Olives (2 page)

I was about
to discover freedom is relative.

TWO

I woke,
disoriented, to the insistent chirruping of the bedside phone –
Aisha was waiting down in the hotel’s reception. I told her I’d be
ten minutes, splashed water over myself and shaved, a puffy-eyed
thirty-something gawping back at me in the mirror. The misty
apparition nicked me in his haste. By the time I was done, three or
four dots of toilet paper decorated my face.

I tore my
clothes out of my bag, catching my foot in my jeans and hopping
around like an idiot. I crossed the room and snatched open the
curtains. The sight of the city spread out in front stilled me for
a moment, the ragged ribbon of cars glittered in the early morning
sunlight, snaking between the stone buildings stacked on the
hillsides. A wave of vertigo forced me back. The realisation this
was my new home made my stomach churn.

Aisha sat on
the round velvet sofa in reception. I was hot from rushing around
and my laptop bag dragged my open-necked shirt halfway across my
shoulder. I let it drop, feeling awkward and silly.

‘
Look, I am
really sorry about yesterday, Aisha. I know I’ve caused you a huge
amount of trouble. I honestly don’t know what to say.’

‘
Just drop it, okay, Paul? Just don’t mention it to anyone.
Ibrahim will take care of it. He has influence. We say
wasta
. Okay?’

I’d come
across the word before.
Wasta
is a powerful
thing: it
says more about you
than American Express ever can, a full-on ‘not what you know but
who you know’ deal.

I nodded.
‘Sure, okay.’

She gazed up
at me neutrally, a pause to let her point sink in before she stood
and slid her handbag onto her shoulder. ‘Come on then. Let’s get
you to the Ministry.’

We walked
into warm sunshine. Aisha’s high heels clicked on the flagstones. I
took in the crisp air, a welcome change from England’s damp
autumn.

Aisha delved
in her jeans for coins to tip the valet. She turned to me, shading
her eyes against the sunlight. ‘Settling you in has been a problem.
We’ve been looking for flats over the past couple of weeks but it’s
been hard to find something for the budget your company specified.
I think I’ve found somewhere, though. Do you feel up to looking at
it later on?’

‘
Yes, yes I
would. That’s great. Thanks.’

I’d assumed
from her husky voice she was, in common with Ibrahim and the rest
of Jordan, a smoker. But if so, she didn’t do it in her Lexus,
which smelled faintly of leather and her rich, musky
perfume.

After a
twenty minute drive through Amman’s jostling rush hour traffic, we
arrived at the shabby-looking building housing the Ministry of
Natural Resources. Aisha took me to the third floor and showed me
to my desk in the surprisingly modern open plan interior. The
window looked out over the city.

‘
The
Minister’s travelling right now, but I thought you’d probably want
to settle in quickly. Abdullah Zahlan has just taken over as
communications director and he wanted to meet with you when you’re
ready. Can I tell him twelve?’

This was news
to me. ‘New director? What happened to Shukri?’

‘
He moved on.
Part of the reform program. So, twelve?’

‘
Sure. No
problem.’

She paused.
‘But not a word about yesterday to anyone. Okay?’

‘
Yes,
okay.’

My gratitude
was starting to give way to a sense of mild unease at the constant
reminders of my indebtedness. I decided to focus on work. Thanks to
the sales skills of my boss – publisher and wanker extraordinaire
Robin Goodyear – the Ministry had contracted The Media Group to
produce a monthly magazine and that was precisely what I was going
to get on with doing. I started working on the editorial outlines
for issue one which needed approval by the Ministry before we could
get the project off the ground. I immersed myself in my magazine,
thoughts of police cells and assault charges banished for the
moment.

I couldn’t
shake the feeling it wasn’t over yet. The police had kept my
passport and I hadn’t had the heart to ask Aisha about it that
morning. I resolved to bring it up next time I met her.

Robin called
after two, just as the Ministry people were knocking off for the
day. As usual, his faux-posh voice was disgustingly cheerful as he
brayed at me.

‘
Stokesy. Hi.
It’s me. You have a nice weekend? All settled?’

The bastard
had booked me on a Saturday flight so I wouldn’t miss Sunday, a
working day in Jordan. When our call was over he’d be off down to
the pub then back home to Sunday roast and a pissy, red
wine-fuelled row with his poor wife, Claire. The thought of Sunday
pubs brought a wave of homesickness and the strong temptation to
whinge to him about just how badly yesterday had gone. Ibrahim and
Aisha’s exhortations to silence won the day. Just.

‘
Fine. No
problems.’

‘
You meet
with the Minister yet?’ Robin asked.

‘
No, he’s
travelling until tomorrow. I met with Abdullah Zahlan earlier, he’s
the new communications director, he’s taken over from Shukri. He’s
feeling out of the loop and causing trouble. I’ve got a lot of
changes to the planning and he’s complaining about the lack of a
Web element to the project.’

‘
He’ll be
okay. Shame about Shukri. Top bloke. Just give the new guy some
love, Paul. Hurry up and finalise that outline, there’s a good boy.
We’ve got a mag to get out by the fifth.’

How did Robin
always manage to jangle my nerve endings? I smiled so he’d hear my
happiness on the phone. ‘I just need to get email up and running
and make these changes and it’ll be with you. Give me until
tomorrow morning your time, yeah?’

‘
Time waits
for no man, young Paul. Hup hup.’

‘
Just cut me
a little slack would you, Robin? I need to get settled. I’m
supposed to be looking at a place to live this afternoon with
Aisha.’

‘
Aisha? Oh,
yes? The Dajani bint, ya? The one with the big tits? You got in
there quick, didn’t you laddie?’

I held my
breath and concentrated on keeping my voice steady. Robin’s casual,
drawling sexism was infuriating.

‘
She’s been
assigned to get me settled in and to help us with the magazine,
Robin. You know that.’

His tone slid
to treacly and cajoling. ‘Whatever, Paul. Look, I’m right behind
you. I understand you’re feeling a little at sea right now, but
we’ve got to get moving on the project fast. We need the client
committed, you hear me? We need to pull together on this one. It
might be the last real magazine you ever work on, you
know?’

I was feeling
sorry for myself but I could expect little sympathy from Robin. It
was one thing for him to get drunk after signing the Ministry
contract on our last trip and set fire to my hotel room as he
blundered around with his stinking cheroot but quite another to
have the editorial staff punching coppers. If Robin had to deal
with the consequences of my brush with authority, I’d be standing
outside The Media Group’s smart Richmond offices with my final pay
check minus deductions in seconds flat.

I knew he’d
hear the resignation in my voice. ‘Yeah, okay.’ My final obeisance:
‘Thanks, Robin.’

‘
Anytime.
Give big tits a kiss from me.’

Bastard.

Aisha was
chattering away in Arabic on her mobile as she navigated one-handed
through the jostling traffic. I tried to mask my anxiety, but I’m
not a good passenger at the best of times. I aligned my laptop bag
with the seam of my jeans.

The radio was
tuned into Sawa, the American-funded station that mixes funky beats
with skewed newscasts in an attempt to win over the ‘Arab street’.
The Jordanians listen to the music and turn it down during the
news. She finished her call, waving the mobile at me, her attention
charmingly diverted away from the road and the random,
lane-swapping traffic all around us. I focused on the seam/laptop
occlusion.

‘
My cousin.
He’s been helping me to look for houses. He has some good ideas,
maybe.’

I managed to
look up. ‘Where are we going?’

‘
To a place
near the first circle. Amman is built on seven circles, they are
roundabouts. The first circle is the old area of the
city.’

I was in her
debt, no doubt about it, but I worried about my passport. I had
trusted Ibrahim when he had told me the case wouldn’t go further
and I had signed that stupid form without really knowing what it
was. I felt ungrateful pushing it, yet I had to know. I pressed my
hands together and looked across at Aisha. ‘Has Ibrahim got any
idea about where my passport is?

She smiled as
she drove, her eyes on the road. ‘Don’t worry, Paul. Ibrahim can
manage these things. It will maybe take a little time is
all.’

I gazed out
at the rainbow mosaic of shop fronts flashing by, immersed in the
bustling strangeness of it all and wondering how much ‘a little
time’ is. I checked the seams of my jeans and the laptop bag were
still aligned.

We stopped at
a traffic light and I was startled by a tap on my window. A small,
dirty-faced child stood by the car, tears carving pale streaks down
his cheeks as he held up his hand in the Arab gesture of
supplication, his thumb and first two fingers pressed together in a
little bunch. He pulled an exaggerated needy face.

If his
appearance had taken me aback, the outburst from the seat next to
me threw me even more. Aisha dropped the electric window, barking a
stream of violent, guttural Arabic. He backed away sullenly. The
lights changed and we pulled off, leaving him glaring at me in the
wing mirror.

I shook from
shock and anger, glaring sightlessly out of the window before
twisting to face her.

‘
There was
absolutely no need for that.’

Her eyes
stayed fixed on the road ahead. ‘He’s begging. They’re a
problem.’

‘
I’ll ask if
I need someone screamed at. He was just a poor Palestinian
kid.’

I caught the
paleness of her knuckles on the wheel. ‘We are Palestinian, but we
are not beggars. Whatever we lose, however desperate it becomes. It
is bad enough we have to beg the world to understand we have had
our land stolen from us, to beg to be allowed to return to our
houses. Better we save our begging for these things than wandering
the streets for pennies.’

We drove too
fast and in silence down a tree-lined street dotted with embassies,
passing my hotel before turning right and dropping down into an
area of older, more ornate buildings. Everything in Amman is clad
in the same pale stone, the older buildings exuding a quaint
colonialism.

Aisha finally
spoke. ‘Look, Paul, there are a lot of these beggars in Amman and
they’re organised. They are gypsies,
Bedu
. You’ll get the
picture; they hassle people. Life here can be harsh sometimes.
We’re not all wealthy and settled in nice middle class
homes.’

I talked to
my hands. ‘No, look, it’s my fault. I’m sorry. I just got a shock,
that’s all. I’m a bit nervy right now. There’s a lot of strangeness
to get used to.’

‘
It’s okay.
Forget it.’

Aisha took us
downhill into a leafy avenue of fine old houses before she
gestured, her wooden bangles clacking. ‘This is the First Circle,
the centre of old Amman and it’s becoming fashionable for cafés and
bars. There’s a place here that may be within your budget, but it’s
unfurnished. It’s just up the street from the Wild Jordan Café,
quite a popular place that the Americans built as a gift to Jordan.
They like to give us little gifts.’

I stayed
quiet as she pulled the car to a stop in front of a flight of stone
steps leading up to a house standing apart on the hillside, ornate
wrought-iron railings protecting its windows and a vine trailing on
the pergola in the garden to the front of it. I found myself
following the swing of her hips as she led the way up the steps
from the road. She turned abruptly at the top, caught me looking at
her bum and raised an eyebrow. I felt my face redden. She pulled a
soft pack of cigarettes from her burgundy handbag and offered
them.

‘
I don’t,
thanks.’

‘
Suit
yourself,’ she said, lighting up and inhaling hungrily. Her
lipstick left a dark red mark on the white filter. As she raised
her head to let the smoke go, I noticed she had ink on her fingers,
like a naughty schoolgirl, an incongruity in someone so
sophisticated. ‘It’s owned by a lawyer and his wife. It’s on two
floors, there’s a Swedish guy who rents the upper floor. You would
get the ground floor and the use of the garden area.’

She opened
the door and waited for me to go in. It wasn’t huge, a traditional
house built maybe in the thirties or forties and clad in pale
Jordan stone. A green-painted door led straight into the cool,
terracotta-floored kitchen. I wandered around the echoing rooms
before going back outside and standing in the lush little garden. I
looked out across to the Jordanian flag flapping merrily atop the
Citadel, the central hill of Amman. The pale stone buildings
carpeted the city around us, glowing deep orange in the sunset. I
listened to the sound of a cricket in the bushes, taking in the
fresh breeze and wishing time would stop and leave me with these
feelings forever. All thoughts of police charges and cells were
gone, chased away by my joy at this little house. I heard Aisha’s
step behind me and caught a whiff of her cigarette smoke, looking
round to catch the glow of the setting sun on her golden
skin.