember..." he said. She nodded again: he remembered well..."And however..." he nodded to the darkness all around, "Everything is relative..."

"Yeah..." she nodded. looking in the dark. Right: really EVERYTHING...

"Sorry... and what is YOUR name?"

"Yekaterina Grigoryèvna Ivanova," she said. "Why?"

"Yekaterìna, Katerina... Katya... Katyùsha... Right?"

"Right..."

"Am I wrong, or there was a rocket-thrower with such a name?" he asked. The girl burst out laughing. She thought he wanted to be "pritòrny", mawkish, mushy, and instead...

"No, you're not wrong!" she laughed.

"Hmm! A name, a guarantee!" the man snorted. She laughed more, babbling, like a child, then she calmed down.

"Good night, "dòktor"..." she said.

"Good night, rocket-thrower..." he answered. She snorted again.

Silence.

"Listen..." she said. "I wanted to say... Are you sleeping?"

"No."

"If they ever trapped us... before we get out of here..."

"Yes?" The girl moved to lie supine, looking at the sky.

"Make me a promise... that you will do something for me..."

"What?" the medic asked. The girl did not answer soon."

"Shoot at me."

Then was the medic to take his time to answer. He knew why the girl asked that. He rolled over his side and caress her hair, lightly."

"Nobody will trap us."

The girl did not answer. She just rolled on her side, showing him her back, and in a few minutes, she was sleeping again. As if she had just ordered a wake up call and the room service for the next morning. The medic looked at her, silently. "'F you're wounded an' left on Afghanistan's plains... just roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains... an' go to your Gawd... like a soldier..."

She would have never ended up like Francoise, he decided.

The day after, it was another fine day. One more time, they hit the road without any breakfast. And for the first time since the girl had joined the group, there was no incident till the evening. And so it happened the following day.

The medic was walking and thinking about Francoise and the American nurse. The more he thought about the last, the more he got convinced that John Donne was not right. He and "for whom the bell tolls"... It was not right that "any man's death diminishes me"... Francoise's death made him chill. The death of the other one... almost made him laugh.

Yes, she had gone to see an ambush. Just as a tourist in Spain goes to see a Corrida. But the bulls have not the AK74. That guy who despatched her had not aimed at her head, for sure. He had just fired a volley, out of fear, to make the enemies stop shooting and duck. She had not ducked... And that was that!

And nobody had thought to close her eyes, when they took her back to the "aul". What a piece of face she had..."Sorry, there must be a mistake, I cannot die, I am American"... Yeah, where is Rambo when you need him? He had told her again and again, this is not Hollywood, honey, you are not the star, there is no note which says that you must survive, there is no program for sequels. The Russians here are not extras who pretend to fire and then die. They are real soldiers who use real weapons which shoot real bullets which make real holes! And since they want to keep themselves alive, if they have to get you, then they will get you!

But all their discussions followed the same path. He tried to put her feet on the ground, and she kept repeating mantras about America, and the "freedom fighters". She was sure they would have "freed" the whole central Asia controlled by the Russians. On behalf of the West, of course, not of Islam... What a laugh! And then what, walking on the water? No problem!

Have you ever heard about Wehrmach, honey? It was the German army in World War 2: the best army the world has ever seen. Good soldiers, top class officers, the best weapons, the best tanks in the world, and the best idea about how to use it. Discipline, efficiency, motivation: "Gott mit UNs", God is with us, they too said so: the master race.

But when they attacked Russia, and damn, we were with them... No, we did not lose, we OVERlost... They reamed us, madam, but REALLY reamed us. And then Russia was not better than now: the countries were starving after the forced collectivization, Stalin had shot most of the best generals, because someone has suggested him that they wanted to topple him... And even so, those gentlemen reamed us. And the Wehrmacht.

And you think that these Islamic guys can make the job done? If they do something different from an ambush, they are done. In 1986, they attacked a Russian base, two times. And two times they got it broken, without Vaseline. No, madam, I'm not saying that THE RUSSIAN got it broken: all the other way. Even Newsweek talked about it, I remember: "Setback for the rebels". They have lost on their home field, figure it out, if they were the guest team...

She did not get the picture. The fact that the Russians could not subdue Afghanistan (no one in History ever did it) did not mean that they were a pushover on their turf. They were not. And she had died without understanding it. Surely she would have held him as a traitor, if she had seen him then.

No, Francoise would have not thought that way about him. She would have looked at him, smiling, arms akimbo and a "Gauloise" in her hand (figure it out, if you can't ever find "Gauloise" or Gitanes" in Heaven. What a Heaven would be, without that? It would be not worthwhile to get there!).

""Alors", doctor... do we start to be romantìc?"

"Romantìc". of course, the accent on the last vocal, the French way... Yeah, very romantic..."I like the lost causes, where they are really lost"... He could leave that country to Pakistan, maybe find a hike on a car, one of those overcolored trucks so common in the country... And instead, he was walking, toward Kabul, with two Russians... Really romantic...

But what was he thinking. There are things you do because you couldn't bear to live with yourself knowing you didn't. And to save the boy was one of them. For not to think that she would have been alone because of himself... The rest had come as a consequence. And the result was that he had killed people. And that he was now, temporarily, but definitely, on the other side. It was that why he was so uncomfortable?

He snorted. The other side... Times change, enemies change... Treachery is a question of dates,,, And the rest... Yeah, he snorted, nodding: just like to worry about the speed limit at Indianapolis...

"What are you thinking about?" the girl asked. He did not notice her incoming.

"I can stay here. Go back to sleep," he said. The girl sat down close to him, as if she had not heard him.

"The fact you had got me does not oblige you to take care of me." she said firmly.

"I'm not taking care of you," he answered. She stared at him. "You don't need it. It's just I don't need to sleep. Not now."

She nodded. Yes, she did not need a man who took care of her. Or at least, so she liked to think.

"So what were you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing special," the medic shrugged, and then he explained to her his thoughts. She approved, Especially the part about the speed limit...

"It's a way to accept the reality like another..." she said. The medic nodded. And the reality was that they were... say, in Indianapolis...

"Listen," he said. "I would like to ask you about a couple of things..."

"Davày..." she said. Come on.

"First... Why did you make love with me, and not with that guy?"

"Why do you ask me that? What do you want to hear from me?"

"Nothing... just... He is Russian, like you... We do not need scenes of jealousy or other tensions, now..."

"Jealousy? I'm not his girlfriend, nor his sister, or his little child... He has no right to tell me what to do... Yes, he acted inadequately, this morning, but..."

"And thank God he acted inadequately!" the man snorted. The girl convened, smiling.

"Indeed... However, we have talked about it, there will be no problem, anymore. Regarding the fact that you are a stranger... Have I asked you a pair of jeans, or money, or anything, to sleep with you?"

"Hmm, no..." the medic shook his head. No, that girl had not sold herself to him. As a matter of fact, she had taken him over. No complaint on his behalf, of course...

"You see? I have done it because I wanted to do it. Not for some rags or some bucks. So even if you are a foreigner, what was wrong?"

"But why not with him?"

"Because..." she snorted and shrugged, but her voice became more tender. "Because he is still a kid, for me. And you are a man. I am used to do it with men, now. I cannot do it with a boy. Yes, he is a nice, good boy, after all, and he needs a woman, I know, maybe more than you... But I am not Sniegùrochka..."

"Sniegùrochka?" the medic wonder. She laughed.

"The granddaughter and the assistant of Dièd Maròz, Granpa Frost... Our Santa Klaus... I mean, my body is not a gift for the good children... And he got the message, no worry:"

"Your body has been a gift for me... A wonderful gift... What have I done to deserve it?"

"Oh, drop it!" she snorted, smiling and blushing. "Other questions?"