Olives (27 page)

He rubbed my
shoulder. ‘I’m sure she would be delighted at the opportunity.
You’re a good man, Paul.’

There was no
mistaking the presence of a twinkle in his eye as he turned and
left. Aisha came down with a copy of the draft RFP and the
evaluation document about an hour later. She stood by my desk,
holding the document out to me, her face amused.

‘
Your very
own copy of the evaluation. Don’t leave it lying around or lose it,
now.’

I missed the
inference at first, then did a double take and looked at her
suspiciously.

‘
What’s that
supposed to mean?’

‘
Oh, nothing.
It’s a valuable document, is all.’

I quickly
changed the subject. ‘The Minister knows about us.’

Aisha’s eyes
flashed, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘How?’

‘
Don’t ask
me. But I’m coming to the Dead Sea for the water conference and he
suggested I might want to stay over the weekend with you as my tour
guide afterwards. I told him I didn’t want to put you out and he
said you’d be only too delighted to take the
opportunity.’

‘
Oh God. He
must have been talking to Daoud.’

‘
So you’re
ashamed of me, then?’

She put on a
mock angry expression. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she growled, ‘Damn
Brit.’

‘
See you
later?’

‘
Later.’

NINETEEN

I took the
crystal tumbler of Black Label from Daoud. He sat on the chair by
the sofa and I offered him a cigarette. The women were clearing the
table after our dinner, laughing and chattering.

‘
Did you see
there’s been another bomb?’ I wanted to test his reaction, to
finally put my suspicions to rest.

‘
Yes, in
Haifa. I heard it was bad.’ Daoud frowned. ‘I’ve been trying to get
through to my people there, but the lines appear to have been cut.
It might just be too much traffic. It’s odd, I visited there the
day before yesterday.’

I put my
glass down and leaned forward. ‘You were there?’

Daoud played
with the ice in his glass. ‘We don’t talk about it much. I have two
offices in Israel: a representative office in Haifa and another in
Eilat. Both offices are highly profitable for our shipping
business. I often travel there.’ My reaction seemed to amuse him.
‘There are quite a few Jordanians with business interests over
there, you know, Paul. Stop looking at me like I’m a
monster.’

I had never
imagined Daoud could actually have business interests in Israel. I
realised I had been over-simplifying him to fit my own role for him
as a ‘vengeful Arab’ stereotype. If I took away revenge as a
motive, I was left with a Jordanian businessman with offices in
Israel and a British with an over-active imagination.

‘
But the
farm, your land. The things you’ve lost.’

Daoud sipped
his drink before leaning forward and looking directly at me, his
face still smiling but his voice earnest. ‘Life goes on, Paul. One
day we will have a proper peace in Palestine, one we can believe
in, that lasts. Jordan is at peace with Israel, has been for over
ten years. It’s not all perhaps quite as polarised as you might
think. We’re traders, businessmen. You can’t pretend Israel doesn’t
exist, that’s something you leave for the dreamers and the
extremists. The rest of us, we have to live. Okay, it’s not quite
love at first sight and most of us don’t like to talk about it, but
it’s a fact of life. There are something like two million
Arab-Israelis. My grandfather’s brother became Israeli after 1948.
He was a lawyer who played a key part in keeping the farm within
the family. And he helped to found our business over there,
too.’

Aisha came
over. ‘Coffee? Turkish, medium, yes?’

‘
Yes, please.
Thanks, Aish.’

I watched her
walking to the kitchen, her graceful, long-legged step accentuating
the curves under her tight cream dress. Daoud cleared his throat
and I jumped.

‘
Talking
about the farm, how did you guys get on there?’

Like our
agreement to keep the police charge secret, Aisha and I had agreed
we’d keep the helicopter incident between us.

‘
It was amazing, a real experience. I never thought the West
Bank would be, well, beautiful. You don’t really get shown olive
trees and old men smoking
argileh
by the
roadside on the television. You just see the violence and stuff.
And Mariam is an inspiration, truly.’

‘
It’s a way
of life that has all but passed now,’ Daoud said,
frowning.

I remembered
Mariam sitting in the kitchen, her lined face stark in the
candlelight her finger held against her lips.

‘
I met Hamad
there.’

‘
He’s a good
man.’

‘
He’s quiet.
I didn’t really get to talk to him, but something puzzled me. He
met some men outside in the yard, very late at night. It was sort
of odd.’

I could
almost hear my heart hammering as I took a sip of icy whisky. Daoud
looked directly at me, his frown deepening.

‘
Really? Why,
what were they doing?’

‘
I honestly
don’t know. I saw them through the bedroom window. Their car woke
me up.’

He sat back,
shaking his head. ‘The men sometimes meet up and talk revolution
and so on, but usually in the warmth of someone’s kitchen, where
they can share their dreams of freedom and their big talk. Now and
then they plot something or another, but it rarely comes to
anything. And it’s the young ones, not the old ones who are
trouble.’

Daoud shifted
to sit on the edge of the sofa, his glass held in both hands. ‘Damn
Hamad. I’ll have to go over at the weekend and make sure he’s not
up to anything stupid.’

He put his
hand on my leg and I managed not to flinch.

‘
Thank you,
Paul. I appreciate your candour. It isn’t always easy, keeping this
family in check. I sometimes wonder if I’m quite old enough for
it.’

He sat back
and I leaned forward, my inner journalist taking over. ‘Your
company is sponsoring the Dead Sea Water Conference. Are you so
confident you’ll win the privatisation bid?’

He smiled at
me, a tight little smile. ‘You’re working still, Paul?’

I shook my
head. ‘No, just curiosity. I’ve seen a few documents that talk of
your bid and it seems all very, well, innovative. As far as I
understand it, the British approach is about more effective
resource management while yours is focused on simply finding more
water.’

Daoud winced.
‘It’s not simple. It’s bloody difficult, otherwise half the world
would be over here doing it. It’s technically very innovative and
uses technologies only we can bring to the table. Look, if you’re
interested I can give you a copy of our bid. You’ll keep it to
yourself, I know. It’s important you do, there are political issues
involved as well.’

‘
Thank you,
I’d like to read it. If you don’t mind me asking you questions
about it all. The Minister wants to refocus the next issue of the
magazine on the whole water management thing and I have to admit,
I’m on a steep learning curve.’ I sipped my drink, frowning as the
thought hit me. ‘How do you mean, it’s political?’

‘
It’s in the
Israeli’s interests to stop us exploiting new water reserves. They
need us struggling with inadequate resources while they get fat on
the water they’ve taken from us over the years. As I told you
before, Paul, I mean to take our water back. And as you can
imagine, they’re not going to be happy about it.’

‘
What about
the 1994 peace treaty?’

‘
They’re
saying they don’t feel bound by its water provisions. So why should
we be? Israel provides Jordan with a fraction of the water they
undertook to supply. We cannot go on like this.’

Aisha came
from the kitchen holding two tiny cups of strong,
cardamom-fragranced coffee, bending to place them on the side
table.

‘
Go on like
what, you bully?’

He looked up
at her and smiled, sitting back. ‘Never mind. We were just talking
shop. Listen, I said I’d maybe meet up with Ghaith at Nai. You guys
fancy going out for a drink?’

Aisha
grinned. ‘Cool. We’re on. You haven’t been to Nai before have you,
Paul?’

‘
Nope. What
is Nai?’

‘
A place for
spoiled brats from rich families to behave badly,’ said Daoud, his
face dark and his eyes on Aisha. ‘I’m glad you haven’t been there,
Paul. It shows you have a pure soul.’

Aisha punched
him. ‘Come on, I’ll get Mariam.’

Daoud turned
to me. ‘One second, Paul, and I’ll dump that file for
you.’

I sipped
carefully at the hot, strong coffee until Daoud returned a minute
later holding a memory key with a Jerusalem Holdings logo on
it.

‘
Here. The
Jerusalem technical bid document. There are no financials in there,
but it’s still highly confidential. It should tell you all you need
to know about the problems we’re facing and how I believe we have a
unique and revolutionary solution to Jordan’s water
crisis.’

‘
Thank you,
Daoud. That’s a lot of trust you’ve put in me.’

‘
You already
have something far more precious to me, Paul,’ he said, laughing.
‘My sister’s heart.’

I was coming
to like Daoud Dajani a great deal.

We bundled
into the BMW’s walnut-trimmed interior. It smelled faintly of
cowhide and cigar. The girls sat in the back and I sat by Daoud as
he drove through the dark streets. I held the memory key in my
right jacket pocket. I’d already decided this wouldn’t be shared
with Gerald bloody Lynch and the decision somehow removed a huge
weight from my shoulders.

It was past
eleven o’clock as we sped through the quiet streets before breaking
out into the bright lights of Shmeisani and its bustling
restaurants. There was music and laughter in the air, the sweet
smell of
argileh
smoke wafting in through my open
window as we passed groups of people in the street.

I shook my
head in awe at how these people did it. At a time when any
reasonable human being would be digesting their food, sipping a
scotch and thinking about bed, these guys were starting the
evening. I was seeing a different Daoud tonight: he was laughing
and joking, high on the enthusiasm washing over us from the back
seats as the girls chatted and messed about. I found myself
grinning, talking motors with Daoud in the way only an impoverished
journalist with zero ambition can talk to an Arab millionaire about
fifty thousand pound cars.

We arrived at
the nightclub. Daoud threw the keys at a valet and we went down the
wrought iron stairs into the thumping music below. It reminded me
of The Sheikh of Araby’s tent, multi-coloured and hung with beads,
drapes and scattered around with oriental lamps and artfully
positioned arabesque ‘objets.’ The club heaved, people dancing,
shouting across the packed crowd, vying for attention.

Vodka Red
Bull. So many people were drinking it, the place smelled of
bubblegum.

‘
Paul, this
is Emma. She works with US AID.’ Aisha’s hand was on the arm of an
American with lovely legs in a short skirt who flashed an excited
grin at me. Hard to tell whether she was buzzing on bubblegum or
E-ing.

‘
Hi,’ she
yelled at me. ‘You must be Aisha’s English boyfriend.’

Aisha laughed
and carried me on through the crowd before I could reply, stopping
every few steps to greet a new face, introducing me to a
bewildering array of people.

We finally
reached the end of the bar and joined Daoud. Aisha left us, calling
out, ‘One second. Don’t move, I’ll be back.’

She plunged
into the thick of the shifting crowd and was instantly lost in the
waving hands and flashing lights. Daoud had ordered cigars. I
copied him, snipping the end off with his cutter and lighting it
from a splint made from the cedar-wood wrapper. It was strong,
inhaling the smoke brought a coughing fit.

‘
I’m not
really a smoker,’ I shouted, gasping at Daoud, my eyes
streaming.

His hand
round my shoulder, confiding, laughing, ‘Paul, you’re not supposed
to inhale the bloody thing. Come, I reserved a table!’

Tables were
hard to get at Nai, a few seats lined up in alcove areas towards
the back of the bar were empty, with a ‘reserved’ sign on them. We
sat and I people-watched as the crowd moved back and forth to the
rhythm of the pumping beats, outbreaks of localised dancing
breaking in from the West. Aisha rejoined us, pulling me to my feet
and dragging me back into the crowd.

Laughter. A
lot of laughter. Aisha on my arm, Aisha by my side. Aisha dancing,
all those salsa classes paying off. Elegantly erotic, she moved to
the music as if she were one with it.

Paul Stokes,
the man at the end of his tether talking quietly to an orthodox
priest, was left behind somewhere, a shade in the dim and distant
past.