In my misery and confusion, I begin to choke. For a moment I see the young girl looking at me, concerned. I am longing to speak to her, to assure her that I am all right. I exit from the library into the suddenly fallen, iron-hard night.
I make my way back to Ed’s house. I may be having a breakdown. Ed takes me by the arm.
‘Are you OK? You look shattered.’
‘Sorry, Ed, I had a bad moment. I’m OK now.’
‘Sit down. I’ll make some tea. The good old English tranquilliser.’
When he comes back to the little sitting room he has a tray with a real teapot and some crumpets on a plate. I see something of the Ed I knew ten or twelve years ago. He’s throwing himself into my crisis. I am his project. I tell him about my conversation. He produces a large notebook.
‘OK, I think we should keep a diary. It’s going to get more complicated, that’s for sure.’
‘A diary of what?’
‘Of all the phone calls, conversations, things you remember. Why don’t we start with Jerusalem? There could be some clues there.’
To him it’s a mystery to be solved by deduction. To me the whole thing is wrapped in a Levantine fog that the good-hearted Canadians, in their sensible shoes and monochrome outfits, will never penetrate. But I fall in with Ed because it will keep us busy and allow us to believe in the possibility of a rational outcome. I keep wondering if Noor is dead.
‘Macdonald is clearly a pseudonym, or perhaps a
nom de guerre
. The High Commission building is called Macdonald House. It would be a very strange coincidence. His name isn’t Macdonald and he’s a spook in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Their headquarters are in Ogilvy Road, Ottawa. It’s all on Wikipedia.’
‘Ed, this isn’t a spy novel.’
‘You would be surprised how like spy novels these things are.’
He seems to be enjoying this. Perhaps he finds the Ph.D. is a little dull.
I tell Ed about Haneen and what she said about Noor’s human rights interests.
‘What we need to find out now is what is actually going on. It’s quite likely that the people who are holding your Noor have no idea who she is; to them she’s probably just a North American journalist to be traded to more important people. The Canadians will be trying to make a deal quickly, knowing this. One of these groups could decide she was working for the CIA or Mossad.’
I remember what Haneen told me about Noor’s father, that he was suspected of being a little too close to the Israelis. Ed adds this information to his notes. I can imagine Haneen calling in favours from Hamas or the Israelis or even the Grand Mufti. (In 1941 the Grand Mufti went to Berlin to see Adolf Hitler to tell him that they had the same enemy, the Jews.)
‘Look, Richie, there’s a woman I know in St Antony’s College. She’s supervising me with part of my Ph.D. She knows quite a lot about the secret services. She’s suspiciously knowledgeable for a philosopher-economist.’
‘Is it still the spy college?’
‘I don’t think so. Except in the sense that it has people interested in the covert services. I am not sure they go out and leave notes underneath stones in Moscow and that sort of thing. Anyway do you want me to call her? There’s nothing to lose.’
‘Sure. As you say, we have nothing to lose.’
Ed gets on the phone.
‘Lettie, look, I have an important question to ask you. Can I come round with a friend? He has a problem, he needs your advice. OK, we’ll be with you in twenty minutes.’
‘Are you shagging her, Ed?’
‘Yes, once in a while.’
‘Oh Jesus, Ed; do we really want to drag your squeeze into this? It’s not some fucking game of Cluedo.’
‘Give it a chance. You’ll like her. By the way, she’s just a bit older than me.’
‘And her name is Lettie. Is that short for Lettice?’
‘No, short for Letitia.’
‘Good name for a spook. OK, let’s go.’
It’s raining. We share an umbrella as we walk through the damp-darkened streets. The stone of the buildings is running gently with streaky rivulets, and a network of lead gutters, downpipes, unhappy gargoyles and spouts is gurgling as it channels water away to the rivers on which Oxford is built. I remember my disbelief the day I arrived in Oxford into this world of beautiful stone buildings. I loved Oxford particularly fervently in the winter, in the barely lit back streets where the stone of the buildings – as now – spoke to me. I believed what it was saying, that beauty and high endeavour are essential human qualities. These buildings – gurgling and chuckling in the rain – are the evidence of that principle. Aquinas believed that beauty and truth go together and also that we seek order and harmony in beauty. I am with Aquinas on this, but personally, I have no harmony or order; I am disintegrating.
But as we walk up St Giles past the Eagle and Child, where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and the rest of the Inklings used to meet, I begin to feel that Oxford is embracing me again, reassuring me. At the same time I know that it is the sort of irrational conviction produced by extreme stress.
Ed is carrying a bottle of wine. He is talking about what he calls ‘possible scenarios’ as we walk. Our walk seems to be timeless. It’s like the walks I had in my dreams as a small boy: then I dreamed about the mother I had never seen, and in my sleep I was walking endlessly to find her, without ever arriving. Now I think of the clamour of the wedding party outside my window in Jerusalem; I think of holding a salmon by the gills, one hand on its tight, slippery skin; I think of the blare of the sackbuts at the Globe; I remember when I first saw Noor in the bar, and I smiled at her because she was so lovely, so joyously alive.
I am being presented with edited highlights of my recent life, and the effect is disturbing: my brain is racing aimlessly.
Suddenly I feel Ed taking my arm. I had forgotten I was with him; I was aware only of the pavement passing beneath me like an escalator.
‘Here we are.’
‘Where? Where are we?’
We seem to be in a village street.
‘North Parade.’
‘Oh yes.’
He knocks on the door of a small terraced house. There’s a sort of shuffle inside. A bolt is slid back.
‘Lettie, this is Richard Cathar – Richie – and this, obviously, is Letitia Melrose.’
I see that she is indeed a few years older than Ed. She shakes my hand warmly and smiles widely. She has an upbeat manner, and rather large, dark entrances to her nasal passages.
‘Come in, come in. Oh you’re soaked. What a foul night.’
‘This is nice,’ I say.
‘Thank you. It’s small but it suits me perfectly at the moment.’
There seems to be the suggestion of a sexual hinterland; on the short walk to the sitting room I get a glimpse into a bedroom. It is mostly taken up by a large bed with a bright Indian cover. I guess that this is the field of endeavour on which Ed has been recovering his self-esteem. Ed gives Lettie the bottle of wine.
‘Oh that’s so kind. Would you open it, Ed? You know where the corkscrew is.’
She is wearing plum-coloured jeans and a sort of pink wrap, perhaps cashmere. Round her neck are some chunky black, red and blue balls, possibly fashioned from some responsibly sourced wood. I have noticed that academic women are sensitive to ethnic fashions. The men are sensitive to no fashion, although they are happiest wearing an old jacket.
‘Have you known Ed long?’ she asks.
‘Since Oxford, although we had lost touch.’
She is surprisingly well coiffed for an academic. Her hair is absolutely rigid. Ed glances at me as he comes in with the wine. I give him a quick thumbs-up. He looks pleased, although God knows why my approval should be important to him. I am seeing Ed in the pupal stage; after his banking years he is becoming a decent and responsible chap, with modest tastes. This is his plan for the immediate future, anyway.
Over the bottle of Cloudy Bay, Ed talks.
‘Lettie, my old friend Richie is in big trouble. Noor, his wife-to-be’ (he hurries a little over the phrase) ‘has been taken hostage in Cairo. Noor, by the way, is Canadian, but – am I right, Richie? – with Palestinian connections. Nobody so far seems to know what has happened to her. The Canadians in the High Commission told Richie that they believe she may have been taken by one of the militias in Cairo. I know you have intelligence connections and I wondered . . .’
‘You wondered if I could speak to someone. Right?’
‘Yes, if you can,’ I say. ‘Anything you can do would be great.’
‘If you give me her name and dates and all the information you can, I will make a call. One of our fellows here is a leading expert on the Egyptian uprising and the aftermath, and I will ask him. He’s keeping his head down just now because there is an unfortunate accusation of having aided CIA rendition for Gaddafi at one point.’
I tell Letitia all I know and what Noor said to me at Kerak, that she had seen something dreadful in Homs. I tell her about Haneen, and the phone calls. She is very keen to know Haneen’s family name. She takes notes. Very quickly Ed and I have become freshmen in her tutorial. It was to win the tutors’ approval that I worked so hard.
By the time Ed suggests we go out for a curry, I feel less anxious. It’s like the feeling of relief you have at a visit to a sympathetic doctor: the professionals are in charge. But I know that in the night I will again be seized by fear and dread.
In the restaurant, Lettie changes from rigorous tutor to Ed’s girlfriend, and defers to him and his expertise in curry. She also becomes flirtatious. Her stiff hair is neatly parted, reminding me of the curtains in my aunt’s living room.
Two days later Mr Macdonald calls me again. I now believe, with Ed, that he is not a Mr Macdonald at all.
‘Mr Cathar.’
‘Yes. Good morning.’
‘It’s Macdonald here, Canadian High Commission.’
I felt a deep tremor presaging the certainty of bad news.
‘Are you there, Mr Cathar?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘We have located your fiancée in Cairo, and have every hope of having her released in the next few weeks.’
He pauses.
‘Thank God. Is she all right?’
‘There is nothing definite to say that she has been harmed.’
‘But?’
‘There is no but about (
aboot
) it. Although in our experience, people who are kidnapped are almost always severely traumatised, and that is something we will deal with. We have specialists at the Embassy in Cairo who will assess and assist your fiancée in every way. She will be taken directly to Toronto.’
‘Have you spoken to her aunt in Jerusalem?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t give you details. This is ongoing.’
‘Has a ransom been paid?’
‘Same answer, I am afraid. Please don’t think, Mr Cathar, that we are being insensitive, but as I said, we have to be very cautious. As soon as I can confirm that Ms Nassashibi is safely in our embassy, I will revert to you. And for the moment, don’t contact anyone or speak to anyone. Particularly not the press. You understand, I am sure.’
‘I do, Mr Macdonald. Will you tell her that we have spoken?’
‘She will be informed, of course.’
When he has gone, I feel abandoned. I have been co-opted into this drama without having been given a script. I guess that my allotted role is that of the troubled, loyal husband-to-be. My destiny is in redeeming marriage. I must be married to make the narrative a happy one.
I have scanned the internet and there is nothing to confirm Mr Macdonald’s story, and there is not a single mention of the kidnap.
Lettie texts me. She also has information for me. She tells me where I should meet her. I walk up from Bodley to the small hotel she suggests. It was once a parsonage. She is sitting with a cup of coffee in front of her by a fire. The wood scents the panelled room, reassuringly. The logs burn slowly, almost without smoke. I imagine that this is where the parson warmed himself after his short walk from the church next door. From the church comes the peal of bells, as if to endorse my thoughts. It is evensong. How sensible that word sounds. How comforting.
‘Hi, Richie. Thanks for coming.’
‘Well, actually I am grateful you texted me. It’s been tough.’
‘I can imagine. Just one thing. I don’t think we should tell Ed about this meeting.’
‘Oh, OK, but why not?’
‘It’s always a good idea to tell as few people as possible. Particularly friends.’
‘I would feel a little dishonest.’
‘Welcome to the world of espionage. I’m joking, honestly. Look, my contact has found out who is holding Noor. First, let me say there are no reports that she has been harmed.’
‘Thank God.’
‘It’s a small group who are probably criminal rather that freedom fighters or jihadis. They are thought to be negotiating with the Canadians. Have you heard anything?’
‘No, nothing. Although Mr Macdonald from the High Commission said he would call.’
‘Will you tell me if he does?’
‘Of course.’
‘Ed’s so pleased you are here. He’s cheered up a lot.’