Ken Follett - Lie down with lions

"They asked where the American was."

"Whom did they ask?"

"Everyone. But nobody knew. The doctor asked me where you and the baby were, and I said ! didn't know. Then they picked out three of the men: first my uncle Shahazai. then the mullah, then Alishan Karim, the mullah's brother. They asked them again, but it was no use, for the men did not know where the American had gone. So they beat them."

"Are they badly hurt?"

"Just beaten."

"I'll take a look at them." Alishan had a heart condition, Jane recalled anxiously. "Where are they now?"

"Still in the mosque."

"Come with me." Jane went into the house and Fara followed. In the front room Jane found her nursing bag on the old shopkeeper's counter. She added some nitroglyc-erin pills to her regular kit and went out again. As she headed for the mosque, still clutching Chantal tightly, she said to Fara: "Did they hurt you?"

"No. The doctor seemed very angry, but they didn't beat me."

Jane wondered whether Jean-Pierre had been angry because he guessed that she was spending the night with Ellis. It occurred to her that the whole village was guessing the same thing. She wondered how they would react. This might be the final proof that she was the Whore of Babylon.

Still, they would not shun her yet, not while there were injured people to be attended to. She reached the mosque and entered the courtyard. Abdullah's wife saw her, bustled over importantly, and led her to where he lay on the ground. At first glance he looked all right, and Jane was worried about Alishan's heart, so she left the mullah— ignoring his wife's indignant protests—and went to Alishan, who was lying nearby.

He was gray-faced and breathing with difficulty, and he had one hand on his chest: as Jane had feared, the beating had brought on an attack of angina. She gave him a tablet, saying: "Chew, don't swallow it."

She handed Chantal to Fara and examined Alishan quickly. He was badly bruised, but no bones were broken. "How did they beat you?" she asked him.

"With their rifles," he answered hoarsely.

She nodded. He was lucky: the only real damage they had done was to subject him to the stress that was so bad for his heart, and he was already recovering from that. She dabbed iodine on his cuts and told him to lie where he was for an hour.

She returned to Abdullah. However, when the mullah saw her approach he waved her away with an angry roar. She knew what had infuriated him: he thought he was entitled to priority treatment, and he was insulted that she had seen Alishan first. Jane was not going to make excuses. She had told him before that she treated people in order of urgency, not status. Now she turned away. There

was no point in insisting on examining the old fool. If he was well enough to yell at her, he would live.

She went to Shahazai, the scarred old fighter. He had already been examined by his sister Rabia, the midwife, who was bathing his cuts. Rabia's herbal ointments were not quite as antiseptic as they should be, but Jane thought they probably did more good than harm on balance, so she contented herself v/ith making him wiggle his fingers and toes. He was all right.

We were lucky, Jane thought. The Russians came, but we escaped with minor injuries. Thank God. Perhaps now we can hope they will leave us alone for a while—maybe until the route to the Khyber Pass is open again. . . .

"Is the doctor a Russian?" Rabia asked abruptly.

"No." For the first time, Jane wondered just exactly what had been in Jean-Pierre's mind. If he had found me, she thought, what would he have said to me? "No, Rabia, he's not a Russian. But he seems to have joined their side."

"So he is a traitor."

"Yes, I suppose he is." Now Jane wondered what was in old Rabia's mind.

''Can a Christian divorce her husband for being a traitor?''

In Europe she can divorce him for a good deal less, thought Jane, so she said: "Yes."

"Is this why you have now married the American?"

Jane saw how Rabia was thinking. Spending the night on the mountainside with Ellis had, indeed, confirmed Abdullah's accusation that she was a Western whore. Rabia, who had long been Jane's leading supporter in the village, was planning to counter that accusation with an alternative interpretation, according to which Jane had been rapidly divorced from the traitor under strange Christian laws unknown to True Believers and was now married to Ellis under those same laws. So be it, Jane thought. "Yes," she said, "that is why I have married the American."

Rabia nodded, satisfied.

Jane almost felt as if there were an element of truth in the mullah's epithet. She had, after all, moved from one man's bed to another's with indecent rapidity. She felt a little ashamed, then caught herself: she had never let her behavior be ruled by other people's expectations. Let them think what they like, she said to herself.

She did not consider herself married to Ellis. Do I feel divorced from Jean-Pierre? she asked herself. The answer was no. However, she did feel that her obligations to him had ended. After what he's done, she thought, I don't owe him anything. It should have come as some kind of relief to her, but in fact she just felt sad.

Her musings were interrupted. There was a flurry of activity over at the mosque entrance, and Jane turned around to see Ellis walk in carrying something in his arms. As he came nearer she could see that his face was a mask of rage, and it flashed through her mind that she had seen him like that once before: when a careless taxi driver had made a sudden U-turn and knocked down a young man on a motorcycle, injuring him quite badly. Ellis and Jane had witnessed the whole thing and called the ambulance—in those days she had known nothing of medicine—and Ellis had said over and over again: "So unnecessary, it was so unnecessary."

She made out the shape of the bundle in his arms: it was a child, and she realized that his expression meant that the child was dead. Her first, shameful reaction was to think Thank God it's not my baby; then, when she looked closely, she saw that it was the one child in the village who sometimes seemed like her own—one-handed Mousa, the boy whose life she had saved. She felt the dreadful sense of disappointment and loss that came when a patient died after she and Jean-Pierre had fought long and hard for his life. But this was especially painful, for Mousa had been brave and determined in coping with his disability; and his father was so proud of him. Why him? thought Jane as the tears came to her eyes. Why him?

The villagers clustered around Ellis, but he looked at Jane.

"They are all dead," he said, speaking Dan so that the others could understand. Some of the women began to weep.

"How?" Jane said.

"Shot by the Russians, each one."

"Oh, my God." Only last night she had said None of them will die—of their wounds, she had meant, but nonetheless she had foreseen each of them getting better, quickly or slowly, and returning to full health and strength under her care. Now—all dead. "But why did they kill the child?" she cried.

"I think he annoyed them."

Jane frowned, puzzled.

Ellis shifted his burden slightly so that Mousa's hand came into view. The small fingers were rigidly grasping the handle of the knife his father had given him. There was blood on the blade.

Suddenly a great wail was heard, and Halima pushed through the crowd. She took the body of her son from Ellis and sank to the ground with the dead child in her arms, screaming his name. The women gathered around her. Jane turned away.

Beckoning Fara to follow her with Chantal, Jane left the mosque and walked slowly home. Just a few minutes ago she had been thinking that the village had had a lucky escape. Now seven men and a boy were dead. Jane had no tears left, for she had cried too much: she just felt weak with grief.