The Ambassador's Wife (42 page)

“Luloah!” she exclaims, taking the child. Then, wary of exposing her joy to hostile scrutiny, she falls silent, clutching Luloah to her chest. The little girl is frighteningly light again. Her face is pointed, elfin, not rounded like a baby's. Miranda wants to nurse her right away, but she must wait for the men to leave. They stand there, looking awkward. “I am to tell you that this child is not yours,” says the man who had carried Luloah. “But she must not die.”

“No,” Miranda agrees. “She must not.”

The men still stand there, staring at her with the child.

“Law samaht,”
she finally says. “This child needs to eat.”

Looking slightly embarrassed, the men shuffle backward and reach for the door.

T
HERE IS A
slight improvement in her food after Luloah's arrival. They bring her glasses of milk, of mango juice. She receives beans with her bread; she hasn't had much more than bread and rice for days. Sometimes there is even a banana or a couple of withered dates.

It hadn't been easy to get Luloah to nurse again. She had lost so much strength that it was once more difficult for her to suck. But Miranda was patient and determined. Soon, she thinks, she might be able to start giving Luloah a bit of her fruit. She instinctively knows to conceal this information from the guards. Because if Luloah can eat solid food, she might be able to survive without Miranda. But perhaps Luloah simply hadn't been willing to accept food from anyone else. Maybe that is why they gave her back.

Miranda is aware this is a temporary situation; the guards have made that clear. But she doesn't allow herself to dwell on this. Instead, she redoubles her efforts to survive, to stay strong. She eats every scrap of food, even when she has no appetite. In the mornings, when
Luloah naps, she does jumping jacks and presses her palms into the filthy floor to practice sun salutations. Something to keep her muscles from wasting entirely. Perhaps most important, she makes an effort with the guards. Swallowing her revulsion, she says good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. She asks them how they are. Surprised and wary, they are slow to respond, but finally, they do. They must be almost as bored as she has been. Every week or so a guard hands her a new bundle of clothing. She wonders where it comes from. Mazrooqi women in the cities never wear skirts like this; they wear skimpy dresses or tight jeans under their
abayas
. The customary covering keeps them from needing any other modest clothing.

She asks for a Quran and a few days later, for water and a bar of soap. “To wash myself for prayers.” She doesn't know why she hasn't thought of this before. She uses the pitchers of water to bathe Luloah first, and then herself. Last, she rinses out the cloth diaper. When it is warm enough, she leaves Luloah naked on her sleeping mat and tries to rush her to the chamber pot in the corner when her face screws up and her body begins to strain. Every other minute of the day she spends feeding, entertaining, and rocking Luloah. When the cries of the man next door seep through the wall, she sings, loudly. Luloah must not absorb the toxins in those sounds. A few days after she first heard him, Miranda had listened to the man praying, in Arabic. He must be Mazrooqi. Why is he being tortured? Why torture one of their own and not her, citizen of a loathed enemy country? But these are questions she knows better than to ask the guards.

In the mornings, she lays Luloah in the tiny square of sunlight, hoping she will soak up enough UVB rays for her body to manufacture a few vital specks of vitamin D. When the girl has regained a little strength, Miranda props her up against a corner to practice sitting while she reads to her from the Quran. Luloah is, after all, a Muslim child. For at least half an hour every day she lays Luloah on her stomach so she can practice lifting her head, just as she had done with Cressida (who had hated “tummy time” and screamed until Miranda rolled her over). But most of all, she talks.

She begins with the memories she has been cataloging to keep from going mad, telling Luloah about her first drawings, the round
figures with scribbles of hair and spindly arms and legs her mother had called her pod people. From there she moves on to school, paintings, boyfriends, girlfriends, art shows, college, travels, Vícenta, Finn. She tells her everything. When she has nothing more to say about her own life, she recounts every Islamic myth she can remember. Her women had told her dozens, though she can remember only a few. She remembers the
mi'raj
, the mythical predatory rabbit with a spiraling unicorn horn—not only because she has a fondness for bunnies but because the word
mi'raj
also means Mohammed's ascent into Heaven. She also tells Luloah about the
buraq
, the winged horse that carried the Prophet to Heaven during the
mi'raj
. She describes the
ababil
birds that allegedly protected Mecca from invading elephants by dropping bricks on the invaders. “Do you think Mazrooq ever had elephants?” Miranda asks her small charge. “And what ever became of the
ababil
, I wonder?”

As she talks, Luloah stares up at her with those huge, dark eyes and clings to her toes for dear life. She is a serious child, more solemn than Miranda remembers. Had this girl really ever laughed? Occasionally she ventures a few syllables out loud, for which Miranda congratulates her. She still speaks to her in a mix of Arabic and French, afraid to be overheard in English. Her dreams mingle these languages, only these, as if she has forgotten even how to think in her native tongue. It is too dangerous to think in English. Though they must know who she is by now. Finn wouldn't have been able to conceal her disappearance for long.
Where is he?
Cressie must be speaking in sentences by now. But this line of thinking leads only to bottomless despair. Better to focus on the child in front of her, the child who curls into her at night, pressing her snotty, drooling, filthy little face into Miranda's neck.

In an attempt to summon a smile from her grave charge, Miranda plays patty-cake with her, and Miss Mary Mac. She sings “Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,” lightly touching each body part as it is mentioned. It doesn't rhyme in French or in Arabic, but still. She attempts to translate “The Grand Old Duke of York,” one of Finn's favorites.
“Al ‘atheem duq al-York, qaada ashra alaaf rajul…”
It doesn't quite scan, but Luloah never complains. Miranda tells Luloah
about the country in which she was born. “So many people here never leave their own neighborhood,” she says to the child. “Some of my women have lived in Arnabiya their whole lives and have never been to the Old City. None of them have been to the deserts in the East or climbed the mountains in the West. You are not going to be like that. You live in an extraordinary country. You must see it all. I was lucky,
habibti
, I got to see it before the Brits locked me up in the Residence. Before I met your daddy—” Miranda stops, appalled by what she has just said. This is not her child, not Finn's. She pauses, takes a breath. Luloah simply looks at her, tiny eyebrows knitting together. “Before I met Finn, my husband, I traveled. Vícenta and I traveled together, and after she left I traveled alone. Especially when I knew I was about to lose my freedom.”

Three weeks before she moved in with Finn, her Arabic teacher, Mahmoud, had driven her eight hours to the east, to the cities of mud-brick high-rises and fertile valleys where dates and honey were cultivated. This was what she had instead of a bachelorette party, a final taste of freedom.

“Shall I tell you the story,
habibti
? God knows we have time. And it's important that you know a little bit about your own country, no?” And she begins.

“We reached the first checkpoint outside of Arnabiya just before 9:00 a.m. There are checkpoints everywhere in your country,
habibti
. It makes getting around pretty tricky for a foreigner. But Mahmoud had brought a stack of about sixty copies of our permission-to-travel form, which he kept on the windshield and handed out at every stop. Fifteen minutes or so later, our police escort arrived, and we headed off to breakfast, the predictable
fool wa fasooleah
with stretchy white bread in a roadside
mat'am
. You've had a bit of that here, yes? When the guards aren't watching. Don't tell the French, but your people make better bread.

“Back on the road, we saw almost no other cars. We pulled over once, so I could photograph a mountain that looked like a camel's head. When I climbed out of the car, my camera swinging from my hand, a soldier by the side of the road forced a Kalashnikov into my
arms. So Mahmoud took a picture of me, looking like every other adventure-seeking tourist here, holding the massive gun. I felt mildly ashamed, and of course the one thing running through my mind was that my father would
kill
me if he knew I was holding a gun. Funny that you can be in your late thirties and still worry what your father will think. I suppose that never goes away.

“We were about an hour outside Dibra, our first stop, when Finn texted me to say that a car bomb had just killed a van full of German tourists there, right on our route. Other friends also texted, saying, ‘Turn around!' Mahmoud didn't seem remotely concerned, until all of
his
family members started calling to tell him he was insane to continue on our journey. They would not have worried were he alone, but he was with me, an ugly American, a walking, talking target. Mahmoud has about fifty or so immediate family members, meaning his phone rang pretty much nonstop. But we didn't turn around. Mahmoud had promised to show me his country's bounty, and damn it, he was going to show it to me.

“At every checkpoint, a police officer took a copy of our permission slip and asked my nationality. (This is something you will never have to worry about, my little Mazrooqi.) Every time, Mahmoud said I was French, while I kept my head scarf wrapped tightly around my head, my sunglasses obscuring my eyes, and stared demurely at my lap.

“We lost our police escort somewhere in the mountains before Dibra. ‘I guess they think we're safe,' Mahmoud said, shrugging. He isn't much of a worrier, Mahmoud. But then in the city itself, we got
two
police cars, one to drive in front of us and one behind, which made us pretty conspicuous on the otherwise empty roads. Mahmoud conceded that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to spend the night there, but he thought we'd be pretty safe on a speed tour of the tourist attractions. After all, there had already been one bombing that day, what were the chances of another so soon? So we whipped past the massive dam, the temples, Dibra's Old City, so fast all of my photos are blurry. On the way back to town for lunch, we passed the remains of the car that had exploded earlier, behind pink police tape. It had
shattered into such tiny pieces of confetti there was almost nothing left. Actually, you don't need that image in your brain. Forget I said that.

“Before lunch, we had to give our police escort money. When you get a police escort, you are responsible for the care and feeding of these men for the length of their time with you. Our first police escort demanded money before they turned us over to the second, whom we treated to lunch. It was the kind of restaurant you find everywhere here: a large, tiled room full of shouting men and abuzz with a thousand flies. Waiters spread newspapers over the long tables, banging down metal plates of rice and meat, tossing sheets of bread at diners like Frisbees. No menus in these places; they all serve the same thing. Mahmoud asked for lamb and rice, and
zabadi
and
khubz
for me. I was holding a pen and started doodling my name in Arabic on the newspaper. I wrote ‘I am Miranda from France.' The men around us went into fits of excitement when they saw me forming Arabic letters. ‘SHE WRITES ARABIC!' they shouted at each other. I felt like a child who had just learned to walk. You'll feel like that someday,
insha'allah
. Then the cook leaned out of the steaming kitchen window above us, and shouted to Mahmoud.

“ ‘WHY IS SHE ONLY EATING YOGURT?'

“ ‘SHE IS VERY POOR AND DOESN'T WANT TO SPEND MONEY.' This provoked laughter, as everyone knows that foreigners are rich!

“ ‘HAHA! WHAT IS THE TRUTH? SHE IS TRAVELING AND SO ONLY WANTS TO EAT THE SMALL THINGS?'

“ ‘THAT'S IT.'

“There were no other women in the restaurant, and the entire time we were there no one looked anywhere but at me.

“We left Dibra, with the car cooler packed with water and Pepsi. And thus began our journey through one of the vastest stretches of nothingness I have ever seen. Miles and miles of nothing. There was some relief in the swell of sand dunes, rising and subsiding like the sea. Families of camels strolled alongside our car, including many shaggy little babies. You would love the camels. I didn't know they
came in so many colors; I liked the little black ones best because I'd never seen a black camel before.

“There were checkpoints every few minutes, an absurd, Kafkaesque number of checkpoints. About halfway to Qummash, we lost our police car escort, which was replaced with a police officer in our car. This police officer, who was also replaced at intervals, was laconic. He sat quietly, not even talking with Mahmoud. I found this odd, given that men in your country don't ever fall silent. I drifted off to sleep every few minutes, lulled by the incessant sameness of the landscape.

“The last police officer left us near Qummash, when the landscape began to change. Patches of date palms appeared, ornamenting the vast swaths of beige. The landscape had been just relentlessly khaki. And you know, I've never been a fan of neutral colors,
habibti
. I was so happy to see trees I wanted to get out and hug them.

“Then came a series of cute little villages, some with pink buildings! The sun began to slip in the sky. Things turned gold. I felt oddly tranquil. I'd been oddly tranquil ever since leaving the North. Maybe I was just happy to be alive, grateful that I had not been blown to smithereens in a car bomb?