Ken Follett - Lie down with lions

"When will he be back?" Jane asked, but Fara had become dumb and embarrassed, and after a moment Jane realized why: the sounds of whistling and a man's foot-

steps came from the courtyard, there was a tap on the door, and Ellis Thaler's voice said: "Anyone at home?"

"Come in," Jane called. He walked in, limping. Although she was no longer romantically interested in him, she had been concerned about his injury. He had remained in Astana to recover. He must have come back today. "How do you feel?" she asked him.

"Foolish," he said with a rueful grin. "It's an embarrassing place to get shot in."

"If embarrassed is all you feel, it must be getting better."

He nodded. "Is the doctor in?"

"He's gone to Skabun," Jane said. "There was a bad bombing raid and they sent for him. Anything I can do?"

"I just wanted to tell him that my convalescence is over.''

"He'll be back tonight or tomorrow morning." She was observing Ellis's appearance: with his mane of blond hair and curly golden beard he looked like a lion. "Why don't you cut your hair?"

"The guerrillas told me to grow it, and not to shave."

"They always say that. The object of the exercise is to make Westerners less conspicuous. In your case it has the opposite effect."

"I'm going to look conspicuous in this country regardless of my haircut."

"That's true." It occurred to Jane that this was the first time she and Ellis had been together without Jean-Pierre. They had slipped very easily into their old conversational style. It was hard to remember how terribly angry she had been with him.

He was looking curiously at her packing. "What's that for?"

"For the journey home."

"How will you travel?"

"With a convoy, as we came."

"The Russians have taken a lot of territory during the last few days," he said. "Didn't you know?"

Jane felt a chill of apprehension. "What are you telling me?"

"The Russians have launched their summer offensive. They've advanced over big stretches of country through which the convoys ordinarily pass/'

"Are you saying the route to Pakistan is closed?"

"The regular route is closed. You can't get from here to the Khyber Pass. There may be other routes—"

Jane saw her dream of returning home fade. "Nobody told me!" she said angrily.

"I guess Jean-Pierre didn't know. I've been with Masud a lot so I'm right up-to-date."

"Yes," Jane said, not looking at him. Perhaps Jean-Pierre really did not know this. Or perhaps he knew but had not told her about it because he did not want to go back to Europe anyway. Whichever it was, she was not going to accept the situation. First, she would find out for certain whether Ellis was right. Then she would look at ways of solving the problem.

She went to Jean-Pierre's chest and took out his American maps of Afghanistan. They were rolled into a cylinder and fastened with an elastic band. Impatiently, she snapped the band and dropped the maps on the floor. Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice said: That may have been the only rubber band within a hundred-mile radius.

Calm down, she told herself.

She knelt on the floor and began to shuffle through the maps. They were on a very large scale, so she had to put several of them together to show all of the territory between the Valley and the Khyber Pass. Ellis looked over her shoulder. "These are good maps!" he said. "Where did you get them?"

"Jean-Pierre brought them from Paris."

"They're better than what Masud has."

"I know. Mohammed always uses these to plan the convoys. Right. Show me how far the Russians have advanced."

Ellis knelt on the rug beside her and traced a line across the map with his finger.

Jane felt a surge of hope. "It doesn't look to me as if the Khyber Pass is cut off," she said. "Why can't we go this way?" She drew an imaginary line across the map a little to the north of the Russian front.

"I don't know whether that's a route," Ellis said. "It may be impassable—you'd have to ask the guerrillas. But the other thing is that Masud's information is at least a day or two old, and the Russians are still advancing. A valley or pass might be open one day and closed the next."

"Damn!" She was not going to be defeated. She leaned over the map and peered closely at the border zone. "Look, the Khyber Pass isn't the only way across."

"A river valley runs all along the border, with mountains on the Afghan side. It may be that you can only reach those other passes from the south—which means from Russian-occupied territory."

"There's no point in speculating," Jane said. She put the maps together and rolled them up. "Someone must know.

"I guess so."

She stood up. "There's got to be more than one way out of this bloody country," she said. She tucked the maps under her arm and went out, leaving Ellis kneeling on the rug.

The women and children had returned from the caves and the village had come to life. The smoke of cooking fires drifted over courtyard walls. In front of the mosque, five children were sitting in a circle playing a game called (for no apparent reason) Melon. It was a storytelling game, in which the teller stopped before the end and the next child had to carry on. Jane spotted Mousa, the son of Mohammed, sitting in the circle, wearing at his belt the rather wicked-looking knife his father had given him after the accident with the mine. Mousa was telling the story. Jane heard: "... and the bear tried to bite the boy's hand off, but the boy drew his knife ..."

She headed for Mohammed's house. Mohammed himself might not be there—she had not seen him for a long time—but he lived with his brothers, in the usual Afghan extended family, and they, too, were guerrillas—all the fit young men were—so if they were there they might be able to give her some information.

She hesitated outside the house. By custom she should stop in the courtyard and speak to the women, who would be there preparing the evening meal; and then, after an exchange of courtesies, the most senior woman might go into the house to inquire whether the menfolk would condescend to speak to Jane. She heard her mother's voice say: "Don't make an exhibition of yourself!" Jane said aloud: "Go to hell, Mother." She walked in, ignoring the women in the courtyard, and marched straight into the front room of the house—the men's parlor.

There were three men there: Mohammed's eighteen-year-old brother, Kahmir Khan, with a handsome face and a wispy beard; his brother-in-law, Matullah; and Mohammed himself. It was unusual for so many guerrillas to be at home. They all looked up at her, startled.

"God be with you, Mohammed Khan," Jane said. Without pausing to let him reply, she went on: "When did you get back?"

"Today," he replied automatically.

She squatted on her haunches like them. They were too astonished to say anything. She spread out her maps on the floor. The three men leaned forward reflexively to look at them: already they were forgetting Jane's breach of etiquette. "Look," she said. "The Russians have advanced this far—am I right?" She retraced the line Ellis had shown her.

Mohammed nodded agreement.

"So the regular convoy route is blocked."

Mohammed nodded again.

"What is the best way out now?"

They all looked dubious and shook their heads. This was normal: when talking of difficulties, they liked to make a meal of it. Jane thought it was because their local knowledge was the only power they had over foreigners such as she. Usually she was tolerant, but today she had no patience. "Why not this way?" she asked peremptorily, drawing a line parallel with the Russian front.

"Too close to the Russians," said Mohammed.

"Here, then." She traced a more careful route, following the contours of the land.

"No," he said again.