The dust, I decide, comes from a hole in the wall which is actually above the frame of the painting. I haven’t noticed it before because it’s just a few millimetres across and just above the frame. But this is the puzzling thing: the dust made by the drilling of the hole hasn’t fallen onto the frame of the painting but onto the floor instead, which suggests that the painting was removed when the hole was made. None of which would have the slightest significance, had I not, out of curiosity, run my finger over the hole, which turns out not to be a hole at all but a slightly convex bump. It’s the wide-angle lens of a covert fibre-optic surveillance camera.
It’s not exactly a three-pipe problem, but it does raise questions. If the hole was made from the side I’m on, there’s the question of who made it. I can’t really picture Jameela with a covert entry and surveillance kit, so it’s probably been made by someone who’s got access to the other side of the wall. Whoever it is has a strong reason for wanting a camera that looks into Jameela’s bedroom, and provides a panoramic view of the bed on which I’ve spent a good part of the preceding week with her.
It strikes me, the following morning at 5 a.m. as I’m about to break into the neighbouring apartment, that I’m here because of the irregularity in the flight of a ball of paper. Which suggests to me that large events are determined, at least in part, by smaller events, and those in turn by even smaller ones. Following this idea to its extreme is problematic, because you end up with the vibration of atoms determining every measurable event; and if everything really is determined, no action has any significance other than its own unfolding, and one may as well stay in bed. Thinking of the flare of Jameela’s hips beneath the slimness of her waist, staying in bed does indeed seem like the most sensible thing. But I know intuitively that the apparently random position where my sheet of paper came to rest and the sense of foreboding I felt on seeing the giant
haboob
are somehow connected. Not by scale, but by their significance.
My lock picks live in a panel of my wallet that only the most diligent search would uncover. They are made from a high-tensile ceramic coated with tungsten carbide and are much stronger than steel but have no detectable metal content. The six picks are black, and moulded, like the pieces of an Airfix model, into a panel the size of a credit card with a thin plastic cover, which I now slide off and twist out the tension wrench. I put the short end into the keyway, using my third finger to apply pressure and resting the other two gently on its length. With the other hand I use the snake pick to lift all the pins in one go, listening as they snap down when the pressure from the tensioner is released. Five tiny clicks tell me it’s a five-pin right-handed lock.
To judge from the slightly gritty feedback I’m getting from the pins, it’s either a fairly new lock or there’s dust on them. Probably both. It doesn’t matter which. I push the diamond rake to the back of the lock and work it a few times to get the feel of things, then work the pins one by one, feeling the tiny variations of pressure in the tensioner as the cylinder struggles to turn. There are few tasks more satisfying that can be accomplished with the fingers of the human hand than picking a lock. One minute you’re locked out, blocked from your goal by a device that seems so inflexible and defiant. Then comes the magical moment as the tensioner gives way, the cylinder turns, and the door swings magically open.
I clear the lock and close the door gently behind me. Jameela has told me that the apartment is empty and that nobody lives there, and she’s right, almost. Nobody lives there, but the place isn’t entirely empty. There’s just enough light to make out the shapes of things, and I feel my way from room to room and then up the stairs. The layout of the rooms is the mirror of Jameela’s apartment. In the bedroom that lies next to Jameela’s there are two folding tables against the wall and two empty chairs. A black fibre-optic video cable comes out of the wall above them, more or less where I expected it. What I didn’t expect is the sophistication of the equipment. The cable feeds to a digital video recorder, next to which there’s a control console, flat-screen monitor and a keyboard. It’s all switched off, which suggests that the watching is done selectively. I squat by the edge of the table and study the equipment without touching anything, and I can hear my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. A strong smell of stale cigarettes comes from an unemptied ashtray, and there’s a crumpled empty packet of Marlboros on the floor. Then a muffled thump sends a shock wave through me and I leap to the door.
Someone has come in downstairs. I can just make out an exchange of male voices. There’s no time to leave by the window. A light goes on at the foot of the stairs. I close the door silently and go to the adjoining bathroom and feel my way into the shower, leaving the curtain open and pressing myself against the tiled wall. A yellow band of light spreads under the bathroom door as the light goes on in the room, and I hear voices and footsteps.
My heart’s thumping now and feels like it’ll jump out of my throat. I close my eyes and try to regulate my breathing. The bathroom door opens and the light, which seems blindingly bright, comes on for a few seconds and then, to my inexpressible relief, goes off again. They are checking the place but not searching it, and not really expecting to find anyone. They have perhaps seen me follow the path to the entrance of the building, and wonder why I haven’t reappeared. Perhaps I should, to appease their curiosity. Perhaps they have decided I have gone into another apartment. Perhaps they have seen nothing at all, and one of the men who works the equipment has simply come back for something he’s forgotten. But I doubt it.
I leave the apartment via the roof, cross it noiselessly, and climb down by the steps that lead to Jameela’s balcony. A few moments later I am lying at her side. For another hour I can’t sleep.
I half-expected them to come for me, though I’m not sure why, and I’m not anticipating being detained for long. I wonder if Jameela is still officially married, and whether the technicality of adultery will see me expelled from the country. We are lying naked next to each other when the buzzer sounds. I have never heard it before and wonder what it is at first, but the loud simultaneous pounding on the door confirms the unfriendly nature of the visit.
Jameela and I dress hastily and are buttoning our clothes when two black men wearing suits and open shirts enter the room and announce abruptly in Arabic that they are members of the Mokhabarat, the intelligence and security service.
‘I am a British citizen,’ I say in English, holding my passport in front of me. ‘I have the right to contact my embassy.’
The man nearest to me looks me up and down with a scowl, takes my passport and flicks through it. Then he hands it back, and his reply stuns me.
‘You are British.
She
is not.’ He points to Jameela on the far side of the room and snaps his finger. The other man grabs her arm and leads her to the door.
‘I’m sorry, Antoine,’ she says. She looks utterly demoralised and bites her lips as her eyes fill with tears.
‘Jameela, what is happening? Tell me what is happening.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she says again.
The man pushes her though the bedroom door and guides her down the stairs without looking back. The sight of her disappearing has a strange effect on me. I cannot bear the thought of her being harmed. I see the sudden image of the
haboob
and the boiling wall of sand drawing towards me, and feel myself being swallowed in its immensity. I try to follow her down the stairs, but the other man blocks my way by putting his arm across the doorway.
His eyes have a fierce coldness to them. He looks straight at me and says something slowly in Arabic which I don’t understand, but the language of threat is universal and the cruelty in his eyes tells me the warning is a serious one. Something in me is snapping. It’s as if I can hear it, taking up the final moments of strain before it reaches its limit and shatters into fragments. I don’t want it to, because there’ll be no return when it does. I meet his gaze.
‘Let me go, now,’ I say very slowly.
‘Mister,’ he says, ‘you should not fuck Sudan woman. She make too much noise.’
People will always tell you about the horrors of conflict, but seldom about the exhilaration that so often accompanies it. War is one of the rare performances on the human stage where every taboo is lifted, every restraint lifted, and the limits removed from behaviour that’s unthinkable in peacetime. The result is that people do extraordinary things, sometimes performing acts of selfless courage that defy belief, and at others carrying out acts of depravity that make the world shudder. The lack of limits brings out strange things in people. It’s as if, when war is declared, something else takes over where reason leaves off, a promise of freedom that will always be denied in ordinary life, the taste of which is incomparably sweet. Perhaps that’s why war is likened to a fog, a mist, a
haboob
even. I know there is no return from this. I have declared war.
I push his arm sharply in the crook of his elbow, and as it gives way I walk out of the room. He doesn’t like that idea. Almost instantly I feel his arms on me, grabbing me from behind and pulling me violently back inside. But I’m not in the mood to be thwarted now. I draw my mind and breath towards my centre of gravity and keep my balance, turning as he pulls me so that I move around him, then drop suddenly to one knee as I sense his momentum beginning to follow mine. As his body begins to fall onto me, I reach back with both hands to get a grip on his wrist and upper arm, and pull as hard as I can.
He’s not prepared for the move. As his centre of gravity shifts over mine, I heave on the arm and straighten my legs, pushing my hips into his and propelling his body over my shoulder. I release the air from my lungs and a yell explodes from my abdomen. His body flies over me. He’s heavy and smashes a chair as he falls, then tries to roll and get onto his knees, so I kick him in the face as his head is rising. He lurches to one side like a torpedoed boat, his right hand moving to the holster on his left, but I’m above him before he can unclip the pistol, and swing the edge of my hand onto his nose. There’s a crunching sound and he’s unconscious before his head hits the floor.
I want his pistol, but the time it takes me to release it is too great, and his partner seems to be flying through the door, weapon ready. But not quite ready enough. If he’d come into the room in a firing stance he might have found the time to shoot me, but his right arm is flailing and I throw myself at him before he can take aim. We end up half in the doorway, and his right arm flies back and the pistol clatters down the tiles of the stairs. I feel his nails dig into my neck. I can smell his breath and the oily scent of his skin. I drive my forearm into his throat without giving him a chance to draw breath from the fall that’s winded him, and hear a gasp as he begins to choke. If I can keep up the pressure it shouldn’t take too long.
I don’t want to kill him. My right foot finds the door frame and I use it as a brace to put all the force I can summon onto his windpipe and my weight onto his chest until he runs out of air and passes out, but I’m not expecting what happens next. His left hand is free and has found, perhaps from his belt, a short-bladed knife, the tip of which he manages desperately to sink into the calf muscle of my left leg. It’s strange. I don’t feel much, except the warmth of the blood as it spreads across the fabric of my trousers. But his next attempt will probably end up in my ribs. I don’t want to, but I release the hold from his throat and grab his wrist with both hands to twist the knife out of his hand, but he’s too strong and I can’t do it. He’s sucking the air back into his lungs like a diver who’s just surfaced. It’s time to bail out.
I roll back into the room and tear his partner’s pistol from its holster, cock it on the move and turn. The doorway’s empty. He’s pulled himself down the stairs to try and get his weapon back, but I’m there, thank God, before he reaches it, and fire five rounds into the stairwell above the outline of his body until he’s screaming at me to stop.
The contest is over, but whoever has driven Jameela away will sound the alarm. I need information. I don’t know these men who have burst into my life, and I don’t know why they have. I don’t know why they’ve taken Jameela, and I don’t have much time to find out. If I get away within a few minutes, a dim reasoning tells me I can make it to the embassy and take refuge there. But I need this man to talk first. With the muzzle of the pistol jammed into the back of his neck, I don’t give him time to think between questions.
‘
Amur amniyati
,’ a security matter, he says. That the reason they’re here.
‘What security matter? What matter?’
‘
Al jasoos. Britaniyyah
. Spy … spy,’ he splutters. ‘British spy.’
I realise I’ve broken the rules somewhere, but how I’ve been classed as a spy is a mystery. I need to know what, or who, has betrayed me.
‘Why?’ I yell. ‘Why do you want me?’
He shakes his head furiously, or as much as the space between his head and the ground allows.
‘
La, la
. Not you,’ he says. ‘The woman.’
The world’s gone mad. I suddenly hear my own breathing, but I’m not saying anything because I don’t know what to say. I can make no sense of this. Jameela isn’t a British spy. Jameela is the woman I love. Jameela has nothing to do with all this.