"Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven " - читать интересную книгу автора

were they now, those Russians? His feet would not obey him, Sayeed fell many
times, crawled in the snow. He would freeze to death in the mountains and
his clan would come to an end, unavenged. What a stupid death. Why had he
not fallen in the last battle, why had he not gone straight to Paradise?
Sayeed Mohammed is an upstanding Muslim, he obeys the Koran, he prays five
times a day, he fights against the infidels, he knows that a mujahideen has
nothing to fear, that the holy war - jihad - is a direct road to Paradise.
That is what his older brother Ali had always said.
Ali had come back from Pakistan a completely different person. No
longer an impoverished, cowering village lad in galoshes, but confident,
wearing leather shoes with laces, in new clothes, with a submachine gun, a
wad of afghanis and a string of lazuli worry-beads in his hands. Oh, those
beads! It seemed as though the smoothly polished mineral absorbed all the
blueness of the Afghan skies. Ali nibbled a sugar cube, sipped tea and
clicking the beads spoke about Pakistan, about the jihad, about Ahmad Shah
Massoud, about the bloody regime in Kabul, about the hated shuravi who
wanted to enslave Afghanistan.
In time, Ali headed a whole unit, he was respected and somewhat feared.
Ali had made a lot of trouble for the infidel before being killed, sent many
Russian soldiers to their death. Ali had died like a real hero, in battle.
He slipped away from the Russians, brought his squad out of encirclement and
even managed to send the Russians a last greeting from Allah by cutting off
a whole group and giving them one hell of a pounding. He would have killed
them all if Russian reinforcements had not arrived. Ali became a martyr, and
that meant his soul went straight to Paradise, easily and painlessly, not
like those of other people, it just broke away from his body and flew off,
and now he was there, above the leaden sky, where it is always warm, where
it never snows, where there is a bounty of fruits and flowers, where
everyone drinks wine and loves beautiful women. In Paradise, a Muslim is
allowed all that was forbidden on earth. And Sayeed Mohammed would follow
Ali, he would not live to see his fifteenth birthday.
War is good. What would life be without war? He would never see
anything except his native village, toil all day, be hungry and sick. The
war had brought Afghanistan much grief, but it also made Sayeed one of the
mujaheddin, a warrior of Allah! Now all that was in the past. ....

The submachine gun pained his shoulder. How can a child's hands manage
it! It is not easy to compete with adults. His bullets did not reach the
mark, fell into the dust. Shame! Shameful enough to bring tears. They would
all laugh at him. Was it possible that this time, too, he would not kill
anyone? There they are, Russian soldiers, so close! They aren't shooting
back any more. They're out of ammunition. They're retreating from the
village. The mujaheddin are shooting accurately from all sides. One down,
now another. The third would be dead any moment now, and that would be all,
the fun would be over. He must hurry! Sayeed Mohammed braced himself,
targeted the third shuravi, pulled the trigger and wounded him in the left
leg. Finally! Yes, it was his bullet that found the soldier. No doubt about
it! The soldier fell, looked back, got up and lurched away. At Ali's command
the mujaheddin ceased fire, leaving the soldier to Sayeed Mohammed. He's
your game! He won't get far. Finish him off! The mujaheddin rose to their