said. Ten years we can’t even begin to imagine. Forsaken completely, crouched in a tomb in the sand, living off roaches and fetid rainwater, a single vent and a thin slice of sky. Ten years during which Rahim had prayed each day that his brother was dead.
Driss had been a student when they arrested him, a reckless young man preaching democracy on the streets of Rabat. But Tazmamart had changed all that. The Driss I’d known in Lisbon was sober and stooped, with the air of an ascetic. And though he stayed with us through most of August, he and I barely exchanged a dozen words.
He didn’t like me, treated me with the same scorn so many of Rahim’s Moroccan friends so obviously felt toward me. It was a stigma I’d grown used to, the woman they all wanted to fuck yet hated for making them want her. Driss’s scorn had extended to Rahim as well, I’d thought, to his Swiss watch and German stereo. I was merely another possession.
Driss had brought a shortwave radio with him, and after dinner he would sit in a corner of the kitchen listening to the BBC or Radio France. The Iraqis had invaded Kuwait by then, but the faraway skirmish was not something to which any of us gave much thought.
But Driss was listening, and slowly, the others were, too. I could hear them after I went to bed, voices in the darkness, the Arabic harsh and guttural. Moroccan Arabic was an even greater mystery to me than its Lebanese counterpart, and aside from the odd word or two, I could understand very little. But their anger and outrage were clear.
At first it was mainly Driss who spoke, then slowly the others joined in, faces I recognized from Rahim’s dinners, desperate men who came to the apartment for a week or two and were suddenly gone.
And then, finally, I could hear Rahim’s voice as well.
John Valsamis crossed to the window and peered out across the air shaft at Nicole’s half-closed drapes, the swath of dark room visible in the space between the two long panels. Up before dawn and gone. And now, coming into evening, there was still no sign of her. Valsamis could hardly blame her for her disappearances— no one wants to be followed— but still, he didn’t like it that she’d been gone all day, plus the day before.
Valsamis’s cell phone rang, and he hit the mute button on his TV remote. CNN dropped into silence. On the screen, a handful of white SUVs, each marked with the plain black letters UN, pulled into a fenced factory compound, their wheels kicking up clouds of fine desert dust. FALLUJAH, IRAQ, the banner across the bottom of the screen read.
“Yes?” Valsamis said into the phone.
“Any word on our Moroccan friend?” Morrow’s voice, and the cough again.
They were getting old, Valsamis thought, all of them. “Not yet.”
“And the girl?”
Valsamis hesitated just a moment too long.
“You said she would get this done,” Morrow snapped.
“She will.”
A woman’s voice sounded in the background on the other end of the line. “Cocktail,” Valsamis caught, “darling.” And then Morrow: “Tell everyone I’ll be right there, dear.”
That life, Valsamis thought, and that house. Rain falling quietly on the towpath, on the cobbled Georgetown streets. And inside, only what he imagined, waxed wood and tastefully worn rugs, dinner dishes shining in the firelight, a woman in a plain cashmere sweater and a simple silver necklace. Furniture isn’t something you buy, it’s something you have, he thought, trying to remember who it was who’d told him that. Someone in the Agency, back when he was first starting out. Valsamis had been careful never to bring anyone to any of his apartments after that.
“Remember,” Morrow said. “No loose ends.” Then the line clicked dead.
November 29, 1990. The end of a rainy fall in Lisbon. On our kitchen table, a bowl of tangerines, an empty bottle of vinho verde, and half a loaf of bread. Dinner dishes in the sink, and on the floor a plate of fish bones for the silky
Driss had been a student when they arrested him, a reckless young man preaching democracy on the streets of Rabat. But Tazmamart had changed all that. The Driss I’d known in Lisbon was sober and stooped, with the air of an ascetic. And though he stayed with us through most of August, he and I barely exchanged a dozen words.
He didn’t like me, treated me with the same scorn so many of Rahim’s Moroccan friends so obviously felt toward me. It was a stigma I’d grown used to, the woman they all wanted to fuck yet hated for making them want her. Driss’s scorn had extended to Rahim as well, I’d thought, to his Swiss watch and German stereo. I was merely another possession.
Driss had brought a shortwave radio with him, and after dinner he would sit in a corner of the kitchen listening to the BBC or Radio France. The Iraqis had invaded Kuwait by then, but the faraway skirmish was not something to which any of us gave much thought.
But Driss was listening, and slowly, the others were, too. I could hear them after I went to bed, voices in the darkness, the Arabic harsh and guttural. Moroccan Arabic was an even greater mystery to me than its Lebanese counterpart, and aside from the odd word or two, I could understand very little. But their anger and outrage were clear.
At first it was mainly Driss who spoke, then slowly the others joined in, faces I recognized from Rahim’s dinners, desperate men who came to the apartment for a week or two and were suddenly gone.
And then, finally, I could hear Rahim’s voice as well.
John Valsamis crossed to the window and peered out across the air shaft at Nicole’s half-closed drapes, the swath of dark room visible in the space between the two long panels. Up before dawn and gone. And now, coming into evening, there was still no sign of her. Valsamis could hardly blame her for her disappearances— no one wants to be followed— but still, he didn’t like it that she’d been gone all day, plus the day before.
Valsamis’s cell phone rang, and he hit the mute button on his TV remote. CNN dropped into silence. On the screen, a handful of white SUVs, each marked with the plain black letters UN, pulled into a fenced factory compound, their wheels kicking up clouds of fine desert dust. FALLUJAH, IRAQ, the banner across the bottom of the screen read.
“Yes?” Valsamis said into the phone.
“Any word on our Moroccan friend?” Morrow’s voice, and the cough again.
They were getting old, Valsamis thought, all of them. “Not yet.”
“And the girl?”
Valsamis hesitated just a moment too long.
“You said she would get this done,” Morrow snapped.
“She will.”
A woman’s voice sounded in the background on the other end of the line. “Cocktail,” Valsamis caught, “darling.” And then Morrow: “Tell everyone I’ll be right there, dear.”
That life, Valsamis thought, and that house. Rain falling quietly on the towpath, on the cobbled Georgetown streets. And inside, only what he imagined, waxed wood and tastefully worn rugs, dinner dishes shining in the firelight, a woman in a plain cashmere sweater and a simple silver necklace. Furniture isn’t something you buy, it’s something you have, he thought, trying to remember who it was who’d told him that. Someone in the Agency, back when he was first starting out. Valsamis had been careful never to bring anyone to any of his apartments after that.
“Remember,” Morrow said. “No loose ends.” Then the line clicked dead.
November 29, 1990. The end of a rainy fall in Lisbon. On our kitchen table, a bowl of tangerines, an empty bottle of vinho verde, and half a loaf of bread. Dinner dishes in the sink, and on the floor a plate of fish bones for the silky
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