The First Stone by Carsten Jensen

Author:Carsten Jensen [Jensen, Carsten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

14

They’re met with the smell of smoke and grilled meat, of spices and dusty camel wool, of urine, sweat, and something that might be perfume, a distillate of bodily excretions, and at the same time a rancid odor of sex and desert blossom. The day is surprisingly hot. The street’s powdery dust dances around their feet like a cloud tethered to the ground. Blue smoke billows between the boarded-up houses. People are shouting and patting each other on the back, a discomfiting physical proximity that the soldiers would normally never expose themselves to.

Viktor left Dennis and Sebastian as guards on the roof. They glance down at the street scene, irritated that they can’t join in. Their usual alertness is momentarily shut down. They were never supposed to experience this country—and now they are.

Adam and Camper are standing by a bonfire and staring at some spit-roasted lamb. Someone offers Simon a piece of cloth whose use he can’t determine. It’s not a scarf or a burka, nor is it a man with encouraging eyes who’s holding it out to him, but a woman showing her face beneath a midnight-blue shawl. Her flowing henna-colored hair falls down upon her chest. Reaching out, he tests the weight of the fabric. It’s thicker than he had expected. Maybe it’s some kind of dress.

The woman sticks three fingers in the air and says a word. Simon assumes it must be the price. He doesn’t know any Afghan languages, so he shakes his head. The woman sticks two fingers in the air while nodding insistently. Simon suddenly realizes it’s the first time he’s stood across from a woman with her face exposed in a completely everyday situation. That would never happen in Girishk. He feels like a typical tourist. He gets the crazy idea that he might buy a souvenir. I bought this while we were hunting for Schrøder.

Then he feels something poking his back.

Hannah, who’s still on the roof, is sitting with her forearms resting on her knees and staring straight ahead. Sara is at the opposite end of the flat roof. She hasn’t moved since Hannah struck her. Zuy stands a ways off, closer to Hannah than his mother. Sara stares intently at the neighboring rooftop.

Hannah follows her gaze. Armed men are popping up all over the roofs, some of them quite close, others farther away. Their flowing robes flutter in the wind. They’re wearing black turbans and holding automatic rifles ready to fire. They stand completely still, as if waiting for their adversaries to make the first move. They must have come up from the courtyard the soldiers thought they had searched.

Hannah jumps up. Dennis and Sebastian could easily fire off a few rounds, but they’re too easy a target.

Someone yells from down in the street. “Don’t shoot! Surrender! They have us!” It’s Steffensen’s voice, hoarse and somewhat broken.

Dennis and Sebastian get down on their knees and lay aside their rifles, all the while keeping an eye on the turbaned men. Now the

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