Authors: Nora James
Lara looked around at the grey, box-like buildings, the never-ending, constantly advancing dunes, and the goat eating the rubbish in a nearby ditch. The emptiness of the street echoed in her heart. How long would she be stuck here? How long before she could sort things out with Tim? How long before she hugged her mother, her possibly very ill mother?
“Listen,” Jack said, “when we get to the office I'll stay outside. You tell Dave I've got a bad back and am having trouble walking. Get him to come out to me. That way, we can talk before we go in.”
At the office they did just that. Dave, somewhat puzzled, came out to find Jack smiling.
“What's going on?” Dave asked, his brow furrowing.
“We're not sure it's safe to talk inside.” Lara wondered if she seemed convincing. She still had the feeling this couldn't be happening, not in the real world.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Dave's gaze shifted to Martin. “Because if it is, I don't have time for it.”
Martin pursed his lips while Jack explained. “Our phone's tapped, the house is under surveillance. We discovered it this morning.”
When he understood the words, the clear words that were not difficult to comprehend, but took time to process, when he realised the ramifications of it all, Dave's jaw dropped. He rubbed his forehead so vigorously it turned red.
“Let's go into my office. You can check it. I wouldn't know what to look for.”
Dave led the way through the simple, functional, but clean premises. It was very early days as far as the office was concerned. There wasn't much there, a few filing cabinets, a few desks and chairs, and the initial team required for start-up: twenty people maximum, some in procurement, some in health and safety, others in management. They buzzed around like bees collecting honey.
They were all there to set up systems and processes, to get the project organised for when they reached production, when it would expand to a few thousand people, attracting worldwide attention as the first oil producer in Negala and, they hoped, the biggest producer in Africa.
Dave closed the door to his office and pulled down the blind over the huge pane of glass next to it. Lara noticed the subtle interest of other employees, how they glanced over at them ever so quickly, then swiftly looked away, eyebrows slightly raised, mouths twisted
into a question. There was an open door policy at Global Oil. Closing Dave's office to all eyes and ears was sure to start a rumour and whet people's appetites for gossip.
Jack pulled the phone apart. He followed the wiring and nodded. He showed Dave the little black box clipped onto the phone line, then pointed to the ceiling. He climbed onto the desk, checked the light fitting, and ran his finger along the carved edge of the bookcase and the door lintel.
In the meantime, Lara chatted away. She talked about the colour of the walls, the size of the office, how she'd found the people of Negala friendly, how she missed eating salad. Dave quietly agreed, making conversation to cover up the search for surveillance devices. He kept his voice stable and warm, but the paleness of his face and his fidgeting fingers belied his nerves.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Dave said, once he'd been given the nod by Jack who was becoming adept at sign language. Dave opened the door for his visitors. Lara stepped out, heading straight for the outdoors without further prompting.
Back outside, Dave held his head. “I had no idea. They've been listening to every word we say. How did they get in? The security guards must be involved.”
“Or employees,” Lara added.
Dave exhaled loudly, the force of his exasperation emptying his lungs. “Now what?”
Lara clasped her hands. “We have to find a way to talk to Alan. It's the only solution. Once he knows everything he'll tell us to go home, get the rest of the team working on this.”
Martin raised his eyebrows. “Good luck with that.”
Lara shrugged it off. “We have to find another mobile. One that we are sure isn't under surveillance. Then I'll sit outside and call him all day if I have to. Surely I'll get a line out at some stage.”
The gloomy expressions on the men's faces, and above all their silence, told her there was nothing sure about it at all.
“Could one of you stay here with me, help me figure out how to manage all this?” Dave asked. “Martin, would you mind? I need to bounce ideas off someone.”
Martin looked at Lara. “You'll be all right?”
“Of course, I will. Thank you.” Lara felt like telling him she was a big girl, she could look after herself, but she let it go. After all, Martin was concerned for her. He meant well.
Jack sighed. “She'll be fine. I won't let her out of my sight.”
Lara caught the look of disdain Martin gave Jack. It reminded her once again of their intriguing history, of the earlier mention of Ange. Perhaps she would get a chance to ask Jack about her. Then again, perhaps she shouldn't.
Jack turned to Lara. “We'll get another mobile and go as close as possible to the tower, without being too conspicuous. That'll give us the best shot at getting a line out.” He smiled, searching her face as if trying to work out whether she agreed. “If that's all right with you.”
“Sounds like we have a plan.” She smiled back, but only briefly, a polite, professional smile. She didn't want either Martin or Jack to read anything into it. More than that, she didn't want to look into Jack's eyes and feel something. She had to protect herself.
“Ring me if you need me.” Martin stared at Jack, but Lara knew he was addressing her. “Get one of the drivers or even Bengali to find me if you can't get me by phone.”
Jack crossed his arms, turning away. Lara noticed Dave frowning inquisitively. She knew he'd be asking questions soon and she could easily have felt uncomfortable about
that. But she had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. She had been working hard at that. She followed Jack outside with her head high.
Out in the sandy street they stood for a minute in the shade of a small tree, the only one in sight. It was pretty, with dainty leaves and a sweet scent. She'd never seen one like that before, and, with virtually no other vegetation in sight, she guessed it had been planted there for decoration. In any case, it offered protection from the burning heat, for which she was grateful.
A boy of eight or nine came running up to the tree and playfully broke off a small branch. Discarding the leaves, he chewed on the twig, his face glowing with pride as he turned to his friends on the other side of the road and held up the stick as a symbol of victory.
The children giggled and cheered, waving to the brave one who had separated from the pack. Lara realised they must have challenged him to approach the Australians.
“What does it taste like?” she asked in Negalese.
The young boy coughed with surprise. “You don't look Negalese!”
“I learned the language from a friend.”
The boy smiled, revealing teeth whiter than snow. “It tastes good. Here, you chew. It makes a good toothbrush.”
Lara thanked him by offering him the packet of caramels she'd had in her bag since the airport in Paris. “Remember to chew some bark after you eat these, or they'll spoil your beautiful teeth.”
His eyes lit up and he yelled his thanks. He ran across the road to his friends, brandishing the sweets like a trophy.
Lara chuckled. It was one of the most heart-warming moments she'd had so far in Negala. She thought of the young boys she'd seen back home, the good ones glued to their computer games, the ones who had lost their way becoming graffiti artists or worse, petty criminals starting a long association with the law. She envied the innocence of the games of the children in Zakra.
“You're good with kids.” Jack's voice was warm, and Lara thought she saw admiration in his eyes. “Thinking of having any?”
She caught her breath, taken aback for an instant by his openness. It must have shown for he immediately held up his hand and apologised. “I'm sorry, it's personal. I shouldn't have asked. Out here it's easy to feel close to the people you work with. You eat together, share a house. You're with each other just about twenty four hours a day. Again, I'm sorry.” He looked away.
“It's fine Jack. It's been a bit of a sore point at home for a while, that's all. But to answer your question, I'd love to have kids.”
She smiled graciously, wanting to reassure him she had not taken it the wrong way. As he smiled back her heart thumped in her chest. There was an undeniable connection between them, and on a purely intuitive level she knew they could be close. Very close, if they wanted. She also knew that if she hadn't been married, if she had been free, she would have wanted that. She would have wanted Jack.
They walked down the street, passing more scrawny goats endlessly searching the rubbish for something to fill their bellies swollen with hunger. Some of them even took to eating the plastic bags. People were few and far between and it was hard to believe this was the city centre, the sandy main street resembling more a back road in a remote mining town.
Jack pointed to an ordinary, grey single-storey building that sported the picture of a red phone on its door. “That's where we'll find a mobile.”
“Is that the telecom company?”
“No. TelAfco has probably been told to sell us bugged phones. This is the local electronics shop. They have computer parts, printers, TVs, radios and hopefully a spare mobile not meant for us that isn't tapped.”
Jack held the door for Lara and they entered. The shop smelled of spicesâsaffron, cinnamon and paprika. She heard the banging of pots and guessed there was a room at the back of the shop where the family lived. The women would be preparing the evening meal, probably a mouth-watering tagine that would simmer for hours until the meat fell off the bone.
The shop itself was the most disorganised place Lara had seen in a very long time. Boxes and boxes stacked to near ceiling height filled at least half the shop, unwrapped and unlabelled dusty spare parts covered the counter, and TVs that dated back to the seventies lined the walls.
“Hello.” The young shop attendant nodded politely.
“You speak English!” exclaimed Jack. “Excellent.”
“Little bit. I want job Global Oil.”
Lara could understand why. Getting a job with Global Oil here would be like winning the lottery for the locals: regular guaranteed pay at incredible rates, health benefits, training and a decent work environment. She guessed half of Zakra had started to learn English.
“You want nice TV?” asked the young man, pointing to various ancient models.
Jack shook his head. “No, thank you. A mobile phone. Do you have any?”
“Yes.” The attendant disappeared into a back room and returned with a mobile. “No box but good mobile. Good price for you.”
Lara sighed with relief. “As long as it works we'll take it.”
The young Negalese stepped into the back room again and they heard him make a phone call. “Hello,” he said in his own language, “the foreigners want a phone. Yes, I can put that in.”
Lara's heart sank. “He's being told to tap the phone,” she whispered to Jack. She closed her eyes to try and hide her disappointment. What were they going to do now? They were trapped. They were not going to talk freely to Alan. They were not going to be flying home any time soon and she was not going to sort things out with Tim. She wouldn't even be there to hold her mother's hand through the tests, wouldn't be there when she was given the news.
As the shop attendant walked back into the room, Jack patted his pockets. “So sorry, I've left my wallet at the office. We'll have to come back.”
Lara and Jack raced out and up the street before the young Negalese had the time to offer them cash on delivery to the house or make some other arrangement. They left him standing at the counter open mouthed, probably wondering which Australian custom it was that he didn't understand and how he had offended them.
They stopped to catch their breath under the tree near Global Oil's office. “We're trapped,” said Lara, the thought of being in a country where the government knew your every move and held onto your passport while you were there now suffocating her.
Jack shrugged. “We're just going to have to stay until the Minister comes back. It's a pain, but there's no other feasible option. Braised camel for two weeks it is. More like three weeks, I suppose.”
Lara couldn't, wouldn't give in. She needed to see Tim, needed to know what was going on back home. And she needed to be there for her mum. There had to be a way to get hold of an untapped phone. “We buy a phone from someone off the street,” she said, after reflection.
“It won't work. This place is small. With our luck it'll probably be someone in the government, or someone related to them. They'll have heard the government wants the phone tapped. They'll go straight to them or to the phone company with the information.” Jack narrowed his eyes and Lara could see he knew he didn't have the full picture about her life, that there was something she wasn't telling him.
Of course he didn't have the full picture. But how could she confide in him that she thought her husband was cheating on her? How could she say that that was the reason she was in such a hurry to go home? She couldn't, because it was a reflection on who she was.
Her husband preferred another womanâit said something about Lara, didn't it? Or did it? She wasn't sure, but she had the uneasy feeling people would think of her as an inadequate wife if they found out. And she didn't want anyone to think that, especially not Jack. Somehow what he thought of her mattered.
The kid who'd given her the twig to chew was still on the other side of the street, with his friends. He waved to them. “He's our best chance,” said Lara, as hope revived her spirit. She called him over and he came running, a smile on his face.