Obsession (Year of Fire)

by Florencia Bonelli

  Later, as he was swimming the butterfly, Al-Saud saw through the film of water in his eyes Matilde’s tiny figure at the far end of the pool, wrapped in the white George V robe. He didn’t somersault when he touched the wall, but instead put his hands on the edge of the pool and rested his chin on them. They stared at each other for a long time. Al-Saud swam to the steps and got out. Rather than getting angry, Matilde was surprised to realize her own weakness; her anger at the scene at dinner had dissolved as soon as she saw that perfect, dark body glistening with water. His small tight bathing suit, like the ones professional swimmers used, revealed his member and testicles, and the sight provoked a tickle between her legs. She picked up Al-Saud’s robe and a towel from the chair and handed them to him. He stared at her as he dried himself, and all she could think about was making love. Why were they arguing about Auguste Vanderhoeven? It made no sense. She went up to him and smiled.

  “Your mother called me this morning.” Eliah just raised his eyebrows, his face a mask of indifference. “She asked me to accompany her to the Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse on Friday. She told me that you said to—”

  “Did you see Vanderhoeven while I was away?”

  “What? No! Wouldn’t Diana and Sándor have reported that to you?” she rebuked sarcastically.

  “Maybe you’ve won their favor and they’re hiding things from me. You have an incredible little way of getting everyone to fall at your feet.”

  Matilde spun around to leave the pool room. Al-Saud snatched her back into his arms and dug his fingers into the ribs in her back.

  “Let me go, Eliah. You’re hurting me.”

  “Why were you so excited about a simple phone call from that fool?”

  Matilde looked him right in the eyes; his eyelashes stuck together with pool water. Then she realized that he was suffering the same way she had during his week of absence and silence, when she tortured herself at night imagining him in the arms of another woman.

  “I was so excited,” she gave in and explained, “because I’m very interested in learning about repairing vaginal fistulas, a condition that doesn’t exist in my country, but that is common in Africa. Few doctors in the world know about the subject and few know how to repair fistulas, which is a very peculiar surgery. That’s it. Being able to converse with one of the world’s pioneers in the field of vaginal fistula surgery excites me, just as everything to do with my career excites me. Did you sleep with another woman during the week you were away?” Al-Saud just stared at her with a hurt expression, so Matilde continued, “Because that’s what I thought the whole time you were away from me. I thought that’s why you didn’t call me, because you were with someone else.”

  “No!” Al-Saud was stunned. “How could you think I was with someone else?”

  “How could you think I was excited about Vanderhoeven? Did you see another woman? I don’t know, to have lunch or dinner, either is just as bad.”

  “I had dinner with an old friend.”

  “Nothing happened between you?” Matilde was starting to be disgusted by her role as the hysterical wife and yet she couldn’t repress her ire and spite, they flowed out of her uncontrollably. “Not a thing? Not even a kiss?”

  “Not a thing,” he lied.

  “What’s the name of this old friend?”

  “You’re jealous,” Al-Saud realized with a half smile. His petulance irritated Matilde.

  “I’m just curious. What’s her name?”

  “Madame Gulemale.”

  “What a strange name! Madame Gulemale.”

  “You’re jealous,” he repeated, “and I love it.” He kissed her ardently on the neck and kept her pressed to him in spite of Matilde’s struggles to get loose. “Stay still.”

  “No. Let me go. I’m angry with you. You’re getting me all wet, Eliah!”

  “Why did you come to look for me? For this?” he asked her, and pressed her hand against his bulge; he knew where to apply pressure to keep her hand open. Matilde felt the tension and heat under the wet bathing suit.

  “How gentlemanly,” she reproached him, and tried to yank her hand away. Al-Saud held on to it and used it to paw himself. “I didn’t come for any of this. Just to tell you that your mother invited me to the Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse. But I see that you’re not in the right frame of mind.”

  “I want to kill that Vanderhoeven guy.”

  “Ha!” Matilde spat, and, though she knew that she wouldn’t get out of Al-Saud’s grip, she continued to struggle. “And do you think that I’m pleased about the idea of this Madame Gulemale?”

  “I’m so horny.” He pinned her arms to her sides, subduing her. Matilde stopped struggling and stood panting with her cheek pressed against Al-Saud’s torso. “I don’t want us to be angry. Forgive me, my love. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just don’t trust anyone else. When I see that someone else desires you, my blood boils.”

  “The same thing happens to me,” she admitted. “When I saw you with Celia the night of…”

  Al-Saud shushed her.

  “Let’s not keep arguing, Matilde. I had a long day.”

  “I don’t want to argue anymore either. You had a long day?” Al-Saud nodded. “My poor love. We’ll have to do something to make up for your hard day. Any ideas?” she said, hooking her thumbs in the elastic of the bathing suit and pulling it off completely. She threw off her robe—she was naked underneath—and slid her body down his until she was on her knees and had him in her mouth. Juana, who was working out in the gymnasium, heard the noise of Al-Saud’s shameless roar, and a smile raised the corners of her mouth.

  At five in the afternoon on Wednesday, February 25, Ariel Bergman’s secretary came into his office carrying Amsterdam’s most important evening newspapers and deposited them on the conference table where he liked to spread them out and leaf through them.

  “Thank you, Rutke,” he said, his eyes glued to his computer screen.

  “Mr. Bergman.” The tone of his secretary’s voice made him look up. “It’s urgent that you see the NRC Handelsblad.”

  Ariel Bergman stood up and Rutke held the newspaper out to him. The headline read, “The Chemical Weapons Factory in Israel.” The introduction read, “This newspaper’s discovery will shed new light on the aftermath of the Bijlmer disaster.” Bergman looked at the photograph that took up half the front page; it was of a laboratory. He looked for the name of the author of the article: Lars Meijer.

  “Damn son of a bitch,” he muttered. He remembered Meijer, the journalist who had become a problem in the months following the accident with El Al flight 2681. “Damn son of a bitch,” he muttered again, and this time he wasn’t cursing Meijer but the brains behind this intelligent move: Eliah Al-Saud. He suddenly understood the message Al-Saud had sent through the kidon who had intercepted him in the bar at the Summerland in Beirut. “Tell your memuneh to follow the news next week very carefully. And tell him that I’ll be in touch.”

  Rutke ran out to answer the phone ringing at her desk. She passed the call to Bergman. It was the sayan who worked for the NRC Handelsblad.

  “What the hell is the meaning of this headline?” Bergman exploded.

  “I don’t know! I only just saw it, that’s why I’m calling. Obviously they worked on it in absolute secrecy. Not a word leaked out. Nobody here knew anything. I’m sorry.”

  Bergman slammed the phone down and threw himself back into his chair. He held his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He needed to calm himself down to reorganize his thoughts and decide on the next steps to take. Reluctantly, he dialed the private number for the director of Mossad and brought him up to date with the news. The man was usually calm, even affable, but he exploded with rage. Both Bergman and the highest authority of the secret service were at risk of losing their positions.

  Things got worse the next day, Thursday, February 26, when the news appeared in two highly prestigious Israeli newspapers, Ha’aretz and The Independent,
the latter of which was owned by the youngest son of the fanatical Zionist Gérard Moses. Shiloah Moses made the most of the situation and viciously attacked the government and Mossad in his political speeches. Every day that week, the polls showed that he was likely to be the winner of the next elections.

  Ariel Bergman flew urgently to Tel Aviv to meet with his boss.

  “It’s imperative that we find out what Al-Saud has,” said the director of Mossad. “What do we know about him?”

  Ariel Bergman collected all his patience and summarized the reports that he had written each week; it was obvious the memuneh hadn’t read them. He didn’t blame him, the amount of information that arrived at his desk in towering piles of paper every day must have been overwhelming.

  “We know now that he is acting for the two insurance companies most damaged by the business in Bijlmer. We started following him weeks ago, when he came back from a trip to Buenos Aires, during which he was researching Blahetter Chemicals. At that time it didn’t seem to be of great importance. We had to withdraw the katsas who were following him and his partners. All three were excellent professionals and they eluded all of them easily. By a stroke of luck, we were able to infiltrate a sayan into his business, Mercure Inc. He gave us valuable information. The latest report, however, was part of a trap that Al-Saud and his men laid for us. This was last week.”

  “Our sayan has been discovered, then?”

  “We can’t be certain.” He waited for his superior to say something more; when it didn’t come, he continued with his report. “The day of the ambush, Al-Saud passed a message to one of our men. He told us to follow the news carefully and said that he would be in touch with you.”

  “We’re not going to wait for him to act. We need to get him. Now. The prime minister is furious, he keeps picking up the telephone to shout more insults at me.”

  Vladimir Chevrikov opened the door to his apartment and let Al-Saud in. He served coffee for the two of them, though he added a finger of vodka to his own cup.

  “I don’t have any relevant information yet on the individual you asked me about, Aldo Martínez Olazábal. As far I could find out, he was imprisoned for fraud after his bank in Argentina went bankrupt.”

  “I already knew about that. What I want to know is what he does now.”

  “His footprints seem to disappear once he got out of prison,” Chevrikov admitted.

  “I’ll get in touch with my guy at the Argentinean secret service. Maybe he can tell me something about him. Now I need to ask you for another favor.”

  “At your service, as always.”

  “You need to ask Vincent Pellon to schedule a meeting with the head of Mossad in Europe.”

  Although he lived in a mansion in Mayfair in London, Vincent Pellon was Czechoslovakian; only the initials remained from his actual name. The trials he had endured to escape the clutches of the Nazis, who killed his parents and his older siblings, were the stuff of fiction. He had arrived at the port of Dover, in England, in rags, dirty and starving to death. Forty years later, he was one of the most powerful men in the United Kingdom, the owner of a television channel, a few radio stations and two newspapers. He had an expansive, vain personality, and didn’t hide his Jewish origins or close Zionist connections. He considered Israel to be a second home and donated large sums of money for its development. His commitment, however, went much further than simple donations for a kibbutz—he was Mossad’s most valuable sayan in Great Britain.

  Despite his power and influence, Pellon had a weakness: his businesses had started to decline. In the beginning it was a decline in profitability due to a bad deal on the purchase of a software business. The situation was made worse by his subsequent attempts to rectify it, until the losses became glaring. UK banks no longer considered the Pellon Group to be a safe bet, and his investors in Israel started to put pressure on him to return their capital. In an act of desperation, Pellon diverted money from the pension funds of thousands of his employees to cover these demands. Chevrikov had proof of the fraudulent activity, which had been provided to him by an ex-employee from the auditing department of the Pellon Group, not to mention videos of Vincent Pellon with Zoya, whom he visited on his monthly trip to Paris.

  “That won’t be a problem,” said Chevrikov. “I doubt he’ll refuse. When do you want him to arrange the meeting for?”

  “Next week. I know that I’m not giving you much time, but that’s how things are. Plus, the people at Mossad are expecting my invitation.” Chevrikov smiled sardonically. “Insist on it being the head of Mossad in Europe. I don’t want some second-rate functionary.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No, but Michael’s sources say that he’s a sensible, intelligent man. The meeting will be here, in Paris. When you confirm that he has agreed to be interviewed by us, I’ll indicate how and where the meeting will take place.”

  “And if he doesn’t agree?”

  “He will.”

  She had been waiting for her outing with Francesca Al-Saud with unabashed anxiety; she had even made her a jar of dulce de leche. Matilde wanted to win Eliah’s mother’s affection, she couldn’t deny it, although she preferred not to examine her reasons too closely as she was leaving for the Congo in a few weeks, after which it would all be over. During the lunch with Dr. Rolf Gustafsson, Auguste Vanderhoeven had even mentioned the possibility of moving up the start date of the project because the situation of the refugees in the Kivu zone was getting worse with every passing hour. Matilde hadn’t mentioned this possibility to Eliah, because she hadn’t told him the details of the lunch, which had been very animated. Gustafsson was a peculiar man—he was very circumspect, but he had been attracted by Matilde’s enthusiasm and Juana’s humor and toward the end, stimulated by the wine, had ended up chortling away. They said good-bye with the promise that they would meet again in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu.

  Matilde was being torn apart by contradictory thoughts. On the one hand, she was anxious to travel to Africa and set about helping the helpless; on the other, she wanted to stay in Paris, at the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus, forever. She now thought of it as her own in a way that she had never considered the Martínez Olazábal palace, or Roy’s apartment, even though they had only been staying with Eliah for just over fifteen days. The feeling she experienced with him was so profound that she had been in a permanent state of happiness and excitement ever since she had arrived in Paris. She felt beautiful, wanted and alive. In less than two months, with Al-Saud’s help, she had broken through the shell that had kept her prisoner and come out into the world. She had given herself to him, the man who had returned her dignity. Sometimes she would stop and stare into the middle distance, thinking about the Matilde from before and the revolutionary effect that this trip and this man had had on her spirit.

  They agreed that Francesca would come pick them up from Leila’s psychiatrist, on Rue Lecourbe, at eleven in the morning, after Matilde accompanied the Bosnian girl to her appointment for the first time.

  Dr. Brieger didn’t disguise how surprised he was by the story Dr. Martínez told him in acceptable, well-pronounced French. He saw how Leila took her hand and stared at her devotedly. His patient had established a peculiar bond with this Argentinean doctor, which, she confessed, melted her heart. Why she had chosen a stranger and not her siblings or Mr. Al-Saud was one of the inexplicable mysteries that demonstrated once again the complexity of the human brain and soul.

  Brieger turned to look at Leila and asked her, “Miss Matilde says that you’ve spoken. Is that true?” Leila nodded. “And what did you say?” The girl limited herself to looking at him beatifically. “Is she the only one you’ll speak to?” Leila shrugged childishly. “And what about Sándor and Diana? They’d like to speak to you as well.”

  “She’s not Diana. She’s Mariyana,” Leila corrected, with the half-hoarse, wavering voice of someone who had been asleep for many hours.

  Sándor and Diana, standing behind Matilde and Leila,
suffered a moment of confusion, as did Brieger. The latter, who knew the Huseinovic siblings’ history, didn’t need explanations. He found it interesting that Leila addressed him for the first time to point out Diana’s trauma, the fact that she couldn’t bear hearing her real name. As much as he insisted, Brieger couldn’t get another word out of Leila. He asked her to leave the office and she went to join Juana in reception.

  “I daresay that Leila’s process of recovery has begun.” Matilde, still with her back to the Huseinovics, was moved by Diana’s muffled sob. “It won’t be fast or easy, but she’ll follow her own course. Little by little I’ll lower the dosage of the sleeping pills I’ve been giving her to help her sleep. We’ll see how she reacts. The presence of Dr. Martínez had been extremely beneficial for Leila; her friendship is helping her to become herself again.”

  “Dr. Brieger, in a few weeks I’m leaving Paris,” Matilde told him guiltily.

  “And when will you return?”

  She didn’t dare to say never in front of the Huseinovics; she opted for an ambiguous response. “I couldn’t say. I’ll be away for a few months at least.”

  “Does Leila know?”

  “No.”

  “You must tell her. It’s important to prepare her.”

  Sándor and Diana escorted her out of Dr. Brieger’s building to meet Madame Francesca’s yellow Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, and she sat in the backseat. Leila decided that she wanted to go with Matilde and clung on to her tenaciously. They couldn’t persuade her to get in the car Sándor was driving that would follow behind the Rolls-Royce.

  “Oof!” Yasmín pretended to be annoyed. “Then I’ll go with Sándor and Diana.” She jumped out of her mother’s car and strode over to the Huseinovic siblings.

  Sándor opened the back door, his eyes on the ground, as he had always done when he had worked as her bodyguard. Before she got into the vehicle, Yasmín asked him, “How have you been, Sándor?”