Shake Off (17 page)

F
rom my hiding position I could see Helen approaching the entrance to the station through the large glass doors. There she was, in jeans and white T-shirt, Indian shawl around her shoulders, long legs, hair loosely tied, her runaway father’s wristwatch glinting in the sun. I had never before felt so happy to see someone. She was striding with purpose, a large kit bag slung over one shoulder. I pulled my cap down and waited for her to come through the doors, then saw, some twenty meters behind her, Professor Zorba. There he was, slicked-back hair, crumpled linen suit, bulging midriff, a newspaper in one hand. He was obviously following her; dodging behind pillars and stopping and starting like a bad parody of a private detective. The sight of him made my jaw tighten and my vision blur in anger.

Helen pushed through the doors, heading for the ticket office, passing just five meters away from me but so focused that she would not have seen me had I waved. It took all my willpower to avoid rushing out and hugging her. I concentrated on Zorba, who was approaching the doors. As he neared them I took off my jacket and swung my bag over my shoulder. I made sure that Helen was facing the counter, then ran forward and pushed the big glass door open hard as he approached it. It caught him full on the chest with the big metal door handle. The wind left him like a deflating set of bagpipes and he dropped to the pavement.

“Oh my God. I’m sorry. Are you OK?” I said, quickly bending down and applying a thumb to his windpipe, my hand covered by my jacket, the Stasi Beeskow training at last paying off. Unable to take in a badly needed breath, he started to panic and I let go for a second. “I think he’s OK,” I said to a concerned bystander. “He just needs to catch his breath.” Most people were too busy catching trains to stop. Besides, once they saw someone else looking after a fallen stranger, it absolved them of the need to do anything themselves.

I checked on Helen: she was at the counter. I pulled Zorba to his feet and half-dragged, half-pushed him over to a wall out of her view, where I held him up and reapplied pressure to his neck.

“I want you to listen to me,
malaka,
” I said into his hairy ear. “I want you to leave Helen alone. It’s finished between you and her. Go back to your wife.” I released the pressure and he took a deep breath, coughing and spluttering. “If I see you near her again I’ll fuck you upside down, do you understand me?” I said. He nodded, clutching at his neck, his eyes welling up. He was pathetic, and part of me wanted him dead. I hated him. Hated that he had lain on top of Helen, maybe even used the scarves on her as I had. I would easily have killed him if I thought I could get away with it. As a matter of fact, I could have got away with it, even with all these people walking past, so that wasn’t what stopped me.

I let go of him and he slumped halfway down the wall. I had to go, the train left in ten minutes. I couldn’t see the ticket office from where I was; hopefully Helen had already boarded the train. I started to leave when Zorba grabbed my sleeve and looked up at me. He rasped words out from his damaged throat.

“I hope she leaves you,” he said, with a little smile. He put his hand to his throat. “It will be more painful than this.”

He was tougher than I thought, I give him that. I left him bent over with his hands on his knees, dry-retching onto his suede shoes.

With Zorba indisposed, I went into the main hall and looked for the Glasgow platform: number five. I stood with my back to the entrance to platform four, checking my watch against the station clock. Five minutes. I scanned the main hall, no longer caring whether I was being obvious or not; by now they would know that I was carrying out overt counter-
​surveillance
. Try as I might, I could spot no one suspicious, although it wasn’t an ideal place to spot them, and my dealings with Zorba may have caused them to pull back. It wouldn’t do any harm for them to think I’d lost the plot. I moved to another platform entrance and did it again, then wandered onto platform three and watched people board a train. I checked the platform clock: three minutes. I went back into the main hall and walked slowly back towards platform five, stopping, looking up at the board and putting my bag down as if I had all the time in the world. I watched platform five through the entrance, looking for the guard to see what he was doing. A teenager with a rucksack ran onto the platform and got onto the train. No one else was embarking, and the guard put a whistle to his lips in readiness, looking at his watch, moving next to the barrier so he could close it before he blew his whistle. I bent on one knee and retied an already tied shoelace. While still on my knee I grabbed my bag handle, then stood up and walked briskly to the platform, all in one movement. The guard was starting to close the barrier as I went through. I made the first door of the train just as he blew the second of two long whistles. I got on and slammed the door shut, which coincided with the train jerking to life. My hands were shaking. I pulled down the door window and looked back at the departing barrier as the train started to pull out; I was definitely the last one on.

As the train ran out of platform, I saw two people standing behind the barrier. They looked very small at this distance and could have been absolutely anyone. If it was them, I didn’t care. They hadn’t tied me to Helen, that was the important thing.

I
didn’t know where to start with Helen: with the fact that I knew Zorba had been with her in Turkey, or the fact that I had just assaulted him, or the fact that I was an
undercover
PLO agent whose handler had been shot in the back of the head by persons unknown and was being followed by other persons unknown, possibly Israeli agents, who wanted an envelope that was sticking into my ribs? I wasn’t even sure where Helen stood on the Palestine issue; many people were ambivalent about the whole thing, believing at best that it was a two-sided problem with both sides equally to blame. At worst, they thought the Palestinians were terrorists who had no claim to anything, and that villages like Mama’s never existed to start with. Should I tell her that I had nobody to report to and nowhere to go? Or should I start from the beginning, with my upbringing, the camp, that I was not who I told her I was? Could I even begin to tell her about that terrible day?

All this churned in my head as I tracked Helen down on the train. The tickets were all allocated to specific seats, and she was wedged in the window seat by an overweight middle-aged man who had no doubt thanked the gods when he’d discovered who he was seated next to. She was staring out of the window, trying to avoid physical contact with the man, who overflowed from his seat. He was intent on verbal intercourse with her and I interrupted him in mid-sentence.

“Let her out, will you, she’s with me.” He looked up at me in annoyance. Helen’s face broke into a relieved smile. Stupidly, the man started to protest, as if there was something to argue about. I cut him off. “I’m not in the mood, believe me I’m not—I’ve had a difficult day, so just get out of your seat so she can get past.” I pulled Helen’s bag down from the overhead luggage rack.

“Where are we going?” she asked, when she had squeezed past the man.

“Somewhere more comfortable.”

Something had changed between us. We did not embrace or kiss. I still had Rachel on my skin and Zorba in my mind. She was full of questions and no doubt Zorba was still fresh on her skin. We collapsed into our first-class seats, Helen at the window. A steward took our orders for tea, coffee and sandwiches. We had a couple of seats on their own so we had the illusion of solitude, although there were people in the seats in front of us so real conversation was going to be difficult. I needed to know where we stood, so I kicked off in a low voice.

“Did you tell anyone you were going to Scotland?” I asked.

“No. But it was really no secret that I was going next week,” she said.

“Does anyone know where it is?”

“Most people know where Scotland is, Michel.” She wasn’t going to make this easy, and I couldn’t blame her.

“I mean your mother’s place, does anyone know where it is?”

“Apart from my mother? No.”

I took a deep breath through my nostrils and exhaled through my mouth. “What about your tutor?”

“Niki? I think he knows where it is, I’ve spoken about it, obviously. But no, he’s never been there, which I think is what you’re really asking.” Did that mean I was the first to be asked there? If I could believe her, of course; after Turkey, who knew what was true. “By the way, shouldn’t I be the one asking questions?” she asked. She was right, but I didn’t know where to start. I pointed to the seats in front and put a finger to my ear to indicate that we could be overheard.

“Have you got a pen and paper?” I asked. I had to get her bag down to retrieve a notepad, and then the coffee and food arrived. When we were settled back in our seats I told her to write her questions down. We didn’t touch the sandwiches except to determine that they were limp. She looked out of the window and so did I, switching between the view (a blur that was the outskirts of London) and her left ear, which had the small mole that I had taken for a piercing when I had first invited her into my room. She tapped the pen on the pad as she thought—I was thinking that I’d have to get rid of it afterwards; the idea of anything being written down made me break out in a sweat.

She wrote slowly on the pad and showed it to me: “What’s going on?” it said, in elegant handwriting.

“You need to be more specific,” I said.

She pulled a face and thought, then wrote again. “Who trashed your room?”

I took the pen and pad and wrote, “Israeli agents—Mossad, I think.”

“Really?” she said out loud, with a mix of incredulity and worry.

“I think so. I can’t be sure. I’d have to speak to them to find out, but I’m not that keen.”

She didn’t smile.

“But what were they doing in your room?”

I hesitated, but decided it had to be done, and it was easier done writing it down than saying it. “Because I work for the PLO and have something they want.”

She frowned and took the pen. “But you told me you were Lebanese???” The question marks were super-sized.

I took the pen. I was drenched in sweat and it wasn’t the heat.

“No, I’m Palestinian, but I was born in Lebanon.” Then I wrote, “This is very difficult for me.”

“It’s no fucking picnic for me,” she said loudly.

“I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my voice low.

She took the pen and wrote quickly, tossing the pad into my lap. I picked it up. The elegant script had turned into a scrawl.

“FUCK YOU. Arsehole,” it read. She turned to the window. We watched the outside go by for a while. It was as if the train was standing still and the whole world was hurtling past us. I started to feel dizzy with it and had to actively correct the illusion. She picked up the pad and wrote for a while. When she was done, she passed it to me without looking at me. I took it and read: “You tricked me into getting on the train. You knew that if we’d had this conversation beforehand I’d be on this train alone. You lied to me, and have lied to me all along.” I shook my head but she snatched the pad back and wrote, “By the way, are you a terrorist?”

“No, I’m not,” I said. I wrote on the pad quickly, trying to match the speed I wanted to speak it, “I am not a terrorist. I had to lie to you—it was the only way if I was to carry on being with you, WHICH I WANT TO DO. I didn’t lie about anything that matters, like how I feel. This is the truth. It’s all that matters now, the rest of it we can sort out.”

She took the pad and read it. I watched her but gained no clues as to her reaction. She reached out for the pen and I placed it in her hand. She wrote, more slowly this time, tilting the pad so I could see it.

“How do I know that you’re not just using me because you’re in trouble?” I read. She looked at me, moving her face up close to mine with the question formed in her eyes.

“You don’t,” I said. “But I’m not.”

T
o my relief we didn’t dawdle at Glasgow Central. It was straight out of the station to the car in which Helen’s mother Sarah was sitting at the wheel, smoking. Because she had double-parked we set off immediately, and introductions were done as she drove us west out of Glasgow. She was a poet, Helen had told me on the train, as light relief from our other discussions, which we’d agreed to postpone until we had more privacy. I told her that everyone thought they were a poet. No, said Helen, she was published and well reviewed. Sarah was an attractive-looking woman—more so in some ways than Helen. She had her hair much longer, but it had gone completely grey and looked as though she hadn’t combed or washed it for several days, giving her a wild look. She caught my eye in the rear-view mirror and smiled. The warmth of it dissipated my pent-up anxiety of the last few days, as if I’d been given permission to feel tired. I wondered why Helen’s father would leave such a woman.

We drove west for an hour, until we reached the shore, and stopped at a small ferry terminal. Out on the loch (“It’s not called a lake, Michel”) I could see the ferry, a small blob that appeared to grow bigger while remaining in the same spot. The Scots pronounced the “ch” in loch as Arabs pronounced the “kh” in Khoury. I left Helen and Sarah chatting, and stretched my legs while checking for people from the train and memorizing car models and number plates and faces; anyone following us would have to catch the same ferry.

Looking at the mountains on the other side of the loch reminded me that I had never been in the countryside before. I had always left one city only to land in another, spending the distance in between airborne. From Beirut to Nicosia, from Nicosia to Berlin, both East and West. From Berlin to Moscow, then back to Berlin. From Berlin to London, with trips to Paris, Geneva, Milan, Oslo, Athens and other cities in Europe, sometimes not even leaving the airport. I had been to Beeskow outside Berlin to learn how to defend myself with my bare hands, but except for that I had never been outside a major urban setting. I had never been on a boat either. Helen and I went to the front “It’s called the bow, Michel”), although this bow was flat and the water had a hard time pushing past the steel face that when let down became a car ramp. We tentatively held hands, both feeling our way.

“The bow is usually pointy, Michel.”

Irritated, I told her that I had seen boats before, and came from a seafaring people.

She laughed and squeezed my hand. It was the first time she had laughed since we had left London, and it was good to hear. On the other side of the loch Sarah drove until we passed just trees and rock. The road rose and became narrow and steep and we had to stop to let the occasional car coming the other way pass by. Obviously, I was going to be reliant on Helen and her mother to get around since I couldn’t drive. The only public transport, according to Helen, was a daily bus to and from the nearest town, which itself was several kilometers from their house. Thirty minutes later we were going down instead of up, and I could see incredible views of the water through the gaps in the trees. Then we were on narrow roads again and it was getting dark. Helen and Sarah had gone quiet, Sarah occasionally opening her window to smoke. I dozed in the back.

When we stopped, I learned that nighttime in the country is not like nighttime in the city; it is completely dark. It would have been impossible to see at all if not for the light given off by the stars. And the sky was full of stars, too many for me to take in at once. I craned my neck to see them, and the more I looked the more were revealed. I heard a rhythmic roar in the background; it came and went, like someone repeatedly dragging something over gravel.

“Michel,” it was Sarah’s low, cigarette-damaged voice, “help me with this shopping. Helen’s fallen asleep.”

Inside the house, I helped unload groceries in the small kitchen. Sarah put a large pan of water on the stove.

“Put some lights on, Michel.”

I obeyed, going into the front room and putting on a floor lamp. There were no harsh overhead lights, everything was indirectly and softly lit, every bulb subdued with a dark shade. It smelled both of stale cigarette smoke and the inside of a Greek Orthodox church. It was like a bigger version of Helen’s room in Tufnell Park. Throws and cushions were everywhere. One wall was covered in a mess of books. French windows opened onto a wooden deck—I unlocked them and stepped outside for some clean air. And what air it was. I was hit by the salty smell of the sea. The source of the roaring became apparent; the house was practically on the beach. Although I couldn’t see it clearly, the sea was ebbing and flowing in the distance, and I could just make out the white line where the water kept breaking on the shore. Sarah joined me on the deck, holding two big glasses of red wine. She gave me one and I took it, not wanting to break the spell. We stood together, listening to the water, looking out over the dark beach. She had put a shawl around her shoulders, and she stood close enough for it to touch my arm.

“Should we wake Helen?” I asked.

“You’ll like it here, it’s my refuge from reality,” she said, ignoring my question. She lit a cigarette. “I hope you’ll be able to rest for a few days; there are very few people around so you’ll get plenty of privacy.” I wondered how much Helen had told her. We stood for a while, the glass growing heavy in my hand. I could smell the tannins coming off the wine. I was acutely aware of Sarah beside me. I felt safe. Then
Helen
’s sleepy voice called from inside the house.

“There you are,” Helen said, stepping onto the deck. I felt guilty and stepped away from Sarah, as if I had been caught doing something improper. “Mother, we haven’t been here two minutes and you’re already corrupting him.” They both laughed at some private joke, and Helen took the wine glass from me. “I told you, he doesn’t drink.” I gave them a stupid grin.

We ate pasta by candlelight in the small kitchen. Helen and her mother finished the bottle of wine between them and opened a second. I observed the similarities in the two women’s facial expressions, the way they pushed back their hair, how they favored one side of their mouth for smiling. I detected an edginess between them, a tension apparent in the comments passed off as jokes and in the forced jollity of Helen’s tone—her face had set in a permanent grin. I assumed this was to do with their shared history. It came to me as I watched them that Helen’s father could have been driven away rather than pulled away. Sarah appeared to be such a strong woman, and that didn’t sit well with some men. I caught her once or twice studying me over the candles as Helen talked of her thesis and her trip to Turkey, and the lambency of the light and her unkempt grey hair made her look like a white witch. When I came back into the kitchen after using the toilet they were having a whispered argument which stopped as soon as they saw me.

“Mother and daughter stuff, Michel, terribly boring,” Sarah said, getting up and clearing the plates. I hoped that Helen wasn’t confiding too much in her mother, but I gained no clues from either of their expressions.

After dinner Helen and I went out onto the deck and down some wooden steps onto the beach. She took her sandals off and flung them back onto the deck.

“The tide is out,” she said, and ran off ahead of me into the darkness.

“Helen,” I whispered, inexplicably worried about shouting in the dark wilderness. I ran after her until her footprints were no longer visible. I could only see a few meters ahead of me. I had moved away from the sea and was rising onto softer sand mixed with grass. It grew in clumps with spiky tips and I lost her trail. I caught a glimpse of white ahead. I headed towards it, cursing the grass, wondering how she had come through here barefoot, not realizing that it was easier than in shoes.

I came across her lying spread-eagled on the sand, looking up at the sky. She was naked.

“I’m glad it’s you,” she said. “For a second I thought it might be that well-hung brute of a butcher’s son again—he wanders about these dunes at night and it’s difficult to fight him off.”

“Again?” I looked around, as if he might be hiding in the grass. She laughed, but it wasn’t her usual laugh.

“You’re so easy to tease,
ma belle
. Come here and get naked.”

I sat near her on the sand. “You’re drunk,” I said.

“I think I might be entitled, don’t you? My boyfriend could be a terrorist.”

“I’m not a terrorist,” I said, but I was pleased with the term “boyfriend.”

“But that’s exactly what you’d say if you were one.” She moved her arms and legs in arcs, making smoothed segments of sand underneath them and a ridge of it between her thighs. “Do you want to fuck under the stars?”

I would never get used to her crudeness. I shook my head, I needed to sleep; and besides, I could never do it out here.

“It’s my mother, isn’t it?” She looked up at the stars. “You’d prefer it if she was out here.” I kept my mouth shut and stood up. I knew better than to argue with a drunk woman, especially about her mother. “I bet you like older women—all that sagging flesh. You Mediterranean boys are all attached to your mothers.” I thought of Mama and worked my jaw. Then I thought of Zorba, old enough to be Helen’s father. I wanted to say something hurtful about his sagging flesh, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Maybe if I drank I could—alcohol seemed to make hurting other people much easier.

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

“I think I’ll wait for the butcher boy and his sausage.” She giggled. I moved into the darkness, hopefully in the direction I’d come from.

“Michel! Wait, please,” she said, sounding less brash. I stopped and looked around. She was struggling into her dress, pulling it down over her head, and I felt a surge of desire that I hadn’t felt when she was lying with her legs apart on the sand. She tugged the dress over her hips and walked up to me, stuffing her white panties into my pocket. We walked along for a bit before she put her arm through mine.