Never, page 27
With Olson in charge the atmosphere was more pleasant, and yet all the work got done just as well, if not better.
The General was on the morning news, crowing like a rooster. “They have been taught a lesson!” he said. “Now they will think twice about sending terrorists to the N’Gueli Bridge.”
The interviewer said: “Mr. President, some people were saying that you were slow to respond to that incident.”
The General was clearly ready for this question. “The Chinese have a proverb,” he said. “ ‘Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.’ ”
It was not a Chinese proverb, Tamara knew, but a quote from a French novel, but the message was clear in any language. The General had planned carefully and waited for this moment, then he had struck, and he was sure he had been very clever indeed.
Tamara put all the details into her report, then sat back and thought about how to sum up the significance of the battle. Her conversation with Karim confirmed the General’s claim that he had laid an ambush in retaliation for the shooting at the bridge. His statement that the Sudanese had been “taught a lesson” was confirmed by a report from General Touré, which Susan had passed to Tamara, saying that the Sudanese had been soundly defeated.
That meant the government in Khartoum would be furious. They would try to put a spin on the battle that made them look less like losers, but they and the world would know the truth. And so they would feel humiliated, and want to retaliate.
Sometimes international politics was just like a Sicilian vendetta, Tamara thought. People took revenge for what had been done to them, as if they did not know that their rivals were sure to take revenge for the revenge. As the tit-for-tat went on, escalation was inevitable: more rage, more vengeance, more violence.
That was the weakness of dictators. They were so used to getting their own way that they did not expect the world outside their domain to refuse them anything. The General had started something he might not be able to control.
And there lay the significance for President Green. She wanted Chad to be stable. The US had backed the General as a leader who could keep order, but now he was threatening the stability of the region.
She finished the report and sent it to Olson. A few minutes later he came to her desk with a printed copy in his hand. “Thank you for this,” he said. “It makes exciting reading.”
“Too damn exciting,” she said.
“Anyway, it says most of what Langley needs to know, so I’ve sent it as it is.”
“Thank you.” Dexter would have rewritten it, Tamara thought, then sent it over his own signature.
Mike said: “If you want to take the rest of the day off, I’d say you’ve earned it.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Enjoy a rest.”
Tamara returned to her apartment and called Tab. He too had spent the morning at the office, writing his report for the DGSE, but he had almost finished and would then leave for the day. They agreed to meet at his place, and maybe go out for lunch.
She took a car to his apartment and got there before him.
She let herself in with her key. It was the first time she had been there without him. She walked around, exploring the sensation of being at home in his private world. She had seen it all already, and he had said: “Look at everything, I have no secrets from you,” but now she could stare at something as long as she liked without fearing he might say: “What’s so interesting about my bathroom cabinet?”
She opened the closet and gazed at his clothes. He had twelve light blue shirts. She noticed several pairs of shoes that she had never seen him wear. The whole closet smelled of sandalwood, and she eventually figured out that his wooden coat hangers and shoe trees were impregnated with the scent.
He had a small cupboard of medical supplies: aspirin, Band-Aids, a cold remedy, indigestion tablets. She had not known he suffered from indigestion. On his bookshelf was an eighteenth-century edition of the plays of Molière, six volumes, in French of course. She opened a tome and a card fell out. It was inscribed: “Joyeux anniversaire, Tab—ta maman t’aime.” Your mother loves you. Nice, she thought.
In a drawer he had a folder containing personal papers: a copy of his birth registration, certificates for both his degrees, and an old letter from his grandmother, in the careful script of someone who does not write often, evidently sent when he was a boy. The letter congratulated him on passing his exams. Tamara found that brought tears to her eyes; she did not really know why.
He arrived a few minutes later. She sat cross-legged on his bed and watched him take off his office suit, wash his face, and put on casual clothes. But he seemed in no hurry to go out. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her for a long moment. She was not embarrassed by his stare; in fact she loved it.
Eventually he spoke: “When the shooting started . . .”
“You picked up that little girl.”
He smiled. “The minx. She bit me, you know.” He looked at his hand. “No blood, but look at that bruise!”
She took his hand and kissed the bruise. “You poor thing.”
“This is nothing, but I did think I might die. And then I thought: I wish I’d spent more time with Tamara.”
She stared at him. “That was your, like, dying thought.”
“Yes.”
“On the way there,” she said, “that long trip across the desert in the helicopter, I was thinking about us, and I had a similar feeling. I just didn’t want to be apart from you ever again.”
“So we both feel the same.”
“I knew we would.”
“But what do we do about it?”
“That’s the big question.”
“I’ve been thinking about it. You’re committed to the CIA. I don’t feel that way about the DGSE. I’ve enjoyed working in intelligence, and boy, have I learned a lot, but I have no ambition to rise to the top. I’ve served my country for ten years, and I’d like to move into the family business now, and maybe take charge of it when my mother wants to retire. I love fashion and luxury, and we French are so good at it. But that means living in Paris.”
“I figured that out.”
“If the Agency would transfer you . . . would you move to Paris with me?”
“Yes,” said Tamara. “In a heartbeat.”
Chapter 16
The temperature rose mercilessly as the bus groaned slowly across the desert. Kiah had not realized that her old home, on the shore of Lake Chad, was one of the cooler areas of her country. She had always imagined that the whole of Chad was the same, and she was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the sparsely inhabited north was hotter. At the start of the journey she had been bothered by the open glassless windows, which let in an irritating dusty breeze, but now, sweaty and uncomfortable with Naji on her lap, she was glad of any wind, even if it was hot and gritty.
Naji was fidgety and cranky. “Want leben,” he kept saying, but Kiah had no rice and no buttermilk and no way of cooking anything. She put him to her nipple, but he quickly became dissatisfied. She suspected that her breast milk was becoming thin because she herself was hungry. The food Hakim had promised was all too often just water and stale bread, and not much bread. The “luxuries” for which he charged extra included blankets, soap, and any food other than bread or porridge. Was there anything worse for a mother than to know that she could not feed her hungry child?
Abdul glanced across at Naji. Kiah was not as embarrassed as she should have been at his seeing her breast. After more than two weeks of sitting side by side all day, every day, a weary intimacy had set in.
Now he spoke to Naji. “There was once a man called Samson, and he was the strongest man in the whole wide world,” he said.
Naji stopped grizzling and went quiet.
“One day Samson was walking in the desert when, suddenly, he heard a lion roar nearby—really near.”
Naji put his thumb in his mouth and snuggled up to Kiah, at the same time staring at Abdul with big eyes.
Abdul was everyone’s friend, Kiah had found. All the passengers liked him. He often made them laugh. Kiah was not surprised: she had first seen him as the vendor of cigarettes, joking with the men and flirting with the women, and she had recalled that the Lebanese were said to be good businessmen. At the first town where the bus stopped for a night, Abdul had gone to an open-air bar. Kiah went to the same place, with Esma and her parents-in-law, just for a change of scene. She had seen Abdul playing cards, not winning or losing much. He had a bottle of beer in his hand, though he never seemed to finish it. Most of all he talked to people, apparently inconsequential chatter, but later she realized he had found out how many wives the men had and which shopkeepers were dishonest and who they were all frightened of. Thereafter it was similar at every town or village.
Yet she felt sure this was an act. When not making friends with everyone, he could be withdrawn, aloof, even depressed, like a man with worries in his life and sorrows in his past. This had at first led her to think he disliked her. In time she had started to believe he had two personalities. And then, beneath all that, there was a third man, one who would take the trouble to soothe Naji by telling a story that a two-year-old boy would understand and like.
The bus was following tracks that were hardly marked and often invisible to Kiah. Most of the desert consisted of flat, hard rock with a thin layer of sand, an adequate driving surface at low speeds. Every now and again a discarded Coca-Cola can or a ruined tire confirmed that they were in fact following the road and not lost in the wilderness.
Every village was an oasis: people could not live without water. Each little settlement had an underground lake, often showing itself on the surface as a small pond or a well. Sometimes they dried up, like Lake Chad, and then the people had to go somewhere else, as Kiah was doing.
One night there was nowhere to stop, and they all slept in their seats on the bus until the morning sun woke them.
Early in the trip some of the men had pestered Kiah. It always happened in the evenings, after dark, when all the passengers were lying on the floor of some house or in a courtyard, on mattresses if they were lucky. One night one of the men climbed on top of her. She fought him off silently, knowing that if she screamed, or humiliated the man in any other way, his friends would take revenge on her, and she would be accused of being a whore. But he was too strong for her, and he managed to pull aside her blanket. Then, suddenly, he jerked away, and she realized that someone strong had pulled him off her. In the starlight she saw that Abdul had the man pinned to the ground with one hand gripping his neck, preventing him from making any noise or, perhaps, even breathing. She heard Abdul whisper: “Leave her alone or I will kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.” Then he was gone. The man lay gasping for breath for a minute, then crept away. She was not even sure who it was.
After that she began to figure Abdul out. She guessed that he did not want to be seen as her friend, so she treated him like a stranger in front of others, not chatting to him or smiling at him or seeking his help as she struggled to perform everyday tasks with a wriggling two-year-old in her arms. But sitting beside him on the bus, she talked. Quietly and undramatically she told him about her childhood, her brothers in Sudan, life beside the shrinking lake, and the death of Salim. She even related the story of the nightclub called Bourbon Street. He said nothing about himself, and she never asked him questions, because she sensed that would be unwelcome, but he often commented on the stories she told, and she felt a growing sympathy.
Now she listened to his soothing low voice, with its Lebanese accent. “She took a lock of his hair between her finger and thumb, and he did not wake up, but just snored on. She cut off the lock of hair with the scissors, and still he did not wake up. Then another lock. Snip, snip, went the scissors, and snore, snore, went Samson.”
Her mind went back to the nuns’ school, where she had first heard the Bible stories—Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath, Noah and his ark. She had learned to read and write, divide and multiply, and speak a little French. She had gathered knowledge from the other girls too, some of whom knew more than she did about adult mysteries such as sex. It had been a happy time. In fact her whole life had been happy until that awful day when they brought Salim’s cold body home to her. Since then it had been all disappointment and hardship. Would that ever come to an end? Would there be happy days again? Would she get to France?
Suddenly the bus slowed. Looking forward, Kiah saw steam coming out of the front of the vehicle. “What now?” she muttered.
Abdul said: “And when he woke up in the morning, his head was nearly bald, and his lovely long hair was on the pillow all around him. And what happened next, we shall find out tomorrow.”
“No, now!” said Naji, but Abdul did not answer him.
Hakim stopped the bus and turned off the engine. “The radiator has boiled,” he announced.
Kiah felt scared. The bus had broken down twice before—which was the main reason the trip was already taking longer than expected—but the third time was no less frightening. There was no one nearby, phones did not work, and they rarely saw another vehicle. If the bus could not be fixed, they would all have to walk. Then they would either reach an oasis or drop dead, whichever came first.
Hakim picked up a tool kit and got out of the bus. He opened the hood to look at the engine. Most of the passengers got off to stretch their legs. Naji ran around, getting rid of surplus energy. He had only recently learned to run, and he was proud of his speed.
Kiah and Abdul and several others looked over Hakim’s shoulder at the steaming motor. Fixing old cars and motorcycles was an important activity in the poorer areas of Chad and, although it was a male responsibility, Kiah had picked up some knowledge.
There was no sign of a leak.
Hakim pointed to a snakelike piece of rubber dangling from a pulley. “The fan belt has broken,” he said. Gingerly, he reached into the hot machinery and drew out the rubber. It was black with brownish patches, worn and cracked in places. Kiah could see that it should have been replaced long ago.
Hakim returned to the bus and pulled a large tin box from under his seat. He had produced this during the previous breakdowns. He put the box down on the sand, opened it, and rummaged through assorted spare parts: spark plugs, fuses, a selection of cylinder seals, and a roll of duct tape. Hakim frowned and looked through again.
Then he said: “There is no spare fan belt.”
In a low voice Kiah said to Abdul: “We’re in trouble.”
“Not quite,” he replied, equally quietly. “Not yet.”
Hakim said: “We will have to improvise.” He looked at the passengers around him and fixed his eyes on Abdul. “Give me that sash,” he said, pointing to the cotton strip around Abdul’s waist.
“No,” said Abdul.
“I need to use it as a temporary fan belt.”
“It won’t work,” said Abdul. “You need something with more grip.”
“There is a spring pulley that acts as a tensioner.”
“The cotton would still slip.”
“I am ordering you!”
One of the guards intervened. Their names were Hamza and Tareq, and it was Tareq, the taller one, who spoke. He addressed Abdul in a voice that quietly indicated that no discussion was invited. “Do as he says.”
Kiah would have been terrified, as would most men, but Abdul just ignored Tareq and spoke to Hakim. “Your belt would grip better,” he said.
Hakim’s jeans were held up with a worn brown leather belt.
Abdul added: “It’s certainly long enough,” and everyone laughed, because Hakim’s waist was big.
Angrily, Tareq said to Abdul: “You must do as he says!”
Kiah was amazed that Abdul seemed to have no fear of the man with the assault rifle slung over his shoulder. “Hakim’s belt will work better,” Abdul said calmly.
For a moment it looked as if Tareq would unshoulder his rifle and threaten Abdul, but then he seemed to think better of it. He turned to Hakim. “Use your belt,” he said.
Hakim took off his belt.
Kiah wondered why Abdul was so attached to his cotton sash.
Hakim wound the belt around the pulleys, buckled it, then tightened it. He took a five-liter plastic demijohn of water from inside the bus and topped up the radiator, which hissed and bubbled and then calmed. He got back inside the bus and started the motor, then returned outside to look under the hood. As Kiah could already see, the belt was doing its work, rotating the cooling mechanism.
Hakim slammed the hood shut. He was in a furious temper.
He returned to the bus, holding his jeans up with one hand. He sat in the driving seat and started the engine. The passengers reboarded. Hakim revved the engine impatiently. When Esma’s father-in-law, Wahed, hesitated before putting a foot on the steps, Hakim suddenly moved the bus forward, then braked hard. “Come on, hurry up!” he snarled.
Kiah was already in her seat, with Naji on her lap and Abdul next to her. “Hakim is in a rage because you got the better of him,” she said.
“I’ve made an enemy,” Abdul said regretfully.
“He’s a pig.”
The bus pulled away.
Kiah heard a low buzzing sound. Looking surprised, Abdul took out his phone. “We have a connection!” he said. “We must be getting near Faya. I didn’t realize they had connectivity.” He seemed inordinately pleased.
The phone was bigger than she remembered, and she wondered if he had two. “You can phone your girlfriends now,” she said teasingly.
He looked at her for a moment, not smiling, and said: “I don’t have any girlfriends.”
