Olives (31 page)

‘
I am glad
you’re back, Paul.’

The cold and
Lars’ grim face chased the warmth and laughter out of me. I stood
aside and he walked into the kitchen. I got us a beer from the
fridge.

‘
What’s the
problem, Lars? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘
Yah, maybe I
have. I’ve been busted.’

Lars hadn’t
opened his beer. Sitting down, I sipped at the froth that welled up
from my can.

‘
How
busted?’

‘
There was an
internal investigation at the telephone exchange. They turned up
here today and ripped out the IP telephony equipment and terminated
my DSL line. My buddies at the telephone company have been sacked.
I’m being transferred to Saudi Arabia.’

‘
Shit. How
did they find out?’

He ran his
hand back through his thin blond hair, shaking his head. ‘That’s
what beats me, I can’t for the life of me work out how they knew.
This stuff is pretty much untraceable. But they did. They’re
talking about fining me thousands of Dinars. My company’s getting
me out of here fast to avoid the embarrassment. I guess I’m lucky
they didn’t sack me as well.’

‘
When are you
going?’

Lars laughed,
a bitter, short explosion of anger. ‘Tomorrow. First plane out. A
great deal. No relocation, no weighting on the salary. Go to Saudi
Arabia, do not pass go, do not collect the money. Count yourself
lucky.’

‘
I’m sorry.
Is there anything I can help with? Anything I can do?’ I put my can
down on the table carefully as I felt the heat of Lars’
glare.

‘
Don’t you
think you have done enough, actually, Paul?’

I looked
around the kitchen before I finally managed to meet his
eyes.

‘
What do you
mean?’

Lars opened
his beer with a savage little tug at the ringpull, his eyes still
on mine. He held the can up to me, his finger pointing from its lid
into my face. ‘I think you know exact what I mean.’

‘
I didn’t
tell anyone about the telephone, Lars,’ I said, looking up at him
as he drank from the can.

‘
You didn’t
need to, Paul. Did you? Because when they tried to tap your phone
they would have found that it doesn’t link to any exchange,
wouldn’t they? You know who I mean, ya? Your friends from the
embassy? First they beat me up, then I don’t get the message so
they do this and have me thrown out.’

I didn’t
answer him and Lars waited until the silence forced me to look up
at him.

His voice
dropped to a hushed snarl. ‘You’re a fucking fool, Paul. A crazy
fool. Well, I’m off to Saudi so you’re on your own. But you need to
get rid of those people, yah? They’ll play with you like a mouse
now. They’re crazy. Don’t go on living here with all this shit over
your head. Get out, Paul, before something really bad
happens.’

I lit one of
his cigarettes, my fingers trembling. ‘You know I can’t leave here
now.’

‘
You have few
choices, Paul. You are in a real trouble spot.’

His idiomatic
English made me smile. He snapped, ‘Stop smirking, you fucking
idiot. You don’t seem to understand. They will use you until they
drop you in the shit and then they will disown you. You’re stuck
between the Jordanians, the Brits and the Israelis. You’re going to
get screwed, Paul. You’re the little guy. You’re the one they’ll
burn.’

I stared back
at him, wide-eyed as he punched the air between us with his
finger.

‘
You think I didn’t know? That you have been playing spies
with them? That you wrote that damn piece in
The Jordan Times
? What, a dumb Swede won’t spot the great journalist’s
style? What Brits pay you to start a war, Paul?’

‘
It’s not
about starting a war. It’s about avoiding one.’

‘
What, you
are crusader now? You will save the world, little man with a
pen?’

I didn’t care
anymore, didn’t care enough to answer him. But Lars was
relentless.

‘
I know these
people, Paul. I knew Andre Sillere, the guy who discovered the damn
Roman aquifers Dajani is going to drill into. I know the French
guys who are doing the boring work. I drink with them. And I know
who your Irish friend is, too. Why didn’t you be the one to tell me
who he is, Paul? Why didn’t you tell me he’s a damn
spook?’

‘
I didn’t
want to involve you.’

‘
What, Paul?
What? I did not hear that. You speak quiet these days,
no?’

‘
I said I
didn’t want to involve you.’

He hammered
the can down onto the rough pine tabletop. ‘I am involved now,
Paul, no? I am fucking involved. They beat the shit out of me,
broke my gear and now they have thrown me out of my house and
quitted my job because I am involved.’

‘
That’s not
my fault, Lars.’

He got up.
‘It is your fault, Paul. It is your fault for being a crazy asshole
and for trying to box too heavy. So, I go. But listen to me, one
piece of advice for you, asshole. Get out of here. Now. Just get
out.’

‘
I can’t
leave her, Lars. I can’t do it.’

His voice
wavered with suppressed passion. ‘Then fuck you, Paul. You make
your choices. But you think about why someone would want the flat
above you empty, Paul? Because they could have acted anytime to
stop me stealing some little bandwidth. You get me? This was timed
by them, not by me.’

I sat,
immobile, looking up at him. I didn’t dare speak for fear the lump
in my throat would turn into tears.

Lars turned
at the door. ‘I have got a spare mobile with a pre-paid SIM,’ he
said. ‘I’ll drop it to you. Use the second mobile for calls to
people you can trust only. Don’t use it to call your Brit spy. Keep
it for her. Don’t use names when you’re calling. You’ll have a
secure line.’

I mumbled
thanks, but he waved me silent. ‘Forget it Paul, I should have
known you were a jerk before. It’s my problem for not
noticing.’

Ten minutes
later, the doorbell rang again and I went over to answer it, but
there was just a Nokia box on the doorstep. By the time I got up
the next morning, Lars had cleared out.

TWENTY-THREE

The early
morning sun burnt orange in the blush sky, the rocky outcrops
either side of us throwing long shadows across the dusty land as we
drove down the King’s Highway, the main road from Amman down to the
Red Sea.

I pushed
thoughts of Lars and his leaving far away. We opened windows, the
fresh air filling our lungs, Aisha’s luxuriant hair billowing in
the wind and her eyes sparkling with the sheer joy of speeding down
the desert highway. The old Mercedes bucked as its wheels found the
ruts left by trucks in the hot summer months when the tarmac
softens.

Aisha had
never seen
Seven Pillars of
Wisdom
, let alone read the
book, and I teased her for not knowing her own history. My enormous
expenditure on Amazon had paid off and Aisha’s voice was raised
above the wind noise, her hand raised, palm upwards and her fingers
a splayed cascade of mock anger.

‘
You pompous
Brit. That’s your history, not mine. He was a liar,
anyway.’

‘
Who,
Lawrence?’

‘
Yes, your
precious Lawrence.’

‘
How do you
know? You haven’t even read the book.’

‘
Everyone
knows he was a liar. He liked boys.’

‘
Unfair. Just
like an Arab. Avoid the argument you can’t win by choosing one you
think you can.’

She thickened
her accent as she tossed her head. ‘
Yalla
, Brit. Live
with this.
Ana
I am Arab.’

‘
He was a
great writer.’

She muttered
darkly, ‘He was a great liar.’

‘
And a
poet.’

‘
Yah.
Right.’

I closed my
window so she could hear me clearly. ‘I loved you, so I drew these
tides of men into my hands, and wrote my will across the sky in
stars, to earn you freedom, the seven pillared worthy house, that
your eyes might be shining for me when we came. Death seemed my
servant on the road, till we were near and saw you waiting, when
you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and took you apart
into his quietness.’

She was
silent for a while. ‘He wrote this?’

‘
Yup.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Does poetry
have to have a reason?’

‘
Maybe. Tell
me it again.’

I did, in my
finest Olivier voice and she listened, her head bowed and her lips
pursed in concentration. I was pleased she liked it: I had always
thought it a beautiful piece of poetry.

‘
What is it?
This poem? When did he write it?’

‘
It’s the dedication from
Seven Pillars
.’ Aisha
looked over at me for explanation. ‘You know, when writers have a
little note saying ‘To Mum’ or something in their
book.’

‘
Hmm.’

I enjoyed the
fruits of my little triumph (and Lawrence’s) silently, opening the
window again so the wind whipped along the side of my face. The
dedication to
Seven
Pillars
is one of the great
mysteries of twentieth century literature. I didn’t tell her most
people think it’s written to a boy. No point in giving the enemy
ammunition.

‘
He was still
a liar.’

‘
Aisha.’ She
laughed, sticking her tongue out at me.

Another
silence, wheels on tarmac, wind noise and Aisha thoughtful again,
looking out of the window. She turned to me, a look of pure
calculating wickedness on her angel’s face.

‘
So who was
it dedicated to, this dedication? To his mother?’ she asked me, her
grin broadening when she caught the look on my face. ‘No. This
poetry of dedication had a reason. It is written to somebody he
cared for, he owed a debt. If he fought for the Arabs, it is
dedicated to an Arab. A dead Arab.’

When she
learned a new word or a new use for a word, English being full of
multi-purpose words, Aisha would try and use it soon after, testing
its boundaries and meanings. She felt it helped her put the word in
its place. I should have known she’d ask. I thought
fast.

‘
The
dedication is simply to S.A. but nobody’s quite sure who S.A. is.
Most authorities claim it’s Salim Ahmed, a young man he worked with
before the war when he travelled in the Levant as an
archaeologist.’

I was on a
roll, having decided on obfuscation as a tactic in my desperation
to steal victory away from her. She would have none of it, cutting
me off.

‘
So S.A. was
a boy.’

‘
Well,
yes—’

‘
A dead boy.
An Arab boy.’

‘
Yes, but
that doesn’t mean—’

‘
Forget it
Paul,’ she said. ‘Another typical Brit, dressing up his nasty taste
for our children in his fine words.’

Sensing I was
on a phenomenal losing streak, Aisha was merciless, her voice
haughty as she turned away from me.

‘
You know,
the French call it the English disease. Frankly, Paul, I’m
surprised I’ve managed to hold your interest for so long. Surely
you must feel the pull of your nation’s favourite
pastime.’

The car
swerved as I punched her shoulder and she screamed ‘Bully’ at
me.

The lobby of
the Movenpick Resort and Spa Dead Sea bustled with a mixture of
tourists and suits, the bellboys rushing to load the cascade of
suitcases, boxes of literature and pop-up banners being lifted out
of car boots. We waited at the check-in desk. We had spent all
morning clambering around Kerak Castle and I looked dusty and
dishevelled with a dark streak of mud on my beige trousers from a
slip when we had walked together up Wadi Mujib, a stop on the road
from the castle to the hotel. Aisha looked elegant and fresh,
untouched by dust or heat. At her feet was the small,
round-cornered silver flight case she had brought with her and that
she hadn’t let out of her sight, a high-end digital camera Daoud
had asked her to bring to him at the conference. The police
protection team had insisted Daoud stay away from the Dajani house
until after the conference.

The desk
clerk handed us our card-keys. We
were following the bellboy pushing our bags on a trolley
when I heard my name called. A woman’s voice, an English accent.
Aisha hadn’t noticed and carried on walking, chatting with the
bellboy as I turned to face Anne, smiling as best I
could.

‘
Annie. Wow.
What brings you here?’

Her returned
smile was brittle. She wore a figure-hugging pinstripe suit and her
blonde hair tied back. She gestured at the conference badge pinned
to her jacket.

‘
I’m working
with the Anglo-Jordanian Consortium. Do you remember Valentjin?’
She took in my blank look. ‘Valentjin Steenberg. From the dinner we
went to with your friend upstairs. What was his name?
Lars?’