The Ambassador's Wife (41 page)

DECEMBER 8, 2010

Miranda

It has been six days. She counts them now, unnerved by how unmoored she has become in time. It is so hard to keep track in a country with no familiar seasons. Six days that Luloah has been without her. Six more days plus several months Cressida has been without her. Every morning, afternoon, and evening after she has finished her allotted cup of tea, Miranda compresses her engorged breasts, taking care to keep her dirty hands from touching her nipples, squeezing milk into the cup. She drinks it herself. She has never heard of a mother drinking her own breast milk, but it couldn't hurt. And it will
keep the milk coming a little longer. Just in case. Hope is a resilient little beast. You can bludgeon it with reality within an inch of its life, and somehow it drags its mutilated body up from its earthen deathbed and goes on.

The nightmares have returned. It wasn't long after she moved in with Finn that Miranda began dreaming horrors that left her panting and sweaty. They weren't mysterious or difficult to interpret. In the first dream she remembered, she was getting on a plane in Texas, a state Miranda had never had any inclination to visit (except maybe Austin. She wouldn't mind going to Austin someday). Her host, who was to take her to the airport, made her late by taking her on a tour of an oil refinery. By the time she found a clock, she had only an hour to get to the airport and onto the plane to Mazrooq. There was no way she could make it. Her host, a tanned, amiable older man, did not seem worried. But he obligingly hustled Miranda to the airport. As she was checking in with two women at the gate, they conferred with heads bent together before turning to her. “Look, we're not supposed to do this,” they said. “But we like you. Don't get on this flight.”

She looked at them in alarm. “Suspected terrorists.”

They nodded. “And several armed men.” The small plane was to be packed with air marshals. Miranda looked at her host, who nodded. She realized he was an air marshal, and was one of the armed men protecting the flight. “This is why you wanted me to miss the plane,” she said.

“Yes.”

But she got on. Because at the end of the flight was Finn.

I
N HER DREAMS
she was often naked, her clothing constantly disappearing. She would put on black skirt over black skirt, and they would dissolve into the air. Men were knocking at the door, and she could not cover herself in time. Even in her dreams, she could not protect herself from men. Finn never appeared in her dreams, staying just out of reach. Either she could not get home to him or he could not get home to her.

Only in the months before her capture had the dreams subsided,
had she relaxed into her life. Now everything for which she has been grateful is gone. Her love, her daughter, her work, her home, her little Luloah. (For if Luloah was not hers, whose was she?) She still has her life, she supposes. If you can call this life. And relative health, all things considered. She is filthy, covered with insect bites, some of which have become infected sores, and her skin seems to be turning gray. But nothing serious. No, the only serious injury is the evisceration of her heart.

Before Finn, Miranda had contemplated having a child but never longed for one. Her biological clock had been faulty, ticking too quietly for her to hear. She and Vícenta had discussed the possibility of a baby from time to time, but neither of them had felt strongly enough to actively pursue it. They were so involved with their work, their friends, and each other. It had felt like enough.

At first it had felt like that with Finn. There was no intimation that their life together was lacking in any way. He was enough. They were enough. They traveled, they stayed in bed for entire afternoons, they read plays and poetry aloud, they took seven-hour treks in the mountains. It was he who had first broached the subject of a child, one weekend in Istanbul as they lay naked in bed demolishing the free fruit platter. “I'm happy with our life the way it is,” he'd said. “And I could be happy with our life together forever. But I wonder if we wouldn't enjoy raising a little person together.”

Miranda had paused mid-grape to look at him. He had been smiling, his tone free from anxiety or urgency.

“Finn,” she'd said. “You're not a morning person.”

“True. But if I can manage to get out of bed on time for work, surely I could rouse myself for something—someone—slightly more important?”

So they had pulled a sheaf of hotel stationery onto the bed and written up a list, Pros and Cons.

Pros: Free entertainment. Unconditional love. The chance to observe human development up close. Opportunity to buy limitless stuffed animals and reread favorite children's books.
Harriet the Spy
;
A Wrinkle in Time
; and
The Lion, The
Witch and the Wardrobe
. Lego. Fulfillment of biological destiny. Contribute a new member to the Democratic Party (Miranda). Add voter to the Green Party (Finn). Someone to visit the nursing home and make sure we don't get bedsores in our dotage. A reason to sing in public without shame. People will stop asking us when we will have kids. Christmas.

Cons: Travel more difficult. Life more expensive (though not here). Diapers/Nappies. Environmentally unsound. Early mornings (not an issue for Miranda, who always wakes with the light). University tuition. Child would eventually be a teenager with access to Facebook. Bullying. Eating disorders. Public tantrums. Strangers glaring at us on airplanes. Constant guilt.

But they had failed to list the greatest con of all: the possibility of unabsorbable loss.

JANUARY 2, 2011

Imaan

Imaan sits in the dim hut across from her aunt, the question burning in her throat. She has been here two hours now, and there has been no sign of a child. No crying, no gurgles of joy. Nothing but an almost eerie silence. Why shouldn't she ask about the child? She chides herself. Isn't it natural to take an interest in a baby? It has been more than a month since her last visit to Aisha. To visit sooner, which has never been her habit, would have looked suspicious. She has handed over an invitation to another cousin's wedding—fortunately there is nearly always a cousin getting married, except during Ramadan. Fidgeting with the embroidered hem of her
abaya
, she misses her son. Without him she feels purposeless, doesn't know what to do with her hands. What did she do with her life before she was a mother? Kabir has focused her energies, lent them meaning. But she hadn't
wanted distractions on this trip. Dry-mouthed, she picks up her teacup and finds it empty save for a sticky, sugary residue.

“I'll make some more,” says Aisha, heaving herself to her feet.

“Please don't trouble yourself,” says Imaan. “Sit. You must be tired, caring for those men all day.”

Aisha only gives a curt nod and slumps back to the floor. “I have no complaints, praise Allah.”

“Auntie,” Imaan starts. There is no reason not to ask. There is
no reason
not to ask. “Where is the baby who was here last time? Is she here?”

Aisha lifts her head and stares at her for a moment. “That child,” she says and then stops.

“She isn't dead?” Imaan's stomach tightens.

“She was very sick, Imaan. Very sick. She wouldn't eat.”

Imaan thinks she might vomit from fearful anticipation.

“She would not take a bottle or drink the tea we gave her in a cup. But, Imaan, we could not allow that child to die. You don't know who that child is. Who her father was. Because of this, we could not allow her to die.”

“But if she won't eat?”

“She will eat now. We have sent her to someone who can feed her.”

Someone with milk, Imaan presumes. Could it be Miranda? Was she here, and if so, where has she gone? And who are the little girl's parents? Careful, she warns herself. You don't want to know too much. Aisha's men are dangerous men.

“When she can eat beans and bread, she will come back here.”

“She will be okay?”

“
Insha'allah
. We must pray for her.”

N
ADIA LISTENS TO
her cousin's story with wide eyes. The two women have closeted themselves in Imaan's
diwan
, with the windows shut. “And you didn't ask who the father was? Even after she mentioned it?”

Imaan shakes her head.

“Or where the girl was sent?”

“It didn't seem like she wanted to say.” Somehow Nadia always makes her feel like an ignorant country girl. She envies her cousin's bravery.

“Imaan, think. Who important died recently?”

Imaan stares at her, eyes widening. “Can you really not remember?” Nadia's hands fly to her mouth. “Forgive me. I wasn't thinking. I haven't forgotten. I will never forget. I promise you, Imaan.”

They sit for a moment staring at the thin, filthy red carpet between them, the threadbare pillows, remembering the funeral procession through the streets, their keening mothers, the blanket-swaddled body lifted above the crowds, tilting over their heads. He had been their inspiration, their spiritual father, their protector from the president's men. From the president's planes.

Abruptly Nadia looks up. “You don't think—? Did he have—?”

Imaan slowly nods. “I think so, yes. With his last wife. I had forgotten.”

“But she's a
girl
.”

“A girl with a very important daddy. The most important daddy a girl could possibly have.”

JANUARY 3, 2011

Finn

Kaia and Doortje sit next to each other on the pristine white sofa, their thighs and hands touching, seeking comfort. Fear hasn't loosened its grip; it is engraved on their faces. The women are thin, pale, blue veins showing through their wrists and temples, though they said their captors had fed them regularly and well. “Captivity doesn't improve appetite,” Kaia says, smiling faintly. They are exhausted, having already endured their first debriefing.

Three days after the cash (sent via two separate couriers from Dubai) had been tossed, as instructed, over the fence of a small cement factory in a remote northern town, the women had been rolled out of the back of a van outside the InterContinental hotel. (“It's always the
InterContinental,” the Dutch consultant had commented. “A perennial favorite with kidnappers across the region. I'm surprised they haven't launched a special hostage drop-off area.”)

“I'm sorry to have to ask you questions now,” says Finn softly. “I promise I'll be as brief as I can. I know you are anxious to get home to your families.”

“It's all right,” says Doortje. “But I am afraid we won't be much help. We haven't seen Miranda since the night we were first taken.” The women take turns telling their story again, finishing each other's sentences. It is a story they have obviously been telling each other for months, looking for clues, looking for sense.

“Mukhtar was shot?” says Finn. “Is he dead?” He must be. Otherwise he would have returned to the Residence. And this means—Finn's heart lifts—this means that that shot he heard on the phone was not for his wife. There was also the drawing to prove that she had survived that first attack, though she may have been injured. Still, he was famished for proof, there could not be enough proof, until he could brush his fingertips against Miranda's flesh, warm and living.

The women shrug. “We didn't see him after that.”

“So the men who originally took you, they still had Miranda when you were given to the second group of men? She wasn't given to anyone else?” If it was an opportunistic kidnapping, perhaps the original group of men was less lethal than any group to which she could be sold. AQ, to name one.

“We were all traded together the first time,” says Kaia. Finn notices a slight tremor in the fingers resting on her thigh. “And then later we were given to the others.”

“Did you ever overhear anyone mention Miranda?”

“They wouldn't have known her name,” Kaia reminds him.

“Of course. But did you hear them mention, ‘the other woman,' anything like that?”

Doortje leans forward. “Neither of us speaks much Arabic, so we didn't understand a lot of what went on. But we did manage to ask them why she was taken somewhere else. Because at that point they couldn't have known her nationality or her position. So why would they separate her?”

“I think I heard them say ‘the other one isn't worth anything,' at some point,” says Kaia. “Which only makes sense if they were aware that she was from a country that wouldn't pay a ransom.” She flushes slightly with the guilt of surviving, returning. “And that we were from ransom-paying countries. We had said we were all French, so if they believed us, why would they have separated Miranda?”

Finn looks at them with renewed interest. “So…it is possible that they
did
know who she was.” The women shrug again. “Which means…” He isn't sure he wants to know what this means. “This was planned,” he concludes. “She was targeted. Or, you all were, but they had plans for her entirely unrelated to their finances.”

DECEMBER 2010

Miranda

When Miranda opens her eyes, the darkness remains as pure as when she had them closed. What has woken her? The man next door? Another rat? A scorpion? Her pulse quickening, she sits, scooting toward the wall, scraping the back of her head on the plaster. Her body tenses, bracing for the inhuman—or all too human—howls from the adjoining room. Only then does she hear the knocking. It is soft yet insistent. What kind of guard knocks before entering a prison cell? thinks Miranda crossly.

“Aiwa,”
she says without expression, without moving. It's a bit early for breakfast. Unless Ramadan has started. Didn't they just have Ramadan before she was captured? She cannot remember. Maybe it's her turn for a beating? The door creaks open and a man stands there, next to the guard. He is dressed like the guard, in desert camouflage and a puffy down parka. Mazrooqis run for their winter coats every time the temperature dips below seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Both men are shorter and slighter than she is. I could take them in a fair fight, she thinks. If there is such a thing. And then she remembers the guns. The great equalizers. And these are AK-47s; she has checked. In fact, she has studied them, trying to remember everything Tucker and Mukhtar taught her, just in case. She's so busy examining the guns
again that it takes her a moment to realize that he is carrying something, a small bundle in a blanket. Not another one, she thinks. I cannot take another one. My heart can only break so many times. But when the man holds out the bundle to her, the child gives a familiar cry, reaching scrawny, grayish brown arms up to Miranda.