The Distance Between Us (24 page)

She’d love to look that driver in the face again. That bastard. She remembers the heavy way he stared at her when she insisted he stop for the woman. There’s the off-chance, of course, that he wasn’t in on the ambush. Maybe she’d see only an impoverished, struggling Beruiti, a fundamentalist but still just a man, bumbling along, doing the best he can. It’s possible, she guesses.

And if she saw the other, that’s where her thousand dollars would go. No regrets.

The timing is ideal. Jon returns to Cairo at the end of next week, and she returns to the daily grind. If she makes the trip soon, she needn’t tell the newspaper anything. Slip there, slip back. Nobody’s business. And then, she imagines, she’ll have cleaner emotions. Maybe an eagerness for something fresh. New York might even seem a viable opportunity.

But to make the trip with Goronsky? That’s more insane than the rest of it. Not only her attraction to him, which scares her, which seems stubborn. There’s another issue, the crucial one she forgot to raise on Ammunition Hill. Exactly how does Goronsky know Avraham?

Ya’el stands, stretches. “I have to get upstairs to the girls.” At the door, she turns to take a searching look at Caddie and nods as though seeing something definable. “The day has its purpose. Use it.”

Caddie pours herself an orange juice and rolls her neck, listening to it crack. Avraham. Another topic she hasn’t wanted to think about.

Yes, yes, she’d decided absolutely not to approach him again. She’d wadded up the phone number he gave her and tossed it on her dresser, intending to throw it away.

One more time, though, might give her exactly what she needs. With the right anecdote, the right quote, her story will pop up like a shadow puppet illuminated against a wall. She’ll have something to show for all this. Combine it with a trip to Lebanon, and she may finally be able to move forward.

But what if the settlers attack the cars again? For a second, she relives the thrust of the men’s arms, the fireworks of shattered glass. She feels again the shuddering of the Land Rover as it sped forward. She thinks of the swagger, the mayhem, the power of that moment when one becomes predator instead of prey. The tight flame that runs between men when the sun is down.

Her breathing becomes faster. Something heaves within her chest like the movement of a boulder.

She rises, paces once around the room, picks up her notepad, tosses it down. The room feels stuffy. The phone, when it rings, is a relief. “Hey.” Pete’s voice is warm. “A bunch of us are at the American Colony. Come join us.”

She holds the phone against her ear with her shoulder and hesitates only a beat. “Be there in half an hour.”

T
HEY SIT IN THE COURTYARD
, two tables pulled together near the Turkish-style fountain, and right away Caddie feels guilty. Guilty that she’s dressed in her tight jeans, that she put on dangly
earrings, that she orders a glass of Domaine de Latroun wine from the nearby Trappist monastery, as she always did with Marcus. Guilty that it’s all still going on, a group lounging around drinking and laughing and sharing anecdotes from the field.

It’s more difficult than she expected, to talk, to smile. But she feels her colleagues watching her, so she leans back in her chair and sips the wine, even though she doesn’t really want it, doesn’t really trust herself with it. She asks for water, too, and then a refill, and another, and she keeps drinking the water, drinking and drinking to give her something to do with her mouth besides the forced smile.

There are visiting journalists, some she barely knows, because a U.S. envoy named McCormick is in town talking peace. They are speculating about whether top Israeli leaders will come to a session with the Palestinians, hosted by McCormick, if it is held in east Jerusalem.

“Hey, can’t we talk war?” Pete says. “That’s where the photos are. I can’t wait until McCormick goes home.”

“I want to talk about his chances of pulling off this meeting,” says a woman journalist whose name Caddie can’t recall. She’s mock indignant. She pulls back her long dark hair with one hand, then lets it fall again. “Peace is more important than war to my copy right now,” she says. “We’re leaving town Friday. You can talk about whatever you want after we’re gone.”

“Amen,” says Pete, drawing laughter.

“Yeah, everybody always leaves town,” Caddie says into a lull. “You’re all so fickle. Even my grandmother skipped out
on me eventually, though I guess it’s churlish of me to count death as a betrayal.” She laughs, but no one responds.

She takes another drink of water, embarrassed, and then escapes to the bathroom, slipping down the stairs to the darker lower level, one hand gliding along the cool stone wall. As she’s standing at the sink, the visiting journalist comes in. Slightly dropping her chin, she looks at Caddie over the shiny brass fixtures and squeezes her hand. What the hell is her name? Caddie hates this artificial intimacy. “I heard what happened,” the woman says. “I’m so sorry.” She keeps squeezing and leans forward, her hair falling partly over her face.

Caddie tries to smile. “Well, thanks,” she says, lying. “Thanks for mentioning it.” Then she flees from the bathroom.
I will not be famously known as the reporter who was with Marcus when he died.

She takes the long way back to the table—still no peace, the hotel is crowded as usual. Then, sitting around that table watching the Palestinian waiters and the other customers, she loses track of what exactly they are all speaking about. She keeps smiling and nodding as long as she can.

“I’ve got to get going,” she says finally, after what seems an acceptable length of time. Pete insists on walking her out.

“You know, I think you’re almost back to normal,” he says in an upbeat voice as they leave the courtyard.

“Normal?” She barely stifles a groan. Is this how it goes, then? Is this truly how one returns to normal? Maybe next time she won’t feel bad about the earrings, the wine?

But she doubts it. It’s hard to imagine she’ll ever want to return to the American Colony again. Maybe, in fact—and
here’s the worst thought—maybe she’ll never be restored to even an acceptable facsimile of what she was before.

“You were,” Pete is saying, “a little too reckless for a while there.”

By the side of her car now, Caddie shoves her fingers in her pocket to grab her keys. “Like you aren’t?”

“I’m careful.”

“Shit, Pete. You’ve been hit by rubber bullets, what? Three times?”

“Four. And if any one of them had been live . . . But hey, I’m fifty-three. This is what I’m doing with my life. I’m not going to get married ever again. I don’t have kids.” He opens the car door for her. “You still have—other possibilities.”

“I don’t want other possibilities.”

“Caddie. You don’t know that.”

She’s starting to hate his tone. She gets in the car. “You think that,” she says, “because I’m a woman. You assume a man makes this kind of choice deliberately, but a woman must secretly want to be a wife and a mother.”

“No, Caddie.”

“Yes, Caddie.”

“Look.” Pete leans down to her window. “I don’t want to have this argument. It’s been hell for you, I know that. I know you and Marcus were tight.”

She inserts her key into the ignition, then turns back to Pete. “Hey, did Marcus ever say anything to you about wanting to leave Jerusalem. To quit?”

Pete hesitates. “Not specifically. But I knew he was getting tired of it.”

“Howdja know that?” She keeps her voice light.

“Little things. He was morose sometimes, which wasn’t like him. Other times, he was too cocky. I take risks, sure, but it’s calculated. With him—well, sometimes even in the field, his head was somewhere else. Then, when the action was slow, he’d ask about other stories I’d covered, good places to live in the States. He was considering his options.”

Hell. Casual colleagues had known more than she did.

Perhaps her face gives something away; perhaps there’s only so long one can go on disguising one’s feelings. “Hey,” Pete says, “he was probably going to tell you.” He shifts and straightens. “He was, I’m sure. I bet he was waiting for the right time.”

Pete knows shit. Shit about her, or about Marcus and her. And the last thing she wants is his pity.

So she lies again. “Thanks. Thanks for giving me a call.” And she gives a half-wave and pulls out of that parking lot, away from the shade trees and the wrought-iron tables and the jasmine scent and the detached, laughing journalists, as fast as she can.

A
T HOME SHE PULLS
her tan duffel bag out of the closet. Generally she packs light and quick, cramming her clothes and papers and toothbrush into the bag fifteen minutes before leaving
on a trip. But she unzips it now, and throws in a shirt and two pairs of underwear. A symbolic act. She hasn’t made up her mind, no. This is like a promise to herself, though. She didn’t die in Lebanon. She’s not buried yet. She hates that expression Pete used,
move on
. She has things to do first, before she considers what will be next and where it will be.

Then she lifts the journal out from under the bed. She’s still pissed at Marcus for planning to blow off the story and her with it, and for never letting on. Maybe if she’d known—whatever. Bottom line: she’s in no mood to linger over the journal’s last photographs, search for its final words. She doesn’t know when she ever will be. But it’s been an unpleasant evening. She wants the comfort of
some
presence. So she shoves it under her pillow. It’s all she has, fuck it: a dead man’s diary.

Eleven

G
ORONSKY IS LEAVING
a phone message as she opens the door to her apartment, returning from the
makolet
with cheese and grapes and thoughts of picnics. “. . . got our tickets,” he says. “Two more days. Call me, Caddie. Call as soon as you can.”

He sounds like someone desperate to hear her voice, and it makes her shiver. She’s never had that before—or, more accurately, never allowed herself to have it. He’s as hooked as she is—could he be? She thinks of calling him right back, catching him with his hand still on the receiver. But she wants to think before she feels. She listens one more time to his words, turning up the volume so the sound from the tiny speaker fills the room.

She reaches for the erase button, then stops, halted by a sense of having forgotten something crucial. She walks around the apartment, hoping to jog her memory. She hasn’t missed an interview. She isn’t expected anywhere. “What?” she asks
aloud, and stands in the middle of the living room, listening as though the building’s creaks could answer her.

In the bedroom she sits cross-legged in front of two weeks’ worth of clean laundry on the floor. She folds carefully, trying to concentrate on flattening the wrinkles with her palm, clearing her mind.

Someone should be told. That must be what’s nagging at her, what feels forgotten. Someone, a colleague, should be clued in about Lebanon. Just in case. Street Journalism 101: don’t take off without letting another warm, safely based body know where you’re going.

It’s got to be Jon—who else? So far he hasn’t spilled any secrets to New York. He hasn’t gone neurotically superprotective on her, like Pete. And he’d surely cover for her if Mike found out about the trip and blasted her for leaving without informing the newspaper.
Jon knew
.

She’ll tell him it’s for her feature story. Gathering material. And though Jon will know she’s lying, he won’t give her a hard time. That’s not in his makeup.

Decided, she ditches the unfolded clothes. Before leaving, she dials Goronsky’s hotel room. He’s not there, so she leaves her own message. She’s not as brave as he is, though. She controls her tone so it doesn’t fully reveal her need.

“Y
OU DON’T HAVE TO KNOCK
,” says Jon, looking up from the computer as she taps lightly at the office’s open door. “Unless
this means you’re angling to become a visitor here instead of resident correspondent?”

“Looks like you’ve got the place pretty well cleaned up for me,” she says.

“And you better appreciate it. It wasn’t easy. There were times when I couldn’t see over the stack of newspapers and used Styrofoam cups.”

“Four more days,” she says. “Going to miss it?”

“Oh, Cairo’s all right.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t have your old haunt, Balfour Street.”

“You remember that?” He laughs. “My first time. But I don’t go back there.”

“No?”

“That might make it feel like more of a loss than it really was.”

She smiles at his wistful tone.

“Actually,” he says, “I’m ready for a little break from Jerusalem. It’s a pretty draining assignment.
You’ve
done it for almost five years. Time for a change, Caddie?”

She studies him, then shakes her head. “Mike told you, did he?”

Jon laughs. “But it
is
a good offer.”

She gestures to take in the office. “What, give up all this for New York City?”

“It’s a promotion, kiddo. A pay raise. A great mix—some time in the field, some time in the big city. Hey, it might even lead to something besides all this endless, hopeless bloodletting.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“You know, a sane job.”

“What
is
a sane job, anyway?” she asks.

“Me? I was always into archaeology,” Jon says. “That’s what got me to Egypt in the first place.” He picks up a paper clip and taps it on the desktop, his voice growing ardent. “Not archaeology as politics, the way it’s done here—not searching for signs of who peed on this land first, in order to win a point in the debate over who gets to pee here now. But as layers of the past, brought back to life.” He pauses, and offers an abashed grin. “Mike
did
tell me to work on you, but the fact is, I can sincerely say I think it’s perfect for you. A good opportunity.”

Caddie doesn’t reply.

“No one doubts that you’re tough, Caddie. You’ve kept going, haven’t missed a beat. It’s almost inhuman.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Jon begins unbending the paper clip. “Maybe I’m pushing you to take this offer because of where
I’m
coming from. Lately I’ve been thinking.”