The Ambassador's Wife (21 page)

Kaia's husband, Stéphane, and Doortje's husband, Alfons, come round to the house at least once a fortnight to compare notes. They vary the times and days, not wanting to alert their respective embassies or anyone else. But their respective embassies, it is agreed, are turning out to be fairly useless. The French, British, Dutch, and American governments have already wasted valuable time sparring over who is best equipped to lead the negotiations, should the kidnappers make themselves known. (There is no doubt in Finn's mind that the Americans have more resources than the other three combined, but it is impolitic to point this out.) All four governments officially refused to entertain a financial resolution, but Finn is skeptical, at least about the French and Dutch. Alastair, Gazza, and Mick, who had returned to Mazrooq when Miranda first disappeared, had been
sent home yet again, having failed to track down any hostage takers with whom they could negotiate.

Fortunately, specialized security consultants had stepped into the breach. Both Kaia and Doortje had kidnap insurance through their husbands' companies. Dutch and French insurance consultants had already arrived and set up crisis management cells in separate wings of the InterContinental. How much they actually talked with each other was anyone's guess.

The most influential Western embassies in the country, thinks Finn, and they are coming up with bugger all. Finn has long harbored a prudish objection to swearing, considering it the sign of an unimaginative intellect, but recently some surprising things have been falling from his lips. He makes an effort around Cressida, but when she is out with Gabra or asleep, he can curse without stopping or repeating himself for at least seven minutes.

He manages to control himself around his former colleagues—just. He feels sorry for Celia. He likes her. She is smart, driven, and exceedingly capable. In any other circumstances, he would relish working with her. But his missing wife is just one of the many disasters that have been dropped at her feet.

Yet knowing all of this fails to make Finn more forgiving. His wife, the woman for whom he has spent his life searching, is at the mercy of terrorists. She could be starving or tortured or—He stops there. He still cannot consider the possibility of her death, despite the embassy's diminishing hope in her survival. The only reason to keep prisoners alive is to collect a ransom. When no ransom is demanded, one can only assume that the kidnappers have no reason to keep their captives alive.

At least the American spooks seem to be doing something. Dax, the UK's own agent, meets with them regularly, and when he hears a lead of interest he turns up on Finn's doorstep in the middle of the night. He texts a line from Robbie Burns's “Tam o' Shanter” whenever he is on his way over, and Finn pulls on a sweater and jeans and meets him in the courtyard. They never speak indoors.

F
INN THWACKS THE
bread dough again so hard it startles Cressie, and she stops smacking her own little ball of dough long enough to look up at him reproachfully. She sits on the counter, close enough so Finn can catch her if she falls, her prison-striped vest flecked with flour. “Been inside for nine months,” it reads. Once, this had been amusing. Now, it is simply the only clean vest available.

Finn has never been much of a cook, let alone a baker, but it fills the time. He also has a child to feed. He tries to make things Miranda would approve of: vegetable soups, hummus and bread, beans and rice, slices of tomato and cucumber (carefully washed in vinegar and bottled water). Gabra helps him, making lentil curries and the spongy injera bread Cressie loves, though Gabra fails to understand why she isn't allowed to feed the little girl chicken or beef. Miranda was adamant that Cressida be raised vegetarian. It's funny, Finn had always thought that he would be slipping steak and sausages onto Cressie's plate as soon as her mother wasn't looking, but he can't bring himself to do it now. He has become almost as vigilant as Miranda, despite remaining an enthusiastic carnivore. After all, he thinks, when Miranda finally turns up, I don't want the first words out of her mouth to be “You are feeding my child
what
?”

Chopping, kneading, and sifting often help keep despair on the perimeters of his consciousness, though it isn't exactly working at the moment. The silence has become too ominous.

That's when he hears the pounding at the front gate and a rattling of the lock. Bashir has gone to the souq to pick up tomatoes and cucumbers, so Finn and Cressie are alone in the house. Brushing his hands on his jeans, Finn lifts his daughter down to the floor. “Don't move,” he says, handing her the bread pans. “Make some music.”

He runs down the two flights, listening to the carefree clatter of tin pans above, and crosses the courtyard to find no one at the gate. He sticks his head out, peering in both directions, but sees no one other than the usual gangs of filthy children.
“Qalam?”
a small, barefoot boy in a ragged
thobe
and oversized suit jacket politely inquires. “Later,” Finn answers in Arabic. “I've got some on order.”

He is about to give up and close the gate when he sees the envelope under his foot. It must have been slipped under the door. Dusting
it off, he uncovers red and white hearts and flowers. “A bit early for Valentine's Day,” he mutters, picking it up. It is addressed to
HIS EXCILENCY THE AMBASSIDOR
. It occurs to Finn that he should probably have someone scan it for poison or explosives, but he's too anxious about the contents to wait. He locks the gate and runs up to the kitchen, catching Cressie trying to wrench open the oven door. He sets the envelope on a high shelf while he quickly lights the stove, sets his loaves in greased pans, and slides them into the oven. Cressie's grubby ball of dough gets its own small pan.

Only after he has set Cressie in her crib, handed her Corduroy, and sung her a few verses about the doomed Molly Malone does he finally sit down at the kitchen table—a square plastic card table, no fancy furniture here—with the envelope. Using a butter knife, he slits the top. Several pages of flowered stationery tumble onto the table, each written in a different hand, in varying levels of English. Most are addressed to
HIS EXCILENCY
or
AMBASSIDOR OF GREAT BRITAIN
, but the one on top is addressed simply to
AMBASSADOR FINN
. He turns it over, searching for the signature, and is not surprised to find Tazkia's name. She is the only one of Miranda's women he has met, the only one who knows him well enough to use his first name. He had phoned her the first week Miranda disappeared, so she could hear the news from him. She had taken it stoically, coming as she did from people accustomed to death and disappearance, but she had sent a card to the office with a yellow plastic bag full of tiny green raisins for Cressida. “I will help find her,” she had written. Finn had appreciated the sentiment without taking it to heart. How could she help? She didn't even have a car, and women rarely traveled alone. This was a puzzle for intelligence services and diplomats, not for naïve young women constrained by custom and culture.

“You know that our hearts are bleeding like yours,” she began.

I tell you over and over but you know how Miranda has helped us and how we would do anything for her. The girls are shy to write you but I encourage them because we think we can help you. You being ambassidor cannot go places and maybe do not know the right people. We maybe can help. Maybe not but we need to try. No longer is it tolerant for us to sit while you and Kresida are
so suffering. The girls do not know you so they are not trusting yet but I say to trust you as they trust Miranda because you are the same. You know we cannot come to you for the obvius reason but my brother he will help us. He can take you to a place we can talk. Send him a message to his phone and tell him when you can come
.

One by one, Finn reads through the rest of the letters from Miranda's pupils. Their expressions of grief are eloquent in their simplicity. “Miranda she cut windows in our lives,” wrote Aaqilah. “We will cut through mountains to find her.”

SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

Norman

Norman woke with a splitting headache and the dull, nagging sense that he had done something stupid. He rolled onto his side, away from the mountainous bulk of his still-sleeping wife, reaching for the glass of water on his nightstand. The water slid coolly down his throat, failing to remove the bitter taste from his tongue. He swung his pajama-clad legs over the edge of the bed and sat for a moment paralyzed with self-recrimination. How could he have been such an ass? The first thing that little cunt would have done was run and tell Finn. Which meant he could expect to be called into the boss's office for a little chat this morning. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Double fuck.

Still, Finn wouldn't fire him, would he? He wouldn't risk it. Norman would probably just get a stern talking-to. If only he hadn't saddled himself with this man. But what alternative had he had? He needed this posting, needed this promotion. If he proved himself here, he had a good chance at getting another posting. God knows they needed one; every time he got stuck with a London job they nearly went bankrupt. The Foreign Office had it all ass-backward when it came to allowances. He got all this extra cash to come to this third-world country, where they had a free (and enormous) house, free utilities, staff, and where groceries cost a whopping thirty pounds a
month. But when they were stationed back in London, what did they get? Zilch. In London they were
stuffed
, stuck with astronomical rent, exorbitantly priced groceries, and scrubbing their own dishes. There was very little incentive to spend any time in London. And he had needed Finn to get this job, had needed that dazzling performance review for Afghanistan. Finn needed him too, he reminded himself. He needed Norman to keep his mouth shut about that girl.

But why, why did Finn have to go and pick Miranda? The one woman Norman could not evict from his mind? Granted, Miranda had rejected his advances before Finn even arrived in country. But to see her at his side, to see the two of them so visibly happy, it burned. It meant the end of hope. He had suffered infatuations like this before, some of them unrequited, but usually a change of country or position had eased the agony. Oh, Mira, Mira, beyond high walls, why do I still want you most of all?

He stood, his knees creaking as he straightened up. He was getting old. Still, he was no older than Finn, who unerringly managed to pull the most interesting women. Half his staff seemed to be enamored with him, finding excuses to linger in the doorway of his office, asking his advice, bringing him tea. Had Miranda ever really had a girlfriend, or had that merely been her way of fending him off? Because look at her now. Little ambassador fucker. Just like that bird in Afghanistan, whatever her name was. Apsoon? Agoon? Some fucking Arab name. She'd turned him down too, for his religion, the fact that they worked in the same office. But somehow those objections hadn't applied to Finn. He didn't get it. What was so special about Finn? Norman staggered to the bathroom mirror, speckled with dried toothpaste, and took a long look.

He wasn't in sparkling form, he was forced to admit. The pale expanse of his belly hung over his striped pajama bottoms, advertising his excessive bar tab. His eyes were bloodshot, puffy, the flesh on his arms loose and soft. He ran his fingers through his hair. At least he still had that. Hadn't lost a single strand and it was still brown. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe he could start going to the gym, doing a little swimming. He looked out the bathroom door, back toward the bed. Was that what he was stuck with for his remaining
days? That moaning lump of a woman? She was devoted, that much could be said. She took good care of the house and kids and made muffins twice a week for the entire embassy staff. But then, who else would have her now? She'd gained more than eight stone since their marriage twenty years ago. It weighed on her personality as much as it weighed on her bones, dragging her into chronic depression and complaint. She smelled funny, like something had curdled between the folds of her flesh. They hadn't made love in years. Their kids had left home, and he wasn't quite sure why he hadn't left himself. He'd had his chances, when he was younger, before this belly and these arms. But leaving had seemed too complicated then, too messy. Please, he pleaded with his image in the bathroom mirror, I'll try to pull myself together. I'll be a good boy. Just please, please don't tell me this is as good as it gets.

OCTOBER 2007

Miranda

Miranda was at home, cutting photographs out of magazines, when Finn called to tell her about the assault on the American embassy. Early that morning, a small group of men had attacked with truck bombs, grenades, and automatic rifles. Nineteen Mazrooqis and Mazrooqi-Americans were killed, most while standing in line to renew their visas. None of the expatriate staff was harmed.

She stared numbly down at the stack of colored envelopes on her worktable. It was Finn's birthday, and she was nearly finished making him forty-seven cards, one for every year of his life. She had missed so many of his birthdays, she wanted to make up for lost time. It was his first since they had been together; she wanted it to be memorable. But not this memorable.

Nauseated by the news, Miranda pushed away the carrot muffin she had been nibbling as she worked. She had stood in that same line at the embassy just a month ago, to get pages added to her overstuffed passport. “Please tell me there weren't children.”

“All right. I won't tell you.”

“Oh, Finn,
no
.”

“I know. I know, sweetheart.”

They were silent for several minutes.

“I'm really sorry, but I am guessing I'll be late home,” he said finally. He had to reevaluate the security of his own embassy, as well as the safety of his staff. He'd already arranged a meeting with the US ambassador, both to offer his condolences and to find out the details of the attack. The embassies often pooled intelligence and were frequently the targets of the same people.