Chapter 2
REALLY? A GOAT?
"Do you remember how Sohail was often sweaty?" Molly asked. "I know we was all minging a lot of the time in the FOB. Never enough hot water for a proper shower and washing me hair were a major, especially when I had a posh boy officer barge in to the medic's tent and start demanding poncy coffee and writing foreign words on me arm. For all I knew Rosabaya might have been a rude word…" Charles burst into loud laughter at her cheekiness.
"Look what it got you, Dawsey! A real live officer of your own to boss around and tease and make cups of tea whenever you like. Not to mention all the other stuff…" Getting up from his squishy armchair, he sat down close to her on the sofa, pulled her onto his lap and kissed the sweet spot on her throat, all in one easy movement. Just as always over these past few days, he was immediately aroused by his physical closeness to her and by her rapid breathing, the usual signal from her that she wanted him just as much.
"Hold your horses, Boss! If that's what we end up doin' instead of talkin' then the whole day will be gone with us in bed n'all."
"I know. I can make you feel better straight away and I can have fun at the same time…" His long sensitive fingers stroked gently behind her ears, the kisses moved down from her throat until he was nuzzling into her cleavage. This was a major incursion, it seemed, a mission carried out with military precision to soothe and then arouse her by concentrating on her most vulnerable sweet spots. He was getting to be good at this, she thought. Very, very good, in fact. He was learning her body as rapidly as he could, knowing where to pleasure her and for how long and how to show her what he wanted. Charles was an amazing and adventurous lover, gentle sometimes, a little rough at other times but always, always tuned to her needs and generous in his willingness to wait for her if need be.
She could feel herself slipping away to that place where she welcomed him in his entirety into her being, where there was nothing else and no other person existed on the planet. Ragged, rapid breathing from him showed her he was right there with her. For Molly there was no point in wasting another chance to make love with this man who had taught her that "having sex" was the poorest substitute possible for this glorious and joyful melding of their whole selves. Never would any other man touch her, she knew. No other woman would ever be enough for him, after her. She was sure of that and of him and of the absolute power of their love. Before Charles, she had had no idea that this depth and width of love existed anywhere.
They had not made it to bed. Not for the first time, either. Actually, when she thought about it, they rarely did make it to bed. It was probably a very good thing his parents were still in Italy. They would have to improve their behaviour when the "olds" came back, or move out. The latter course of action was probably the safest.
Afterwards, Charles lifted himself gently from her, kissed her on the tip of the nose and smiled. "I love you, Dawsey", he drawled, yawning and heavy eyed after their torrid lovemaking, "but I really worry about how much you seem to need my body. It's hardly decent…"
"Oi! It weren't my idea to start with," she replied with mock indignation. "You made out you was as good as a miracle cure for my blues."
"Did it work?" he asked, his dark eyes as seductive as the first time he had asked her that question. The first time he had asked whether his ploy to get her back to his home had been successful and she had told him about having a Travelodge organised as a back-up plan.
"I've been desperate for you to kiss me since the last time we kissed, about an hour ago." She quipped. "Now that I'm feeling better, Doctor Charles, let's get back to the Sohail affair. Before that dose of miracle cure we just had, I told you to hold your horses. Well, horses have a big part to play in this story, but not just yet, so listen up. I'm going to tell you some of the Qaseem bit but there might be some things you remember from the FOB time. They might be part of this story. "
Whenever he was puzzled or upset by something beyond his control, Charles would screw up his forehead until a deep furrow appeared between his eyes and scratch the back of his head.
"What things, Molly? Apart from all the stuff about Sohail that you or Smurf were involved in, I don't remember much at all about him. I did see him in that pretty basic gym we set up in the FOB, quite a lot actually. He worked out really hard. Could lift those old axles we used for weights much more easily than I could. He was really strong, Could do heaps of reps."
Molly had shifted right to the edge of her seat and was looking at him intently. Her eyes were glittering with excitement and she urged him on,
"What else, Charles? What about his shirt? It were always sweaty and rank, yet he didn't take it off when he lifted them weights, did he? Never once! Why, Charles? Not like you, take your shirt off at the drop of a hat, showing them muscles off to an innocent girl like me. Fair embarrassed me, it did." Her wicked grin told him exactly what her real reaction to his preening had been. And yes, he had done it to get her attention. He had the grace to blush and she burst out laughing.
"Just like when you perved at me in my shorts in the med tent. Can't a girl even have a shower and wash her hair without her senior officer eying her up in her shorts?" Molly batted her eyelids and gave him a languid stare from under her long curling eyelashes. It was a virtuoso vamp performance.
"Those fucking shorts! They were indecent, Dawes. They should have been made illegal. Lots of the guys on the FOB found those shorts troublesome, not just me."
"True, Boss. I know. Gave me a lot of power, those shorts. Later on they have a small role to play in the Sohail story, but just wait for that bit." Boy, was she playing him now. Molly was expert at teasing him, at needling him about his jealousy which still reared its ugly head from time to time.
"Are we back with the Coco Pops, Molly? You were wearing the fucking shorts that day. Perhaps you do know what a euphemism was, after all. Maybe he did want to dip his spoon into Coco Pops."
"Don't be pathetic, Charles, can't you, even now, take a wind-up from me. Just wait, all will be revealed. Shit, I sound just as full of me own importance as a certain British Army captain, don't you think, wiv a poncy posh boy accent."
"Stop, Molly," Charles interrupted. "You're playing games now and avoiding some hard stuff, I think. Tell me about what you found about Sohail and I promise I'll listen carefully and not butt in, OK? But tell me about Sohail's shirt that never came off, please."
"Not till later about the shirt. Qaseem told me that Sohail lived in Kabul for quite a long time when he were a kid. He was studying at the University, engineering I think Qaseem said. He doesn't come from Helmand, but from some place up north of Afghan, can't remember the name of the city wot was near his family. I wrote it down, I can find it for you, but it's not really important.
Molly stopped for a breather and rubbed her eyes with her fists. Charles wasn't sure whether she was getting close to tears again, but decided to let it go and just listen, as he had promised.
"Wot Qaseem told me was that Sohail was an international wrestler. It's a real big sport in Afghan and heaps of guys do it. They have clubs in Kabul where guys meet and practice. They don't have a lot of money, so things are pretty basic, but here's the interesting part. Even though lots of Afghans hate the Yanks, the wrestlers hero worship American tough guys and they have posters of them all over their gyms. You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Kirk Douglas before he got really old, them sort of people."
"That makes sense, that he was a wrestler…"
"Ssssh, you said you'd shut up and listen. That's not the best part yet… and we're still not at the sweaty shirt bit. Qaseem said he met Sohail in class at the University and had asked him why he was not in the newspapers for wrestling anymore. He were that good. Sohail said he had been forced into giving it up. He was going to join the Army, he said, and that was the last time they spoke until, fuck's sake, they both end up here about a million miles from home at Hellmand in the same FOB. Wouldn't read about it, eh, Boss?" Molly was getting excited and reverting to her old manner of communicating with Charles, from the 2 Section days.
"Charles, for fuck's sake, Molly. I am not your Boss any more!" She sidled up to him and ran her hand, utterly suggestively, over the front of his jeans, looking directly into his eyes. "Sometimes I like to call you Boss, Boss. Specially when we're in our pit and you…" Sometimes she was very naughty, he knew that well.
"You're bloody insatiable, Dawesy. Shall we just wait out a bit while you finish the story? I'm still catching my breath from the last round. You can ask me later to play The Boss if you're still keen, OK?"
Pretend pouting, Molly went back to her conversation with Qaseem. The teacher from Kabul commanded respect from all of the soldiers with whom he worked and many of them entrusted him with their stories. Charles knew him to be wise, kind and utterly trustworthy. Captain Azizi, who was even younger than Charles and commanding men who did not have the training background of the British soldiers, had a strong professional regard for the older man, using him as a sounding board when difficult decisions needed to be made.
So too Sohail, who it turned out would talk quietly about his life and worries with Qaseem, but only when no one was around to notice. After all, there was no way such a tough wrestling star could be seen to be hurting or weak. Nor would anyone else ever see him weep, his shoulders shaking with grief, tears flowing unchecked down his cheeks. Safer to be thought of as angry and aggressive rather than sad and soft.
While Sohail was alive, the older man would never have disclosed that Sohail talked to him. But now the large, muscular sports hero whose wrestling prowess had been enough to get stories about him into the paper was dead, and the person whose life had been saved by the sacrifice of his wanted to know why he would do such a thing. Qaseem decided that it was time to tell her as much as he knew and to help her find the rest.
"Charles, Qaseem asked me to come to his flat. His sister was there to make it all above board. Women do NOT go to men's flats in Kabul, not if they want to stay alive. He sat me down and this is what he said. I dunno if I got all the right words but this is the guts of it. 'Molly, do you remember what I said to you when you were so angry that Bashira was due to be married off so young? I said "Welcome to my country" and this is another one of those moments.
Sohail came from a very important, noble family. The men in his family are proud and strong and arrogant. They can trace their family line back to Genghis Khan. They have a longstanding tradition that the men all play Afghanistan's national game…Trouble was, the Taliban banned the game and executed lots of the top players. Others were made to run away and hide, sometimes for many years. That was what forced Sohail out of the wrestling clubs and the newspapers and into the Army as an ordinary soldier in a faraway place. The real reason he was wrestling was that he was training to join the senior team of Afghanistan's national sport. Some thought he was going to be the greatest player of this modern era. Wrestling made him even stronger."
Molly's eyes were faraway too as she replayed the conversation with her beloved friend and mentor.
"I think I got the words he said right, Charles, it were hard to remember the exact ones."
"You did fine. Qaseem would be proud to hear you talk like this."Charles was acutely tuned to her voice.
He knew what this game was. Once he had been allowed to watch a match when he was a special envoy to the north for the army during his second tour. He would never forget the noise, the smells, the skill levels of the forty or more players on the field, the excitement and rush he had felt. He had bloody loved it. It had touched something deep and primitive in his soul. He recognised that this game was the Afghani equivalent of the Bath rugby he loved and the West Ham football that was Molly's passion.
This game was ancient and could be traced back pretty much in its current form for thousands of years. It was the forerunner of polo, so loved by the English aristocracy. What an irony, he thought that this so-called primitive game could develop into something so thoroughly upper crust and exclusive in England
He couldn't stop himself any longer "I know what it is," excited as a small child, he called out "I've seen it and it's called Buzkashi and they don't use a ball or a puck, but a… Shit, it's bloody different, I'll say that much."
"That's what I thought when Qaseem told me that the two sides fight to get the carcass of a goat into a goal area. But they chop it's bleedin' head off first! I mean really! A goat!
'
