Obsession (Year of Fire) (84 page)

“Eliah, my love,” she said, her voice breaking.

“You don’t know how much I regret that the night of your birthday was ruined. It was my fault for not telling Gulemale to go to hell. I let her rob us of our moment.”

“I’m to blame too. I got very jealous.”

“That’s fine.” Al-Saud smiled vainly. “I love that I make my woman jealous.” After a pause, he continued, “I had high hopes for that night. I was just about to claim my prize.”

“Yes, you were going to ask me a question and I couldn’t say no.”

“I think I’ll claim my prize now. Matilde, look at me.” She lifted her eyelids slowly, reluctant to depart her comfortable state of repose. “Will you marry me? Do you want to be my wife forever?”

Matilde twisted her face away rapidly and pressed her cheek into a pillow. An intense pain surged through her chest, and the magnitude of the question made her mind go blank. Actually, a single phrase was echoing through her head:
Don’t ask me that, for the love of God, don’t ask me!

“I don’t believe in marriage,” she lied, with feigned serenity. “I think it’s an obsolete institution.”

Al-Saud saw the way she bit her bottom lip and blinked rapidly. He also felt how her body, so soft a second before, had tensed up like the string of a violin.

“I know you had a bad experience with Blahetter, but…”

“It’s not about the bad experience I had with him. I simply don’t believe in the institution of marriage because in the end, it takes away everything good a couple has, especially their freedom.”

“My parents have loved each other for forty years,” he replied, “and they’re happily married.”

“They’re an exception.”

“We’ll be another.”

“No,” she said, and shifted to get Al-Saud’s weight off her. He didn’t make a move, and she turned her face back to him to shoot him an exasperated look. “Eliah, please.” Nevertheless, she softened her expression when she saw the anguished look on his face; it was the first time she had seen him like this. “Eliah, you know that I have plans for my career…”

“Nobody is telling you to abandon those plans. We can get married when you get back from the Congo.”

“My plans don’t end in the Congo. I want to have a nomadic existence, to bring my knowledge to the corners of the world that need me. A marriage would be like an anchor for me.” She deliberately used the word Yasmín had used to describe Eliah’s marriage to Samara. She took strength from weakness and dared to face him. There was so much confusion and sadness in those green eyes that it took her breath away. “Don’t look at me like that, please. You’re not made for marriage either. You’re a man who values your freedom above all. You’re a Horse of Fire.”

“Yes, I value my freedom, but I don’t think you’ll take it away through being at my side. In these weeks living together, I never felt my freedom violated or limited.”

“I brought you so many problems! How can you say that I didn’t violate or take away your freedom?”

“Yes, you brought me problems, but also the greatest and fullest happiness I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m a new man thanks to you, my love.”

“Eliah!” Incapable of continuing with the farce, she threw her arms around his neck, pulled him against her body and burst into tears.

“Don’t cry, my love. I’m begging you. I can’t stand it when you’re sad.”

“Don’t pressure me,” she sobbed. “I have things I have to resolve in my life before I can make such an important decision.”

“Fine, I won’t pressure you. But will you tell me what those things are?” She shook her head, with her eyes shut tight and her mouth a single line of nervous anxiety. “It doesn’t matter. You know that I’m here for you. Always, my love.”

Matilde squeezed herself against Eliah’s chest again and cried bitterly.

CHAPTER 23

The latest message from Anuar Al-Muzara instructed Udo Jürkens to take the ferry that sailed almost two hundred and twenty miles from La Valeta to Tripoli, in Libya. Since his failed attempt to trap Al-Saud’s woman, he had been hiding in the Belgian city of Herstal, in the house of a female friend whom he hadn’t had a terrible time with. He left a fat stack of Belgian francs on her bedside table to thank her for the nights of pleasure he had spent imagining that he was penetrating a blonde with long hair and the face of an angel, who had slipped through his hands in the apse of a chapel.

He looked at his reflection in the window of the boarding lounge in the port in La Valeta. His hair was brown now and he wore dark contact lenses; he constantly stuffed cotton over his gums and was letting his beard grow out. He couldn’t change his appearance any more without getting plastic surgery.

He boarded the ferry and stayed away from the rest of the passengers with his sunglasses on the entire time they were crossing the Mediterranean Sea. As usual, the climate in Tripoli was warm and dry; he prayed that there wouldn’t be a sandstorm in the city—he had experienced that once and it wasn’t a happy memory. They docked in the harbor at Tripoli, in the part of the bay designated for ferries. Even from a distance, Jürkens could see that Tripoli had grown since his last visit in the seventies.

According to Gérard Moses, the message said that he should take a taxi to Green Square and wait for a turquoise Volkswagen Beetle to pick him up. They had told him to wear a dark-blue baseball cap and carry a
yellow bag so they could identify him. He didn’t wait very long. As soon as he got out of the taxi, the turquoise Beetle approached him and Jürkens got in. There were two guys in the backseat; he sat next to the driver. Nobody spoke during the trip to the east of the city.

Days later he would know that this group of houses in the suburb of Beb Tebaneh constituted the general headquarters of Anuar Al-Muzara, one of the men most wanted by Mossad and the CIA. He didn’t see Anuar much. The first day the Palestinian terrorist greeted him laconically and immediately asked him for Gérard Moses’s design of the new missile. After glancing at the drawings and the notes, he warned him that the use of cell phones, radios, beepers, computers connected to the Internet and any other kind of electronic devices was forbidden. If he needed to send a message to the outside world, he should talk to him. Right away, without pausing or waiting for a question from Jürkens, he explained his plan for the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. He handed him the building blueprints, a map of the city and introduced him to a group of six men who would help him execute the objective. It didn’t take Jürkens long to realize that these men knew as much about commando operations as they did about needlepoint, so he dedicated himself to training them from dawn to dusk, leaving them exhausted. Sometimes, Anuar would watch them exercising and approve with a complacent smile.

Jürkens got used to the routine at the training camp, the five daily prayers, the young men’s conversations; he took the opportunity to practice Arabic. Sometimes he would wonder about his boss, Gérard Moses, who was determined to finish the prototype for the uranium centrifuge; sometimes he missed Baghdad and his great friend Fauzi Dahlan. Most of the time he thought about Al-Saud’s woman.

He noticed the time. Three in the afternoon. He left the George V parking lot and headed to his house. He needed music to relax, and decided on a CD of Celtic compositions that Yasmín had given him for his birthday. He smiled at the thought of his sister.
That’s why she was so happy last night
, he said to himself.
More than happy. Euphoric.
That morning, when he got to his office, he had run into Sándor in the waiting room.
He had seemed very stiff and nervous, and was immaculately dressed. Sándor jumped to his feet as soon as he saw Al-Saud appear. They greeted each other with a hug.

“You look good,” Al-Saud commented, slapping him on the back.

“I’m very well.”

“Do you want to know when we want you back at Mercure?”

“Yes, but I also came to talk to you about something else, something very important to me. Do you have five minutes?”

They settled in the armchairs in Al-Saud’s office.

“Tell me, what do you need?”

“I want you to understand that I didn’t come to ask your consent. I just want you to hear it from me. I wouldn’t want you to find out from a third party.” Al-Saud sat up in his chair and arched an eyebrow. “Last Tuesday, your sister Yasmín and I started dating.”

“You and Yasmín?” was all he could say.

“Yes, I know, it’s strange, mostly because we got along so badly, but that was because of the tension between us. We fell in love and couldn’t admit it; I couldn’t because Yasmín is way above my station, she, because I’m five years younger and because she was Saint-Claire’s girlfriend.”

“And what about André?”

“She broke up with him.”

“Ha!” Al-Saud slapped his leg and abandoned his seat. He paced around the room with a smile on his lips. “It’s incredible! You and Yasmín!”

Sándor came over and put his hand on Al-Saud’s shoulder.

“I know I’m not worthy of her, Eliah. But I love and respect her like no one else in the world. I’m going to make her happy, I swear.”

“I know, Sanny.”

As he went down the streets toward Elisée Reclus, Al-Saud remembered Huseinovic’s promise and smiled. He was happy for his sister; she had shown good judgment in ending it with André and choosing a man like Sándor.

The corners of his lips shot downward and the rest of his face fell along with them. The memory of the night before tormented both him and Matilde. That morning she had behaved like a little frightened bird until he kissed her the way he always did and asked her how she had slept,
showing that everything was going to continue as normal, even though he felt wounded and sad. He had to admit that his pride had been bruised as well. Convinced that Matilde would say yes, he had jumped without a safety net and the landing had been tough. He was still confused. What was behind her refusal? First she had denigrated marriage, like an intellectual rebelling against social mores; then, she suggested that she needed freedom to exercise her profession; finally she had admitted there were “things” in her life that she had to resolve before making that kind of decision. He was worried that Matilde would keep fixating on the issues, traumas and complexes that made her unhappy. Little by little she would gain confidence, and just as she had confessed that she couldn’t make love, she would ending up confiding the rest of her secrets to him. Putting pressure on her would be a mistake.

He parked the Aston Martin on Avenue Elisée Reclus and rang the doorbell of his own house. Matilde came out a few minutes later. It was a pleasant day, so she wasn’t wearing her butter-colored coat, but instead a Bordeaux cardigan, a pale-yellow shirt, jeans and boots; her faithful shika—he’d finally learned the name of the rustic bag—was slung across her shoulders.

Al-Saud was leaning on the back of the Aston Martin with his arms crossed over his chest. Ray-Ban Clippers covered his eyes. When he saw her, he slowly pushed the glasses up onto his head. Their looks entwined across the sidewalk. She was overcome by nerves, as if this was their first date. His beauty, as always, made her feel insignificant. He was gorgeous in that tight black long-sleeved shirt and white jeans. She couldn’t believe that this beautiful man loved her. She hadn’t recovered from the anxiety of the night before. Once she was sure that Al-Saud was sleeping deeply, she had gone back to the music room, lain on the carpet and relived every moment she had shared with him. She repeated his words in a whisper: “I love you, Matilde. I love you more than I ever imagined I could love another human being.”
I love you too, with all my strength, my love
, she finally said to herself, and burst into tears. She went back to the bedroom two hours later. Eliah was still sleeping.

Al-Saud smiled at her from his relaxed and somewhat arrogant stance on the Aston Martin. Matilde returned the smile and came toward him. She took his offered hands and he spun her around.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“No, you are.”

“What time does Juana’s flight land?”

“Five thirty.”

On the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport, their spirits lifted as they talked about Yasmín and Sándor. Matilde confessed her participation in the outcome of the love story, and Al-Saud admitted his blindness to the whole thing. On the way home, Juana made the backseat echo with giggles, and Eliah loved Juana all the more for making her friend laugh.

“Mat, you can’t picture how much cash Shiloah has. He lives in a super-posh neighborhood in Tel Aviv called Ramat Aviv, and he has a mansion even bigger than the stud’s. He took me everywhere. To Jerusalem, to the Dead Sea, to Eilat, a city in the south, to the banks of the Red Sea, to Amman, the capital of Jordan…oof, we traveled so much! Do you wanna know what kind of car Shiloah has? A Ferrari Testarossa!”

“Juana, all your dreams have come true!”

“Everybody looked at us as we walked down the street. I felt like a queen. Shiloah
treated me
like a queen. I had to buy another suitcase for all the things he bought me.”

“Juana, you were in seventh heaven.”

“Yeah, girl. Shiloah is the kind of gentlemen that don’t exist anymore, except for you, darling stud.”