Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [116]
They were all dead.
And so was the child.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jane dashed through the village in a blind panic, pushing people aside, cannoning into walls, stumbling and falling and getting up again, sobbing and panting and moaning all at the same time. “She must be all right,” she told herself, repeating it like a litany; but just the same her brain kept asking Why didn’t Chantal wake up? and What did Anatoly do? and Is my baby hurt?
She stumbled into the courtyard of the shopkeeper’s house and climbed the steps two at a time to the roof. She fell on her knees and pulled the sheet off the little mattress. Chantal’s eyes were closed. Jane thought: Is she breathing? Is she breathing? Then the baby’s eyes opened, she looked at her mother, and—for the first time ever—she smiled.
Jane snatched her up and hugged her fiercely, feeling as if her heart would burst. Chantal cried at the sudden squeeze, and Jane cried, too, awash with joy and relief because her little girl was still here, still alive and warm and squalling, and because she had just smiled her first smile.
After a while Jane calmed down, and Chantal, sensing the change, became quiet. Jane rocked her, patting her back rhythmically and kissing the top of her soft bald head. Eventually Jane remembered that there were other people in the world, and she wondered what had happened to the villagers in the mosque, and whether they were all right. She went down into her courtyard, and there she met Fara.
Jane looked at the girl for a moment—silent, anxious Fara, timid and so easily shocked: where had she found the courage and presence of mind and sheer nerve to conceal Chantal under a rumpled sheet while the Russians were landing their helicopters and firing their rifles a few yards away? “You saved her,” Jane said.
Fara looked frightened, as if it had been an accusation.
Jane shifted Chantal to her left hip and put her right arm around Fara, hugging her. “You saved my baby!” she said. “Thank you! Thank you!”
Fara beamed with pleasure for a moment, then burst into tears.
Jane soothed her, patting her back as she had patted Chantal’s. As soon as Fara was quiet Jane said: “What happened in the mosque? What did they do? Is anyone hurt?”
“Yes,” said Fara dazedly.
Jane smiled: you couldn’t ask Fara three questions one after another and expect a sensible answer. “What happened when you went into the mosque?”
“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 I 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 nitroglycerin 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