I didn’t wait the full hour before making the call; and we didn’t get the Mercedes, but an old Land Rover with an ill-fitting hard-top.
‘What the fuck is that?’ said the driver, catching sight of the girl.
‘Refugee,’ I explained, helping her into the rear of the Land Rover. ‘I have to get her to the UNHCR – know where it is?’
‘No, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hope she’s not going to piss on the seat.’
He threw the Land Rover into gear and we bounced off down the track. He drove carelessly and fast, and I put my arm round the girl to stop her being flung about. Once or twice I caught him inspecting us in the rear-view mirror. The speculative look in his eye was irritating.
‘Hear you got left behind by TJ Farah’s lot,’ he said after a few minutes. ‘Sets a wicked pace, they say.’
TJ hadn’t lost any time turning his version of events into a morsel of Regimental gossip. What had happened at the farmhouse was going to get him in trouble with the Ruperts, as the officer class was known. Not that he wasn’t used to it. TJ was a rogue and a maverick who regarded orders and rules of engagement as restrictions invented by officers to make their lives easier and his more difficult. The objective was what counted – and, one way or another, TJ always achieved his objective. He was such an effective soldier that the Ruperts overlooked his excesses and let him get on with it. His reports were said to be masterpieces of obfuscation.
Still, this time he’d led his men into contact, got one of them wounded, and been forced to pull out before the op was complete. The story about some puffing idiot of an Int Corps officer getting lost along the way would be a useful distraction.
We hit the main road into Skopje a few kilometres south of the border post. They were setting up a refugee camp there: bulldozers had already flattened thirty or forty acres of floodlit ground into a frozen black quagmire, and container-loads of supplies were stacked up beside the access road, along with enough fencing panels to hem in the entire population of Kosovo. A little further on, the NATO base sprawled before us, the tents, flatpacks and prefabs of a dozen different nations arranged either side of a spine of rollaway track, lorries and four-wheel drives squeezed into narrow grids, double-skinned ammunition warehouses hunched in far corners – and the whole apparition rendered fuzzy by the millions of tiny interlocking squares that made up the perimeter fence. We drove past the front gates, and twenty minutes later were hurtling along the empty boulevards on the outskirts of the Macedonian capital.
We passed the UNHCR building anyway – it was easy to spot because there was a densely packed line of perhaps six or seven hundred people camped out along the pavement from the main entrance. Most were lying down; but perhaps it was too cold for sleep because as we cruised by I saw eyes staring out from among the bundles of belongings, shining weakly in the streetlight as if their batteries were failing. A long, knotted braid of humanity, spewed out by the conflict that had descended over their lives, and now washed up here on a pavement in Skopje. I felt a prickle of shame. These people had fled their homes because they feared the bombing campaign I’d been helping to prepare.
The apartment I had taken when stationed in Skopje two months earlier was on the third floor of a narrow, modern building sandwiched between a café and an ironmongery store. I thanked the driver and gave him a twenty-dollar bill for his trouble, then led the girl up the six flights, unlocked the door and set her down on a cream vinyl sofa, where she lay and regarded me with an apprehensive expression. The apartment consisted of two tiny rooms and a bathroom with leaky pipes and patches of mildew and bare cement where the tiles had fallen off. It was at least served by a central-heating system of heroic proportions: the huge iron radiators were hot to the touch, and the poor girl had already cast aside the survival bag and seemed ready to pass out under this luxurious onslaught. I threw open all the windows and went through my cupboards to see what I had to eat.
On first moving in, I had bought a few supplies in a woeful attempt to make the place seem homely – and of course they were all still there because I disliked cooking for myself and didn’t have anyone else in Skopje to cook for. The girl was, in fact, my first guest. I put on pasta and a bottle of sauce, then found her a can of Coke in the fridge, which she took with an expression of relief on her face, as if this was a sign that, no matter how extraordinary and unexpected her present circumstances, normality might still be within reach.
I had no experience of children whatsoever, but a commonsensical dictum kept running through my head: she needs to get out of those wet clothes. The problem was, I didn’t have anything else for her to wear. I was friendly with the woman who ran the café downstairs and knew she would lend me clothes in the morning; but for the time being all I could come up with was a towelling dressing gown which, though it could have accommodated three or four of her, was at least clean and dry. I went and turned on the shower, then came back and pointed to the bathroom.
‘You need to get out of those wet clothes,’ I said.
I reached out and tugged at the damp cotton of her T-shirt, then did a brief shivering mime and handed her the dressing gown. But her only response to my encouragements was to shake her head.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to. So long as you’re warm.’
She opened her mouth and I thought I saw the word ‘Mama’ on her lips, but then instead of speaking she burst into tears. Yes, Mama, I thought. Mama is needed. Captain James Palatine really won’t do. I put my arm round her skinny shoulders, but she shrank away from me. I didn’t even know how to comfort her. She wiped her tears away, but more spilled from her eyes, and I felt overwhelmed by her tragedy. She was trying to recover from her outpouring of grief, to be sensible and behave as a grown-up would. But she had not even the vaguest idea who I was or where she was or what would happen to her next. I wanted to tell her that the trials she had been through that day would have reduced even the most sensible grown-up to tears, that I was sure her mother would have wanted her to wash and get out of her wet clothes, that I would take care of her and she mustn’t worry at all. But I thought my scant Albanian would only make matters worse; and in any case her immediate future, both with me and then without me, was so uncertain that there was not much I could truthfully say to console her.
I’d forgotten to time the pasta and it had gone sticky, but I divided it between two plates, spooned the sauce on top and set the food on the coffee table between us. She watched me twirl the spaghetti onto my fork before conveying it to my mouth, then she copied me, scratching the fork-tines against the plate and coaxing the awkward strands into a manageable mouthful. Her slender fingers were clumsy from tiredness. Again my heart went out to her.
Now that she had warmed up properly and eaten hot food, a little pinkness had come into her cheeks and I could see what a pretty child she was, with her black hair, oval face and delicate mouth. I had taken her large eyes for mournful, but I saw now that I’d been wrong: even at the end of that wild day, they were full of vigour and intelligence, darting round the room and glancing surreptitiously into mine. I wondered what she saw there. Of course, I was exhausted, too, and traumatised in ways I hadn’t even begun to understand.
We finished eating and there was nothing else to do but sleep – and not nearly enough time for that. I eyed my Bergen with dislike, decided there was no point unpacking it, then went into the bedroom and got her a pillow. I placed it at the end of the sofa and mimed sleep. She lay down and I threw the dressing gown over her and turned out the light.
I went into the bathroom and unwound Peanut’s insultingly elaborate bandaging from my ear. The lobe was split and started bleeding the moment I pulled off the gauze. I needed to get a fresh dressing so I padded back into the darkened room and unbuckled the Bergen, and there was the white plastic bag with its oblong box inside. I laid it on the coffee table beside the girl and her eyes flicked shut as I looked over. I found the medi-pack, tended to my silly little wound, then went throug
h to my bedroom, leaving the bathroom door open so she wouldn’t be in the dark. I set the alarm on my cellphone, lay down and slept.
This was what my mind had been waiting for. The dreams reared up and danced. The downy throat of the dead boy, his limp arms and desolate eyes, the legs of the woman’s chair standing in the glazed pink puddle, her heavy breasts in their beige bra. Sticky cellphone, vinegar stink, Road Runners plunging down chasms of rock. She was begging me to help her and I did not. Fear dragged at my heart like an ice-cold undertow, a fear that refused to make itself known.
4
The alarm went but time struggled to reassert itself. When I finally realised the frantic, muddled night was over, my body relaxed and my hands unclenched as if I had only just lain down to rest.
Six a.m. I had two hours to get the girl sorted out and rejoin TJ and company back at the NATO base by the border with Kosovo. The UNHCR wouldn’t be open yet. I got up and dressed, and there was the dead woman’s cellphone in the pocket of my shirt, the screen obscured by a film of brownish red. I still had Father Daniel’s number – perhaps he had contacts in Skopje who could take the girl in.
I went into the sitting room. She was still asleep, one delicate wrist crooked beneath her chin, face very pale. She should sleep there all day, I thought. And then all night if need be. What did she have to wake to?
I went downstairs and found Maria sweeping the corners of her restaurant on the ground floor. Over the months I’d been based in Skopje, I had eaten exclusively at her place, and we had struck up an easy friendship, one that was pleasantly free of expectation or obligation on either side – apart, that is, from the obligation to remain loyal to Café Pogboriza. Maria had a low opinion of the rival establishments in her neighbourhood.
Leonard Cohen was playing over the restaurant speakers, Maria crooning a practised accompaniment to his weighty lament.
‘James! Wait one minute.’
She went behind the counter and turned Leonard Cohen off. I explained what had happened.
‘James, you are not a sensible man, no,’ she said. ‘You bring this orphan girl out of Kosovo? Now she is your responsible. You must look after her,’ she went on sternly. ‘This is how God wishes it.’
‘I’ll do my best – you have any clothes I could give her?’
‘Sure. She is twelve, you say?’
I nodded and Maria went up the stairs at the rear, while I wondered what else God might be wishing for me. Despite Maria’s decree and the emotional bond the girl and I had forged the previous night, my priority now was not looking after her but rejoining TJ’s unit and going back into Kosovo.
At twenty-five, I still had a young man’s restless uncertainty about who I really was and what I was really for. I’d never expected to become a soldier – by training I was a computer scientist. I’d completed a PhD in data-processing and chip design which had caught the eye of the intelligence establishment. GCHQ and their ilk were already beginning to struggle with the volume of data to which they had granted themselves access, and my work held out the promise of actually being able to sift through the bits and bytes faster than they could accumulate them. I’d toiled round the conference and consultancy circuit for a year, fending off unctuous cyber-surveillance executives who wanted to sweet-talk me into selling them my life’s work – past, present and future. To me their corporate objectives seemed immoral at best. The phrase ‘exceptional remuneration package’ kept coming up, and I felt I was being invited to join some conspiracy. So when the Army Intelligence Corps made their cack-handed yet oddly charming approach, it looked like an honourable way out.
Now I was thinking that perhaps I was a soldier after all. What was it Ollie had said? Reckon he’s one of us.
Maria returned with jeans, a T-shirt and hoodie, and a pair of bleached canvas trainers.
‘What will you do? Take her back to Kosovo?’
‘I can’t. I thought I’d leave her with the UNHCR, though she deserves better after what she’s been through. And there are queues a mile long.’
I searched Maria’s eyes for some indication that she either approved or disapproved of this idea, but she only shrugged and looked away. I should have asked her to take care of the girl. I should have begged her. Just for a few days. Something held me back. Reticence about asking such a favour from a woman I knew only because I ate at her restaurant? Or perhaps it was in my mind that my heroism would be compromised if I didn’t finish the job myself. I don’t know. All I told myself at the time was that I should speak to the priest before deciding what to do.
‘Bring her here to eat,’ Maria said as I left. ‘I don’t want you giving her soldier’s food, out of a packet. Ugh!’
The girl hadn’t moved when I got back. I touched her guiltily on the shoulder. She came awake instantly, sat upright and drew the dressing gown I’d covered her with up to her chin. She seemed frozen with terror. I pointed to the neatly folded clothes.
‘For you.’
She kept her eyes fixed on me, and pressed herself back into the arm of the sofa. Why was she frightened of me? I was finding her difficult to read. I picked the clothes up and placed them on her lap. Cautiously, she lifted the T-shirt and inspected the hoodie and canvas trainers beneath. Then she looked up at me and solemnly nodded her head, as if to say that she accepted these clothes as a sign that everything was going to be all right.
I went and opened the bathroom door for her. ‘You want to put them on?’
She scooted past me and I shut the door and left her to change, while I called the priest on the dead woman’s cellphone. The connection rang out. It was a mobile number – switched off or out of battery, perhaps. I thumbed through the contacts list to see if there was a landline. The entries were in Albanian and it took several frustrating minutes with a dictionary before I found a number for the refuge.
‘A flisni anglisht?’ I asked. The connection was poor and I wasn’t sure it was the priest who had answered.
‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘Is this Father Daniel? We spoke yesterday, outside the refuge.’
The line cut out briefly, then he said: ‘I remember, yes.’
‘I found the girl. She’s with me now, in Skopje. I would take her to the UNHCR, but I don’t have time. Is there anyone I can leave her with?’
‘The girl?’ The priest’s voice was faint.
‘Yes. Where shall I take her?’
There was a long, exasperating pause.
‘Can you bring her here?’
‘No, I’m in Skopje,’ I shouted.
The line cut out again and I was about to hang up and redial when the priest said: ‘I thank the Lord you have her safe.’ The bad line still muffled his voice, but at least it was audible. ‘Did she have any belongings with her?’
‘I got her some dry clothes. Hers are filthy.’
‘Oh dear.’ He made a matronly tsk-tsk noise.
‘And something inside a plastic bag – a box maybe.’ I couldn’t see why we were discussing this.
‘The poor things get so attached to their few treasures,’ he said, as if reading my mind.
‘Is there anywhere in Skopje I can take her?’ I repeated.
‘There’s a place the children sometimes stay overnight. Seventy-seven Ulitsa Syrna.’ He spelled it out for me. ‘Ulitsa means street.’
‘OK, seventy-seven Syrna Street. I’ll be there inside an hour.’
‘That’s very good, I’ll let them know. Thank you.’
‘Do you want to speak to her?’
‘No, no. . . It might unsettle her. May I know your name, please?’
‘It isn’t necessary,’ I said, and hung up.
Father Daniel had seemed distracted – but given the scene he would have found in the farmhouse the previous night, he could be forgiven that. The main thing was, I had somewhere safe to deliver the girl. I could drop her off and still make my rendezvous with TJ. In a day or two she’d be back at the refuge – much bett
er for her than spending the next few months being shunted round Skopje by various agents of international welfare. I’d borne her to safety, given her a decent meal, dry clothes and a warm bed for the night, and arranged for her return to the refuge. I congratulated myself on discharging my responsibilities in full.
The bathroom door opened and the girl stepped out. As well as the clean clothes, she had tidied her hair and washed the vestiges of mud from her face, and she looked quite pleased, I thought, if a little sheepish. Seeing her transformed liked this, from the forlorn subject of my heroic rescue to an ordinary girl in hoodie and jeans, had a curious effect on me: I felt that some distance had come between us. The wild emotions of the previous night had receded, and we two were, after all, a twenty-five-year-old English soldier and a twelve-year-old orphan from Kosovo who had nothing in common at all.
There wasn’t time to feed her at Maria’s. I boiled the kettle and soon had toast and a mug of tea in front of her. She sat on the sofa and I stood impatiently while she ate. A hank of unruly black hair fell down over her face and she reached and coiled it carefully behind her ear, finishing with a little flicking movement of her head, and then she took a sip of tea and it was too hot so she set it down again and looked apologetically up at me. My mood swung again and I felt guilty that I was so keen to get this poor girl out of my life, this girl who was trying so hard to get things right and who had no choice but to believe or hope that I would do the same.
Say A Little Prayer (A James Palatine Novel Book 2) Page 3
