The Ambassador's Wife (30 page)

“Leo, not to sound paranoid or anything, but has he ever actually hurt anyone? I get that you all protect each other's indiscretions and all, but is that really all it is, that he's a player?”

Leo tilted his head toward the corner of the house, and they moved farther away from the others, who fortunately were far more interested in counting up their boxes than eavesdropping.

“I didn't tell you this, but he was short-toured from Manila—supposedly for health reasons, but rumor has it he was spending a little too much time with the bar girls.”

“And that's an issue? For the FCO, I mean?”

“A huge issue. It's a major security risk. And because he's married, it means he's also blackmailable.”

“Oh.” That hadn't even occurred to Miranda. “So he's been good since then?”

“Well, there aren't any bar girls in Mazrooq.”

“Or Afghanistan, I guess.”

Leo looked slightly surprised. “Was he there?”

Miranda nodded. “The same time as Finn.”

Leo's face stilled, as if it was trying not to give away his thoughts.

“Well,” he said finally. “I'm sure you'll be fine as long as you don't accept his invitations to come upstairs and take a look at his etchings.”

“He doesn't strike me as an art collector type.”

“Depends on your definition of art. He's got a few framed portraits of dogs playing poker.” Miranda laughed. “But to answer your question, no, I don't think he would hurt you. He wouldn't have the job he did if he was really a threat to anyone. He's good at his job.”

“That's comforting.”

“Glad I could be of use.” He smiled at her.

“You're not just being nice because you caught a glimpse of our single-malt collection, are you?”

He laughed, the lines of his face slackening. “I'm being nice to you because you're the boss's wife. But I won't deny that the Glenmorangie caught my eye.”

“Why don't you come round for a drink Friday? Since you're intent on defending my honor and all. We thought we might have a few people over for cocktails. Tucker, a few other armed men.”

A shadow still flickered behind his eyes, but he smiled. “Consider my arm twisted.”

B
Y THE TIME
Miranda was finished organizing Finn's order, people were starting to shift boxes through the gates and into cars and trucks. Momentarily abandoning her stash, Miranda helped Sally fill her Land Cruiser with Scotch, gin, and the no longer missing boxes of Caliterra. “How've you been?” asked Sally. “They letting you out at all?”

“This is the first time I've left the house in six days.”

“I've done it, mate. I can't think of any other time in my life I've actually not left the home for several days running. Can you imagine never leaving your flat in London?”

Miranda couldn't. Not that she'd ever had a flat in London. But she cannot remember spending even one entire day in her Seattle apartment, the small loft she and Vícenta shared in her former life. It was, of course, a bit easier to stay home all day when one had fifteen or so rooms at one's disposal, as well as a cook, yoga videos, and a vast library. She'd never painted and read as much in her life as she had in the past few months. The mornings were spent at her easel, and her afternoons methodically working her way through her back issues of
ARTnews
and an assortment of unfinished artist biographies. This was the kind of thing she'd dreamed about, back when she worked fifty hours a week teaching and preparing for teaching while trying to keep up with her own painting.

When Sally's car was full, she and Miranda helped the others haul their boxes into waiting vehicles. Though no one but Sally, Tucker, and Leo addressed Miranda directly unless it was about Finn's order, she kept smiling inanely at people and lugging their boxes until they were forced to offer grudging thanks. An hour or so later, when all the staff cars were full, she joined the assembly line of management staffers passing boxes into Land Cruisers destined for the club. The weight of the boxes felt satisfying in her arms. Yoga and swimming had kept her fairly strong, and her limbs craved movement. “I'm grateful for the exercise, actually,” she said to no one in particular, “given that the gym is closed.”

“Can't
you
go?” This from Violet, the freckled, deeply suntanned floater temporarily filling in for a management staffer on vacation. Miranda was intrigued by the idea of a floater, a diplomat who spent part of her career filling in for absent staff, moving to a different post every few weeks. A terrific way to see the world, and a terrific way to kill any chance of long-term romance, Violet told her. A relative stranger in their midst, she was probably the only person who would openly ask Miranda if she were obeying the ban on gym visits.

“I'm not allowed!” She spoke loudly, wanting people to know that she did not consider herself above the rules, despite the fact that the embassy gym and pool were in her backyard.

“Yeah, but who would know if you sneaked over?” teased Violet. “Who would see you?”

“The neighbors,” said Miranda, a bit defensively. “The guards. But I haven't gone!”

“It's your house.” Violet shrugged. “I imagine you can do what you want.”

It was the first time anyone had referred to the Residence as her house. Anyone other than Tucker and Finn, that is.

“Well, I don't,” said Miranda. “Frankly, I don't think I'm in any position to be bending the rules.”

“I'd go, if it were me,” said Violet, swinging a box of Speckled Hen into Miranda's waiting arms. “I've been doing kickboxing videos, but they just don't cut it.”

Leo backed the car they'd been loading into a parking space and pulled up another next to the boxes.

“Why is it suddenly just the women left?” said Antoinette, witness to Miranda's treadmill incident. Miranda glanced down the assembly line. It was true, the only men around at the moment were Leo, who was getting out of the car, and Tucker. Norman had vanished hours ago. And where was Camilla? Miranda hadn't seen her since she'd offered everyone lime juice early in the day. “Where'd everyone else go?”

“Club?”

“Bishops Finger?” said Miranda as Antoinette handed her a box. “That's the real name of a beer?”

“Careful, that one leaks.”

“I can smell it.”

“The Bishops Finger stinks!” said Violet, and everyone giggled.

When two cars were full, Leo and Tucker drove them to the club while the women walked. Mukhtar, who had been sitting in front of the gate with Leslie's guard, trailed behind them. A few more men reappeared at the club, and it didn't take long to unload both cars, especially given that the men were showing off their incredible strength by balancing towers of four crates at a time in their arms as they staggered to the storeroom. Miranda could manage two, but she wasn't interested in risking injury or damaging anyone's machismo by attempting more.

They carried a total of six carloads of alcohol into the club. Abdullah, her cross-dressing, teetotaling Mazrooqi-Vietnamese bartender, helped them carry the crates, sweating profusely.

“Abdullah, you're fasting!” said Miranda. “Why don't you just let us do it?”

But Abdullah would not be dissuaded, puffing alongside them until the entire shipment was unloaded. All without food or water. When their cars were empty, he let them all into the refrigerators behind the bar, to pull out water and Cokes.

There was a brief conference about what to do next. “Let's do the Residence, then load Leslie's things into his house,” said Leo.

“And then let's have a beer,” said Leslie.

Miranda was elated. She had thought that she and Tucker would have to load in the entire order themselves, unable to imagine any of the staff wanting to help her. To have all these people from the embassy coming along with her to help her move their boxes flooded her with gratitude. Lydia came, and Leo, Tucker, Violet, and Antoinette, though Leslie disappeared somewhere along the way. Miranda ran ahead to warn the guards and unlock the door, and they formed a chain into the house. Their gardeners, Yonas and Semere, rushed to join them. In no time at all, they'd erected a boxy tower of happiness in the middle of the hallway carpet.

They practically sprinted to Leslie's, poor fasting Mukhtar panting along behind them. Damp and streaked with grime, they didn't sit in the white-upholstered living room but crowded around the kitchen counter, leaning or sitting on stools as Leslie passed around Heinekens. The beer was warm, having sat in a warehouse on the coast for the last couple of months, but they sipped it as ecstatically as though it were Veuve Clicquot. Miranda twirled on her stool next to Leo, giddy at drinking in the same room as people who had been avoiding sharing space with her for more than a year, listening to them talk about cars, housecleaners, and holidays in France. And for the first time, she felt that she deserved to be there.

Almost simultaneously, she felt an acute pang of nostalgia for the parties she and Vícenta had thrown in Seattle, their Belltown loft overflowing with painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, writers—gay, straight, transsexual. There was always someone playing the guitar, tipsy girls shedding half their clothes and dancing, a messy-haired poet earnestly explaining Rimbaud to a wide-eyed student. When they got tired of their company, she and Vícenta would retreat to their bedroom and play Exquisite Corpse, pretending to be Surrealists, pretending to be Remedios Varo and friends. She loved the happy chaos. The lack of a dress code. The creative endeavors hatched over a 3:00 a.m. glass of whiskey. The total impossibility of shocking anyone. She wondered now if someday she and Finn could have parties like that. Someday when he was no longer an ambassador, when they had found a home in an exotic yet affordable land, and were no longer
subject to Islamic or Foreign Office restrictions. There were artists everywhere, after all. It was possible, wasn't it?

NOVEMBER 2010

Miranda

Miranda stares up into the darkness of her new prison, unable to close her eyes, unable to sleep. How can she ever rest again? She welcomes the discomfort of the rough stone beneath her back, the throbbing pain in her head and ankle; she deserves nothing softer. Her arms flop empty at her sides, and her damp shirt sticks to her skin. A despair that she has managed to keep at arm's length over the last months has descended, has filled her with its poison, has begun to consume her mind. How could she have been such a fool? Of course she and Aisha had been watched. Of course they had.

She had made it only a few yards before she felt the blast hit her ankle like a hammer blow. When she landed on that foot the pain had brought her down, her legs folding underneath her as she twisted to keep from crushing Luloah. A cry had gone up, a man's voice and then Aisha's. Then pounding feet and hands grabbing at her, dragging her back down the road and toward the camp. Aisha's voice had risen in a wail. “What have you done?” she'd said over and over. “What have you done?”

With rough hands, Aisha had loosened the sling enough to pull the wailing Luloah free. “Take her away,” the man had ordered.
“Please,”
Miranda had begged. “Please, she needs me. Please, don't take the baby. She will die.”

“If she dies it is because of you.” The man was slight, with a faint mustache and tattered turban. His eyes were glittering and cold, unreachable. “You would steal her from her home.”

“You have stolen me from mine.” Any caution Miranda had had left dissolved when the bullet struck her ankle. She had wept, wept with her lungs and her heart, wept with her shoulders and belly. Unmoved, the man had prodded her with the butt of his rifle. “Get up,” he'd said. “Move now.” When she had failed to rise, her body
limp on the ground, he had lifted the rifle and struck the back of her head. And then she was unable to rise even had she wanted.

S
HE DOESN
'
T KNOW
exactly where she is, though it cannot be too far from Aisha's hut, as the old woman still comes to bring her food and water and change the rags wrapped around her swollen ankle. The room is tiny, made of cinder blocks, airless and dark. Now there is a lock on her door. She is not allowed outside, not even to shit. Aisha has given her a tin bucket for that purpose; it festers in a corner. Gone is the pad of paper and the pencils. Even Luloah is not allowed to stay for longer than the length of a feeding. Only now does Miranda realize how Luloah had protected her, insulated her from isolation and loss. Without the child, she is left with nothing but the outrage of her body and the stark horror of her situation.

The men want to kill her. She has heard them say it, scream it outside her hut, arguing with Aisha.
Laa laa laa!
Aisha responds. No no no! She is worthless to us, the men say. We can't get money for her. Why should we feed her when we can barely feed ourselves? She is
haram
. She is pure evil. We need to make a point. Yes, Aisha concurs. Yes, but wait. Wait until the baby is older. She still cannot survive. We need her for the baby. We must keep the baby alive. And finally, grudgingly, the men agree to a little more time. An unspecified amount of time.

What point are they trying to make? Have they chosen her because she is American, or because she is Finn's wife? Which is the greater crime? Or—is it possible they know about Vícenta? And then something even worse occurs to her. Could they know about the women? Or about her private sessions with Tazkia? After all, the guards had seen Tazkia entering and leaving the Residence. She was always completely covered, but Mazrooqis are good at identifying each other by details Westerners might overlook. A characteristic gait, the shape of a purse, the nervous tic of a wrist. It is entirely possible that although Tazkia never gave her real name at the gate, the guards knew who had been visiting and what she might have been taught.