Ken Follett - Lie down with lions

Finally, although she was still anxious and unselfconfident, she had found within herself a degree of patience she had never previously possessed; and this, though it was not the deep instinctive knowledge and assurance she had been hoping for, nevertheless enabled her to confront the daily crises with equanimity. Even now, she realized, she had been away from Chantal for almost an hour without worrying.

The group of women reached the cluster of houses which formed the nucleus of the village, and one by one they disappeared behind the mud walls of their courtyards. Jane scared off a flurry of chickens and shoved aside a scrawny cow to get into her own house. Inside, she found Fara singing to Chantal in the lamplight. The baby was alert and wide-eyed, apparently fascinated by the sound of the girl's singing. It was a lullaby with simple words and a complex, Oriental-sounding tune. She's such a pretty baby,

Jane thought, with her fat cheeks and her tiny nose and her blue, blue eyes.

She sent Fara to make tea. The girl was terribly shy and had arrived in fear and trembling to work for the foreigners; but her nervousness was easing, and her initial awe of Jane was gradually turning into something more like adoring loyalty.

A few minutes later Jean-Pierre came in. His baggy cotton trousers and shirt were grimy and bloodstained, and there was dust in his long brown hair and his dark beard. He looked tired. He had been to Khenj, a village ten miles down the Valley, to treat the survivors of a bombing raid. Jane stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "How was it?" she said in French.

"Bad." He gave her a squeeze, then went to lean over Chantai. "Hello, little one." He smiled, and Chantal gurgled.

"What happened?" Jane asked.

"It was a family whose house was some distance from the rest of the village, so they thought they were safe." Jean-Pierre shrugged. "Then some wounded guerrillas were brought in from a skirmish farther south. That's why I'm so late." He sat down on a pile of cushions. "Is there any tea?"

"It's coming," Jane said. "What kind of skirmish?"

He closed his eyes. "Usual thing. The army came in helicopters and occupied a village for reasons known only to themselves. The villagers fled. The menfolk regrouped, got reinforcements and started to harry the Russians from the hillsides. Casualties on both sides. The guerrillas finally ran out of ammunition and withdrew."

Jane nodded. She felt sorry for Jean-Pierre: it was a depressing task to tend the victims of a pointless battle. Banda had never been raided, but she lived in constant fear of it—she had a nightmare vision of herself running, running, with Chantal clutched to her, while the helicopters beat the air above and the machine-gun bullets thudded into the dusty ground at her feet.

Fara came in with hot green tea, some of the flat bread

they called nan, and a stone jar of new butter. Jane and Jean-Pierre began to eat. The butter was a rare treat. Their evening nan was usually dipped in yogurt, curds or oil. At midday they normally ate rice with a meat-flavored sauce that might or might not have meat in it. Once a week they had chicken or goat. Jane, eating for two still, indulged in the luxury of an egg every day. At this time of year there was plenty of fresh fruit—apricots, plums, apples, and mulberries by the sackful—for dessert. Jane felt very healthy on this diet, although most English people would have considered it starvation rations, and some Frenchmen would have thought it reason for suicide. She smiled at her husband. "A little more Bearnaise sauce with your steak?"

"No, thank you." He held out his cup. "Perhaps another drop of the Chateau Cheval-Blanc." Jane gave him more tea, and he pretended to taste it as if it were wine, chewing and gargling. "The nineteen sixty-two is an underrated vintage, following as it did the unforgettable sixty-one, but I have always felt that its relative amiability and impeccable good manners give almost as much pleasure as the perfection of elegance which is the austere mark of its highbrow predecessor.''

Jane grinned. He was beginning to feel himself again.

Chantal cried, and Jane felt an immediate answering twinge in her breasts. She picked up the baby and began to feed her. Jean-Pierre carried on eating. Jane said: "Leave some butter for Fara.''

"Okay." He took the remains of their supper outside, and returned with a bowl of mulberries. Jane ate while Chantal suckled. Soon the baby fell asleep, but Jane knew she would wake again in a few minutes and want more.

Jean-Pierre pushed away the bowl and said: "I got another complaint about you today."

"From whom?" Jane said sharply.

Jean-Pierre looked defensive but stubborn. "Mohammed Khan."

"But he wasn't speaking for himself."

"Perhaps not."

"What did he say?"

"That you have been teaching the village women to be barren."

Jane sighed. It was not just the stupidity of the village menfolk that annoyed her, but also Jean-Pierre's accommodating attitude to their complaints. She wanted him to defend her, not defer to her accusers. "Abdullah Karim is behind it, of course," she said. The mullah's wife was often at the riverside, and no doubt she reported to her husband everything she heard.

"You may have to stop," said Jean-Pierre.

"Stop what?" Jane could hear the dangerous tone in her own voice.

"Telling them how to avoid pregnancy."

That was not a fair description of what Jane taught the women, but she was not willing to defend herself or apologize. "Why should I stop?" she said.

"It's creating difficulties," said Jean-Pierre with a patient air that irritated Jane. "If we offend the mullah grievously we may have to leave Afghanistan. More important, it would give the Medecins pour la Liberte organization a bad name, and the rebels might refuse other doctors. This is a holy war, you know—spiritual health is more important than the physical kind. They could decide to do without us."

There were other organizations sending idealistic young French doctors to Afghanistan, but Jane did not say that. Instead she said flatly: "We'll just have to take that risk."

"Shall we?" he said, and she could see that he was getting angry. "And why should we?"

"Because there is really only one thing of permanent value that we can give these people, and that is information. It's all very well to patch their wounds and give them drugs to kill germs, but they will never have enough surgeons or enough drugs. We can improve their health permanently by teaching them basic nutrition, hygiene and health care. Better to offend Abdullah than to stop doing that."

"Still, I wish you hadn't made an enemy of that man."

"He hit me with a stick!" Jane shouted furiously. Chantal began to cry. Jane forced herself to be calm. She rocked Chantal for a moment, then began to feed her. Why couldn't Jean-Pierre see how cowardly his attitude was? How could he be intimidated by the threat of expulsion from this godforsaken country? Jane sighed. Chantal turned her face away from Jane's breast and made discontented noises. Before the argument could continue they heard distant shouting.

Jean-Pierre frowned, listening, then got up. A man's voice came from their courtyard. Jean-Pierre picked up a shawl and draped it over Jane's shoulders. She pulled it together in the front. This was a compromise: it was not really sufficient covering, by Afghan standards, but she refused point-blank to scuttle out of the room like a second-class citizen if a man walked into her house while she was feeding her baby; and anyone who objected, she had announced, had better not come to see the doctor.

Jean-Pierre called out in Dari: "Come in."

It was Mohammed Khan. Jane was in a mood to tell him just what she thought of him and the rest of the village men, but she hesitated when she saw the strain on his handsome face. For once he hardly looked at her. "The convoy was ambushed," he said without preamble. "We lost twenty-seven men—and all the supplies."