About the Night (6 page)

Elias stopped the car, and to her surprise, she realized they had already reached her building. The street was dark, the windows, too, but from a ground-floor apartment came the sound of a radio. He shut off the engine. The city was experiencing its nightly tension. He opened the iron gate for her, smiled, and bid her good night.

“I enjoyed myself with you very much,” she said in return with a smile. Then she was swallowed into the darkness of the building.

On her bed, still in her black dress but without her shoes, she sat for an hour, her heart with the man who had entered her life. Mostly, she could hear the way he said her name.

He rose from his bed to wash his face, opened the windows, took off his undershirt and put it on again, sneezed, covered himself up, closed the windows, tossed and turned trying to quiet his body, and sweated and kicked the blanket off until finally he decided to give up. Sleep had almost come, so near, his limbs heavy, his arms sprawled to the sides, and his breathing, which was often ragged, was tranquil. No mosquitoes buzzed in his ears, no gunshots of the Jordanian Legionnaires could be heard, and the bath he had taken before retiring for the night was soothing. His body was ready for slumber to come and collect him, and he had very nearly succumbed, letting his thoughts drop away and his eyelids grow heavy and feeling the sweetness of the sheets beneath him. But then, in a dastardly turn of events, that pleasant sleep slipped away a moment before he could give himself over fully.

It was three in the morning. His mother always said that when one could not sleep, one’s liver was bothered, since this was the time at which it performed its functions and was busy cleaning the body every night. This was why she ate her last meal of the day at six o’clock in the evening, something light and uncooked that would not disturb this important organ that needed her to sleep well so that it could prepare her body for the coming day.

Nadira Riani had adopted many health practices from observing her own body and from conversations she held with the Chinese and Malaysians her husband encountered in his tea travels. When he returned from afar carrying leaves that grew under the sun, she became convinced of their power. She learned about sleep suppressors and sleep inducers, detoxifiers, depressants, and antidepressants. Elias, who was open-minded about the ancient secrets of nature, encouraged her to broaden her knowledge. Millions of people around the world had been steeping leaves and healing themselves with them for thousands of years. He had no doubt that there was true benefit to be derived from tea leaves.

When sleep departed, Elias knew, it could not be returned by force. One could read, or work a little, and then it could be slowly induced to return and the alertness subdued. The night skies went back to the earth, and white haze hid the stars and made a blanket of gray that crouched overhead. The weather over the past few nights had been fickle, as if ruled by a capricious god. Hot and dry
khamsin
weather prevailed by day, with temperatures rising to nearly one hundred degrees Fahrenheit; then toward evening came a heavy rain shower that caused the sky to turn yellow before drenching the city. No cooling wind followed.

Elias had sequestered every word from their conversation in the car on the way back from Jaffa, when she had turned her face to him and asked, without preamble and in a near whisper, “What would you want?”

His heart jumped, and he needed a moment or two to recover. “You,” he said.

His answer sent her into a long silence on that journey across darkened roads.

Elias poured himself a glass of cognac. Had his answer that evening suited her? He had no idea. All they needed was time. Time to fortify what they had begun. Time for him to give her confidence. He lit a lamp and sat at his desk to open a stack of mail he had been too busy lately to tackle.

One letter, from Paul Ramsey, a British merchant he knew in London, began with a few lines of polite salutations, and then: “With regard to the increasing tension in your country, I would like to raise an interesting opportunity that will prove itself in the event that there is war in the region. I would like to offer my services as one who will provide regular deliveries of tinned fish and fruit, condensed milk, and even dried potatoes that can be obtained in Holland.” He ended the letter with regards to Elias’s father and with hopes of hearing back from him soon. Ramsey was assuming that these goods would be in demand and that prices would soar.

Elias passed his hand over the seal embossed on the letterhead, a schooner with the words “The Ramsey Company” beneath it. George did not wish to hear of company names or family seals; he put no stock in papers or contracts and only did business with people he liked. He would dismiss the people he did not care for politely or send them to other merchants.

This Brit has the right idea, Elias thought. That is the power of watchful commerce that foresees events and amasses goods in cellars until the markets empty out and people are desperate for food, even the kind that has been sitting in tins for years. But what did tinned foods hidden in the pantry have to do with him? He was bound to tea and the thousands of years of magic it trailed after itself. Every tea orchard was a gift of nature that brought a unique flavor with it. A tea’s aroma was born from the quality of the earth, from rainwater and the sweat of farmers. Elias thought that even if the British royal family sold him jams, they would not contain the hidden sweetness of tea leaves that had been fermented and dried in distant villages. He recalled being told by tea lovers that the singing of the tea pickers served as the fertilizer of choice.

Importing tinned foods seemed crafty to him, an exploitation of the current distress, easily enriching his own coffers due to the misfortune of others. He removed the letter from the top of the pile and filed it away in his memory, where he would allow it to settle.

Drops of rain began to fall from a carpet of clouds that looked like worn stuffing torn from the inside of an old armchair. Elias drained his glass and felt a pleasant warmth spread through his body. For a moment, he felt grateful for his insomnia because now he could dream about her while awake. He did not know if Lila had some pet name that people called her and, if so, who used it. He did not know what the room in which she slept looked like. Deep in his throat, an emotion took hold of him, apparently longing, and began to percolate there. He would write her a letter. No, he would send flowers—no, flowers are a cover-up for an icy personality. He would bring her the implements she would need to help bring the best flavor from tea. He would leave them on her doorstep or send that same delivery boy with a teapot, ceramic mugs, measuring cups, and a filter.

He needed to move lightly, no noisy sprints, just a slow, hesitant stroll that would allow her to refuse him while at the same time showing her that he knew she was different, that with her it would be absolutely unique. He would step in the tiniest increments because there was no need for haste. In the morning, he would go to the office and choose a blend of tea that would suit her, whatever his nose would tell him was right at that moment.

The delivery boy was waiting for him at the doorway of his office with a telegram from Istanbul. It took Elias a moment to remember Tarek Sharifi, advisor to the minister of commerce, a successful merchant well known in Turkey and abroad. Sharifi asked him to meet the Turkish consul in Jerusalem. The minister himself was behind the request.

Elias felt the first hunger pangs of the day. He liked it, this subtle sign that becomes irritable if not addressed. Just then, Munir came in, their employee, who was blessed with a sense for knowing exactly when to appear and when to make himself scarce, and he placed food he had just purchased—a loaf of bread, salted cheese, and a saucer with olive oil and ground hyssop—on Elias’s desk.

“Eat with me,” Elias said, but as usual, Munir declined and left his young employer to enjoy the morning repast alone.

Elias gained strength with each bite and treasured each one more than the last. The moment he felt the first sign of satiety, he stopped. This was how he ate, filling the tank to half-full, never letting it overflow.

When Munir cleared off his desk, Elias took a nap; then, restored, he sat at his typewriter to write a few letters that he would send out with Munir later.

Elias worked by intuition. “Just like your father,” his mother always pointed out. He learned numbers from accountants he no longer had use for and law from the family lawyers he felt free to ignore. He inherited his pleasant but sharp business acumen from George, along with his levelheadedness and ability to give up even a tempting deal. It was not difficult to do business with Elias: he decided one thing or another and put the process into action.

Late that afternoon Elias went to the American Colony Hotel as the telegram had requested. He was tired and slightly impatient. The Turkish consul began the meeting with elaborate and mannered expressions, but Elias cut to the quick: “I’m afraid I only have half an hour to spare you. I would like to know what it is you people were thinking about.”

“We want to sell you tea,” the consul said, coming quickly to the matter at hand.