Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [118]
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 Dari 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.
She went into the house and sat down to feed Chantal. “How patient you have been, little one,” she said as she put the baby to her breast.
A minute or two later Ellis came in. He leaned over her and kissed her. He looked at her for a moment, then said: “You seem angry with me.”
Jane realized that she was. “Men are so bloody,” she said bitterly. “That child obviously tried to attack armed Russian troops with his hunting knife—who taught him to be foolhardy? Who told him it was his role in life to kill Russians? When he threw himself at the man with the Kalashnikov, who was his role model? Not his mother. It’s his father; it’s Mohammed’s fault that he died; Mohammed’s fault and yours.”
Ellis looked astonished. “Why mine?”
She knew she was being harsh, but she could not stop. “They beat Abdullah, Alishan and Shahazai in an attempt to make them tell where you were,” she said. “They were looking for you. That was the object of the exercise.”
“I know. Does that make it my fault that they shot the little boy?”
“It happened because you’re here, where you don’t belong.”
“Perhaps. Anyway, I have the solution to that problem. I’m leaving. My presence brings violence and bloodshed, as you are so quick to point out. If I stay, not only am I liable to get caught—for we were very lucky last night—but my fragile little scheme to start these tribes working together against their common enemy will fall apart. It’s worse than that, in fact. The Russians would put me on public trial for the maximum propaganda. ‘See how the CIA attempts to exploit the internal problems of a Third World country.’ That sort of thing.”
“You really are a big cheese, aren’t you?” It seemed odd that what happened here in the Valley, among this small group of people, should have such great global consequences. “But you can’t go. The route to the Khyber Pass is blocked.”
“There’s another way: the Butter Trail.”
“Oh, Ellis . . . it’s very hard—and dangerous.” She thought of him climbing those high passes in the bitter winds. He might