‘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.