We Are Now Beginning Our Descent by James Meek Page A

long time,’ said Astrid. ‘It clears my head. Kinda…exalted. Can you excuse me for a moment?’ She moved to the edge of the garden. Kellas heard her retching and coughing. He heard a limb slipping through grass, a cry and the sound of a branch breaking. He ran over and caught Astrid’s wrists as she slid down a steep embankment towards the sheer rocks above the river. He helped her scramble up and she thanked him. Her wrists were cold and clammy and she was trembling slightly. He put his hand on her forehead. It was cool and damp.
    ‘That was so clumsy,’ said Astrid, laughing in relief. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to throw up in the river.’
    ‘That’s what they drink here, too,’ said Kellas.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Astrid. ‘I don’t think I’ve got any of it on me.’
    ‘You need to be warm,’ said Kellas. They went back to the guesthouse as the generator started up and the lights came on. He made sure the Poles she was sharing a room with got her, shivering, into her sleeping bag and he came back later with some mutton and rice the Afghans had cooked, a glass of tea and a couple of ibuprofen tablets. Astrid consumed it all. A group of Swiss was taking two Uaziks to Jabal os Saraj the day after tomorrow, she said, they could both go with them. Kellas said she should rest more.
    ‘This’ll be gone by tomorrow night,’ said Astrid quickly. She shuddered with nausea, turned on her side and closed her eyes. Strands of her hair were stuck to her forehead.
    Next morning Kellas called for her. His room was at the other end of the building’s single corridor. It was seven and barely light. The Poles said she had gone out. She’d left her things behind. Kellas walked down into Faizabad, the smoky clench of mud brick, crooked timbers and dark, narrow openings that sat fast on the valley floor and mountainsides like burned scrapings in a stewpot. He exchanged dollars for a greasy wad of Afghan money and found the town baths, where he stripped to his pants before the eyes of laughing men in sodden bloomers and dipped his body in a steaming font. Later he walked through the alleys, by ways of straw and dung and mud marked by foot- and hoof-prints. There weren’t many vehicles. Every time a Uazik or a Kamaz or an old Toyota drove through it came like a tiger on a leash, roaring and honking, parting boys and elders and women in pale blue burqas as if they had never heard an engine. It occurred to Kellas that if he spoke Dari, he’d be able to find Astrid easily. She was the only skinny white one in jeans and a too-big black anorak and blonde hair coming out from under a pakul hat. They would all have seen her. He felt like a fool without the language.
    He came to a marketplace, where old men who looked as if they had heard the crying of their children fade and turn to silence too many times led donkeys carrying panniers of gnarled, sawed-up tree roots, drawn like wisdom teeth from the back jaws of deforested hills, to sell as firewood. He found Astrid with her head bent towards a cage that held a plump, exquisite grey bird.
    ‘Bet they’d cook it for you,’ said Kellas, who was hungry.
    ‘Bet they wouldn’t,’ said Astrid. ‘It’s a fighting partridge. The fight’s tomorrow, though. We’ve got to be out of here. I’d have put money on this fella to take down any partridge in this city. See the eyes? This one’s a killer. What d’you think? Could I take it with me to Jabal?’
    ‘Why not?’ said Kellas. There was no fever left in her. She looked younger. She still had faint lines under her eyes. It made her look wise. She tried to get Kellas to buy another partridge, so they could stage fights when they crossed the mountains.
    ‘If you like,’ said Kellas. One of the two would end up in the pan that way.
    Astrid looked at him in a manner he cared for, intense and curious. ‘No, you’re right,’ she said quietly. ‘It was a dumb idea.’
    ‘I said yes.’
    ‘It wasn’t what you were thinking, was