52
How much do you think they know?” asked Faraj.
“I think we have to assume that they know who we are,” said Jean after a moment’s thought. They were both speaking Urdu now. “The weak links in the chain are the driver of the truck, who saw you, and the other migrants.”
“The other migrants know nothing about me. Everything I told them was false.”
“They would recognise you. Just as the woman who rented me the house would recognise me. They know who we are, take it from me. These are the British we’re dealing with, and they are a vengeful people. They are quite happy to see their elderly starve to death on council estates or die of neglect in filthy hospital corridors, but harm the least of them-the fisherman, the old woman-and they will pursue you to the ends of the earth. They will never, ever give up. The people who are directing this operation against us will be the best that they have.”
“Well, we shall see. Let them send their best man. They won’t stop us.”
Jean frowned. “They’ve sent their best man. Their best man is a woman.”
Faraj shifted on the narrow flagstoned towpath beneath the bridge. An hour earlier they had changed out of their wet clothes into the dry ones that Jean had stuffed into the rucksacks that morning. Out of an instinctive sense of decorum they had turned their backs on each other for the purposes of this operation, but when all but naked Jean had unbalanced in the near darkness beneath the low brickwork. Flailing with her arms she had made sudden contact with Faraj, and only by grabbing her had he prevented her from falling into the river. He had held her for a moment, and then silently released her. Neither had said anything, but the incident lay between them, unresolved.
“What do you mean, a woman?”
“They’ve sent a woman. I can feel her shadow.”
“You’re crazy!” He lifted himself angrily on to one elbow. “What kind of stupid talk is that?”
She shrugged, although she knew that the gesture was invisible. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.
She heard his faint, irritated outbreath. They were lying head to head, wrapped in the thin blankets that Diane Munday had provided for her tenants. Now that Jean was dry, the cold didn’t seem quite so agonising. She had known worse in the camp. And harder ground.
“We killed two people today,” she said, the boy’s head cracking open once again before her half-closed eyes.
“It was necessary. It was not a matter for consideration.”
“I’m not the person that I was when I woke up this morning.”
“You are a stronger person.”
Perhaps. Was this strength? she wondered. This waking sleep? This frozen distance from events? Perhaps it was.
“Paradise waits for us,” said Faraj. “But not yet.”
Did he believe that? she wondered. Something in his voice-an oblique, faintly ironic note-made her unsure.
“Who waits for you in this world?” she asked. He had spoken of parents and a sister. Was there a wife?
“No one waits.”
“So you never married?”
He was silent. Through the darkness, she sensed a sinewy resistance to her questions.
“Tomorrow we may be dead,” she said. “Tonight, surely, we can talk?”
“I never married,” he said, but she knew from his tone that there had been someone.
“She died,” he added eventually.
“I’m sorry.”
“She was twenty years old. Her name was Farzana, and she was a seamstress. My parents had wanted someone well educated for me, and a Tajik, and she was neither of these things, but they… they liked her very much. She was a good person.” He fell silent.
“Was she beautiful?” asked Jean, conscious even as she spoke of the question’s gaucheness.
He ignored her and Jean, helpless, stared at the ragged crescent of night sky. Never had the distance between them felt so great. Because of the swiftness with which he had adapted to his surroundings, it had been easy to forget that he had come from a world which was about as different from this one as it could possibly have been.
“Tell me about her,” she prompted, sensing that at some level, and despite his protestations, he wanted to talk.
He shifted in his blanket, and for almost a minute said nothing.
“You want to know? Really?”
“I want to know,” she said.
For several long moments she listened to his breathing.
“I was at Mardan,” he began. “At the madrassah. I was older than most of the other students-I was already twenty-three or twenty-four when I went there-and in religious terms I was very much less extreme. In fact I think that, at times, they despaired of my untroubled attitude. But I was able to make myself useful around the place, helping with the administration, supervising the building work they were having done, and ensuring that the two old Fiat taxis that they owned remained in running order. I had been there for almost two years when a letter came from Daranj in Afghanistan saying that my sister Laila was about to become betrothed. The man was a Tajik, like ourselves, and like us he had hoped to try and resettle in Pakistan. Now, though, he had given up hope of establishing himself there legally and had resolved to return to Dushanbe, and my parents had decided to accompany them. First, though, there was to be a celebration to mark the betrothal.
“As Laila’s elder brother I was naturally an important guest, but my father was concerned that if I crossed the frontier into Afghanistan I might not be able to re-enter Pakistan. I decided to take the chance, partly because I wanted to attend the betrothal and partly because I intended to get married myself. For some time I had had an understanding with Farzana, the daughter of a Pathan family who lived near to us in Daranj. Letters and gifts had been exchanged, and it was agreed that we were… we were destined for each other.
“Anyway, I made the crossing back across the border, and travelled to Daranj in the back of a truck headed for Kandahar. I arrived on the day of the betrothal, I met Khalid, whom my sister was to marry, and that night the celebrations began. There was the usual feasting, which lasted late into the night, and the usual high spirits. You have to remember that there was precious little opportunity for joy in these people’s lives, and so the chance to dance and sing and let off fatakars-homemade fireworks-was not to be missed.
“I was the first to see the American plane. These were not such an uncommon sight in the area-there were regular operations around Kandahar and on the border-and they were generally ignored. The people of Daranj hated the Taliban for the most part, but they had no love for the Americans either, and gave no assistance to the intelligence-gathering teams who blundered through the village at intervals.
“What was unusual was that the plane was so low. It was a huge thing-an AC-130 transporter gunship I discovered later. The betrothal ceremony had taken place at a small encampment outside the town, and I had wandered away from the celebrations to a nearby hill to gather my thoughts. I was happier than I had ever been in my life. I had proposed marriage to Farzana, she had accepted me, and her parents had given their permission. Below me the celebrations surrounding Laila and Khalid, her betrothed, were in full swing, with fireworks exploding, music playing and rifles being fired in the air.
“When the searchlights came on-one at each end of the plane-I thought, stupidly, that they were sending some sort of signal. Responding to the fireworks and the musical instruments with some sort of friendly display of their own. The war against the Taliban, after all, was over. There were Americans and British security forces stationed in Kabul, whole regiments of them, and there was a new government. So I stood there, staring, as the gunship opened fire on the encampment.