Homeward Bound Ch. 12

When they hit the road again, the morning after, the medic was praying for not to meet anyone. He was tired of shooting first and thinking later. It was the only way to do, in a war situation: just think how to shoot, who shoots and who reloads, and then shoot and nothing more. But he was sick and tired to shoot, that was all. Because it was not so nice to think, after shooting. To think about what shooting means. "That is that, don't forget it!"

Three days, three encounters, three showdowns. First day, save that damsel in distress, okay. But then? Yes, the targets were not civilians, they were men with a gun. But it was just like to shoot in cold blood. Not really shooting first. Ambushes. Yes, there are ambushes in all wars or guerrillas, since the world has been turning. The Mujahideens did them, every given day. But he didn't go there to play the warrior. And so, what he had to do?

Of course, his prayers were not answered. At the first stopover, when they had just sat down and put their bags and backpacks down on the ground, Katya pricked her ears. Rumors. Unmistakable rumors. Why they were so carelessly noisy?

"Supplies incoming!" she said. Our source of weapons and supplies is the front line, said Mao Tze Tung, hard to bear as a politician, but a crack guerrilla man. Katya likely did not know it, but she would agree about the concept. She crawled to a place where she could look at the road, and waited for the duki to arrive...

"We have plenty of food and ammunitions, now." the medic said. "Let them go!"

She turned her head to look at him. She was not annoyed for his not requested suggestion. She was cheerful, excited.

"In Russia, you take what you can, when you can. You never know when it will be available again!"

And turned back to control the road.

Nothing to do. She could make sex with him, even love him, at night. But in the light of the day, when there were "dukhi" around, she was just the inconsolable widow, yearning for avenging his man. It was useless to insist to persuade her not to fight. And he could not let her shoot alone... Someone had to shoot when she reloaded... And two "someones" were better than one...

So even the medic pushed the selector to "burst". The convoy passed by. And one more time, it was

It was not a convoy, but a group of warriors. whit some mules for the heavy weapons and some crates for ammo, maybe explosives, as usual. A fair target, anyway: no civilians so no qualms, even on behalf of Yuri. He had just started to grieve... And can't wait to shoot, to grieve a bit better...

It was not a lengthy deal. This time, nobody had grenades to throw at, but there was no need for them. Yury shot at the cranes, making them all blowing up, Katya shot the men, and he shot just to cover them. They were too much concentrated to care of such menial things as their own skin... However, in half a minute flat, it was all over. Not such a big group...

They came down to the road. Yuri looked around, but he did not find anyone who could be still alive. Anyway, he shot a dead who looked a bit better than the others. Pays to be sure.

Another "dead" stood up and started running away. Yuri aimed his gun at him, but he did not shoot. Katya shot, but her clip was almost empty, and the "dead" kept running. She cursed, threw away her gun, took the medic's one and ran behind the fugitive. She tried to shoot, but that clip too was empty. so she picked up the bayonet and kept running, shouting at the running man in Russian.

The running man looked behind his shoulder. He had his weapon with him, but he just wanted to run away, to be anywhere else but not there. But even if he had stopped to shoot, that damn woman would have speared him before he could pull the trigger. She was damn closed, with that bayonet, and kept shouting as a devil. That shouting terrorized him, more than the bayonet. And he would have been even more scared if he had understood what that woman was saying.

"Come here! Where do you run? I will chase you to Pakistan! I will stick this to you, if it's the last thing I do! Are you scared? My man was scared too! Maybe he asked for mercy, and you have laughed! And then you have slaughtered him! And now I will slaughter you! Come on, it's your turn!"

The running man looked behind again, and this made him trip and fall face down in the dirt, losing the difle and the Chitrali beret. Katya stopped for breath, and then raised the bayonet over him. while the man on the ground turned on his back...

Man? That bald head, thos dirty few teeth, that beardless face, those little forceless hands...

A kid!

Katya froze, the AK with the bayonet raised over her head. One more second and she would have shoved it in his belly, like she was shoveling a spade into the ground, but now she was a statue. A kid! Stop, calm down, he's just a kid! Yes, a kid with his head full of crap... The holy war, the heaven for those who die in battle... What a heck of a Heaven, you "gavlyuki", shit-eaters! A hole in the ground! That's what there is for those who die in battle! That's what there was for my man! But what has those kid to do with that? How old could he be? 13 years? How I was when I was 13? I don't remember anymore...

Katya lowered slowly the rifle, panting hard, looking at the kid. Then she talked.

"Tikàì..." she said. The kid did not understand, and she put it clear with a kick to his side, hitting him with her instep, as if to kick a football: "Davàì, tikài!"

The kid stood up and run away, almost without feeling the pain to the ribs. Come on, run away, you little fool. And tell everyone that a Russian whore without a fuck of a burqa has allowed you not to end up straight into a hole in the ground... Not even you deserved it...

The kid, Allah knows why, stopped a second when he reached the curve in the road where he came from and looked back at Katya. She cursed, took the rifle the kid has lost from the ground, and shot. The volley raised the dust of the road one meter short of the kid's feet. He got the picture and definitely ran away.

Katya cursed again, then threw away the gun, took back the other gun with the bayonet and came back. She passed in front of Yuri without looking at him, then she passed in front of the medic, looked at him without a word and kept going on.

She sat on the rock on the side of the road, put the rifle vertically in front of herself, and looked at it. Then she looked at the bayonet, gleaming, sharp, pointed.

And then she started crying and weeping.

Ahmad Dekhtah and his group have been back on the road to the north for a few hours, when they met the boy. He was stuck in the center of the road, waving his hands so much that they had to stop and take care of him. He was still shocked as if he had just met Alek AZ Rael, the Angel of the Death. The real one.

He started to talk so fast they did not understand it all so soon. He was ashamed because he pretended to be dead when he heard the first shots: she had thought only to his mother, not to the Prophet or to the Houris. But he had his reasons why. It had not to be that way. They had told him that this was his first action in the Holy War, but it had to be a hunter, and the Russians had to be the game. And instead... fire from the left, the ravine to the right, explosions everywhere... Where was the game? HE was the game! And he had hit the dirt, till the Russians started to shoot the deads too... And they were just THREE!

"Three?" Ahmad wondered. Yes, three. Two men and a woman. And the woman had killed many men, she had run behind him, with a rifle with a dagger on the top, she had even gotten him... Ahd she did NOT kill him! How could it be? She was a Russian, she was "kafir", infidels, she had not the Burqa,, And she had let him go alive! Just a quick and a volley to make him run away faster... Why? Why he was not dead?

Ahmad looked around, and met the eyes of his men. The idea of the woman, a woman without a burqa, a Russian "sharmota", had excited them. Excited in THAT sense too, below the belt... It did not matter. If they had found the Russians and the medic, the woman would have been killed as all the others. But just killed. Killed as a soldier. Till he was the chief, nothing else would have happened. And they know it well.

But now there was something more urgent to do. They had to retake that kid to his "aul". He could not fight, not even look at a fight, in his conditions. He kept asking why the Russian "kafir" woman did not kill him. Something in his world vision did not add up, anymore. Maybe forever...

That night, Katya, Yuri and the medic stopped on a plateau. From there, the road started going down to the plain, to the valley of Kabul river, as it was possible to see from the map the medic had. There was not a tree, just some groves and a run down shepherds hut. With nothing and nobody inside

Katya chose to do the first sentry duty, then the medic take over for her. He finds her calm, almost serene. The nervous breakdown was passed. But not forgotten. By neither,

"So you have seen that even the rocket throwers may cry..." she snorted. The medic shrugged.

"I never thought you loved the Napalm's smell in the morning..."

"What?" she wondered.

"Ow... never mind..." the medic answered, awkwardly. Go and try to explain... The girl did not care, she was looking all around. "But... what were you telling, this morning, when you were..."

"When I were crying? I was saying..."Davòlna"..."Kvàtit"..." she answered. She looked down. "It means "stop"..."enough"... I can't stand... I can't take it anymore..."

"What the Goodyear!" the medic thought. Finally, she was tired to "cause casualties"..."We do not kill people, we "cause casualties"!", as the Russian officer said to the American colleague... She had "grieved" enough...

"Well... The day after tomorrow, or the next day, we will be in Kabul... And at least for you, it will be all over..."

"Yes... All over..." the girl said, looking in front, far away. Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! But maybe she did not think that. "It's incredible. We made it through, all that road till now... All of us..."

"Well, putting a foot after the other and repeating the operation regularly, you get interesting results..." the medic said. She snorted, laughing a bit.

"I don't mean that... We are still alive, all of us..." she said. Then he recalled the girl they had met and lost along the road. "Well... almost all of us..."

"Yeah..." the medic said. He too recalled the girl. They did not even know her name..."Well, I had told you: they would have never trapped us... And your man has taught you well how to fire..."

"Hmm!" she smiled. No more crying. She had avenged him as much as she could. She looked at the medic: "You resemble him... do you know?"

"With this face?" he asked, dubious. He was not the Slavic kind, at all, and he knew that. Especially with a weeklong beard...

"You have the same character..." she laughed. "That's why I like you... Or, are you upset to resemble an Russian officer?"

"Uh... If you had chosen him, he had to be neither a fool nor a criminal... So, why should I be upset?"

"Hmm... Eva Braun had chosen Hitler..."

"Eva Braun was a "duratskaya blyàd"," the medic said. "You are not."

"How do you know what it means?" the girl asked, surprised.

"I have asked Yuri," the medic shrugged. "Stupid... well..."blyàd"!"

"Hmm... Remember, never use that word... It's not good..."Nièkultùrno"!"

"Well, I know... but you have to understand, you were going to kill him..."

"I was going to kill you too... And it would have been a real pity..." she said looking at him, maliciously. Such a fine, clever male...

"Thank you..." he said, raising a non-existent hat. She chuckled.

"I mean... In Russia we say..."Even the worse ones find somebody"... someone..."

"Not somebody like you..." he stated. Mawkish? No, she chuckled again, maybe blushing, shaking her head, lowering her eyes... She liked his words, she liked him... Such a beautiful, strong, smart woman liked him... He HAD to try..."Ah, listen..."

"Yes?" she said, looking in his eyes. Come on, play the game, roll the dice... Get on it...

"Do you want to come with me, in Kabul?"

"But what...?"

"You know I'm not asking you about that for the politics..." he punctualized. This calmed her, and made her smile.

"Politics?" she snorted. Of course not. He was not a Crusade, an American missionary man of "freedom", "democracy" and all the rest: he was just a loving man. She stroke his rough face, his beard, as if she caressed a big, hairy, affectionate dog. "I know why you ask me that. I know..."

"So what?"

"So... It's not possible!" she said, calm, as if talking to a kid.

"Why? Why is it not possible?" he asked. She smiled more. For the first time, he was off-balance, upset, desperate. "We can get to an embassy, find a way to get out of the country... and then, we could marry,,, "

"Do you want to marry me?" she said, as if it was a funny thing.

"Yes! Do you think it's just sex, for me?"

"No, but besides sex... why do you want it?" she asked. She lowered his eyes. Because you are nice, and strong, and sweet... You know how to get respect... You can take care of yourself, and of other people if it takes... That's why... He looked in her eyes. "I want to be with you... I want to live with you..."

"Come in Russia!" she shrugged. As if it was the simple, logical, self-evident solution. He snorted.

"If it were not for the breadlines, I would think about it..." he said. She snorted. Said by him, "I would think about it" meant "I would come on the double"... Yes, it was the detail which spoiled the picture... The politics could change, it was a-changing, maybe, but that, it was more difficult... She caressed his face again.

"Listen. I understand, you want to get into an embassy, yours or anyone else. Or maybe at the Red Cross, or something alike. But it will be hard enough for you alone. If you go with me, it would be impossible. I am Russian. Too big a complication. First. And second, if Yuri says how he escaped from the Dushmani, and got to Kabul maybe they don't believe him. He needs someone who confirms his words. You don't know our military..."

"No, but I know OUR military," the medic said. "I believe you, no worry..."

"Hmm!" the girl snorted. Then she leaned on a rock and looked at the sky. "And besides that... I would like to see Italy, but... I love my country," she said. She had the same smile of Christopher Walken, as he said to Robert De Niro "I love that fucking place"..."The Deer Hunter", the night before they left for Viet Nam... He nodded. She looked at him "Do you think that's strange?" she asked. He shrugged. Why in the Hell? There were worse places than Russia, for sure. The place where they were, just to say one...

"And then?"

"And then, if you want, come to visit me, when you will be at home. It's not so hard to come to Russia for tourism, now..."

"But, what if you find a nice guy who doesn't drink Vodka or Samogon, and you marry him? What will you tell him about me? "Oh, you know, we fought together, in Afghanistan", some things like that?"

"But that's the truth!" she shrugged. Why don't tell it? It's so simple!

"Yes, but it's quite difficult to explain..." he snorted. Katya chuckled. Indeed..."And besides, are you sure they will give me the visa? They likely have the registers of all the medical organizations who supported the "dukhi". And my name in on those lists. From your point of view, I was on the wrong side, here..."

"Wrong, right..." Katya shrugged. "The tragedy of history is, everyone is right at the same time..."

"Hegel..." the medic said. Katya pointed her finger at him: that's right! Then he caressed his face again, with a friendly fist, and relaxed, her back on the rock.

"I would like if you could come..."

"I'll do what I can. But, if you marry someone... even Yuri, who knows..."

"I will send you a card... and if I marry Yuri, I will invite you. I will have to explain nothing, to him..." she smiled.

"Okay..." the medic said. And he too looked at the sky. Not a cloud, just a bit of wind, not so cold. The moon was definitely no more full, almost halved, but it gave a wonderful, calming light. "Great if something bad was going to happen right now..."