Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [111]
It was obvious that he had never stopped loving Jane. For the past year he had done his work, dated women, visited Petal and gone to the supermarket like an actor playing a part, pretending for the sake of verisimilitude that this was the real him, but knowing in his heart of hearts that it was not. He would have mourned her forever if he had not come to Afghanistan.
It seemed to him that he was often blind to the most important facts about himself. He had not realized, back in 1968, that he wanted to fight for his country; he had not realized that he did not want to marry Gill; in Vietnam he had not realized that he was against the war. Each of these revelations had astonished him and overturned his whole life. Self-deceit was not necessarily a bad thing, he believed: he could not have survived the war without it, and what would he have done if he had never come to Afghanistan other than tell himself he did not want Jane?
Do I have her now? he wondered. She had not said much, except I love you, dear, sleep well just as he was falling asleep. He thought it the most delightful thing he had ever heard.
“What are you smiling about?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I thought you were asleep,” he replied.
“I’ve been watching you. You looked so happy.”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath of the cool morning air and raised himself on his elbow to look across the Valley. The fields were almost colorless in the dawn light, and the sky was pearl gray. He was on the point of telling her what he was happy about when he heard a buzzing noise. He cocked his head to listen.
“What is it?” she said.
He put a finger to her lips. A moment later she heard it. In a few seconds the noise swelled until it was unmistakably the sound of helicopters. Ellis had a sense of impending disaster. “Oh, shit,” he said feelingly.
The aircraft came into view over their heads, emerging from behind the mountain: three hunchbacked Hinds bristling with armament and one big troop-carrying Hip.
“Get your head in,” Ellis snapped at Jane. The sleeping bag was brown and dusty, like the ground all around them: if they could stay under it they might be invisible from the air. The guerrillas employed the same principle in hiding from aircraft—they covered themselves with the mud-colored blankets, called pattus, they all carried.
Jane burrowed down into the sleeping bag. The bag had a flap at its open end to hold a pillow, although there was no pillow in it at the moment. If they got the flap above them it would cover their heads. Ellis held Jane tight and rolled over, and the pillowcase flopped over. Now they were practically invisible.
They lay on their stomachs, he half on top of her, and looked down at the village. The helicopters seemed to be descending.
Jane said: “They aren’t going to land here, surely?”
Ellis said slowly: “I think they are. . . .”
Jane started to get up, saying: “I’ve got to go down—”
“No!” Ellis held her shoulders, using his weight to force her down. “Wait—just wait a few seconds and see what will happen—”
“But Chantal—”
“Wait!”
She gave up the struggle, but he continued to hold her tightly. On the roofs of the houses, sleepy people were sitting up, rubbing their eyes and staring dazedly at the huge machines beating the air like giant birds above them. Ellis located Jane’s house. He could see Fara, standing up and wrapping a sheet around herself. There beside her was the tiny mattress on which Chantal lay hidden by bedding.
The helicopters circled cautiously. They’re aiming to land here, Ellis thought, but they’re wary after the ambush at Darg.
The villagers were galvanized.