Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [63]
“All right.” He took his arm away. “We decided, before we came, that we would stay here for two years. Short tours are inefficient, we agreed, because of the time and money wasted in training, traveling and settling down. We were determined to make a real impact, so we committed ourselves to a two-year stint—”
“And then we had a baby.”
“It wasn’t my idea!”
“Anyway, I’ve changed my mind.”
“You’re not entitled to change your mind.”
“You don’t own me!” she said angrily.
“It’s out of the question. Let us stop discussing it.”
“We’ve only just begun,” she said. His attitude infuriated her. The conversation had turned into an argument about her rights as an individual, and somehow she did not want to win by telling him that she knew about his spying, not yet anyway; she wanted him to admit that she was free to make her own decisions. “You have no right to ignore me or override my wishes,” she said. “I want to leave this summer.”
“The answer is no.”
She decided to try reasoning with him. “We’ve been here a year. We have made an impact. We’ve also made considerable sacrifices, more than we anticipated. Haven’t we done enough?”
“We agreed on two years,” he said stubbornly.
“That was a long time ago, and before we had Chantal.”
“Then the two of you should go, and leave me here.”
For a moment Jane considered that. To travel on a convoy to Pakistan carrying a baby was difficult and dangerous. Without a husband it would be a nightmare. But it was not impossible. However, it would mean leaving Jean-Pierre behind. He would be able to continue betraying the convoys, and every few weeks more husbands and sons from the Valley would die. And there was another reason why she could not leave him behind: it would destroy their marriage. “No,” she said. “I can’t go alone. You must come, too.”
“I will not,” he said angrily. “I will not!”
Now she had to confront him with what she knew. She took a deep breath. “You’ll just have to,” she began.
“I don’t have to,” he interrupted. He pointed his forefinger at her, and she looked into his eyes and saw something there that frightened her. “You can’t force me to. Don’t try.”
“But I can—”
“I advise you not to,” he said, and his voice was terribly cold.
Suddenly he seemed a stranger to her, a man she did not know. She was silent for a moment, thinking. She watched a pigeon rise up from the village and fly toward her. It homed in on the cliff face a little way below her feet. I don’t know this man! she thought in a panic. After a whole year I still don’t know who he is! “Do you love me?” she asked him.
“Loving you doesn’t mean I have to do everything you want.”
“Is that a yes?”
He stared at her. She met his gaze unflinchingly. Slowly the hard, manic light went out of his eyes, and he relaxed. At last he smiled. “It’s a yes,” he said. She leaned toward him, and he put his arm around her again. “Yes, I love you,” he said softly. He kissed the top of her head.
She rested her cheek on his chest and looked down. The pigeon she had watched flew off again. It was a white pigeon, like the one in her invented vision. It floated away, gliding effortlessly down toward the far bank of the river. Jane thought: Oh, God, what do I do now?
It was Mohammed’s son, Mousa—now known as Left Hand—who was the first to spot the convoy when it returned. He came racing into the clearing in front of the caves, yelling at the top of his voice: “They’re back! They’re back!” Nobody needed to ask who they were.
It was midmorning, and Jane and Jean-Pierre were in the cave clinic. Jane looked at Jean-Pierre. The faintest hint of a puzzled frown crossed his face: he was wondering why the Russians had not acted on his intelligence and ambushed the convoy. Jane turned away from him so that he should not see the triumph she felt. She had saved their lives! Yussuf would sing tonight, and Sher Kador would count his goats, and Ali Ghanim would kiss each of his fourteen children. Yussuf was one of Rabia’s sons: saving his life repaid Rabia for helping to bring Chantal into