Date with a Sheesha (15 page)

I watched Hema for a moment, mesmerized at the speed with which her thumbs moved across that miniscule typing pad. She and I were meant to spend the next week together in a foreign country. We really needed to get to know each other. Not to mention come up with a basic plan for how things were going to work once we got there. I gathered my things, and headed over.

Even as I put down my stuff on the free seat across from her, Hema didn’t bother to look up.

“Hello,” I said once I was settled.

She finally glanced up, her large, dark eyes betraying something that looked a lot like irritation. Had she really believed we’d never talk our whole time together? I like my alone time too, but in this case that just wasn’t going to cut it. I’d have to pull her out of her shell no matter what it took: humour, too much wine, or an escargot fork (only as a last resort).

“Oh, hello,” she managed, still texting away, without even looking at the buttons.

“I was surprised not to see you at the airport in Saskatoon,” I started out in a congenial conversational tone. “I was worried you’d missed the flight.”

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“Why would you think that? What sort of idiot misses a plane?”

“Uh…oh, well, yeah…I just thought…well I didn’t see you there, or on the flight to Montreal.”

“I flew in last night to see friends and go to some clubs. I hope you weren’t expecting me to be your escort all the way to Dubai.”

My mouth was open, but no words were coming out. What had happened to the reserved, demure, quiet young woman with the shy smile and gentle demeanour? Where was she? That’s who I wanted to be on this trip with. Not this aloof, standoffish, indifferent creature with the lightning quick thumbs and razor-sharp tongue.

“I hope you can take care of yourself. I can’t hold your hand through all of this. You do your job. I’ll do mine. Then we go home. Sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I take it you’re not as convinced as your uncle is that your cousin was intentionally murdered then?”

She snorted. “My uncle is delusional. But hey, if he wants to spend some of his wads of cash sending me on a fool’s errand, who am I to say no? And I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to. So here I am. Who cares?” Her shoulders did a bit of a hunching move. “We’re both here for the same reason, Russell. Money. You run after it. I get pushed around by it. That’s the way it is.” Her eyes moved down to her busy fingers as if she’d said her piece and was done with me.

Not so fast, sugar. “What do
you
think happened to your cousin?”

“How am I supposed to know?” She didn’t look up. “But come on, the police investigated. There’s no reason not to believe what they say. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She spoke as fast as her fingers moved, as if she were taking her own dictation.

“Sure, Dubai is as Western a city as any in the Middle East can be. But look at LA and Toronto and Detroit and Vancouver, even Saskatoon. They all have places that if you go there when you shouldn’t, you’re taking your life in your own hands. An Arabian marketplace late at night sounds like one of those places to me.

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This had nothing to do with him being gay. It had to do with him being stupid.”

I stared at the young woman. I smelled her flowery perfume, noticed her expensive shoes—low-heeled and practical for travel, but still ultra-stylish—and her trendy hairstyle that before had been hidden under the scarf of her sari or in a bun. “Even if that’s true,” I began slowly, hoping the exaggerated speed of my words would draw her attention. (It didn’t.) “Don’t you think your aunt and uncle deserve something more than a statement off some police report that says Neil’s life was taken for no reason, by hoodlums who’ll likely never be caught?”

Finally she stopped typing. She seemed to be thinking about something, then looked up and said: “Why? It won’t change anything will it? He’ll still be dead. They’ll still be sad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sad about this too. Neil was an okay guy. But life goes on.

“I think you’re wasting your time. No. Wait. You’re being paid. What do you care? It’s me whose time is being wasted. This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to spend the next several days of my life. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like playing the puppet of a rich old guy.”

Her BlackBerry chimed. She looked down, read a message, and furiously began typing again.

“I could have done that job better and faster than Neil,” she said, amazing me with her ability to have two conversations, one verbal, one textual, at the same time. Of course, I was trusting she was actually typing something other than gobbledygook into the BlackBerry. “If they’d really wanted me to have it, they’d have found a way, even though I’m a woman. But they wanted Neil.

Fine. I’m over it. I’ve moved on to other important stuff. But now they’re desperate. And guess who gets dragged back in to finish what Neil started? Me. And guess who’ll get all the credit in the end? Not me. As far as I’m concerned, this is a week of my life lost forever. I just want it over and done with.”

I nodded. Abrasive, unhappy, opinionated, free-talking people could be hard to take in many circumstances. This wasn’t one of them. I now had a pretty good idea of where Hema Gupta was com-103

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ing from. I didn’t have to agree or sympathize with her. I didn’t have to like her. I
did
want to know what her motives were, and what to expect from her as we grew closer and closer to a foreign, exotic world neither of us was familiar with. She had just given me a hefty helping hand in that regard. For a detective, that was a gift.

Our flight to Paris departed half an hour late because the little vehicle that was to push our plane back onto the runway decided to stall. If I had to work in such punishing cold and bitter wind, I’d stall too. But our seats in the new Boeing 777 were worth the wait. Actually, these weren’t so much seats as they were individual mini apartments. They came complete with our own entertainment centre, lots of little shelves and cubbyholes to put stuff in, a fluffy pillow, cozy blanket, bedroom slippers, and a “seat”

that could recline in a million different ways, including flat out as a full-length bed. Even though Hema was seated next to me, because of the staggered, angled configuration of the compart-ments, we’d never have to look at each other if we didn’t want to.

Chances were, we wouldn’t want to.

The down-to-earth, Canadian country boy in me couldn’t help but feel guilty as I settled into my new
pied–à–terre
while the back-of-the-bus passengers boarded after us. Strategic placement of the aircraft’s cabin entrance ensured they’d suffer the indignity of having to walk through the neon-blue mood-lit (à la
Star Trek
) business class section on their way to sardine class. As they slogged past, struggling with their assorted carry-ons and packages, I tried to keep from catching their faintly accusatory eyes by busily trying to find other things to do. I stashed stuff in my many cubbyholes. I arranged and rearranged my slippered tootsies on the handy footrest. I studied the personalized menu from which I would make wine selections to best complement my upcoming gourmet meal. I sipped my chilled champagne.

But of course, eventually, the line got backed up by some self-indulgent traveller, somewhere way down the passageway, trying to squish their full-size luggage into the overhead compartment in order to avoid checking it. (This, to me, isn’t being a wise trav-104

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eller; it’s being a rude one.) I finally gave up and looked up with a polite smile at the harried woman standing waiting, next to my gracious airplane apartment. She simply looked down at the tow-headed boy standing behind her, his hand clamped in hers, and said: “You see this?
This
is why you stay in school.”

Several passengers, and a steward in the area, laughed at the comment, lightening the mood appreciatively. I glanced over at Hema, thinking it might be a good idea to share this amusing moment together. She was too busy, bent over her BlackBerry.

What the heck was she texting whoever was at the other end?
The
Iliad
?

A light bulb (one of those energy-efficient ones, which aren’t as bright but help save the environment) popped on over my head. While we still had the option, I reached for my laptop—

stored in a handy nearby compartment designed for that purpose—and revved it up. I checked the files I’d stored on my hard drive. I found the list of contact information I’d been provided in a joint effort by Pranav, Unnati, and Colin Cardinale. Yup, there it was. Hema’s BlackBerry number.

Hurrying before the cabin crew instructed us to turn off all electronic devices, I composed a message to Hema. I basically asked her a few pointed questions about the carpets we were after, what she would be doing in Dubai to procure them, and suggested ways our roles might fit together.

I hit send. Seconds later, I heard the “ping” of reception across the aisle. In my experience—well, sort of—I have found that if you’re going to talk to an alien, it always goes better if you try to speak their language. It worked in
Close Encounters of the Third
Kind
. It might work here. About thirty seconds later I received a message: “transm dev turned off til p will prep ans on way.” It looked like the alien was talking back. If I read her response correctly, in Hema-speak, she said she would get an answer to me in p (also known as Paris) once the transmitting functions of our electronic devices could be turned back on. In the meantime, I would nestle back into my cushy seat, enjoy a Cornish game hen, some nice Malbec, and the thrill of a successful first contact.

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Charles de Gaulle International Airport, about twenty-five kilometres north east of Paris, is also known as Roissy. It’s one of the world’s busiest, handling about sixty million passengers a year.

The place is named after the general who led the Free French Forces during World War II. From what I’d seen, many parts of the airport still look like that’s when they were built. We arrived Friday at 9:15 a.m., now at a full seven hours time difference from Saskatoon. We had a tight connection and had to rush to check in for our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. Conceding we were actually travelling together, Hema stayed nearby as we navigated our way to the departure gate.

The flight to Frankfurt was only fifty minutes. Once in Germany, we had a long enough layover to enjoy the even plush-er amenities of the Lufthansa Business Lounge. Over a light lunch of smoked salmon, smoked duck, prosciutto, and a nice selection of breads and fruit, I read Hema’s texted response to my questions. Afterward, she relented and actually took part in a verbal conversation. Although she wasn’t giving up any of her I-don’t-want-to-be-here attitude, she did soften a bit in her overall manner. But only a bit. And only after a glass or two of Chardonnay.

By one-thirty p.m., we were aboard the massive 747 destined for the Middle East. After six hours, another sumptuous meal, an actual wine tasting (how would I ever travel economy again?), and another three-hour time change, we landed in Dubai at ten-thirty at night.

Phew.

There is something about arriving by air, at night, in a land where I’ve never been before, that fills me with both excitement and trepidation. Excitement over seeing new things, meeting new people, experiencing a new culture. Trepidation over the unknown. What’s out there in the dark?

With Hema taking the lead, pulling her Louis Vuitton carry-on behind her, we traversed what seemed like miles of high-ceilinged, well-lit glass corridors and scaled swift-moving, mountainous escalators. The place was like a mausoleum combined with a shopping mall. It was bright and airy, but at the same time 106

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glitzy and over-the-top. A traveller could spend a day or two just visiting the terminal and be very well entertained. Hema was moving too fast through the ebb and flow of people to take it all in, but from what I saw, it was all I’d expected and more. They weren’t kidding around when they said this was one of the most glamorous airports in the world.

As promised, Umar, our guide arranged by the University of Dubai, was waiting for us at the end of one of the long hallways.

He was holding aloft a sign, with both our names miraculously spelled correctly. Then, by some magic, he fast-tracked us through Passport Control, and we were, luggage in hand, getting into a waiting car before we could say
asalaam ‘alaykum
.

Umar was from Pakistan. I’d learned that most of the popula-tion of the UAE are not Emiratis. Rather, they are workers from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Africa, and even China.

Even so, Umar acted and sounded like a local, knowledgeably pointing out the multitudinous sights on the forty-minute ride to Hema’s hotel. Although it was dark out, the outlines of some of the most fantastic structures ever built by man were easy to see.

The Burj Al Arab. The Burj Dubai. Emirates Tower. There were ubiquitous minarets, each signifying the location of a mosque.

And about a million cranes at the ready to build more of the same.