The purpose of the APC soon became clear. Systematically the driver set about destroying one of the compounds. From the dusty rubble we pulled what wood we could find and loaded it on to the back of the KamaZ. It was only once the huts for the officers and granddads had been finished that we were able to construct shelters for ourselves.
Of the thirty-five soldiers stationed on our base, twenty of us were new recruits, and we were from all parts of the Soviet Union, as was general policy. New recruits were not allowed to drink alcohol. Though, technically, we got a small allowance of vodka per week, this was taken by the granddads.
‘What are you fucking looking at?’ one granddad barked in my ear, catching me eyeing a bottle on his desk. ‘Do you understand you are not even allowed to look at vodka, you little shit? Get your little beady eyes off it.’
I lowered my eyes to the floor, as he had indicated, and apologised, but my contrition was not enough to divert a beating. In fact the beatings came so often that it was strange to collapse on to my bunk at the end of the day without some bruise or tender flesh to nurse.
‘I can’t sleep unless I’ve had a beating,’ Vassily chuckled, one night.
In our bunks, Vassily regaled us with tales he had heard and laughed at the indolent brutality of the granddads. ‘Did you hear about the recruit stationed not far from here?’ he said, one night. ‘His base was at the top of a mountain to the north of Jalalabad. One night one of the granddads sent him out to get some milk. The boy was scared◦– who knows what band of rebels he might have stumbled across in the darkness? But as he was working his way down the mountainside he was attacked by a snake.’
‘A snake?’ We sat up in our bunks, watching Vassily in the dim light of the oily candles.
‘The snake wound around him and began to crush the life out of him, so he could hardly breathe. It held him in its grip like that for half the night, and then as first light was dawning it let him go. He struggled free and made his way back to his base at the top of the mountain, only to find that while he had been gone the mujahidin had raided the base and killed the whole lot of them.’
One weekend, when the granddads were particularly drunk, we slipped off base and drove into Jalalabad to buy alcohol. Discarding our uniforms, we took our Kalashnikovs and stuffed a couple of grenades into each pocket. Vassily took a KamaZ and Kolya and I jumped into the back. At the last moment we were joined by another recruit, a lean, dark-haired Russian called Kirov. New recruits guarded the gates and we bullied and bribed our way through with little difficulty.
The market in Jalalabad was a riot of noise and colour. We slipped through the streets, attempting to remain inconspicuous, glancing nervously over our shoulders. The crowds milled and jostled around us and forced us forwards, towards the heart of the market. The street was lined with stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables◦– bananas, nuts, oranges, tangerines, pinky-yellow carrots, delicious-smelling bread piled high like pancakes at home. Other tables displayed hats, sheepskin coats, ox hides, TVs, digital watches, videos, tea and coffee sets from China and India. Vassily was drawn to the stalls at the side of the market selling trinkets and jewellery fashioned from local stones.
‘Look at this,’ he said, picking up a necklace fashioned from amethyst. ‘Look, comrade, my friend, how beautiful. You know, the word amethyst comes from the Greek for “not drunken”. The ancients used to believe amethysts prevented drunkenness; they made their cups from it. And lapis lazuli, look, my friend.’ He picked up some of the beautiful blue stone. ‘As clear and beautiful as the Afghan sky.’ He held it up as if to compare and, in fact, the two did glow with a similar brilliant luminescence. ‘This is one of the ways they are financing their insurgents, their arms deals. They smuggle it over the mountains into Pakistan.’
‘You seem to know a lot about these things,’ I said.
‘I’m a jeweller,’ he explained. ‘It is my job to know about jewels.’
We slipped into a small store at the side of the market where Vassily knew vodka could be purchased illicitly. Being a driver, he had accompanied older soldiers into Jalalabad on previous occasions. A small, wizened man with a straggling white beard stood in a dark doorway at the back of the store, wrapped tightly in the cloth the Afghans employed universally. The cloth served as a turban, a wrap and something to spread beneath them when they sat. By the side of the man stood a small boy, who stared at us frankly.
‘Drink?’ Vassily said, tilting back his head and miming emptying a bottle into his mouth.
‘What you got?’ the old man asked in broken Russian.
Vassily indicated Kirov, who was carrying a plastic bottle of fuel, which we had drained from the KamaZ. Kirov placed the bottle on to a scarred wooden desk beside the man.
‘Phh!’ The old man waved his hand dismissively. ‘You drink that.’
‘What’s the matter with this?’ Vassily demanded. ‘Last week you take it.’
‘Last week you was with different men,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘I know them… ’ He waved his hands indolently in the air. ‘Years.’
‘How much?’ said Vassily.
‘What you got?’
‘You’ve seen.’
‘What else?’
He wafted his thin, strong hands towards us. Kirov slipped a grenade from his pocket and laid it beside the bottle of fuel. Vassily glanced at him and then at the grenade. For a moment I thought he was going to snatch it up, but he didn’t. The old man smiled thinly and nodded his head. He nudged the boy, who slipped through the door behind them and returned a few moments later with a jar of clear liquid. Vassily unscrewed the top and smelt it. He took a small sip, then nodded.
‘Good.’
The old man nodded but did not smile again. We made our way quickly back to the KamaZ, which we had left some streets away. Kolya, whom we had left to guard the truck, was in the back, his gun resting across his chest. He sat up with a start as we jumped in beneath the canvas.
‘It’s only us,’ I said.
He set the gun down. ‘Well?’
Vassily held up the bottle. A broad grin broke across Kolya’s large, square face. He reached for the bottle and kissed it.
‘So what are we waiting for? Crack it open.’
We passed the bottle around between us and Vassily took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and handed them out.
‘Where did you get these?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Ah!’ He tapped the side of his nose.
The alcohol burnt our bellies, unpicked our cares. Three of us settled back against the side of the truck, while Kirov sat with his legs dangling from the back, his gun across his lap, keeping watch.
‘I was in Lithuania,’ Vassily said. ‘Once, on my way to Kaliningrad.’
‘What were you doing in that shit-hole?’ Kolya asked.
‘Amber.’
‘You are interested in amber?’ I asked.
‘You know where amber comes from?’
‘From beneath the sea,’ I said.
‘But originally? Let me tell you the tale of the origin of amber.’
‘Oi!’ Kolya protested, but Vassily ignored him.
‘Phaeton wanted more than anything to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky like his father the sun god. But his father wouldn’t let him; wild horses pulled the chariot and only Phoebus was strong enough to control them. But Phaeton would not let his father alone. Finally he gave in.’
Vassily paused as the jar of vodka came round to him. He took a large slug of the spirit and grimaced. ‘Fucking appalling,’ he said, wiping his lips on the back of his sleeve. He passed it on to me.
‘Phaeton was so happy. He raced across the sky, showing the world how great he was. But suddenly the horses bolted. He lost control. The chariot swooped down close to the earth, setting it ablaze. Whole forests burst into flame, mountains exploded, fertile planes became parched deserts. He swooped down so low over Africa that all the people were scorched black.