The Ambassador's Wife (40 page)

Tazkia stands, fumbles in her purse, and pulls out a phone. “Text me from this tomorrow,” she says. “It is my sister's. You can give it back later.”

Finn pockets the phone. “Tazkia, nothing will happen to you,” he says. “I promise.”

DECEMBER 25, 2010

Finn

Finn watches his small daughter push her new car across the carpet and tries to smile. “Daddy!” she yelps with joy. “Look, look!” She has stuffed the car, which Finn had painstakingly carved from the ubiquitous Girl ghee tins (carefully curling down their sharp edges with pliers), with seven of her favorite bears. There are two Corduroys, a black bear, a blue bear on a key chain, and three stiff little brown bears in formal wear. Had he been alone, he would have avoided Christmas entirely. But he has a child. And children must have Christmas.

It was Christmas that made him first want children—many, many children. His Christmases with his parents had been happy but quiet. His father always put on King's College, Cambridge's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols while they opened presents and cooked his special Christmas breakfast of French toast stuffed with cream cheese, walnuts, and maple syrup (Canadian, naturally). It was pretty much the only day of the year that he cooked. His mother sat in her nightgown sipping tea until about noon, exclaiming with delight over every poetry book and silk scarf he gave her. But Finn had always longed for the happy ruckus of brothers and sisters and cousins that he read about in his books and heard about from his friends. “You're lucky,” said his friend Irwin, who had six older siblings. “Only one of us can open a present at a time so we have to wait ages to open all of them.” Still, Finn thought it must be wonderful to have siblings, even if they did borrow and break your toys. There would be someone to play with when your mother went back to her books and your father headed out to work a holiday shift to make double pay.

It surprised him to have reached such an advanced age without children, given how much he had always wanted them. But then, it had taken so long for him to meet Miranda. Now they might never have more, even if she did safely return. It had taken over a year for them to conceive Cressida. After the first several months, they had begun to worry. Had they left it too late? Could something be wrong?
Finn had volunteered to be tested first. “But it must be me,” Mira had said. “My age. I'll see a doctor for a blood test.” They had gone together to the Mazrooqi-German Hospital, Finn heading upstairs (trailed by four hulking shadows) to the urologist and Mira to the Russian gynecologist on the ground floor. Only Yusef had followed him to the door of the doctor's office, the rest of the men spreading down the tiled hallway outside, to protect him from any terrorist who might try to shoot his way into the examining room.

With little preamble, the doctor had handed him a little paper cup, the kind you drink orange squash out of at children's parties. “Take it home,” he'd said. “Bring it back here when you're done.” Given that the Residence was nearly a half-hour drive from the hospital, Finn had thought this an inefficient way to proceed. Surely the sperm would degrade or something on the ride back? Should they be exposed to air for so long?

“Don't you have a room here?” he'd asked. The doctor had looked up at him, his bushy, dark eyebrows drawn together with concern. This obviously was not a question he got very often. Yet a glance toward the door—and the armed men lurking behind it—had apparently reminded him that this was a patient to be indulged. “Follow me,” he'd said.

He had led Finn down the hall and knocked on a closed door. Another doctor, older, with silver hair slicked back from his forehead, had peered out. Behind him, Finn could see a small man clutching a sheet around his naked chest. “We need the room,” his doctor had said.
“For the ambassador.”
Finn had felt heat rising to his face as the silver-haired doctor swung open the door, took the arm of his patient, and helped him into a pair of slippers before pulling him into the hallway, still dressed only in a sheet. The patient's slack, sorrowful face had showed no surprise. This was the kind of treatment he expected from life.

“Sa'adat as-safir,”
the doctor had said, ushering Finn into the abandoned room. “Do you need anything?”

Mutely, Finn had shaken his head, his fingers in danger of crumpling the paper cup. Yusef had hovered in the doorway. Gently, he'd touched Finn's elbow. “Take your time, sir,” he said.

The doctor had shut the door.

It was hard to imagine a situation less conducive to masturbation, but he'd managed to cover the bottom of that cup. He had to, if only to make the little man's exile worthwhile. As Mira had predicted, there wasn't anything wrong with him. “I knew you had swimmers,” she'd said. But there wasn't anything especially wrong with her either. It was probably simply anxiety that had kept them from conceiving thus far. Still, she was older now, and a second miracle might be too much to ask.

She had been shocked that he wouldn't consider adoption, but he honestly felt that he could never love a stranger's child with its alien genes as much as he loved Cressie, child of his flesh. Wouldn't they always be worrying about what might lie hidden in a strange child's DNA? Genetic diseases, antisocial behaviors, inconvenient allergies—the possibilities were infinite. Every day scientists were discovering new ways in which our genes mold our personalities and behavior. At least with their own child there would be no surprises. Or at least fewer. It was the most serious argument he and Miranda had had in their short marriage. “It's just, you're so
good
with kids,” she'd said, uncomprehendingly. “At the children's Christmas party, you were like a kid
magnet
. Do you really mean to tell me you don't love those children?”

Of course he loved those children. But not as he loved his own. And it would not be fair to ask another child to live in the shadow of his uncomplicated love for Cressida.

H
E HAD DONE
his best to create a festive Christmas for his daughter, hanging the stocking Negasi had knitted for her in the
diwan
under the Star of David stained-glass window and helping her to make gingerbread Christmas biscuits to leave for Santa. While Finn's mother had made shortbread smothered in green and red hundreds-and-thousands, Miranda had always preferred gingerbread people. Not only people—she would make dinosaurs and complicated flowers and the Snow Queen from
The Nutcracker
, first drawing them on cardboard, then steering a knife through the dough to cut
around the shapes. She did this even before they had Cressida, and when their daughter was still too tiny to eat them. It amused Finn that Miranda was so averse to cooking a meal but would spend entire days on holiday cookies. Icing them involved a palette of twenty different colors. No one decorated gingerbread cookies like Miranda. They were miniature masterpieces. Eating them always felt deeply disrespectful. This year he and Cressie had stuck to simpler shapes: bells, stars, trees, little girls.

This was the first Christmas that Cressie could really appreciate; she had been less than a year old for her first one and had slept through most of it, thank god. He and Miranda had hosted a party for all of their friends remaining in the country over the holidays, including not only the obligatory British diplomats but also dozens of Miranda's friends from the Old City and her travels. There was too much food, too much champagne, too much dancing. No one had gone home until long after midnight, and the house had been a minor catastrophe. He and Miranda had fallen asleep on the floor by the faux fireplace, naked and entwined, until Cressida woke up hungry around 3:30 a.m. It was the best Christmas of his life.

This morning, he made Cressida a bastardized version of her grandfather's stuffed French toast, using brown sugar instead of maple syrup. Cressie had been too excited to eat much but seemed to appreciate his efforts, painting her cheeks with cream cheese. Wiping her face, Finn was seized by a spasm of grief; his parents will never know his daughter. She will never know them. In fact, Miranda's father is likely to be the only grandparent in her life. For the millionth time, he wished he came from a large family, with seven siblings, dozens of first cousins, aunts and uncles and grandmas galore. He was too alone in the world.

When Cressie had finished pulling all the small toys and books and a satsuma from her stocking, the two of them had spent the morning patting pastry into tins to make a dozen mince pies. It wasn't Christmas without mince pies. Miranda had her gingerbread cookies; Finn had his pies. While they were cooking, Finn had opened the bottle of champagne Negasi had smuggled over along with a Tupperware box of sausage rolls. By the time Cressie had finished opening
her gifts the champagne was nearly gone. Her grandfather had sent a packet of glow-in-the-dark stars through the diplomatic bag, and the Residence staff had all sent over small gifts of clothing and sweets. Tucker had stopped by after breakfast to present Cressie with a tiny bear dressed in the uniform of the Royal Military Police. “Your very own bodyguard,” he'd said. “May you never need him.”

Now, Cressie drives the car all over the
diwan
, losing and picking up bears along the way. Finn lies on his side, sipping the last of the flattening champagne and watching her determined little face.

“
Yalla! Yalla
, bears!” she cries. “We have to hurry.”

“Where are the bears going?” asks Finn idly.

Cressie looks up at him. “To find Mummy,” she says. Her voice is matter-of-fact, devoid of sadness or sentiment. Finn wonders what she remembers of her mother, if anything. When she says “Mummy,” does she still have an image of Miranda's face? Or has Mummy become an abstract concept? Finn talks to her about Miranda as much as he can, shows her photographs, trying to keep her from forgetting. Unsure of how to explain Miranda's absence, he has told her that her mother went for a walk and became lost. Kind of like Hansel and Gretel. Cressie always greets this story with an expression of such skepticism that he wonders if she believes any of it. “Mummies don't get lost,” she'd told him finally. “Ah,” he'd said, struggling for words. “But she must be lost, or she would have come back by now to find you. She would never choose to be away from you, therefore she must not be able to find her way home.” At this point usually Cressida's attention wandered and she went back to organizing her bears or collecting the tiny green raisins from the cracks of the kitchen linoleum.

Now he is so lost in thought, it takes him a minute to register the sudden silence. Cressida has wandered out of the
diwan
while Finn, heavy with the champagne, feels unable to move from the cushions. Shaking his head to clear it, he stumbles to his feet to find his daughter. It doesn't take long; the minute he steps out in the hallway he can see her little bare feet. She is lying facedown across the threshold of her room, arms akimbo, the new bodyguard bear clutched in her left hand, its beret already coming loose. When he reaches her, he can hear the reassuring sound of her congested snores. What time is it?
Past nap time, evidently. Bending over, he gently lifts his daughter, rolls her limp body toward his chest, and places her in her cot.

H
E AND
C
RESSIDA
are eating an early supper when they hear a banging at the gate, followed by the murmur of voices. Whoever it is has met Bashir's approval—a moment later Finn hears a voice calling from the courtyard. He runs down the steps barefoot and opens the door to a breathless Madina, her arms full of packages. “A few things Santa left at my house by mistake,” she says.

“Madina,” says Finn. “You're Muslim.”

“Yeah, so? He's a broad-minded guy. And don't forget my dad's Catholic. I think that entitles me, no?” She starts up the stairs ahead of him, pulling up the hem of her dragging
abaya
to reveal glittering red pumps. Santa, indeed.

“Mina!” Cressie is overjoyed to see their neighbor, abandoning her carrots to launch herself at Madina's knees.

“Merry Christmas,
habibti
! These are for you.” Madina carefully sets her stack of packages in the middle of the hallway and picks up Cressie to kiss her. Finn looks at the pile of boxes, all wrapped in glittering red and green paper. Where did they come from?

“They're from the girls,” Madina explains. “They left them with me, for all the usual reasons.”

Cressie is already investigating the boxes, pulling at the bows. “Open open open!” she says. Finn frowns at her. “Please?” she adds hastily.

“Okay,
habibti
, but upstairs, okay?” He and Madina carry the boxes up to the
diwan
and settle on the cushions to unwrap them. Finn tears off the paper of a square package the size of a place mat to find a small oil painting of a woman. She stands in front an easel, her curly hair held back by a green scarf. Smiling. A smile he recognizes. Finn turns the wrapping paper over to look at the card. Nadia. It's a good likeness. He realizes suddenly that he doesn't have any paintings of Miranda. Vícenta must have masses of them, but apparently she took them all home.

Cressida runs her fingers across the paint and looks up at Finn. “Mummy?”

“Mummy,” he confirms.

Together they unwrap the remaining paintings, Finn saving Tazkia's for last. Every single one is a portrait of Miranda. “I had some photos,” explains Madina. “So they worked from those.” There is a painting of Miranda standing outside of the Grand Mosque, her long white skirt and blouse billowing in the wind; one of her standing by an Old City produce stand, a fat yellow pomegranate in each hand; and one of her sitting meditatively in the
diwan
, almost precisely where he and Cressie now crouch. Tazkia's is slightly larger, rectangular. “Careful,” he says as Cressida tears at the wrapping. When he has unwound the layers of paper, he props the painting against a cushion. It's a dancing scene. Someone's wedding. Girls in gaudy sequined gowns populate the periphery, twirling, hands in the air or on their hips, their faces blurred and unrecognizable. In the center is Mira, in a familiar ankle-length emerald dress, holding on to the small hands of her daughter. Cressida, in a white lace dress he'd bought for her in London, is laughing up at her mother, her lips parted to show tiny white teeth. Mira gazes down at her daughter, smiling, as though there were no one else in the room.