“You're lucky he doesn't understand. He'd shoot you.”
“Why don't you stop this? I know you better than your own husband!”
“You're crazy!”
“And you're the Mother of the Revolution. Did you spawn this war?”
She hesitated. “It spawned itself. To stop it we'd have to give up completely. We, Lebanese people, thrown out of Lebanon. Syria wouldn't take us. Jordan wouldn't take us. Only Iran would take us. Can you imagine anyone wanting to live in Iran?”
“If Mohammed – or you for that matter – could explain your side in the foreign press –”
“We don't care about your foreign press. It's as crazy as your gambling and immorality and usury and heroin and crime and all the other silly things you do.”
“Do you remember what you and I did, Layla? Have you been to the British Museum where half the history of your land was preserved before it could be destroyed by camel thieves, nabobs, and assassins? Do you realize what's happened to your fine Muslim culture? Why are you stuck in the Dark Ages while the rest of us go to the moon?”
“I trust you enjoy it – living on the moon?” She nodded at the mujihadeen. “If and when we decide, Mohammed and I, that he should speak to you, we'll let you know. In the meantime stay where you are.”
“I saw Tomás in Bratislava. He sends his best. And Nicolas and Sammy send their love.”
“When we want, we'll come for you.”
“And all our other old friends would send their love too, if your husband hadn't killed them.”
“Poor Neill.” There was no wrath in her voice, just an exhaustion that made his heart break. “You don't understand a single thing.”
THE TRACKS IN THE SNOW dropped down the ridge to the right, deeper into Christian territory, far down the mountain's west flank to where the snow thinned, became dark ground. The wind and stars were sharp, snow crystals tinkling across the crust.
Mohammed waved and Rosa came up, stepping in his steps, holding her coat off the snow. She stood before him, couldn't stop shivering. We've got to get off this mountain, he thought. He pointed at the tracks. “They came up from Lasa.”
She looked past him down the ridge. “Damn them.”
He raised a cold hand to her brow, for an instant was willing to die to protect her from the minefield, saw his legs in bloody pieces on the ground, his cock that had been just inside her torn to shreds. “Trial and error, this is called.”
“We'd better follow them down.”
“Back into their territory? So in the morning they're all around us?” He slid the Makarov into a pocket and held her cold cheeks in his chilled hands. “When we get off here we'll celebrate, just you and me.” He couldn't stop shivering. “A little memory of what we've done.”
She bit her lip, shivering. “I already remember.”
He turned from her up the ridge, bending his knees into the deepening snow of the great ice fields, climbing east toward the crest of Mount Lebanon, away from the Christians below, away from the soldiers' tracks and into the minefield. “Same distance,” he called, “as before.”
ANDRÉ TURNED THE KEY, opened his door and it leaped for his throat – the dog, furry and warm, licking his face, chewing his arm when he tried to force it down. “Stop!” he laughed, and the dog sat quivering with joy, tail slapping back and forth. He shut the door, knelt down and hugged the dog. “You're all I have to come home to.” The dog reached out a front paw and put it in André's hand.
He went to the window – nothing in the yard, felt the bed – it was warm where the dog had been sleeping, so there'd been no danger. He drew down the shade and lit the candle.
The dog came and put its chin on Andre's knee. André patted its head – such smooth short fur over the hard muscular skull. “Yeah, big fellow, we'll go out.” He caressed the dog's soft mane, behind the ears. “How about a little scouting mission, on your old turf?”
It was seven fifteen, already dark. Six fifteen in Paris. Métros full, people and lights and motion and laughter, women with slim thighs going home to lovers and friends. Monique coming home to Hermann after an afternoon in bed with whom? Magret de canard and string beans flown in from Kenya, lettuce from Spain, avocados from Mexico, Swiss silver and English bone china – what do you talk about when that's all there is between you?
I'm thinking I can't do what I came down here for. That's what I'm thinking. A draught quivered the flame and he moved the candle to the bedside table. On his pillow was the bone the dog carried everywhere, its favorite possession.
He checked the set of the Jericho under his arm, slipped on his leather jacket, put a spare clip of shotshell cartridges into a pocket, called the dog, snuffed the candle and went out into the Beirut night.
AS MOHAMMED shoved his soaked and frozen feet one by one through the crusted snow he was very careful to increase his weight carefully, slowly, hoping to feel the metal of a mine before he touched the detonator, wherever mines might be in this eternity of snow and wind, the little sphere or disc of explosive chemical in a compressing coat of sharp hard steel meant for him.
He’d studied all the photos, the arcs of kill, the arcs of maim, how many bodies you could get for how many dollars in Larnaca or Cairo or Rome or New York. That made it worse, somehow, as if the Prophet was going to show him how he'd gone astray, give him a bit of his own medicine. If we get out, I make a promise, he decided, to find some way to peace.
Because he'd been so careful he was shocked when it clicked under the snow, loud as a child's tin snapper. It was impossible that a sound so innocent could be so deadly; he wanted to step off nonchalantly, saying don't worry, I won't take it to heart.
Twisting round without moving his foot, he waved Rosa back. “Mine! Mine!” He realized he was losing control and quieted himself, forced down the need to jump, to finish it rather than have this horror, shivering so hard his foot would surely slither off the little metal box. Face what will be, he told himself; you're going to die.
37
HE COULDN’T STOP his ankle from quivering or steady his toe and heel against the soil, couldn’t keep his foot from shaking the mine. If it had a fuse or timer it'd blow any second. “Go back!” he yelled at Rosa, waving his arm, voice snatched by the wind.
Could he dive aside? Lose his legs only? If it were timed, wouldn't it have blown by now? Under his instep the crumbly soil was sifting, the mine sinking. He kept pushing down harder on it, but that could make it blow too, trying not to lose his balance in the wind and to keep his foot steady under the snow on the mine. He waved her away but she came right up as if it was nothing and he wondered, how can she be like this? She just doesn't care about her life, that's all. Why would anyone do this, bury this hard piece of agony and death for people they've never met?
She knelt. “Keep your foot still!”
“Get back! I order you!”
“Hold still!” She dug snow and dirt from round his foot, then deeper. “The little metal ridge, on the side – it's American.”
“The one that jumps up?”
“It has a ten-minute back-up fuse.”
“How long has it been?”
“Five minutes, maybe. Seven.” She leaped up and ran, and he lurched to call her, didn't want to die, wanted her, wishing she'd said goodbye, waiting each thousandth of a second for the mine to blow, his whole body shriveling away from it, seeing his whole life not in little pieces but as God would, all at once. So this is how they judge you, he thought.
It was easy, viewing it all at once, to see where he'd gone