The Ambassador's Wife (18 page)

When no one is around, she washes the child with her drinking water, using a scrap of cloth torn from the makeshift sling to squeeze water over her sharp little ribs and tiny fingers. Aisha does not approve of this washing. The baby will get sick, she tells Miranda. Babies should not get wet. Miranda has given up trying to explain that she only washes her in the warmth of the afternoon and dries her immediately. That the water keeps the girl's bottom free from rashes and infections. There is no soap, but the baby is too young for soap. Every few days Miranda rinses the child's only outfit, a long grayish dress, keeping her wrapped in a blanket until it is dry. It doesn't take long. The air here is so thirsty that it takes less than two hours for the garment to be drained of moisture.

Miranda is almost grateful for the sleepless nights, for the night feedings. She wants to be too tired to think. It has always been so for her, constant activity and work buffering a troubled heart.

Sitting in the shadow of the hut, this feather of a girl pressed to her breast, Miranda feels her heart swell and grow heavy, making room. It is not something she has hoped would happen. It is not convenient. Her captors have chained her with this child more effectively than if they had strung her from the wall in shackles. It occurs to her belatedly that if she tries to run, this girl will almost certainly die. But when she had first unwrapped that scrawny, barely living child, she had not hesitated.

While vigilantly protective of the girl, touching her with something approaching reverence, Aisha remains resolutely unmaternal. Perhaps she knows too well the hazards of opening her heart too wide to such a fragile life. She has five sons living, she has told Miranda. And two who died before their second birthday.

Miranda runs her fingers over the girl's short, spiky hair. Cressida had been bald for most of her first year, only recently growing a strip of curls down the middle of her head. But this child already has a full head of straight, black hair. “You need a name, little one,” she says in English. “It's time we gave you a name.”

Aisha looks up at the sound of her voice. “You speak English?” she says sharply. She has been peeling potatoes with a knife, and she stops, mid-stroke, a bit of brown skin dangling from the blade.

Miranda freezes. She has been so careful, speaking only in Arabic or French when talking with the baby. Never English. How could she have been so stupid?

“Only a little,” she says in Arabic. “I learned some in school. I thought maybe I would teach the baby a few words.”

Aisha's dark, ageless face creases. “You're always talking to her,” she says. “Why do you talk? She is just a baby, she doesn't understand.”

Miranda smiles at her. “I think she does.” She had talked to Cressida from the day she was born, a running monologue from morning until night, interrupted only by Finn or Gabra. Aside from the stimulation she hoped it provided her daughter, she talked to stave off boredom. So much of that first year is boredom, if you aren't creative. Now, she doesn't talk to the baby to alleviate boredom; she talks to the baby to fend off terror, grief, and insanity.

She gives the child a finger to grasp and looks back at Aisha. “Could we give her a name?” She doesn't know why it has taken her so long to ask this question. Is it because neither of the women had thought the child would live? We grow attached to those we name; they are ours forever.

“An Arabic name,” says Aisha.

“Of course.”

“An important name. This child is—” Aisha falls suddenly silent and sits for a moment in thought. “Kanza means hidden treasure. Or Sawdah? A wife of the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him. Kawkab? That is the name of my mother. Fatima? One of my sisters. Abrar? Means devoted to God. Is a good name. Luloah?” She counts the names off on her fingers.

“Luloah.” Miranda tests the word on her tongue. The baby looks up at her, dark eyes wide. “What does Luloah mean?”

“Luloah. Like the jewel that grows in a shell. A seashell.”

Pearl
. Miranda almost says it out loud. She is astonished she is allowed to help choose. She has no right to name this child. “Luloah,” she says again. A child born from the sand. “Luloah?” She looks hopefully at Aisha.

“We give her two names. Luloah Abrar.”

Miranda looks down at Luloah and smiles.

N
OW AS SHE
sits, with no paintings to create or ponder, no book to read, and nothing to keep her thoughts from their wild rambles, Miranda remembers Nasser. Her first year here she had taken a solitary holiday to Egypt. Vícenta had been finishing work for her show and needed some time alone, and Miranda had been feeling restless. But Cairo had completely overwhelmed her. She had not anticipated the noise, the endless shriek of car horns, the greasy, unbreathable air. At least in the Egyptian Museum it had been quiet. There were more people sitting outside in the front garden, talking or sharing sandwiches, than there were in the cool, dark building. Standing in the foyer, she was unsure which way to go. Thousands of years of history confronted her all at once, and it was too much. There was no possible way she could wade through a past as long as Egypt's. The cards on the exhibits were tiny, and she had to strain her eyes to read them. The names all ran together. So many kings and pharaohs. So many gods and goddesses.

After peering into the first few glass cases, she had been on the verge of giving up when Nasser appeared. He was the fifth guide to approach her. The others had accosted her outside, descending upon her as soon as she had her ticket in her hand.
“Laa, laa, laa,”
she had said reflexively.
“Laa shukran.”
No thank you. It had become a mantra, something she said so often here that it gained a melody, became a song. Only as Nasser launched into his pitch—he was an Egyptologist offering her the one-hour highlights tour or the two-hour in-depth tour, for the low, low starting price of one hundred Egyptian
pounds—she asked herself if it was really necessary to say no to him as well. She had been so appalled by the way the men followed her on the streets, clicking their tongues and sucking their breath in noisy whistles, and by the constant demand for baksheesh that rejection had become reflex; it hadn't occurred to her that any of them would have something she could possibly want or use.

She looked at Nasser. He was probably close to sixty, with graying hair, crooked teeth, and brown eyes stained with an ancient grief. Tall and thin, he wore a card around his neck that announced him as an accredited museum guide. He wasn't funny in the aggressive way so many of them were with tourists, trying to entertain. He spoke simply and clearly. And he expected her to disappoint him. “All right,” she finally relented. “Please show me the highlights.” It was a good decision. Nasser spoke briefly about each of the more significant statues and treasures, moving on before she had time to get bored or restless. One reason she hated group tours was the long periods of standing they always involved. But Nasser seemed to sense her need for flow. His English was fluent yet still littered with charming idiosyncrasies. When they came to King Tut's tomb, Nasser explained that the walls within his chamber had been “dismantled so they could be removed, and then mantled again.”

What comes to her now as she sits looking down at Luloah's sharp little face, her translucent eyelids trembling as she nurses, is the last item Nasser had shown her. “This is the last judgment,” he had said, “the weighing of the heart.” Miranda had looked at the scales, the scales of Libra (Vícenta's sign), balanced in the middle of the drawing. On one of them rested a small human heart, on the other, a tiny image of Maat, the goddess of truth. Or so spake Nasser. “If the heart is heavier than the goddess, then it belonged to a good man and he should go to Heaven. But if the heart is lighter, he did not take enough into his heart and he should go to Hell.” This is what stays with her. Not the golden trinkets of Tut's tomb, not the hermaphroditic pharaoh with the wide thighs of a woman, not even the desiccated faces of the royal mummies. But that a heavily laden heart was the entrance ticket to Paradise.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2007

Miranda

The third Monday of every month was Quiz Night at the British Club. Miranda loved quizzes and was getting desperate to leave the house. All week she had been painting steadily, struggling to work her way out of reality, out of narrative, taking time off only for meals with Finn. He was often out in the evening, at dinners for visiting American dignitaries, meetings with the Foreign Minister, or in strategy sessions with the intelligence community. While Miranda missed his company, most nights she didn't mind being alone in the house. It felt luxurious, all of that space to inhabit, to fill. More important, it meant she could work without distraction, eat only when she felt hungry, and wander around half-dressed. But solitude's charm was fading. There were days in the hollow, soulless Residence when Miranda could not stand the isolation, moments when she was tempted to run through the kitchen and downstairs to bang on the door of Negasi's room and beg her to talk with her. About anything. Miranda wanted stories about Ethiopia, about her son who died mysteriously years ago, about Negasi's family. But she had never been down to that room. It was Negasi, Teru, and Desta's only completely private space in the Residence, and Miranda felt that to enter it would be a violation.

Finn didn't have an evening engagement on Quiz Night, but he had stacks of work to finish at home. “Go, darling,” he said. “You'll find someone you know.”

Normally Miranda wouldn't need someone she knew. Normally she was completely happy to fling herself at strangers. But chatting up the still-frosty embassy staff was hard work. She craved nondiplomats. Graceless artists with no manners and articulate philosophies. Bipolar poets. Self-aggrandizing actors. Anyone but the Professionally Polite. She called Mosi and Madina, but Mosi said he loathed the British Club and Madina had two Mazrooqi girls spending the night with her. Miranda could hear them shrieking in the background. Everyone else she called was also busy. Well, she thought, it's no crime
to go out alone. She was a paying member, after all. Had been since long before Finn.

The guards at the club were very smiley. She had always been able to rely on the kindness of the guards. Not once since her first visit had she ever had to show identification at the entrance, discreetly unmarked in the front wall of a flat-roofed, cinder-block house. Abdullah—the one and only Mazrooqi bartender—was also welcoming, walking to the end of the bar to kiss her cheeks as soon as he saw her. “I'm hearing things about you,” he said, slapping down a paper Heineken coaster.

“Oh?” she said, nodding at her favorite gin.

“Like I hear you're moving next door.” Abdullah took down the dusty bottle of Hendrick's and poured a generous shot.

“Says who?”

“Says just about everyone in the room.”

Miranda turned to look around. The club was busy, with clusters of embassy people gathered around the circular tables of its main room. Several oil workers leaned on the bar, their faces creased by age and sun, their hands clutching sweating pints. A group of Westerners she didn't recognize sprawled across the overstuffed beige sofas under the oversized television screen, laughing at someone's joke. Outside, several smokers stood gazing at the abandoned tennis courts. Everyone showed up here eventually.

She pushed her chit toward Abdullah and picked up her glass. “Don't believe everything you hear.” For a moment, she stood there, sipping her drink and feeling awkward. Should she join one of the embassy tables? Was that the correct thing to do? She tried to catch the eye of one of the women from the political section, who studiously looked away.

“Miranda?” She was rescued. It was Karl, who worked for Save the Children. Miranda didn't know him very well, but she had met him and his wife, Sabina, several times at the German Haus and the French Cultural Centre, where they had chatted about art and censorship and the plight of Mazrooqi children. “Looking for a team?”

“Yes,
please
! I tried to round up some friends, but it seems everyone had plans.”

“Well, we're a few short, so join us. On the sofa over there.” He gestured toward the massive sofa crammed with at least seven people. Karl introduced her around. There was a Swiss woman newly arrived in the country; a pregnant Norwegian and her husband, who worked for a German development organization; an Indian named Moon and his pregnant wife; a young Frenchman; and the Italian head of the World Food Programme. No one Miranda knew, no one British. Perfect.

She wasn't much use during the sports, music, and entertainment rounds, but when an art history round came along, she triumphed. Her teammates kept her glass refilled and generously credited her with their eventual win. When they asked where she worked, she told them she was an art teacher. How relaxing a few hours of anonymity could be!

The quiz broke up around ten, and people wandered outside to smoke or sat with their teammates for a few more pints. No one from the British embassy spoke to her all night. In fact, no one would look at her. Once, on her way back from the bar with a round of drinks, she said hello to two of the management section women, but neither responded. Jesus, she thought. Seriously? Stealing their ambassador's heart was that terrible a crime? Well, she wasn't going to force herself on them. She had other friends. But still, it bothered her. They didn't know her. They'd never had a conversation with her. She could not help but be hurt that they didn't have a crumb of curiosity. Maybe they thought they already knew. That was the problem with gossip. But perhaps she was too hard on them. How much fun would it be for them to hang out with the boss's girlfriend, watching every word they said, lest something untoward reach his ears?

Restless, she wandered into the back room to watch a game of pool. The oil company guys were playing, lining bets up along the side of the table. Next to them was a small bookcase stacked with shabby paperbacks. Miranda picked up a few and flipped through them. Romances, thrillers, naval history. She put them back on the shelves and returned to the bar. She was waiting for Abdullah to notice her when a tall, honey-haired man with military posture sitting on a nearby stool introduced himself. “Leo,” he said. “I don't think we've met.”