Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [43]
Jane nodded. She felt sorry for Jean-Pierre: it was a depressing task to tend the victims of a pointless battle. Banda had never been raided, but she lived in constant fear of it—she had a nightmare vision of herself running, running, with Chantal clutched to her, while the helicopters beat the air above and the machine-gun bullets thudded into the dusty ground at her feet.
Fara came in with hot green tea, some of the flat bread they called nan, and a stone jar of new butter. Jane and Jean-Pierre began to eat. The butter was a rare treat. Their evening nan was usually dipped in yogurt, curds or oil. At midday they normally ate rice with a meat-flavored sauce that might or might not have meat in it. Once a week they had chicken or goat. Jane, eating for two still, indulged in the luxury of an egg every day. At this time of year there was plenty of fresh fruit—apricots, plums, apples, and mulberries by the sackful—for dessert. Jane felt very healthy on this diet, although most English people would have considered it starvation rations, and some Frenchmen would have thought it reason for suicide. She smiled at her husband. “A little more Béarnaise sauce with your steak?”
“No, thank you.” He held out his cup. “Perhaps another drop of the Château Cheval-Blanc.” Jane gave him more tea, and he pretended to taste it as if it were wine, chewing and gargling. “The nineteen sixty-two is an underrated vintage, following as it did the unforgettable sixty-one, but I have always felt that its relative amiability and impeccable good manners give almost as much pleasure as the perfection of elegance which is the austere mark of its highbrow predecessor.”
Jane grinned. He was beginning to feel like himself again.
Chantal cried, and Jane felt an immediate answering twinge in her breasts. She picked up the baby and began to feed her. Jean-Pierre carried on eating. Jane said: “Leave some butter for Fara.”
“Okay.” He took the remains of their supper outside, and returned with a bowl of mulberries. Jane ate while Chantal suckled. Soon the baby fell asleep, but Jane knew she would wake again in a few minutes and want more.
Jean-Pierre pushed away the bowl and said: “I got another complaint about you today.”
“From whom?” Jane said sharply.
Jean-Pierre looked defensive but stubborn. “Mohammed Khan.”
“But he wasn’t speaking for himself.”
“Perhaps not.”
“What did he say?”
“That you have been teaching the village women to be barren.”
Jane sighed. It was not just the stupidity of the village menfolk that annoyed her, but also Jean-Pierre’s accommodating attitude to their complaints. She wanted him to defend her, not defer to her accusers. “Abdullah Karim is behind it, of course,” she said. The mullah’s wife was often at the riverside, and no doubt she reported to her husband everything she heard.
“You may have to stop,” said Jean-Pierre.
“Stop what?” Jane could hear the dangerous tone in her own voice.
“Telling them how to avoid pregnancy.”
That was not a fair description of what Jane taught the women, but she was not willing to defend herself or apologize. “Why should I stop?” she said.
“It’s creating difficulties,” said Jean-Pierre with a patient air that irritated Jane. “If we offend the mullah grievously we may have to leave Afghanistan. More important, it would give the Médecins pour la Liberté organization a bad name, and the rebels might refuse other doctors. This is a holy war, you know—spiritual health is more important than the physical kind. They could decide to do without us.”
There were other organizations sending idealistic young French doctors to Afghanistan, but Jane did not say that. Instead she said flatly: “We’ll just have to take that risk.”
“Shall we?” he said, and she could see that he was getting angry. “And why should we?”
“Because there is really only one thing of permanent value that we can give these people, and that is information. It’s all very well to patch their wounds and give them drugs to kill germs, but they will never have enough surgeons or enough drugs. We can improve their health permanently