The Network - Jason Elliot [152]
I press a gold sovereign into the hand of the old man.
‘For your help,’ I say. Then I give him another. ‘For your silence.’
‘Aqelmand ra eshara kafee ast,’ he croaks. A sign is sufficient to a wise man.
‘Give it to the poor, then.’
He lights a fire in the courtyard of his simple home and brings us tea as we wash the dust and grime from our bodies beside the stream. He gathers our clothes to wash them, and brings us his own spare garments. I tie a strip of fabric around Manny’s eyes so that they can rest and hope that the damage is not too great.
We move inside, and the old man brings us a platter of rice. I eat a few mouthfuls. Then I feel the onset of fatigue like an advancing unstoppable tide and, leaning back against the wall, close my eyes for a few seconds.
I wonder, when the morning light wakes me, where I am. I sit up in a panic and feel pains flare up all over my body. Someone has thrown a blanket over me, and the others are sleeping in a row next to me. Only H is absent.
I walk outside, shielding my eyes from the sun, which is already high. I realise that my ears are still ringing, but that there’s no other sound. It’s ten o’clock and already warm, and our clothes are dry and swaying gently from a rope stretched across the yard. I open a rickety outer door and walk a little way towards the river, where I catch sight of H. He’s already dressed, but his chest is bare, and he’s splashing water over the wound on his shoulder and pressing on the muscle experimentally. I call to him, quietly.
He turns and looks at me. He says nothing but smiles. Everything in our friendship seems contained in it. An Afghan proverb springs suddenly into my memory, and I hear myself repeating it quietly to myself.
Yak roz didi dost, roze dega didi bradar. One day there is friendship, the next there is brotherhood.
The silence is broken by a single shot. I don’t see where it comes from because I am watching H, whose body suddenly jerks, then wavers at the water’s edge. He looks down slowly at his chest, where a dark stain has suddenly appeared, and looks up again in bewilderment. There’s another shot a few seconds later, and H’s body topples backwards into the water. I open my mouth but no sound comes out.
A momentary paralysis lifts, and I turn in the direction of the shot. A man is standing thirty yards away. His clothes are filthy and torn, and I realise it can only be the fourth man from the black pickup. I can see his face and the look of coldness on it as he swings his weapon towards me and takes aim. There’s a faint click. A scowl crosses his face as he throws the empty magazine to the ground and reaches for another in his webbing.
Then a raging energy enters me and I run across the open ground towards him. I’m already halfway to him as he sends the magazine home and draws back the bolt. I see the muzzle swing up and see his head tilt as he takes aim at me, and I realise I will die, but I’ll die trying.
I hear the shot but feel nothing. Something is happening I don’t understand. Another shot rings out, and then another and another, and the man’s weapon falls from his hands as he tumbles back under the rounds from H’s Browning. The man is dead by the time I reach him.
I look back towards H, who’s standing in the water with his pistol at his side, and for a second I wonder if it’s all been an illusion and he’s fine after all. But as I run back to him he sinks to his knees, and the water flowing behind him is red, as if someone has been pouring wine into it.
I catch him as his body falls sideways and yell to the others, and I carry him to the wall of the house. Sher Del and Momen have run out and tear strips of cloth to press against H’s chest where the blood is gushing as if from a broken tap. I prop him against the wall.
‘Did I get him?’ he asks. He’s trying