The injured who made it to the field hospital were not likely to die. We were so far from the fighting that those who were seriously wounded usually died before they reached us. But those who did come were somehow worse to see. Children who lost hands to the booby trapped toys, men blinded when their ancient rifles blew up in their faces and women raped and then burned within their houses, blackened skin over their bodies, without hair, wheezing through their permanently damaged lungs.
I had met Paul in Chimo. I was stuck in Pakistan after being arrested trying to reach Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. The war had closed the border and the arrest probably saved my life. I had resorted to wearing the robes and veils of the Pakistani women in order to avoid the brutal treatment by the men. My arms, breasts, legs and ass had been blue with bruises from their attacks. I had gravitated to the west where the Pathan tribesmen were more respectful towards women, unlike the sexually violent Muslim men.
I met Paul here. He was on leave from the field hospital where he was a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders. We were in the same hotel. His days were spent staring into some unreachable space inside himself, drinking lime sodas and smoking Four Square cigarettes. He was at his table when I went to bed and there when I awoke.
His blue eyes were overcast, bloodshot, the lines on his face dug deep into his skin. Occasionally, seeing me watching him, he would attempt a smile and go back into his reverie. I was unable to resist my feelings, so I ignored his seemingly obvious desire to be alone and sat at his table. I took one of his cigarettes and offered the packet to him. His hand was shaking slightly as he took one, his eyes only briefly touching mine. On impulse I gently kissed his cheek and he began to cry.
His tears ran down his cheeks and gathered on the stubble of his unshaven face. He told me he could not cry in the midst of all the suffering he saw at the field hospital. He said it was as if the tears themselves could not bear to add any more pain to the world, so they formed a vast lake inside his heart that he knew one day he would drown in.
That night of course I slept with him, opened my heart and drank some of his tears and when he was sleeping his hand held mine in a tight grip crying softly as he slept.
I went with him to the field hospital. I was unprepared for what I saw and at first I was of no help as I cried continuously. And then helpless, I began to cleanse the wounds, wash away the blood and hold the children whose eyes were terrifyingly vacant.
At night when we could, Paul and I lay together. Not once at the field hospital did we make love, only on our visits on leave to Chimo. Soft and tender it was then, and I knew Paul was not just touching me but also reaching into his own heart, amazed that it could still feel.
The most frequent injuries were the loss of hands, feet and eyes from the landmines. The tribes men who fought this war were very adept at the rapid cauterization of these wounds and keeping their brethren alive, so that mostly when they arrived at the field hospital all we could do was give them antibiotics and regular fresh dressings. They lived in a makeshift village next to the hospital, a village of half people; one hand, one leg, one eye, but they made themselves whole with their contempt for the Russians and their love for their freedom.
Often for days Paul and I would hardly see each other as we worked where and when we were needed. When we met we offered each other cigarettes, a lover's gift. It became a ritual, full of meaning because we knew we could give each other nothing else for we were drained. The light inside me began to dim. A child's handless arm, once cleansed with my tears, sered me now with desperate desolation. One afternoon a tribesman rode into the field hospital on a mule. Sitting upright his hands were clutched to his belly. Carefully he climbed down and joined the line that was formed outside the tent. It took two hours for him to reach me. He sat on the field bed, opened his robe and showed me his intestines. They were exposed, the flesh of his abdomen ripped open. I sent one of the women to find Paul. He operated, pushing the intestines back inside and stitched the wound together. The man lay awake through the operation as we had no general anaesthetic, only local injections, and he told one of the women that he had ridden over a landmine three days before. His horse had been killed. Three days on a mule, holding his guts together as he rode.
That night I began to shake uncontrollably. Paul held me but I was far away, so cold and frightened. When dawn came I gathered my belongings and drove to the village, took a bus to the station and boarded a train to the airport in Lahore.
I left Paul at the field hospital. I offered him my last cigarette. The empty packet I crushed in my hand and dropped at our feet.
At the airport ticket counter I asked for a seat on whatever flight was leaving next. The clerk told me there was a plane leaving for Frankfurt in an hour. I paid the fare and sat, numb, waiting. A little later the clerk came over to me. There was, he said, a seat available on a delayed flight, leaving in fifteen minutes. I took it, and only when the plane was in the air did it occur to me to ask its destination.
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