Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

I noticed the singsong pidgin had vanished, replaced by an American accent. Clearly, I’d underestimated Achura’s determination and loyalty, dismissed her as a kathoey and therefore of no importance. It was a mistake that was probably going to kill me.

I backed away and rolled onto the bed, landing on my feet on the other side. Achura advanced with all the effortless grace of one of the snow leopards that hunt in the Tien Shan mountains. The sticking plaster across her nose gave her the look of some ancient tribal warrior, wild and untameable. She touched the tip of her nose, grimaced.

‘I didn’t expect this. And yes, it hurts. But nothing compared to what you’re going to suffer. I know you’re expecting it. Then once I’ve dealt with you, I’ll see to that bitch in the shower. I’ll show you just how kind and considerate I can be; she won’t even know what hit her. Just blackness for ever.’

I looked around for something to throw, a vase, a lamp, anything to slow her down, found nothing. Saltanat was quietly singing in the shower, the water drowning any noise I could make to alert her. In a few seconds Achura would kill me, then Saltanat would emerge from the bathroom to meet the same end.

Achura feinted a few blows at my face, a kick to my chest, but I could tell she was toying with me, the way a cat does when killing something weaker and smaller. Achura sidestepped the punch I threw as if I’d blown smoke at her, kicked me again. I felt a rib crack, knew that in a couple of minutes it wouldn’t matter.

‘Maybe I should break your nose,’ Achura wondered, jabbing at my face with those merciless fists. ‘Or kick your balls up into your spine. Gouge out an eye.’

I retreated for a couple of steps, felt the edge of the bedside table on the back of my legs, prepared to die.

And that was when my hand touched the envelope.

I’ve never moved as quickly as I did then, knowing that if I fumbled the envelope, knocked it to the floor, I was dead. But years of practice had given my muscles the memory to grab the gun and aim it at Achura’s face.

‘Kick my balls up into my spine?’ I managed to say. ‘I’m sure you’d like yours removed altogether.’

I resisted the temptation to point the gun at Achura’s crotch and fire. It wouldn’t be immediately fatal, and that would give her all the time she needed to kill me.

‘I don’t think you’ve got the guts to kill a woman, Borubaev,’ she said, her voice low, hypnotic.

‘Wrong,’ was all I said, and pulled the trigger.

The shot took her just above her left cheek, a sudden red-black hole appearing as if by magic. The look of anger drifted into nothingness as she fell back to the floor. The sound of the shot had been appallingly loud, and Saltanat rushed out of the bathroom. She took the situation in at a glance, grabbed the TV remote, found an action movie and turned up the sound so more gunshots echoed around the room.

Saltanat stared at the corpse, then at me. Her look was accusing.

‘Why didn’t you call me?’

‘I was a little busy,’ I said, pissed off her first response had been to criticise me. She must have recognised I had a point, because she didn’t reply, knelt down beside Achura.

Apart from the hole in her forehead, there was remarkably little blood. Low calibre bullets tend to create a small entry wound, then bounce around inside the skull, turning the brain into porridge before coming to rest.

‘You ever think of looking before you open the door?’ she asked, switching on her mobile and uttering a string of instructions in Uzbek.

‘Let me get dressed, we go and eat. When we’re back here, she won’t be. Another mess of yours my people have to clean up. And we need to talk about the rest of this mess as well.’

‘I don’t want to disagree with you,’ I began, ‘but you decided we would come to Kuala Lumpur, decided which hotel we would stay at. And if Achura had killed me, what would you have done, unarmed and naked?’

‘If you want to argue, you can stay here,’ Saltanat said, refusing to lose the argument, picking up her bag and heading for the door, ‘but I’m going to eat.’

I’ve had more companionable meals; Saltanat savaged a piece of semi-raw meat the size of a plate, while I picked at an omelette. Neither of us spoke, and the waiter could tell the temperature at our table hovered somewhere around absolute zero. Finally I pushed my plate aside, reached over, took her hand. She started to pull away, but for once I didn’t let go straight away.

‘You’re pregnant,’ I said, in my most matter-of-fact voice, ‘and I’m the father. So we both have to act like grown-ups and make some serious decisions.’

Saltanat looked at me, and for a second I could have sworn she had tears in her eyes. Or perhaps it was just pollen from the rose on our table, and I was giving her the benefit of the doubt.

‘You think I haven’t thought about that?’

‘I’m not saying that,’ I said, waving the waiter away as he came to clear the plates and probably eavesdrop, ‘but once we’re out of this mess, we have to decide what to do next.’

‘Akyl, you’re the one in a mess, not me,’ Saltanat said. ‘I’m not the one on the run, I’ve got a country, a home to go to. You’ve got nothing, except a life expectancy you could time with a stopwatch. And you want to know what I’m going to do about this baby?’

Her laugh combined amusement, anger and sorrow in equal doses.

‘If I keep it, and if it’s a boy, I’ll name him Akyl, after his late father. There; happy now?’

‘And if it’s a girl?’

‘Then I’ll call her Akyla, because of her lack of balls.’

‘Why do we have to fight about this?’ I said, reaching for her hand again, watching her pull away.

‘Because you’re going to be dead soon, and that will break my heart.’

And with that, she pushed her chair back and stalked out of the door, leaving me to pay the bill.

As Saltanat had organised, Achura’s body was gone, perhaps transported in a laundry basket. There was going to be hell in the morning when it was time to wash the sheets and pillowcases.

‘Do you wish you and Chinara had kept your baby?’

We were lying in bed together, close but not quite touching, having wordlessly agreed on a truce once I got back to the room. It was a question I’d often asked myself, both before her death and after, and I’d never been able to resolve the issue in my mind.

‘Hard to bring up a child without a mother,’ I said. ‘Almost cruel, even.’

‘And what if there is no father?’

‘That’s a little different,’ I said. ‘Look how many Kyrgyz fathers don’t see their children from one year to the next. I don’t mean the ones who just get divorced once they get bored of the sex and the responsibilities, I’m thinking of the ones who go to Moscow to work shit jobs for shit pay, so they can send roubles home. They’ve got no choice, so the kids grow up under their mother’s influence. Is the absence of a father good or bad? I don’t know, but for most people there isn’t a choice.’

‘So you think I should keep it?’

‘I can’t tell you what to do, Saltanat, I never have been able to do that. It has to be your choice, but I’ll support you totally in whatever you decide.’

We lay there in silence, until I felt her hand reach over, take mine. I rolled towards her as she did the same, our heads colliding in the dark. I winced, awakening the bruise from the headbutt I’d given Achura, then felt Saltanat’s hand on the back of my neck, her breasts soft against my chest, her thighs tight and determined against mine.

We kissed, hesitant at first, the way you do after an argument, when you’re not sure if the bond between you has fully returned, then with more passion as the memory of being a couple surged back again. And then all memory dissolved into the moment…