She sat there with a face contorted by grief, her hands convulsing uselessly together in her lap, and that was how Selim found her.
“Do you want me to stop it?” he asked, in flat, unemotional Arabic.
Leila looked up at him through eyes that must have betrayed her terror, for he smiled reassuringly. Then he squeezed the back of Robbie’s neck, hard, with the whole of his hand, lifting the boy out of his seat, and when Robbie tried to hit Selim, the Arab swiftly stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth.
“Listen to me,” he said, in English this time. “Your mother wants you to be quiet. If you cry out again, I will beat your father unconscious. Do you hear me?”
Robbie’s eyes bulged; his cheeks turned hot with the blood of rage. But in the end he nodded, and only then did Selim relax his grip on the boy’s neck. Robbie slumped down, spitting out the handkerchief. When, after a brief interval, Leila took his nearer hand between her own, he at first just allowed it to lie there. Then, slowly, gently, he returned her pressure. Selim watched until he was satisfied that Robbie would behave, before retreating to the back of the first class cabin.
“Mother.”
“Yes, my darling.”
“Mother, can you talk to … these pigs? Do they understand you?” His voice was subdued, but at the back of it resounded something she recognized. Hope.
“Yes. They seem … to quite like me.”
“They haven’t hurt you? Or … you know?”
A lump came into her throat. He was concerned for her honor. He cared.
“No. Nothing.”
“Can you ask them something? For me?” “What?”
“My friend. Tim. He’s the boy I was sitting next to, on the way to Bahrain. He’s diabetic. He’s already sick, he’s panicking because he’s not got enough insulin, and he’s so nice! Can you ask them … would they let the helicopter bring him some medicine?”
She was silent for a while. Then she asked, “This boy … he’s your friend, yes?”
“Yes.”
“A school friend?”
“No, I met him on the plane.”
Leila frowned. “I don’t understand. What is this boy to you?”
He twisted his head around so that he could look up at her, and she read the surprise in his face. “He’s nice. He’s sick. And he doesn’t deserve to die.”
She looked at him without saying anything. Then she slowly turned her head away to stare out of the window. After a while, however, she curled her whole body away from him and held her right hand up to her face. Only when Leila began to tremble did Robbie realize she was crying.
“Mummy,” he said in a low voice, “what’s wrong?” And then, when she only shook more violently, “What’s the matter? Oh, Mum,
please
don’t cry, please, please…. ”
“It’s nothing. I’ll be all right.”
“They
have
hurt you, haven’t they? God, I’ll kill them!”
“Robbie.” Anger sprouted quickly, nurtured by the other, nameless emotions that had temporarily overwhelmed her. “Stop using the name of your Maker like that. It’s wrong, it’s blasphemous, it upsets me.”
His surprise was manifest, but he said, “Sorry.”
“Just because your father didn’t bring you up to have religious belief, there’s no—”
“You’re quite wrong.” The eyes he turned upon his mother brimmed over with artless sincerity. “I believe in God. And I’ve been confirmed.”
“You … what does that mean, conf—”
“I’ve been received into the Christian faith.”
“Christian!”
“Oh, yes.” He paused, and to Leila it seemed as if he waited so as to achieve a certain effect before delivering his statement of the obvious. “You’re not a Christian, are you, Mum?”
Colin had done this.
He had made the boy a Christian. Not a true Believer; merely a Person of the Book,
ahl al kitab.
The notion outraged her. It filled her with horror.
She had told herself, many times, that there would be no need to confront Colin during the hijack, that it was better to let their tortured relationship rest. She had told herself this, and all along she had known she would have no choice but to see him. Her head dictated, but her heart knew.
“I think,” she said in a low voice, “that it would be good for you to see your father soon.”
“Oh…. ” He gnawed his lip, color flooding up into his cheeks; she could see how torn he was, and the sight moved her. “But I don’t want to leave
you.”
She grimaced. “I am not going anywhere, Robbie.”
“But once I’ve gone, who knows if they’ll let us be together again?”
“We must trust in God.” A tense little smile disfigured her face. “You believe in God now, don’t you?” Before he could answer she had twisted around in her seat and beckoned to Selim. She spoke to him in Arabic, trying to make her voice sound as though she were pleading for some favor while she issued instructions. When she had finished he spoke to her abruptly, as she had commanded. They “argued” while Robbie looked imploringly between them. At last Leila turned to him and said, “They will allow you to sit with your father for a while, but only if you promise to behave well. Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at Selim, who nodded. He grasped Robbie and all but pulled him out of the seat. The boy gave his mother’s hand one last squeeze; then he was going through the curtain and she had to resist the desire to chase after him, to throw herself on his back, go down on her knees and pray, Forgive me, oh, forgive me
Selim quickly marched Robbie through business class to the galley behind it, swishing the curtain back into place to prevent any of the passengers from seeing what was about to happen.
“Go to the toilet now,” he said, and Robbie was inside the stench-ridden cubicle before he realized that this had been an order, not a suggestion.
He relieved himself, not looking down, head swimming in a fetid stink for which the devil would have been proud to claim credit. He forced himself not to hurry. He needed to take stock.
He had been reunited with his mother, someone he’d never expected to see again. They’d last held each other two years ago, in New York; that was in the morning; by nightfall she had gone. Now she was back. Too much, he told his reflection in the mirror. Too frigging much, man….
There were so many things he’d wanted to tell her; trouble was, they got all mixed up with other things he didn’t want her to know. Like the day he ran away, only because he changed his mind while standing in Oxford station, waiting for the London train, Dad never ever found out. Or being sedated by the doctor after the fun with the carving knife and those sofa cushions. Or, rather, he
did
want her to know about them, because they were
her fucking fault, man!
But …
Selim was going to take him down the cabin to see Dad. What could he tell him? Where to start sorting out the muddle, framing the compromise, bringing those two back together again?
On the flight to Bahrain, Robbie had found himself wishing he were older, because then he could have dated the flight attendant. And now again he wished to be older. Or younger, even. At fourteen, you weren’t a boy, you weren’t a man. Fourteen was just bloody useless.
He knew he should pull himself together. He ought to make a plan.
He had a message in his pocket for the traveler in 24H; somehow he must find a way of delivering that. Should he show the message to Dad before trying to pass it on? Did he trust Raful? Where lay the best chance of their all getting out of this alive
and
getting back together again as a family
and—
Selim banged on the door. “Hurry up.”
Robbie jabbed at the metal wing that was supposed to be a tap. Nothing came out, not even the merest dribble of moisture. He rested his hands on the basin and stared at his reflection one last time. God, what a wreck!
As he came out he was trying to juggle seat allocations in his head. Between London and Bahrain, he’d sat in seat 20C, on the port aisle. Seat 24H was also an aisle seat, but on the other side of the plane. So how was he supposed to deliver his message?
There was no way he could do it. Sorry, Raful….
Selim took him by the arm and pushed him along the port aisle. Heads turned, anxious faces looked up at him: here came someone with news, perhaps someone who knew what was going on. All those appealing eyes were scary. He was no longer acceptable to the pack. He’d gone away and returned; better if he’d stayed away.
They began to walk down the aisle, Robbie leading, Selim half a pace behind. Robbie glanced nervously to his left, across the central bank of seats, seeking 24H, unable to identify it.
“Stop.”
Robbie obeyed. Some rows ahead of them a woman had risen from her seat while one of the hijackers hovered nearby. She was carrying a baby. The baby was red in the face and crying. The hijacker shouted something at the woman, who replied through a stream of tears, half pleading, half enraged.
“Come.” Selim pulled Robbie’s sleeve. They retraced their steps to the galley area, crossed over to the other side, and began to walk back down the starboard side of the plane.
The woman was asking—demanding seemed a better word—to be allowed to take her child to the toilet. She stood her ground. When the hijacker shouted at her, she shouted back.
Selim’s attention was divided between Robbie and the altercation developing across the plane. Robbie swiveled his eyes left. Row nineteen … row twenty. He put his hands in his pockets, trying to make the movement look casual. The paper napkin was in his right-hand pocket. But seat 24H lay on his left.
The woman was holding out her baby to the hijacker. Somebody, a man, said something in an effort to affect the outcome of her appeal, and Robbie could almost feel Selim’s attention slither off his back. He took his right hand out of its pocket and pretended to sneeze into the napkin Raful had given him.
Row twenty-two … twenty-three. A man. A man looking up at him, his eyes suddenly widening in comprehension, all the skin of his forehead tensing back … a man whose left hand now shot to the armrest of his chair.
Robbie transferred the napkin to his left hand. He tripped, squealing in pain. “My ankle …
oh, Christ!”
As he reached out with his left hand to grasp the nearest armrest, Selim, not looking where he was going, crashed into him and lost his balance, stumbling forward, trying to keep his gun upright. Robbie felt fingers over his own, unfolded them to let go the napkin, and lay on the floor, groaning.
Selim, more unnerved than angry, stormed at him.
“Get up! Get up, do you hear me?”
Robbie rolled over on his side, rubbing his ankle. “Sorry … I turned it.”
“Get up. Now!”
Slowly the boy obeyed. At last he was upright, moving forward again. This time the glares turned in his direction were filled with overt hate. By upsetting the balance he had jeopardized everyone. Even the mother on the other side of the center bank of seats was staring at him in alarm, her child almost forgotten. Robbie hastened forward, his cheeks blazing.
At the end of the cabin he turned right, crossed over, and walked up the port aisle to where he expected to find Colin. His pace quickened. Dad, at least, would welcome him home; Dad would not blame him for anything or cast him out. Robbie, hungry for love, was almost running by the time he came abreast of seat 20C and found it empty.
“We can make a deal,” Leila said. She did not look up from the magazine she was thumbing through, but her hands moved quickly enough to tell Colin that she could not possibly be reading text.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” he asked, after a pause. “Two years of killing, and
you
want to make a deal?”
She hadn’t expected belligerence from him; it was not part of their relationship. Their
former
relationship, she corrected herself. Now she looked at him with scorn in her eyes and said, “Sit down.”
“I’ll stand.”
“No, you will on this occasion sit.” She gestured carelessly at the hijacker who had escorted Colin forward while Robbie was in the toilet, and next second her ex-husband was unceremoniously dumped in the seat beside her.
“You always did that trick,” she said to the magazine. “Always avoided looking me in the eye when I had something important to say, always walked while I sat, sat when I stood. Today you sit.” She closed the magazine and tossed it onto the floor. “Because I say so. Listen. Once the Iraqis have freed their prisoners, the helicopter outside will take my team away. But whether the Iraqis deal or whether they don’t, Robbie is leaving with me; even if I have to drop out of this operation, even if I have to abandon my team.” She glanced up at Colin’s guard, whose face had remained impassive throughout. “As you see, he cannot speak English; don’t waste breath trying to influence him. Just accept—Robbie’s leaving this plane with me. As long as you cooperate, you won’t be harmed. But double-cross me and you will wish you had stayed in Oxford, my friend, you’ll wish you’d never set foot aboard NQ oh-double-three.”
“Cooperate?”
“Make Robbie see that this is the only way.” “Why should I?”
“Because then you’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing he’s alive and happy, somewhere on the face of this earth. Don’t cooperate, turn him even more against me than you’ve done already, and you become expendable. Either way, Robbie is leaving with me.”
“Have you seen him yet?”
“Yes. He still loves me. I am his mother; he loves me.”
“Loves his mother or is conned into loving a terrorist masquerading as his mother? I take it you haven’t explained to him why we’re all here: that it’s your—what did you call it—operation?”
“Not yet. He’ll need time to adjust. Perhaps he’ll never know my past; you obviously saw no need to tell him.”
“You have plans to reform, then? Virtue beckons?”
Her cheeks rose in a warm smile; the prospect evidently pleased her. “Maybe,” she murmured, her attention no longer exclusively focused on him. “Anyway, I want you not to hinder me.”
“Funny, I never realized you gave a shit
what
I did.” He grunted. “You’re making me feel a whole lot better.”
“Because today, for once, you’ve influenced me, you mean?” She glanced at him sideways, knowing, as she had always known when they were a couple, that he was being clever; not knowing, as she had never known when they were together, precisely how.