The Torn Souls 14 страница

But the last phrase the captive could not finish as the standing next to him mujahedeen kicked into his already broken face. The body of the captured has fallen back to the driver, who from this unexpected impact made some unrecognisably sound – was it a sound of pain or just surprise? – but the ensign silently lowered his head and stared at the foot of the mujahedeen, expecting the next kick.

– The leaders or not – it has no difference how you will die. – “The goliath” spitted into the face of the captured one with the shoulder straps

The captive has made a poor attempt to kick his abuser back, but screamed from the pain and fallen on his back.

Watching the foot of “the goliath”, he has not noticed how teenagers next to his right, hit his head with a rifle butt. Losing the conscious, the ensign felt on the ground together with the driver tighten to him.

He regained consciousness only after few buckets of cold icy water were poured into his face. He opened his eyes and saw that a new group of mujahedeens joined the standing group around them. Among the newly arrived mujahedeens, he spotted an old man with a tidy beard and a turban with a bright white top on his head. The old man looked different compared to all who was standing around. On top of the traditional outfit – shirt and pants of safari colour – he was wearing the dark -brown coloured vest, embroidered with multi-coloured beads. But not all of these have drawn the ensign’s attention. A few wreaths woven made from artificial flowers hung on the old neck of this man. And the man, himself, was looking like a decorated Christmas tree and this look was ridiculously unnatural among these wild armoured people.

A young man in his 30th, from the “Toyota” group, stepped closer to the old man. Stretching his arms towards the eldest, he kept repeating some glorifying words to Allah and to the old man, who apparently was getting married on this day. Approaching him, the young fellow touched by his cheeks the cheeks of the old groom, incessantly muttering the same words.

Finishing with the ritual greetings, the guest stepped to the side of the elder. Pointing at the captured shuravi, he explained, that these two captured are the gift from him, the field commander who came to pay respect and to present the lives of these two infidels to Allah as a little present for the wedding of the most respected man on the Earth.

Disgusting looking at the captured, Hadji Latif ordered to cut the robes tided their hands and legs. The goliath in one motion followed the order. Popping out from the crowd, the mujahedeens forced the captives to kneel. Pointing their weapons to the heads of kneeling people, they demonstrated the respect in such original manner to the most respected person.

Hadji Latif slowly walked around the prisoners like he usually did when he wanted to buy sheep on the market place, even kicked each of them by his foot with the beautifully embroidered with shiny beads shouse. The prisoners were fallen into an indecent four-legs-position the made the crowd around them to humiliatingly laugh and hooting at them.

Whilst the crowd had her entertainment, Hadji Latif summoned his bodyguard and whispered to him something. The bodyguard despaired in the house and in one second returned to his master with the Kalashnikov rifle. Only a slight movement from the hand of Hadji Latif was enough to put the prisoners on their feet.

The elder has made a short speech with his very couched and harsh tone. He asked “the goliath” to translate his words into Russian, so the captives could understand what he was saying.

When the crowd quieted down a bit, “the goliath” produced seemingly recognized translation with a strong accent the message of the old man to the prisoners.

– You are cowardly jackals who learned to kill our innocent people and children, but afraid to fight with free spirited mujahedeens. Yes, two of you will die, but may be one of you wants to die voluntary?

“The goliath” wanted to add something else, but both captives simultaneously stepped forward to meet their fate. Hadji Latif only grinned at such unanimous wish of these shuravies to die in a foreign land. He took the machinegun from the hands of his bodyguard, and gave it to the captive driver. Having no clue what the old man wanted from him, the driver took the gun.

Pointing with his finger at the second captive – the ensign – Hadji Latif commanded: “Kill him”. “The goliath” translated these words. But the soldier shook his head and threw the submachine gun on the ground.

“The goliath”, with no hurry, picked up the gun from the ground, and, brushing the road dust off, offered the weapon to the ensign.

– Now it is your turn to shoot. If you do not want to kill him – kill yourself.

The ensign looked sullenly at the man and the surrounded him mujahideens. It was clear that he reached the last and most crucial moment of his life, and depending how he will act now he would answering to his own conscience, and to the God.

And he made his choice.

Sharply twitching the switch and pointing the barrel towards the giant man, he shouted in a wild voice “Get it, bitches! “, and pulled the trigger. But the dry click of the trigger witnessed a misfire. Instantly reacting to this misfire, the ensign recharged the machinegun, and pressed the trigger again. There were no shot as in the previous time...

Please with such good entertainment, Latif was watching how the ensign in full desperation and anger threw the submachine gun at the crowd that hit somebody in a chest.

Several mujahideens jumped out of the crowd and began to maul him with the butts of their rifles and feet. They beat him up until scarlet blood rushed from his throat. Only after that, Latif with only one gesture stoped the massacre and said in Russian:

– For dog is dog’s death.

“The goliath” understood it like an instruction to actions. He approached the ensign and raised the sharp blade of his dagger to the prisoner’s throat, and with one sharp movement cut it from ear to ear. The body of the ensign became hammered in convulsions, and foaming blood, gurgling, rushed from this terrifying sword-cut to the ground.

Having done his dirty deed, ”the goliath” turned toward the second prisoner, and still holding the bloody dagger in his hand, took a one step into his direction but

– “Bass! ” Bass halas! “ – Latif yelled..

“The goliath” froze, obviously not understanding why this master does not allow him to finish off the second prisoner.

After slowly approaching the shaking-to-core soldier, who already had said good-bye to his life, Latif with one finger lifted his chin and looked in the eye of captive. What he saw in the depth of the prisoner’s eyes is greatly satisfied him: it was a rudimental animal fear that occupied the soul of this young man. The enlarged pupils of the prisoner’ eyes eloquently evidenced about it. Latif stepped away from the prisoner and theatrically raise his hands to the sky, uttered a sacramental phrase:

– Let’s be the will of Allah, almighty and all-merciful! His will together with my desire is to give life today to one of my enemies. I act this way, not out of pity, but only because I do not want to shed the blood of another person on this memorable day for me. I let him go in peace, and tell his shuravi, that Latif is the one who do not want to fight. The man who is now dead in the dust, was not invited to my land, he came here with a weapon in his hands to kill innocent people. This sarbose (see “Terminology and Glossary”  – Editor) – and Latif pointed to the soldier’s side – does not know what he is going because his unreasonable commanders sent him to us, and this is not his fault of being here. Let’s be this decision fair. Allah Akbar!

The bearded crowd repeated three time “Allahu Akbar” after Latif. It was the end of the entertainment.

“The goliath” came to the soldier who was in utter prostration. Wiping the blade of his bloody dagger against his cheek, he almost literally translated everything that was said by Hadji Latif.

The soldier did not immediately get the sense of what he had said after the horrifying scene that had just happened in front of him. But when he eventually realized that the life was given back to him, he fell down on the ground, bursting into tears.

He did not yet know that the order giving by one field commander, is not necessary an order for strict implementation by another field commander. If this poor young fellow knew what kind of twisted test had been prepared for him by another ruler of his life, Haji Askar....

.....

– Lesha, Lesha, look, there the doukh (a unofficial disparaging name for mujahedeens used in the Soviet army) runs!

Sleeping in his remote post, half-awaken Lesha hit his head on the protruding stone, trying to look through his SVDashki (see “Terminology and Glossary”  – Editor) at the direction where his friend Petruha pointed.

Indeed! It was a figure, sure enough, wearing the black Afghan traditional male dress but with only the sleeves which was fluttering in the wind like a wing of a raven that unsuccessfully trying to take off from the ground. This loomed figure was running on a rocky-sandy surface in all visibility of the flat, like a table, earth, towards the Soviet post.

– What an asshole! – Lesha was amazed - He is running directly to the minefield. Is he stoned?

– Maybe he is a defector? – suggested Petruha.

– Ha!, you are stupid salabon (see “Terminology and Glossary”  – Editor), where did you see the defectors in Afghanistan? Only brutal doukh (see “Terminology and Glossary”  – Editor) here.

After this short conversation, fully awaken Lesha together with Petrukha began to watch how the doukh was getting closer to the minefields, which for the security reason was placed around the Kandagar airport zone. They even placed a bit on exact time when the runner will step on the first. mine. The experienced Lesha gave him two mitutes; and less experienced Petrukha a bit more – three minutes.

The body of running man was blown in exactly 1 minutes and 25 seconds. Unfortunately nobody won.

Through his SVDashki, Lesha had a good look how the body was fragmented from the mine explosion: flames flashed beneath his feet, and black smoke rose. Turning high in the air, the body landed on the ground and crawled forward with its blooded stumps of what used to be legs and arms.

Watching all this through binoculars, Lesha and Petrukha placed a new bet on how long it will take for the doukh to died from losing blood. Lesha placed on ten minutes, Petrukha predicted five minutes. And again no one was a winner.

The mutilated body died in half an hour. During this time, an idea to finish him off, came to the head of Petrukha, but after estimation of his rifle possibilities and the distance to the target, he withdraw this option from his head.

While they were watching the death of the wounded doukh, they received the telephone call from the outpost to report on the explosion in their direction. So, Lesha reported exactly what he saw: that some stoned douhk apparently lost his way and jumped on the minefield, where he blew himself into pieces. The caller at the opposite end of the wire just spat and with a great satisfaction commented that with less shit, the earth will be better.

In a couple of days, hungry jackals will pull the corpse all over the “green”, and nothing could be left to testify the existence of this body. This incident would have gone unnoticed by anyone, except for Lyesha and Petruha... but the agent occurred who reported details of the bloody history of Soviet soldiers’ disappearance...

Haji Askar did not obey the order given by Haji Latif and failed to fulfil the goodwill wishes.

Promising his boss, Haji Latif, that the captive men will be taken closer to the location of the Soviet troops, and released, Haji Askar did it all differently. It was not in his rules of freeing an enemy in peace. None of those shuravi, who fell into his hands, stayed alive until the evening namaz (see “Terminology and Glossary”  – Editor).

In the beginning, the doukh forced the prisoner to take off his uniform and washed it himself in the irrigation ditches. An extra set of Soviet uniforms could be handy for the gang while doing provocative actions in the city. After this, the doukh stripped him naked and several bandits raped him with the butts of their rifles. The young fellow cried, screamed in pain, tried at least somehow to resist, but several blows form the rapists with rifles, forced to face the unenviable fate of being raped.

After a full humiliation of the captive, he was forced to dress in Afghan clothing and put in a car, from where he was dragged out late at night in the area closed to the Kandagar airport. The prisoner was accompanied by the giant man and one teenager, both from the Haji Askar gang.

In the east was getting slightly lighter, then three of them stopped about four kilometres from the security zone of the airport. The giant men pointed to the direction of the airport indicating by his hand that captured one should keep walking. He also warned that the standing next to him teenager can kill at a distance of not less than two kilometres.

Keeping this warning in mind, the soldier drugged his feet towards the northeast for two kilometres, but after that he gave in to the nerves, and he broke into running. At that moment, Petrukha, the soldier from the remote outpost, spotted him.

Nobody knows how this story ended.

The story is silent, whether the names of ensign and the driver remained on the list of missing persons, or the “craftsmen” from the funeral team of the Kandagar Brigade were able to retreat these two names into a mournful “cargo of 200”, giving them a chance to be buried somewhere in the ground, on the vast territory of the former Soviet Union.

The story is silent about whether Hadji Latif has a legitimate heir and whether the elder himself is still alive. After all, according to the modest estimates, he now is over ninety years old.

But one thing is certain that the young wife of Hadji Latif was six months pregnancy when the shuravies left Kandahar forever, and if she really gave birth to a son, then it is likely that this seventeen-year-old boy is now fighting in Kandagar with the Americans.

Alexander Gergel

Gergel, Alexander Nikolayevich was born in 1961, in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers, but after the 4th year of his study, he left tertiary education for the army. From 1983 to 1985 he served in a separate motorized rifle regiment at the “860 hot point” located at the fortress of Baharak (Afghanistan, Badakhshan Province, Faizabad). He was awarded the medal “For Courage”. Currently, he lives in Moscow.

GO WEST!

“Let; s go”, – Alyosha said.

Without any word Vitka got up from his bed and went outside, following Alyosha. They were intently marching along the wall towards the division of supply quarters.

Dzhuma^{^[1]}, the driver of the supply division, was already waiting for them, leaning up against a cherry-plum tree. Dzhuma – a skinny fellow- was about to be demobilised. In accordance with an unwritten dress code of the dembel (see “Terminology and Glossary”  – Editor) his uniform had been washed and ironed so many times that it had almost became white.

His bleached shirt was slimmer than permitted by army regulations. His leather belt was loosely buckled with its lower end hung at the exact level of his jacket. His badge was also bent in accordance with this dembel fashion. This debmel fashion look was crowned with a Russian military panama hat, aka “Afghanka”, that was bent at a precise angle giving him a rakish look.

Alyosha and Vitka were wearing the standard winter uniform, obligatory for those who were waiting to be demobbed in the spring. Vitka rather liked this look: it set him sharply apart from the rest of their intake. Alyosha felt the same, so neither had put in for the summer uniform, preferring instead to wear out the uniform they had been issued with in the autumn. Why bother to seek favours from the quartermaster, or relieve the junior soldiers of the summer uniforms and boots? Why go through all that useless effort, when they were so close to going home?

The friends shook hands with Dzhuma, who without any words pulled the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the door and welcomed them into the small storeroom. They entered, went for the heavy paper bag as usual, opened it, pocketed a handful of dried fruit, and left the storeroom. While Dzhuma was locking the storeroom, Alyosha and Vitka were marching towards the opening in the fortress wall, which led to the automotive machinery yard. Passing this opening in the wall, they took the stairs to the yard and went along the row of vehicles which were lined up along the wall.

– Which car shall we take? – asked Alyosha, – The Zil or the Tabletka? ( See “Terminology and Glossary”– Editor).

– The Zil. –Vitka answered and added quickly. – I’m driving today, it is my turn!

Dzhuma caught up with them near his own vehicle – the Zil 131. Dzuma was assigned as a driver to Zil 131, but this car had not moved from the Bakharak valley for five years, since the regiment had left one of its battalions in Badakhshan after a long march over the mountains from the Soviet Union^{^[2]}. Most of the other vehicles, such as water tankers, tank transporters, and others Zil 131s belonged to the supply division, and were equally immobile. There was also a green Uaz-452 van, shaped like a loaf of bread, with a red cross on it: it was the ambulance car, which the soldiers called a “tabletka” (see “Terminology and Glossary”– Editor). In order to prevent the deterioration of the vehicles, some measures had been taken: wooden beams a metre high had been put under their axles to take the load off their shock absorbers. Written notices were placed on their windscreens to inform that the radiators had been drained. Having decided that the safety of vehicle was ensured, the cars were left alone. The only vehicles still in use were a Zil 131 model, which was used for delivery of ammunition supplies from the helicopter pad to the storehouse. There was also a model ZIL 130 for use as a dump truck that looked unbelievably civilian with its blue - white colour.

This dump truck was normally parked next to the break in the wall, so the canteen

orderlies could throw directly into the truck empty cans, which had contained meat and condensed milk. When the truck was full, one of the orderlies would drive the truck a kilometre away from the fort to the Saripulsky Bridge and dump the garbage near the road. Polished by wind and sand, the huge pile of cans glistened like gold on the roadside. This is why the First Company preferred to do their firing practice there, using the cans as targets. Of course, it is difficult to hit a can from a distance between a hundred fifty and two hundred metres. But the reflection of the bright Afghan sun was so glistening on the metallic cans that in this light you can spot a rabbit a kilometre away. From his first shot an experienced sharpshooter could make a can fly up into the sky; and the young soldiers were happy, looking at the can’s trajectory that was spinning like a furious cheerful little shooting star. For the younger soldiers it was a great incentive to get them to improve their shooting.

The journey over the mountains with their pinnacles four thousand metres high had left Dzhuma’s Zil 131 pretty battered. Despite its helpless look, it was the favourite place for the boys’ ritual evening gathering,

Vitka jumped straight on the footboard of the car, opened the door and flopped down into the seat. Alyosha and Dzhuma got into the cabin from the other side. Whilst Dzhuma crumbled up some ganja (see ‘Terminology and Glossary”) with his finger nails, Alyosha took from his pocket the “Donskie” cigarette paper and tore a strip. After that he rolled it into a filter, blew some tobacco onto his hand and joined the filter to the cigarette. Dzhuma carefully poured the ganja onto Alyosha’s palm. Alyosha quickly got rid of the excess tobacco, mixed what was left with the ganja and started to roll the joint. Vitka lay back comfortably in the driver’s seat and observed his friends’ actions out of the corner of his eye.

They had been repeating this daily ritual for the last two months. They worked in silence, neither larking about nor cracking jokes: so that there would be more to talk about after the second joint.

Alyosha carefully tied the end of the joint with a piece of string so that nothing would fall out, and handed it to Vitka.

– Let’s get going, – he said carelessly, to hide his impatience.

Dzhuma struck a match, shaded the flame with his hands, and brought it up to Vitka’s face. Vitka quickly lit the joint, inhaled, drew the aromatic smoke into his lungs, held his breath for several seconds, and slowly breathed out. He inhaled again, then passed the cigarette to Dzhuma. Frowning, Alyosha patiently waited his turn. As he watched Dzhuma’s face relax and melt into a blissful smile, Vitka felt that those first puffs were beginning to hit him as well. The slight pressure on his temples was beginning to grow, to squeeze his forehead, and to press down upon his eyelids: as if the visor of a knight’s helmet had fallen over his eyes. They closed for a second of their own accord, and when he opened them again, the world seemed to be quite different. It was as if, long ago in his childhood, his mother had delicately removed the translucent wet backing paper from a decal, so that instead of a colourless, barely visible shape, the little Vitka could see part of a fantastically bright picture on the warped page of the album, with sharp lines and remarkably bright colours. Every little leaf on the poplars facing the windscreen swelled up, and the play of the shadows transformed the intimately familiar shapes of the treetops into a miraculous green country of a mysterious fairytale beast. The mountain slopes you could see through the trees began to quiver in rich shades of brown and violet. But the most beautiful thing of all was the setting sun, its red changing to crimson as it sank through the soft blue sky towards the western mountain range.

Alyosha took his two puffs, passed the cigarette to Vitka, laid back and closed his eyes. Vitka followed suit, and passed the cigarette to Dzhuma. He felt that the time had come to hit the road. He turned the imaginary key in the ignition, and imitated first the noise of the starter turning over, and then the smooth sound of an idling engine.

– Let’s go! – Alyosha shouted cheerfully.

Dzhuma smiled and nodded. Vitka let out the clutch, confidently shifted into first gear and turned the wheel to drive out into the road. All three lurched from side to side in their seats, as if they were on the bumpy country road which led to the highway.

– Which way? – asked Vitka, stepping on the gas so that the lorry could negotiate the steep bank of the roadside. Spinning the wheel, he drove out onto the asphalt.

– Let’s go west, go home! – said Alyosha.

– Go west! – Vitka agreed, and put his foot down.

By now all three of them were imitating the noise of the engine, helping it drive the lorry along the flat asphalt road, only rarely breaking off for another drag. The kilometres flashed past, the wheels devoured the road beneath the lorry, as the red sun in the west beckoned the three soldiers onwards towards their homes. Vitka narrowed his eyes and looked only at the ground, so that he should not see the mountains which blocked the horizon. The few kilometres which separated them from the nearest mountain spurs became the endless plains of Russia. The sun shone straight into their eyes, the poplars become Russian birch-trees, and the young fields of wheat became the fresh Russian grassland. Only the smells were wrong: in Russia you don’t get that unbearable smell you get in an Afghan village of overheated stone, smoke, sheep manure, and ancient wooden buildings.

– We’ll soon be home, said Alyosha.

– Yeah, there’s not long to go. Home, Dzhuma! We’re going home! – Vitka suddenly shouted with enthusiasm.

– Why don’t we stop at my place in Ferghana? – Dzhuma suddenly asked. – Vitya, let’s go to my place. We can kill a sheep, cook rice pilaf, eat the fruit, take a week’s rest. My mother will be delighted. Shall we go to Ferghana? What do you say? OK, Alyosha? Shall we go?

– Hey, hang on, Dzhuma. Let’s not go to your Ferghana yet. For me Ferghana is just as lousy as Badakhshan: if that’s the choice we might as well stay here. What we need is to go home, to Russia. We’re sick to death of the East. I can’t bear to look at another piece of mutton or another rice pilaf. I’m fed up with the lot of it! I want to go home. So does Vitka. You let us get back to our forests and rivers! I want to see the plains around me, and not a single mountain for a thousand kilometres! I’ve got so sick of them in the last two years that I doubt if I’ll ever want to see any mountain again. You’ve got used to all this, this place is pretty much like your home, so it’s as if you’ve never been away. But for us, you know… No, sorry, brother. Maybe in a year we’ll come to you on holiday. But just now it would be better if you came with us: there we can really rest up.

Vitka was goggle-eyed. Alyosha, a man of few words, now broke into a tirade. At first Vitka could not work out why his friend was so excited, but then he realised: they were both trapped. He could not follow Alyosha’s line of thought. Probably Alyosha himself couldn’t either. He kept forgetting what he had just said. He was intoxicated with the sound of his own voice, his own miraculous and marvellous phrases that seemed so full of mysterious meaning. They caressed the ear, nourished the mind, and conjured up bright pictures which to Vitka seemed like a whole movie.

So as Alyosha talked, Vitka could see himself in Moscow, roaming its streets, visiting relatives and friends. He could see himself in his dacha, walking through the forest, swimming in the lake. He could see beyond that. He saw himself taking a job in the autumn after his holiday. By then a year had passed and his nostalgic plan to visit Dzhuma in Ferghana was coming true. It was not a disjointed flight of imagination. No, the feelings, the emotions, the happiness and the sadness, the passage of a whole year, were all quite genuine.

Suddenly he was overwhelmed with the need to convey his impressions to his friends, to let them share in the movie unrolling in his head: the chilly August evenings in Moscow, the lake in the forest not far from his dacha. Alyosha and Dzhuma listened fascinated, as he was carried away with his own story yet again. But then he understood that they were listening to him without understanding. Their faces lit up with interest and a kind of foolish joy, but their eyes were turned inward, and his words found no reflection there. He tried hard to make his story clearer and more logical, to convey the idea that now seemed to be of overwhelming importance to him. The effort was too much for him. He paused for a second, lost the thread, forgot what he had been talking about, failed to recover, and started to talk rubbish. He feared that the boys would be upset if they did not hear the end of the story, but they seemed to notice nothing, and he continued his disjointed story until he realised that his tongue was running away with him, missing out whole words and phrases.

He tried to speak slowly and precisely. But they were not listening, although they did not interrupt him. Now all three of them started to talk, pursuing their own line without being annoyed or bothered by the others: they wanted to listen to one another even while they were speaking themselves. Then suddenly they burst out laughing. Dzhuma was talking nonsense, giggling, winking his eyes. Alyosha was shaking with laughter in his seat, tied up in his own tangled story without beginning or end. Vitka could take no more. He brought the lorry to a halt hauled on the handbrake, and with his head on the steering wheel started to shriek with laughter. The truck shook all over.

Alyosha was laughing so hard that he sank down from his seat in convulsions. Vitka wondered if his friend was dying but his thoughts suddenly switched involuntarily to some different event that had happened two months earlier. The laughter suddenly stopped.

They had been smoking ganga behind a mud brick wall outside the fort, hidden from prying eyes by the First Company’s armoured personnel carriers. Their pleasure had reached its height when Vitka heard something clang on the armour plating of one of the carriers, and the long coughing sound of a ricochet. The sound of the shot followed from the mountains a few seconds later. Without even realising what he was doing, Vitka leapt to the shelter of the wall, knocking Alyosha over as he did so, and dragging him to shelter. Alyosha gave his friend a questioning look: but he got his answer when another bullet showered dust over the place where they had just been standing. Huddled at the foot of a stone wall, all serious now, the friends tried to work out how to get from the vehicle park into the shelter of the fortress wall. First they needed to get from the mud wall to the APCs. But unfortunately the sniper on the mountain did not let up, and prevented any attempt to cross the three metres of open space which divided them from the nearest vehicle. Their drug-induced ecstasy was transformed into that terrible tormenting state of wild unreasoning fear familiar to any soldier who has been interrupted in the middle of a smoke. When a man is frightened, he loses his willpower entirely. However hard he tries he cannot escape the real and imaginary terrors which assail him from all sides. There was no question of being able to make a dash to reach the APCs before the sniper could react. Even if they did, they could not hope to cross the next thirty metres dividing the vehicles from the high wall of the fort. In a few minutes Vitka started to come to his senses. He wondered if it might be possible to get to his own APC, dive into the turret, try to identify the sniper on the hill through the optical sight, and suppress him with a few well-chosen shells.

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