Divinity Road (21 page)

I can’t leave my children. Don’t make me leave my children. They are all I have left. My family...

Family? Ha! What do you people know about families. You go around opening your legs like a dirty animal, you daughter of a whore! Now get away with you. Go and spread your filth elsewhere!

Please, she says, her voice low, imploring. Let me stay.

Goatman looks at her for an instant, sighs, shrugs almost sadly, and begins to unholster his gun.

Looks like I will have to kill you after all, he says.

No, wait, says Asrar. At least let me say goodbye to my children.

She makes a dash for Munia, launches herself at her feet, clasps her hands over those of her daughter.

Listen, daughter, she rasps, breathless with fear. You must forget about me now, I am already dead. You must save Rasheed, bring him to safety. That is my command. Do you understand?

Munia feels her mother’s hands grasp her own. There’s a moment of confusion and then she realises that her mother’s drama has been a ruse, that she’s pressing something small and heavy into her bound hands. In an instant Goatman is on them. He reaches down, clasps a handful of her mother’s hair and yanks her away from Munia. Now it’s Munia’s turn to keep her hands bunched into fists to keep the object concealed. Without looking, she knows what her mother has passed to her. It’s the white man’s penknife, the one her mother had used to skin Rasheed’s hunting booty. While Goatman drags her mother away, Munia casually transfers the knife to the pocket of her dress.

Go on, slave bitch, get out of my sight, goat man says coolly. He gives her a final slap that almost detaches her head from her shoulders. If I can still see you by the time I count to twenty, you are dead.

No, please, no, she pleads.

One, two, three...

I can’t.

Four, five, six...

You can’t...

Seven, eight, nine...

Please...

Ten, eleven, oh what the hell. He shrugs, bored with his game. He looks over to the men who have been smoking by the hut door. Arkou, Hossein, take this mangy dog away and get rid of her.

No! scream Rasheed and Munia at the same time. Unable to contain themselves any longer, the children struggle to their feet, make to hurl themselves in the direction of their mother. Before they have taken a single step, the armed men are on them, forcing them down to the ground. They struggle, curse, twist their bodies to escape, but are pinned down by their captors. Asrar, seeing her children manhandled, attempts to throw herself at the soldiers but is intercepted by the two guards nominated by Goatman. They grab an arm each and start pulling her away from her children. She screams, her cries mingling with those of the young ones.

Greg looks around, his eyes revealing the alarm and confusion he feels. He has followed the action without much understanding, but even he can recognise that the horrific events are building to a climax. On either side, the soldiers are assaulting the children. One is kneeling on Rasheed, another holding down his shoulders as he thrashes around as if convulsed by some monstrous epileptic fit. Munia, too, is pinned to the ground by two of the men, her legs and arms held fast. Her mouth is open, lips drawn back, teeth bared in a snarl as she weaves her head backwards and forwards in an effort to bite the hands that hold down her shoulders.

Greg looks up, sees the terror in Asrar’s eyes as the two soldiers drag her away.

Since the bearded man shot Husham with such casual nonchalance Greg’s state of mind has moved into a kind of terrorised submission, too shocked to do more than witness the surrounding events in numbed detachment.

Asrar’s ordeal and the subsequent attack on the children bring him back out of himself. This is the last supreme outrage, the culmination of all that he has suffered since the crash: his own physical trauma, the vultures’ feasting, his shooting of the militiaman, the rape and murder he has been forced to witness. Galvanised by the children’s screams, by their mother’s struggles, he is spurred into action. His guard has been co-opted into dealing with Rasheed’s struggles. He edges backwards so that he’s out of the guards’ line of vision, gets to his feet, then charges at the two men holding Munia down. His first kick catches one of the guard’s squarely in the belly, the second catches the other guard under his chin. He turns to Rasheed’s captors, kicks one of them in the kidneys, picks his spot on the other’s torso and is about to launch another kick when he feels a sharp pain in the small of his back. As he swivels to face his attacker, he sees for an instant in the corner of his eye a rifle butt arc down towards his face, a dark fleeting blur, and then it makes contact with the side of his head and from one instant to another he’s plunged into darkness.

***

Rasheed guesses they’ve been riding for two or three hours when they stop next to a wadi. He is sitting on one of the horses wedged behind a soldier with a lazy eye. His hands, like those of his sister, are still tied in front of him. His mind is a fog of fear and misery. He won’t cry, mostly because his sister’s eyes have remained dry and he refuses to appear weaker than her, but he has never felt so at a loss, will not even bring himself to consider the fate of his mother. When she was frogmarched out of his uncle’s village by the two men, when they returned thirty minutes later without her, his mind simply saw her absence, their separation, as temporary. They will meet up again later, he keeps telling himself.

In front of him, sitting behind another of the militiamen, is his sister. Further on, the white man, Greg, lies face down across one of the horses like the carcass of a beast. The militia are taking no chances with him since his attack. They have trussed him up with snaking coils of thick rope and blindfolded him with a length of cloth torn from Asrar’s discarded dress.

The soldiers dismount under a clump of trees, tie up the horses, drag Rasheed and his sister down and leave them in the shade. They throw Greg down beside Munia and one of them hands Rasheed a canteen of water. He holds it clumsily in his bound hands, drinks, passes it to Munia, then splashes some on the white man’s face. Greg stirs, licks his lips, groans. Rasheed puts the bottle to the white man’s mouth and Greg sucks down the liquid greedily.

Meanwhile, Goatman is giving orders. Rasheed watches one of the men tend to the horses, two others saunter off to collect firewood. A campfire is lit. When the jobs are done, the men sit around laughing, smoking, chewing on hunks of dried meat they unwrap from their saddles.

Rasheed looks at Greg. Beneath the blindfold, his complexion is chalky, the gash he’s been carrying on his temple since they first met has reopened and the blood has dried almost black down one side of his face. Unable to read his eyes, Rasheed can only guess what is going through his mind.

An hour passes. The soldiers grow sleepy and their conversation ebbs. Rasheed is just beginning to wonder whether they have camped down for the day when he hears the low drone of vehicle engines. The militiamen rouse themselves and pick up their semi-automatic weapons and RPG launchers. One of them is carrying the white man’s hunting rifle. He has attached a rope to the barrel and stock and has slung it over his shoulder. Rasheed notes the soldiers’ lack of haste and speculates that the new arrivals must be anticipated friends rather than unexpected foe.

Two jeeps pull into the clearing, one full of soldiers, the other occupied by driver and front passenger only. The passenger seems to be the commanding officer. He has a smarter uniform and a holstered pistol. He waits for the driver to open his door for him before stepping down onto the dusty ground. Rasheed watches the soldiers snap to attention and salute. Goatman emerges from his troops, shakes the man’s hand and they walk away from the clearing in deep conversation. Meanwhile the new arrivals mingle with the other soldiers. They shake hands, slap backs, offer cigarettes. There’s laughter and excitement as news is exchanged. For something to do, Rasheed starts to count the militiamen.

One, two, three, four...

The soldiers keep shifting around and he has to start again. He tries to remember whether all the firewood-collectors have returned. There is too much movement and so, frustrated, he gives up the count.

Rasheed turns his head. His sister is obscured by the white man’s body but he knows she is there.

Munia, are you well?

I am fine, she answers. There’s a steeliness in her voice he’s never heard before.

What should we do? he asks. As always, he defers to her when it matters.

Be patient, brother. Be patient.

Rasheed starts to count the soldiers again.

***

The second blow to Greg’s head seems to have done more damage than the first. He lies on his side where he was thrown down on the ground, his hands tied together in front of him, his arms roped to his sides. The combination of the battering and blindfold render him dazed and disorientated, a passive bystander.

Since the moment he regained consciousness amongst the crash debris, he’s been feeling strangely anaesthetised, blanketed in an odd glow of self-perceived invulnerability despite the moments of terror as he fled from Poll Pot’s men. After all, he’d fallen out of the sky from several thousand feet and survived.

Now, having witnessed the casual shooting of the old man and the treatment meted out to Asrar, he’s suddenly and painfully aware of the infinitesimal margins that separate life from death, the precariousness of the tightrope he walks. That comforting sense of invincibility has disappeared.

When Munia surreptitiously tugs on his sleeve, pokes and prods to get his attention, he makes an effort to regain his senses.

Greg, she whispers. She pronounces his name well, just like he taught her.

Take off my blindfold, he says. And then, to explain, I need to urinate. Sshh, she answers, unwilling to draw attention to themselves, to arouse their captors’ wrath. She wants only to know that no permanent damage has been done, that Greg can still function.

So Greg remains blindfolded. He can hear but not observe Goatman’s return with the other leader, the assembling of troops, the barked orders and hasty departure of the two vehicles, both packed this time with armed men. He is unaware that he and his fellow captives have been left with just two guards.

Munia knows that their fate is in her hands, that it is time to act. The two militiamen are busy attending to the horses. She watches them, waiting for her moment. One of them, she observes, has got the white man’s hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. When they have finished, they squat under an adjacent tree. Hunting Rifle produces some playing cards and begins dealing out a game. Munia recognises the other militiaman as the Hossein who marched her mother away from her uncle’s village. She feels a surge of energy, knowing that she will not rest until she has exacted vengeance from this man. This knowledge soothes her fury, tempering it with a chilled serenity.

She’s still sitting on the ground, her hands fastened with cord. Slowly, carefully, with the most imperceptible of movements, she begins to shuffle on her backside, past the sightless figure of Greg, towards her brother.

***

Rasheed only becomes aware of her approach when he turns and finds her squatting behind him. He smiles at her uncertainly, opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it quickly when he sees the look in her eyes, the slight shake of her head. He waits while she manoeuvres herself to his side, then turns slightly in towards him. She turns once to check that the soldiers are still absorbed in their card game, then edges closer and extends her bound arms towards her brother. For a moment he is confused and wonders why she is offering him her two hands, tied together and bunched into fists. Then she slowly opens her right hand and he sees the penknife she has been concealing. He looks up into her eyes and understands.

Manipulating the slippery penknife between them to prise open the longest blade with their hands secured with rope is a tricky and painfully slow process made worse by the need to conceal it from their captors. It takes twenty minutes to get the blade open, Munia holding the knife handle while Rasheed works to open up the cutting edge. When they finally succeed, Munia allows herself a tight smile. Rasheed, seeing it, feels fortified.

Now they begin the next stage of the process. Munia holds the knife steady as Rasheed works the rope around his hands across the blade, back and forth, trying to minimise his movements, to draw no attention. He keeps one eye on his sawing work, the other on the two soldiers. At one stage Hossein throws down a card and cries out in triumph. While the other guard picks up the deck of cards and begins to shuffle, Hossein looks over at his captives and sees that they have bunched together since he last looked at them. Rasheed freezes, closes his eyes and pretends to doze. Munia, who has her back to Hossein now, senses the danger, slips the knife into her dress and awaits the guard’s approach with dread. But Hossein sees nothing amiss, or more likely cannot summon the energy to get up and investigate, and the moment passes.

The card game resumes in silence. Munia and Rasheed continue their surreptitious work. A horse whinnies and its comrade responds.

Greg’s discomfort is growing. His blindfold, soggy with sweat, is itching madly. He’s tried to distract himself, to let his mind drift to a more peaceful place, but he’s become aware that his need to urinate is growing and the pressing ache in his bladder keeps bringing him back to reality.