Right of Thirst (18 page)

I could not stop myself from watching. They were nearly halfway across the slope, moving as erratically as they could.

Rai went absolutely still, as if he knew exactly what he had to do, and how much depended on it. He took his time, and when he fired the puff of smoke was far closer, nearly there, a hairbreadth below the first man's feet, but dead center, and the spotter was calling out, and then Rai worked the bolt, took a long breath, let it out, and fired again.

There was no puff of smoke. Instead, the man simply stumbled and fell forward. He slid a few feet down the face, rubbery and loose, and then he stopped. One moment he was moving, and the next he was not. That was all; I expected him to tumble, and spin, as the packs had done, but he didn't. It was like a long sigh, and from a distance it looked almost gentle.

The spotter cried out in triumph, and Rai chambered another round. The second man paused for an instant, studying the dead man before him—a reflex, I think, a kind of disbelief, but then he was off, and moving again.

Rai's second shot missed, and he ejected the shining cartridge, then turned to the spotter, his voice steady and cold. I realized the rifle was empty. Raju nodded, and allowed himself a tiny smile.

The spotter fumbled in a pack on the ground, then handed Rai a fresh magazine. A few more seconds passed. Singh stared at Rai. And Rai was calm, I thought, as calm as he could ever have wanted, reloading, as my own pulse hammered in my ears.

The second man. He was running, stopping and starting, but he was slower now, visibly tiring, and I knew that it was far too late to say anything at all.

It took three shots. Two more puffs of smoke, one on either side, missing by inches. Then the perfect third, timed for the moment his pace slowed, the crack of the rifle less startling now, though the tent was choked with dust, and the motes hung up in the column of light from the door.

The bullet must have struck him low, in the spine, because when he fell he did not stop moving. Instead, he began to crawl, with his arms alone, his legs sliding down below him. As I watched him, I expected Rai to shoot him again. But he turned to the last man instead, his face expressionless.

Rai took another breath, and let it out very slowly. He had all the time he needed. He had the range, the ammunition, the audience, and the confidence that he could act, and the wall was wide, and there was nothing to stop him. The figure on the wall ran on, and Rai let him go, easing the rifle with him, waiting for him to weaken, and then, finally, the man was bending down, his hands on his knees, heaving his last few breaths into the thin air in little clouds, the valley before him, and the river below, winding toward the village. He sat down, and put his hands high up in the air and waved them, back and forth.

For the first time Rai hesitated. Instantly Raju barked an
order. A moment passed, and then Rai spoke, questioning, looking up at the colonel from the gun. But Raju shouted again, rising from his crouch, turning toward him, leaving no doubt. Rai let out a sharp single breath, and then, as if denying himself the chance to think anymore, he fired. I had the glasses up, and I could see the man clearly. The bullet must have hit him somewhere in the face, below and between his hands, because his head flipped back as if struck by an invisible fist. It dropped him like a sack of meal, and suddenly, visible even at that distance through the binoculars, there was a tiny cloud in the clear air above him, a delicate settling haze.

Then, quickly, Rai swung the rifle back to the final writhing figure, worked the bolt, and pulled the trigger one last time.

The soldiers were out on the field. A swarm of them, as the tent city came to life for the first time, pouring into the open, their green uniforms dark enough that from a distance they looked black, with rifles in their arms, and hands shielding their faces from the glare, all of them staring up at the ridges above us, as if they had appeared by magic. Their boyish, excited cries carried across the gravel and stones, as the line of shadows eased eastward toward the river.

I was so used to the emptiness of the valley, to wind and quiet and the sound of the river, that even then, stunned as I was, I could hardly believe they were real. They were just far enough away to be dreamlike, as if they were made of something other than flesh and blood.

“You must hurry,” Rai said, behind me. “I will help Elise. Get your things. Come to the dining tent when you are ready.”

I must have put everything into my pack, and taken down my tent. I remember panting in the cold, and I remember the terrible sense of exposure, on the sunlit ground, certain that I was being watched from the heights.

Rai was waiting by the dining tent with Elise when I returned. A soldier stood with them, and Ali, and his nephew. The boy blinked,
and looked confused. A pile of packs and duffel bags lay on the ground at their feet.

“Your packs,” Rai said, pale and shaken, gesturing to Elise and me.

“Why is he here?” I asked, pointing to the soldier.

“He will help with the loads,” Rai replied.

Rai opened our packs and spread the contents out onto the ground. Then he opened a duffel bag, and began stuffing our things into it, and then another, and finally a third, until our packs were empty.

“We can carry some of it,” I said, but he shook his head, sharply.

“We must go quickly,” he said.

Then he turned, and nodded to the soldier, and the man knelt, put his rifle down on the ground, then heaved the largest of the duffels up onto his shoulders before picking the weapon up again. He stood, young and blank, with sun on his clothes, and for an instant I imagined that his mind was as empty as his face. He seemed all body, somehow, without volition of his own, and whatever his thoughts might have been, watching us, he revealed nothing.

Ali stepped close to the boy, then bent down, and with effort lifted the next duffel in his arms. His nephew turned his back, and slid his arms through the narrow straps, and when Ali let go the boy let out a gasp at the weight. Then Ali turned, and began to struggle with his own load. For an instant no one moved to help him, and I found myself stepping forward as he had done for his nephew. The duffel bag was heavy. I struggled to hold it, and as he slid his thin arms under the straps I knew it was too much for him, that the morning would be a cruel one for them both.

The soldier was a different animal entirely. He stood effort
lessly, and he was used to it, but Ali and his nephew had spent their days on small things—tea, washing up, or the breaking of expensive morning eggs into bowls. I glanced at Rai.

“It's too heavy for him,” I said.

Rai scowled and said something to Ali—a question. Ali shook his head and mumbled in reply.

“He says it is okay,” Rai replied. “We must hurry. Later we can worry about this.”

Rai picked up his pack from the ground, and Elise and I followed suit. Then he set off, without a backward glance, and that was how we left the valley, ours no longer—without ceremony, one after the other, down the path. It was fully light by then, and in the distance I heard the first drumbeats of the barrage starting up again.

If Raju, or Singh, or the soldiers noticed our departure, they gave no sign. They ignored us completely, and watched the ridges. Apart from the intermittent rumble of the guns, the valley was as quiet as ever, the calm of the early morning just beginning to give way to the first gusts of wind as the sun warmed the dark swathes of air against the cliffs.

We walked as fast as we could down the track toward the river, and yet it seemed as if hours passed before the mud homes of the village came into view, with the apricot trees swaying behind their walls, and the sunlight falling upon all of it. The fields of barley looked vibrant and green and rippling on the terraces, and the river began to roar at our side, sending its cold breath into the air. For the first time there was no one at work in the fields, and the village was shut up tight.

We walked in order—Rai, then Elise and me, then Ali and his nephew, and finally the soldier. For the first few minutes, Ali and his nephew managed well enough, though the trail was easy along the river. No doubt as the hours passed their struggle
would begin and something would have to be done. But just then, in the cold morning, with the miles stretched out before us, I simply walked behind Elise, watching her little white gusts of breath growing fainter as the air warmed, my legs shaking beneath me on the rocky hillside, which soon gave way to the first of the low trees. By degrees the walls receded, as we descended, each step taking us farther out of range.

Finally we were alongside the village, on the path beside the river, and Elise stopped.

“We must do something for her,” she said, her voice rising. “We cannot just leave.”

“We don't have time for this now,” I said.

“We promised her,” Elise said

“I gave her mother some money,” I replied. “And I promised her more. And I said I would get her a prosthetic leg.”

She looked at me, brushing a few angry tears from her eyes.

“But how will you do this?” she asked. “How will you get her a leg, and give her more money?”

Rai continued on down the trail, but the others stopped with us. “I will arrange it with him,” I said, nodding my head at Rai.

“But how will you arrange it with him?” she demanded. “How do you know he will come back?”

“Because I'll pay him. And I'll make him send a picture of her to prove he's done it.”

“He will not want to. It will be difficult for him.”

“You're right,” I said. “So I'll just have to pay him enough. He can hire someone else to help him if he needs to.”

“You must promise me,” she said, turning toward me, reaching out and gripping my arm. “You must promise me that you will do this. I will help also. I will send her money when I get home.”

“I promise,” I replied. “But we have to go now. We have to get out of here.”

She stood there for a while longer, staring at the village, but she had no choice, and she must have known it. The seconds passed, my unease increased, and Rai walked on. Finally, the soldier cleared his throat behind us, and, as I knew she would, she simply turned her head away and continued.

Soon we were beside the fields, stepping over the rough irrigation channels on the riverbank. We didn't speak for a long time, we just walked as quickly as we could, and after only a few minutes we'd passed the last of them. The slopes on either side went dry once more, and only the narrow strip of bushes and the rare gnarled tree reminded us that it was possible for things to grow there at all. The vegetation came to a sharp end a few feet up the hillside. It was a distinct line, from sufficient to insufficient, from presence to absence. But the strip of vegetation was a whole world unto itself, with tiny white, red, and orange flowers tucked here and there, and little round cacti, and a knee-high silvery kind of bush. High above us, the sun-filled granite walls, shining here and there with patches of water, and above it all, again, the blue and glacial depths of the sky. We warmed up as we walked, and I absently unzipped my jacket to my chest, and adjusted my pack on my shoulders.

The valley began to curve away behind us. At first I didn't notice it, but when my boot lace came undone, and I stopped to tie it, I glanced back along the river and realized that I could no longer see the village. Already it was hidden by the side of the valley, and now the only human sign was the path at our feet. Only then, finally, did I allow myself to feel the beginnings of relief. But I could not free myself from the image of those men lying dead on the wall—I saw them again and again, those scrambling figures, the puffs of smoke on the rock. It over
whelmed everything else—Homa, the barrage, the endless waiting, the righteous anger I had felt—all of it was washed away. My ears still rang from the shots. Only the effort of walking calmed me, and allowed me to think at all.

On we went, hour after hour, with only the sound of our own breath and footsteps, moving as quickly as we could. The river grew larger beside us. At times it boiled and roared, and at other times, when the angle lessened, it spread out and flattened and slid by nearly in silence.

Finally, at a bend in the river, when the sun was directly overhead and it was as warm as it was going to get, Rai stopped us to rest and drink. A handful of boulders had rolled down from the wall nearly to the water's edge, and we stopped there. It might have happened a thousand years ago, or it might have happened last month. It was impossible to tell.

We were miles below the camp by then. Surely we were far enough away, I told myself, surely we were safe now. The sense of threat was everywhere nonetheless, but for the first time that day I began to feel as though it was something I could master. The wind gusted against us from time to time, the river flowed on beside us. The water was an achingly cold gray, full of silt, but if left to stand in a pot it would clear, and could be decanted from the surface with hardly any grit. Rai pulled a cooking pot from the soldier's pack, then crouched at the water's edge and filled it. He carried it back and placed it carefully on the ground, then sat down a few feet from me, lit a cigarette, and smoked in silence.

Ali and his nephew had fallen a few dozen meters behind. For the first few hours of the morning they'd stayed with us, but as I sat on the boulder with my pack beside me, sipping cold, iodine-tinted water from the bottle, feeling the circle of sweat cool between my shoulders where my pack had rested, I could see that both were laboring. They shuffled together, heads down,
eyes fixed on the path. Ali, in particular, without the resilience of youth, looked pale beneath the load, his forehead beaded with sweat, his eyes wide and strained. A vessel in his neck flashed along with his heart, and when he took off his pack he let it fall heavily to the ground, which drew a sharp word from Rai, who sat watching. His nephew collapsed beside him.

Ali nodded, vaguely, then crouched on his haunches and leaned against the pack a few feet away. He let out a breath, then wiped his nose crudely on the back of his hand. He closed his eyes, then opened them again.

Rai said something to him, pointing to the pot of cold water. Rai was steadier, more like himself. He repelled me then, and I did not know what to say to him. All I could think about was what he had forced himself to become.

“It's too heavy for him,” I said, finally.

Rai scuffed at the ground with his boot. He didn't want to look at me; for the first time he wouldn't meet my eye. Ali and his nephew took turns gulping from the pot. Rai let them finish. A few minutes passed, in silence. Lunch for Elise and me was dry crackers, a few packets of cheese, and a tin of unappetizing processed meat. I could hardly eat. We drank more water, but Ali and his nephew drank most of all. They got up to lower the pot again and again into the river. Their throats worked, and water ran down Ali's beard onto his chest.

Finally Rai stood, wiping his hands on his thighs, and advanced toward Ali. He spoke.

Ali got to his feet, and did as he was told—he opened the duffel and began spreading the contents out on the ground. Rai spoke again, and the boy followed suit. The soldier, for his part, simply watched, crouched on his heels.

It was mostly food. Our clothing also, and our tents and sleeping bags, but the bulk of the weight was cans of condensed
milk and meat, the bags of rice—all that had sustained us for the past weeks.

“This is why I should not have brought them,” Rai muttered, and though he spoke in English it seemed as if he was talking as much to himself as to me. “They are too weak.”

He spoke to Ali again. To my surprise, Ali replied, protesting. Rai answered, his tone harder, but again Ali answered back loudly, gesturing. I had never seen him so animated. An expression of surprise passed across Rai's face. Ali, meanwhile, pointed to his nephew and talked some more, and then began, unasked, to put the tins of food back in his duffel.

“What's he saying?” I asked.

“He says that he can carry it, and his nephew also,” Rai managed. “He says that they will be stronger.”

“We can carry some of it,” I said to Rai. “And there's too much there anyway. We can just leave it here.”

“We need it,” Rai said.

I hesitated.

“Did you tell him that he would have to pay for what was left behind? That you would deduct it from his wages?”

Rai did not answer.

“I can pay for the food if it comes to that. But Elise and I can carry some of it.”

As he stood there, his mirrored glasses reflecting the blue sky and the ridges above us, I felt his anger, even though he said nothing.

“Why are you punishing them?” I said. “What have they done?”

“This is not your place,” he said finally, restraining himself with visible effort. “But if you want to carry it, then carry it.”

Perhaps, in the end, we took thirty pounds each, but it was enough for Ali and his nephew to stand far more easily, with pal
pable relief. Only the soldier's load remained unchanged. When finally we were ready, and standing, Rai threw his own pack effortlessly across his shoulders, and stalked off down the trail.

When Rai's back was turned, Ali approached me, quickly, bobbing his head, half bowing, and then, to my dismay, he grabbed my hand and tried to kiss it. I waved him off. The soldier watched impassively.

“Thank you,” Elise said, looking down the trail at Rai.

I did not answer, and we continued in silence. My pack had weight now, but it was not unpleasant. There is something satisfying about a modest load, in its illusion of strength and possibility. And after a while, when we'd settled once more into the rhythm of walking again, the scene between Rai and me receded, as if it had never happened at all.