‘Don’t fucking think you’ll get out of it like that, you fat little bastard,’ Oleg Ivanovich screamed, as the young boy lay moaning in the medical wing, three of his fingers missing. ‘I’ll get you sent to the worst fucking hellhole you have ever seen. You’ll wish it was your stupid fucking pimple of a head you had blown off!’
Kabul glittered faintly in the darkness below us. As the plane dipped down towards the earth, helicopters rose to escort us. Flares arced across the sky from the choppers, illuminating the night with their brilliant colours. We pressed our faces to the window and watched the spectacle like children on New Year’s Eve. Kolya whooped.
‘The flares are for our protection,’ the pilot explained.
‘The muj have ground-to-air heat-seeking missiles. The heat from the flares deflects them.’
We gazed down then into the dark creases of the hills, as if we might see, huddled in the shadows of night, small, fierce bands of insurgents. The hills were black, though, revealing nothing of the danger that might be lurking in them. The airfield, as we swooped down towards it, was dotted with hundreds of small fires, which glittered so that it seemed, for a moment, as if the plane had been upturned and beneath us stretched a starry expanse of sky. As we drew closer, we could see, huddled around these fires, the tents of the dembels – soldiers who had served their two years and were waiting for their flight home.
A large crowd of them gathered around the plane as it drew to a stop at the end of the runway. They surrounded us, staggering drunkenly, laughing and calling.
‘You don’t stand a chance…’
‘You won’t survive…’
‘Better to kill yourselves now. You don’t want to know what they will do to you…’
We stumbled through the crowd to the trucks awaiting us, to take us through the town to our base. The moon hung heavily over the city, as though it were closer to the earth here than it had been back home. The streets were deserted, only soldiers visible at the corner checkpoints, waving us through peremptorily.
‘Curfew,’ the driver explained.
In the centre of our barracks, on the edge of the city, a large eucalyptus spread its bare branches across a well-trimmed lawn. The dusty parade ground glimmered in the moonlight. I took a deep breath of the sharp night air and stood for a few moments gazing over the rooftops towards the mountains. They shone milky blue against the pitch darkness of the sky.
The rhythm of life soon established itself. Six a.m. reveille. Physical training. Breakfast. Line-up. Political studies. Weapons-cleaning. Lunch. Duties. Dinner. Lights · out. Reveille had to be perfect; three seconds and one hundred and eighty men had to get out of bed and fall in. After forty-five seconds we had to be in full uniform. One person failed and we all did it again. And again. And again until we were perfect.
We soon learnt, too, the immutable hierarchy of the army in Afghanistan. The lowest level of this hierarchy was the new recruit, fresh in the country. After six months of service you became a ‘granddad’ and nearing the end of service a dembel.
The new recruit was nothing, an object, a punch bag or slave for the granddads. Their word was the word of God.
‘What’s your name?’ Kozlov, a granddad from Moscow, asked as I waited outside the stinking latrines on the first day. Behind him stood another granddad. Kozlov eyed the packet of cigarettes I held.
I told him my name.
Kozlov held out his hand. For a moment I did not grasp his meaning.
‘Give me the cigarettes,’ he said then, as if to an idiot.
Instinctively I slipped them into the pocket of my jacket. They were my last pack of More cigarettes.
‘How long have you been here?’ Kozlov asked.
‘What’s it to you?’ I said. I glanced at Kolya, who stood beside me. There were two of them and two of us, I figured.
Kozlov laughed. His face twisted into a sneer. He was not much bigger than me, but his body was lean and taut, his skin tough and tanned. He grabbed the front of my jacket and swung my back against the concrete wall of the latrines.
‘Nobody taught you no fucking manners, you little shit?’
‘I think this kid needs teaching a few lessons in respect,’ the granddad behind Kozlov chipped in.
‘Lick my boots clean, you little shit.’
I stared at him, watching the curve of his smile, believing even then, perhaps, that it was a joke. I didn’t see the first punch coming. His knuckles ground into my kidneys. I gasped and fell to my knees. Kolya stepped forward but the other granddad grabbed him and threw him aside.
‘Lick my boots, shitface, lick them until they shine,’ Kozlov snarled. He hit me hard. My head snapped back and cracked against the concrete wall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kolya scrabble away from the boot of Kozlov’s friend. Kozlov karate-chopped the base of my neck and I crashed to the earth by his shoe. He thrust his foot against my face, splitting my lip. As I struggled away, his other boot came down heavily on the back of my neck.
‘Lick them, or I’ll break your fucking neck,’ he hissed.
I licked them. I felt the thick dust furring my tongue, the sand gritty on my teeth. Kozlov kept the pressure hard against the back of my neck so that I could barely move and had to stick my tongue out to reach the toe of his boot.
‘Lick it well, make it shine, or I’ll squash your backbone and cripple you for life. You think anybody is going to give a fuck? Do you think anybody will listen to you? Do you want me to tell you what would happen if you reported this? Let me tell you. The senior officer would come and ask why you hadn’t been trained properly, then you would get a proper fucking beating for having reported your seniors. Do you understand?’ I heard the shuffle of feet on the gravel as the latrine door opened. The pressure on the back of my neck lessened so that I was able to swivel my head free and roll away. I looked up to see a large form blocking the light of the sun above me.
‘Enjoying yourself, Kozlov?’ a voice asked.
‘Just teaching the kid a few rules,’ Kozlov said. He bent over and pulled the packet of cigarettes from my pocket. When he had gone, the large shape bent down and lifted me up.
‘You OK?’
I nodded.
‘Vassily,’ he said, holding out a large hand. His grip was crushing. ‘From Novgorod. I heard you speaking Lithuanian to another of the recruits.’
‘You’ve been to Lithuania?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s not so far from Novgorod.’
I leant back against the latrine wall. My kidneys throbbed painfully and I found it hard to straighten up. Vassily took out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one.
‘You’re lucky that was Kozlov,’ he said, holding out a red plastic lighter. ‘He’s been here only six months and is still flexing his muscles. Believe what he said, nobody would give a fuck if he broke your neck. You want to go home, you better learn some rules.’
For the next few days, when I pissed blood flecked my urine. I stumbled through physical training, assault courses, hand-to-hand combat using shovels, sticks, knives, breaking bricks with our fists, martial arts. When we were not fighting we were washing the clothes of the granddads, starching them, sewing gleaming new white patches of cloth on their collars, making them drinks; ‘Everything but holding their dicks when they piss,’ as Kolya put it.
Twice a week a convoy left the base to pick up supplies from Kabul. Kolya and I were picked for duty on the convoy’s armed escort. Vassily was chosen too. After loading sacks of potatoes and boxes of tinned milk on to the back of the KamaZ, Vassily suggested he introduce us to the city. Shouldering our Kalashnikovs, we followed him, leaving the truck in the compound.
The streets were cluttered with wooden carts loaded high with boxes of firewood so large and heavy it did not seem possible that the small mules could pull them, or that they would fit down the narrow lanes. The dusty roads were heavy with traffic. Camels, mules, Toyotas, Mercedes, Zhigulis, Volgas imported from Russia. A brightly painted bus – yellow
and red with orange flowers and geometrical patterns, a riot of colours and rattles and grunts, bags and suitcases piled high on its roof, belching acrid fumes into the street. Pipes poked from buildings, pouring sewerage into the gutters.
Around us rose the mountains, blue and misty, faintly visible through the thick clouds of wood smoke hanging over the streets. Turbanned men wandered around indolently, while women flitted along in small groups shrouded in chadors – blue, green, faded and tatty or stiff and neatly embroidered. There was something spectral about the way they passed noiselessly down the street.
‘Don’t stare at the women,’ Vassily said, nudging me. ‘Not unless you want your balls cut off, or a knife in your gut.’
Nervously my eyes flicked away from them. I glanced around to see whether any of the Afghan men had noticed I had been watching. As we approached them, the men parted to let us through. They kept their faces down, avoiding any form of eye contact, staring grimly at the ground.
‘Let’s get a little drink,’ Vassily said with a grin.
He pushed through a heavy beaded curtain into a small café. We followed him in. The café was a large room opening off the street. A thick, oily cloud of aromatic smoke hung beneath the high ceiling. Vassily breathed in deeply, savouring the scent. He tapped the side of his nose and grinned. The room was subdivided into smaller rooms by means of chequered curtains. Pulling stools to one of the high tables, we settled down. A young Afghan boy in a dirty brown chemise wandered across, an insolent grin on his face. Vassily rubbed his knuckles playfully on the boy’s head, ruffling his hair. The boy pulled away, protesting.
‘Give us a bottle of water,’ Vassily told the boy. ‘Some of your special water.’
The boy turned lazily and wandered back across to a door by which stood a cooker that looked as if it had been cobbled together from the scraps of many other machines. He returned after a couple of minutes with an unlabelled litre bottle of clear liquid and three greasy glasses.
‘How do you know that isn’t poisoned?’ Kolya said, pointing at the bottle. ‘I’ve heard they do that.’
Vassily shook his head. ‘Here no,’ he said. ‘They’re not stupid. They wouldn’t dare sell anything that is poisoned for two very good reasons. One – they wouldn’t have any more business and they need the money.’ He rubbed his thick fingers together. ‘Two – we would shell their fucking arses off if they tried.’
The vodka was strong. We downed a couple of glasses quickly. Vassily slipped a thin cigarette case from his coat pocket. The case was inlaid with amber. He opened it carefully and offered each of us a hand-rolled cigarette. Closing the case, he tapped the amber lid with the tip of his finger.
‘Smell,’ he said. ‘The finest-quality hashish to be had.’ He grinned.
The smoke burnt its way to my lungs. Beads of sweat jumped out on my forehead. With the vodka and the hashish, it felt as though my whole insides were on fire. I felt both nauseous and weightless, as though I had been pumped full of helium. The smoke stung my eyes. Vassily’s large red face wobbled before me. Through eyes filled with tears I saw him laughing. He reached across the table and clapped a hand on my shoulder. Kolya, I noticed, was looking green. His face was set, his lips thin and his eyes screwed up as he concentrated. We stumbled back, bolt upright, stifling laughter, conscious, despite our state, of the danger. Picking up the truck from the compound on the edge of the city, we drove out through the streets lined with low mudbrick buildings. The walls of the houses were dry and crumbling, and in places riddled with bullet holes. There were small shops that seemed abandoned and a Soviet hospital which could have been built no more than ten years before whose walls were already cracked, with large chunks of plaster falling away.
Turning into a narrow street that ran between two rows of high buildings, Vassily stepped hard on the brakes. Ahead of us a commotion blocked the street. A small crowd milled around a KamaZ. The door of the truck was open. Children skipped in the dust.
‘Trouble ahead,’ Vassily muttered under his breath. His right hand felt for his Kalashnikov.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
He shook his head and edged the truck cautiously down the street, his gun across his lap. The group of Afghans milling around the KamaZ turned towards us and even at a distance of fifty metres it was possible to see the anger on their faces. A stone ricocheted off the windscreen. I gripped my own gun tightly. An acute rush of fear and adrenalin cleared the fug of vodka and hashish that had clouded my brain.
‘Let’s back out of here,’ Kolya suggested, his voice strained.
‘And leave the guys in that truck?’
‘There are only the three of us.’
A group of children ran along beside us, their small, dark faces smeared with dirt, their tatty shirts flapping. Gleefully they shouted, jumping up and down, picking handfuls of dust from the street and throwing it at the truck.
‘Shuravi – Shuravi – marg – marg – marg!’ they shouted.
A young girl stood in the shadows by the wall. She was dressed in a green shalwar-kameez; her eyes were large and as green as her dress, her hair dusty red. In her small hands she clutched a ribbon. Marg, marg, marg, she mouthed with the other children, an excited little smile curving her pretty lips, dimpling her soft, full cheeks.
‘What are they saying?’ Kolya asked.
‘What are they saying?’ repeated Vassily, glancing across at Kolya. ‘They are singing, “Death to the Soviets – death – death – death”.’
A cold shiver ran down my spine. I glanced across at the beautiful young child standing in the shadows. She waved the ribbon before her; the sunlight caught the silky golden cloth and it shone gaily. Marg, marg, marg, she sang. For a moment, as we passed, our eyes met. She was, I realised, the first Afghan that had met my eyes in the week I had been there. She drew the ribbon to her face and stroked it against her cheek.
‘Allah akbar! Allah akbar! Shuravi marg!’ The voices of men joined those of the children. The crowd that had been milling around the stationary KamaZ advanced down the narrow lane towards us.
‘Radio for back-up,’ Vassily snapped at Kolya. ‘Davai! Antanas, let’s go.’ He opened the door of the truck and jumped down into the road, bringing his Kalashnikov up into a firing position. I opened my door and rolled out into the dust, clutching my gun tightly. The children scattered with loud screams full of fear and anger. I heard the stutter of Vassily’s gun. As I drew myself up to face the angry crowd of young men, I felt a sharp pain as something cracked against the back of my head. I swivelled round. The pack of children fled. The small girl remained alone by the wall, the ribbon hanging loosely from her plump hands. In her beautiful green eyes I saw that she was paralysed with fear.
The metallic chatter of Vassily’s gun reverberated around my head. The narrow street echoed with shouts and gunfire and then the clatter of a helicopter. The Mi-24 hovered menacingly above the rooftops, blocking out the sunlight. Blue-pink streaks plumed from the shuddering, dark angel that had come to our rescue.
The angry crowd melted away into the shadows and dark passageways, leaving one figure writhing in the dust. The helicopter rose noisily into the sky, swooping away across the rooftops of the city. Vassily walked forwards to the supine figure. As he drew close the man sat up suddenly and the polished blade of a knife glinted in the sunlight.
‘Vassily!’ I called.
There was a short burst of gunfire and the figure danced backwards and crumpled to the ground.
We edged forwards, Kolya keeping the truck close on our heels. Vassily’s eyes swivelled nervously from wall to wall, seeking out the small windows, the rooftops or narrow passageways from which a sniper might pick us off. From the opposite side of the stationary KamaZ, an APC trundled slowly towards us. Kozlov sat on top of the APC, his gun resting across his knees. He grinned when he saw us.
‘You three, huh?’ he said, jumping down. ‘Playing heroes or just trying to die as quickly as possible?’
The
windscreen of the KamaZ was shattered, and the headlights broken. The dented driver’s door had been forced open. We peered in. The driver lay slumped across the steering wheel. Kozlov pulled him back. His face was a bloody pulp. I stared at the glistening fatty tissue.
‘Fuck!’ Vassily muttered behind me.
‘He ran into some local kid,’ Kozlov said. ‘He radioed in for help, but as you can see he was too late.’
‘The child?’ I said.
Kozlov shot a glance at me.
‘Was it… ?’
‘Dead? Let’s hope so. One less sobaka to worry about.’
I glanced down the street to where the young girl had been standing. She had gone. I wandered back, looking around warily. In the dust where she had been standing was the short length of gold ribbon. I bent down and picked it up. It felt soft and smooth between my fingers. I stroked it against the skin of my cheek. The fine cloth snagged on the coarse bristles that sprouted unevenly across my jaw.
‘Antanas, comrade,’ a voice called. I looked up. From the truck Vassily was waving for me to join him. ‘Come on, my friend, let’s go.’
Chapter 10
As the afternoon gave way to evening and the light began to fade, I remained at my desk, staring blankly out through the dirty glass door into the street. Around me rose the spectral kishlak Ghazis. The village lay east of Jalalabad, towards the border with Pakistan. An old stone bridge spanned a lively river, which plummeted from the mountains through ash and juniper woods and into the walnut orchard in the low winding foothills around the village. The marketplace was crowded. It was hot and noisy.
‘It was in Ghazis,’ Vassily had said, ‘in the Hindu Kush. You remember it?’
I remembered Ghazis. There are some places that sear themselves on to the skin of your being, that mark you so indelibly no amount of drugs or alcohol or work or love will wash their shadow away.
I stood up. In a cupboard beneath the sink there was a bottle of vodka. We kept it there for when we stayed late. Sometimes, when we had finished the day’s work and settled at the desk, paperwork strewn between us, untouched, unread, bills unpaid, Vassily would begin one of his tales, a snippet of information he had learnt and was eager to share, which would develop into a story. On these occasions we would get out the bottle and a couple of glasses and drink and talk until the telephone rang and Daiva demanded to know whether I would be coming home that evening.
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