Tanner’s Virgin

“I know.”

“I mean, I’m not very good at walking. And it’s sort of chilly now, and when it gets dark-”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean to complain, Evan.”

“Then shut up,” I explained.

But she was right about one thing. It was silly to keep on walking. All we would accomplish would be to deplete our energy. We were, according to my calculations, something like 375 miles from Kabul. If we walked twelve hours out of twenty-four, and if we managed four miles an hour, it would take us eight days to get to Kabul. This was the mathematical solution, and one of the drawbacks of mathematical analysis is that it doesn’t take everything into consideration. It was possible, for instance, that Phaedra could sustain this pace the first day. It was even possible that she could manage it the second. But while she might be able to travel 48 miles in one day and 96 miles in two, it was quite inconceivable that she could go 375 miles in eight days.

Which meant that walking was a waste of time.

So we sat down. It was twilight, and getting darker fast, and already the air had turned perceptibly colder. We were wearing the same clothing as before, having let the dying sun dry my robe and Phaedra’s silk thing before we left the burned-out Balalaika and struck off down the road. I put an arm around her now, and we huddled together for warmth and comfort, and it was a tender moment, and then I felt a small warm hand insinuate itself beneath my robe.

“No,” I said.

The hand went away and she began to cry. I hugged her and told her that everything would be all right. “I hate myself when I’m like this,” she said between sobs. “But I can’t help it.”

“You’ll be all right.”

“My head gets all strange and I can’t think of anything else. Sometimes I think I never existed before that place. That whorehouse. That I just suddenly happened there one day, that before then I was never even alive.”

“You were alive.”

“I was?”

“Uh-huh. You’ll be alive again.”

“I will?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m afraid, Evan.”

“Don’t be afraid.”

“We’ll die on this fucking road. We’ll freeze to death or starve. I’m hungry already.”

“We’ll be all right.”

“How can you be sure?”

So I gave her a little sermon about the earth, and how one defeats oneself by expecting the land to be hostile. It isn’t. There is a modern tendency to suspect that human beings ca

“Evan.”

“What is it?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Lie down. Close your eyes. Sleep.”

“I can’t possibly sleep.”

“Lie down. Close your eyes.”

“I’m wide awake. I can’t-”

While she slept, I took a stick and scratched in the sand. I had left Kabul on the morning of the 15th of November, just midway between Guy Fawkes Day and the scheduled Russian coup. Since then, day and night had had a way of merging together, with too much time passed in a blur on the road, but I was able to work it out a little at a time. As well as I could determine, it was now the evening of the 21st. We had something like four days to get back to Kabul and shake things up.

Because, dammit, they had it coming now. I had given them every chance on earth, every possible chance, and they blew it over and over again. All they had had to do was leave me alone, that was all. I kept catching them and letting them go in munificent gestures of good will, and all they did was go back and organize fresh attempts on my life.

Well, they had gone too far. I was a patient man, but patience has a limit, and my limit had been reached and surpassed. A dagger in my turban, poison in my drink, a gun in my face, a bomb in my restaurant, a foot on my hand – I had contented myself for too great a time with passive resistance. Nonviolence is a marvelous concept, but it can be carried too far.

I’ve always liked Gle

Then they go too far. They blow up his wife and kids, or they insult his mother, or they step on his blue suede shoes. Whatever it is, it’s the straw, man, and Gle

And he goes berserk and knocks the hell out of every last one of the bastards.

I’d been irritated ever since I swam the English Cha

I was now aggravated, and they were in trouble.

Chapter 14

We reached Kabul two hours after dawn on the morning of November 24th. We rode trimphantly into town, I with a sash around my neck and a rifle over my shoulder and a pistol on my hip, Phaedra wearing men’s clothing and carrying a British Army canteen and a German pistol. I pulled up on the reins and our horse neighed gratefully and went down to his knees. We dismounted. The horse stayed on his knees. I didn’t really blame him, and I was surprised he hadn’t dropped dead altogether.

We had stolen the horse. According to family legend, a great-great-uncle had done much the same thing in the Wyoming Territory, and had subsequently become, as far as I know, the only Ta

He stopped at our signal, a tall slim Afghan who carried himself with military bearing. His moustache bristled, his eyes bored into mine. I told him I wanted to buy his horse. He said that the animal was not for sale. I told him I would pay its price in gold several times over. He said that he had no use for gold and much use for the horse. I told him I would pay equally for a ride to Kabul. He said that he was going only so far as his village a few miles away. I suggested that I might borrow the horse, and that I would leave it for him to reclaim in Kabul, and that I would pay him enough gold to make his troubles worthwhile. He remarked that, if he wanted my gold, he could simply return for it when my woman and I had perished of thirst.

So I took out the gun and told him to get off the horse or I would shoot him dead. He took told of his rifle, and I squeezed the trigger of the handgun and nicked his earlobe. He touched it with his finger, looked at the bead of blood on his fingertip, and respectfully dismounted from the horse.

“You are a superb marksman, kâzzih,” he said. “My steed is yours.”

So were his rifle and his clothing. I forebore telling him that I was not a superb marksman at all. I had not been aiming for his earlobe. I had been aiming for the center of his forehead, because when someone draws a rifle to shoot me with I want to do more than scare him a little. My rotten shooting was his good fortune.

It turned out that Phaedra had never been on a horse before. I had her ride sidesaddle at first, but after a few miles of jogging along she swung her leg over the horse. I was right behind her and I watched her, and after a few minutes I figured out what she had in mind. She would start to breathe a little faster than normal, and as the horse bounced she would bounce along with it, and muscles worked in her thighs, and she made odd little noises deep in her throat, and then, finally, she would give a little sigh and fall forward, her arms around the horse’s neck.