Borderless Deceit

by Adrian de Hoog

  Morsi as a lover. So illicit. A few months before, I was at a dead end and now I’m in a Levantine enchantment. Could it continue? I supposed it wouldn’t. Yet, back in Bucharest, sitting in the ambassador’s office my thoughts became steadily more exotic. One day I had a sudden new idea. A tremor went up my spine. If the relationship with him was not destined to last, why not have something permanent from it? Why not a child? I rejected the thought as soon as it arose, but it came back that night and again the next day. Why? Why was I thinking that? Now I know the idea had been below the surface for a long time. It was the missing piece. Even so, when it broke into the open I debated with myself for days, reasoning it was ridiculous, delusional even. Yet, the other side stood up well. Morsi was an attractive man, a spiritualist, a multi-layered character with a rich and varied mind. A child from Morsi through me – would it not be a fine convergence? Wouldn’t the chances be high that the child would be divine? And so I threw caution to the wind. No more contraception. Let fate decide.

  “Rachel!” Apprehension suddenly choked me. She was taking me far beyond anything I thought possible. “I should have called you. If only I had warned you.” Rachel, with a slight headshake, smiled, dismissed my misgivings and poured more tea. When she continued, my eyes fell nearly shut, so afraid was I of having to know where this was going.

  When I went to Alexandria again all was as before: the meeting, the dinner, afterwards our hour of intimacy. Except all through it Morsi was in a mood. Preoccupied. When I was on my way back to Bucharest I wondered whether a business venture had gone sour.

  Something had indeed happened, because in Bucharest a few days later I received a short letter from Nikko. He wrote that he knew I was seeing Morsi and he wanted to meet me urgently – for my own good. It couldn’t be done on the phone. He asked me to write him back suggesting a time and place.

  I considered not replying. What right did Nikko have to re-insert himself? At the same time I was curious and suggested Vienna, partially because Iain would be close in case of need, but mostly because I could do it on the way to Alexandria.

  The rendezvous with Nikko was by the main cathedral. I saw him first. He stood like a pillar, waiting, not moving, not even rocking on his heels, the same aura as always. I wondered: Is today a reckoning? Is the score to be evened for my refusal to remain with him? There was still time to turn away, to find Iain, to be surrounded by chattiness rather than imperious decrees, but I decided to see it through. When Nikko saw me walking up he consulted his watch. There you are, he said. I asked if we should find a place to sit. He said, no. The expression was as hard as it was when he did the bank’s paperwork. It won’t take long, he added. A circuit or two around the church ought to do it. He set off. I fell in step. He launched into what he had to say. No warm-up niceties.

  At the end of a business meeting, Morsi had informed him that he was being honoured by my visiting him on his yacht. Nikko didn’t take this well. I suppose there must have been a terrific clash. According to Nikko he terminated their business relationship there and then. That explains, I thought, why Morsi had been moody. Calmly I asked Nikko why he thought I would be interested in knowing that he and Morsi had had a spat. Did he think I was interested in dwelling on what had been?

  He replied that there were things about the last five years, about the Foundation, I had never known and began to list them. Horrible revelations, his real business with Morsi, the Foundation being a construct for hiding dirty money, Morsi now using it to lead me on. On and on he went, all of it the same, Carson, as what you said yesterday. Can you imagine how, as I walked with Nikko around the cathedral, I suddenly felt I was being brutalised? Five years of living were being put to the torch. Everything I had believed and been was going up in smoke. For some seconds I was speechless with anger and then I went into denial.

  My first coherent thought was that what I suspected before was proving to be true. Obviously spiteful, Nikko had come to destroy my new relationship with Morsi. And to really have the last laugh, to rape my sense of honour and so dehumanise me, he had made up a story which he expected me to believe – that I had rendered him a service and made him a great deal of money through the credibility I gave the Foundation. This was him trying to grind me into the dirt. It made me resolute. I would give him no satisfaction. And so I repeated: ‘Why are you telling me all this? Why now? Do you think I’m still interested in what once was?”

  Nikko exploded then. Stop seeing Morsi, he warned. Morsi isn’t normal. If anything he is psychotic. If past experience is a guide, you could soon be dead.

  I stopped walking and three steps farther he did too. He turned to come back. What past experience? I asked.

  No woman, Nikko said, had ever lasted longer than six months with Morsi. The pattern never varied. He brought them in, led them into thinking that he worshipped them, yet held something back. The women soon desired to go beyond this reserve, to feel a truly deep and intimate commitment, to know that their souls were bonding with his. Whenever talk turned this way, Morsi would become rapturous. “Yes, yes, my heart too desires that.” But not long afterwards they would disappear, never to be seen again, not by anyone.

  We began a last turn around the cathedral in silence. What a fabrication, I thought, becoming still more dismissive. Contemptuously I repeated my earlier question yet again. Why tell me all this? A bad case of sour grapes?

  Nikko stopped. He took my upper arm, digging his fingers into it. “Your heart, Rachel, has an outward sheen. It appears very lovely. But in reality it’s like mine. It lacks softness. That distinguishes you. I’ve always liked it and I hate to see it wasted. I’ll tell you something more, Morsi runs a global killing network as a sideline. A nod from him and you’re gone. You think I’m inventing this out of jealousy? Test it. Say something to Morsi. Say you want to see him more. Put a psychological squeeze on him. Make it simple. Suggest a week in Rome or Paris, love-making twice a day with the hours between spent as a happy twosome going shopping. If his smile deepens, if his eyes flood, if he agrees – ‘If that is your wish, then I desire it.’ – if he says something like that, consider your days numbered. He’ll organise surveillance as sophisticated as any that comes from a government agency. Nothing will escape it. A day will come, maybe in a week, maybe a month, after which inexplicably you will be gone. You are who you are, Rachel. For you, you’re number one. I’ve made my peace with it. But even so, I would hate to see you murdered.”

  He let me go and walked away.

  I stood dazed. I was scheduled to depart for Alexandria in a few hours. What should I believe? Suppose Nikko was right, should I go? Yet, if Nikko had fabricated all this and I decided not to go, would I then be throwing away things which mattered to me?

  In the end I concluded that if I didn’t go I would always be second-guessing the truth. I simply had to know. And so I proceeded to Alexandria. But I took Nikko’s advice too. A test. On the way I devised one.

  The routine in Alexandria is well-established by now. I check into the El-Salamlek Palace. In late afternoon, the launch arrives in the harbour. The operator is the same – a cheerful, middle-aged Ethiopian. Bumping over the swell towards the yacht, he mimics the sound of the waves parting and I join in his laughter. Morsi is waiting and his greeting is eager. It’s tempting to think that what Nikko said was invented. Drinks are served on deck. Morsi asks about the flight. He follows up with polite questions about my work in Bucharest. He talks about books he’s been reading. We watch the sun sink below the horizon. It is genteel companionship.

  The chef announces dinner is served. The room is candle-lit. During the meal Morsi becomes animated, telling me about his study of poetic patterns used by ancient Middle East civilisations. He quotes a few lines. I ask him to continue. Desert scenes. Ancient cities. Rich palaces. Priestesses giving their bodies. Priests administering rites. Morsi’s words come fluently, as if he’s not quoting, as if he is creating. I ask him to repeat a passage in order to recite it after him. />
  In the sanctum there is peace and his heart stirs with yearning.

  For constancy; for loyalty; for oneness with a friend.

  The way Morsi talks, I feel I’m in a box seat at a spectacle on the timeless constants of great civilisations. It stimulates me.

  If through his poetry we are spectators during dinner, we are actors after it. There is the movement towards the bedroom. He asks me to undress. As I do, he stands close, hands clasped under his chin. A thoughtful pose, eyes radiating tenderness. When I am done he caresses my shoulders and lowers his hands to my hips. He guides me to the bed and asks me to lie back so that I can watch him disrobe. He does so solemnly. When he begins his love act he recites in Arabic and at the end cries out the name of Allah.

  When our breathing is more regular I ask if he is happy.

  “I am happy, Rachel.”

  “I wish to share my thoughts with you.”

  “That makes me still happier.”

  “When we make love you make it seem it is God’s will.”

  “You are God’s will, Rachel. In my dreams I kneel before you.”

  “When I think of you I think of beauty, how you create it between us.”

  “How we create it. When we lie together it is as if we have arrived in heaven.”

  “We could go further. We could create lasting beauty. Beauty combining ours could reach into the future.”

  “You wish that?”

  “If you do too.”

  “I wish God’s will.”

  “I long to have a child by you, Morsi.”

  Without hesitation Morsi declares that he desires me to be the woman with whom to share that great richness. I ask if we can begin to try next time, to which he replies: we must, we will. His joy, he says, has moved beyond the power of words.

  The quickness of the agreement, the absence of a pause, no moment of reflection – is it credible? The words are unambiguous, but is that all they are – words glibly delivered? Absent from them is true emotion. Lying next to Morsi I let it sink in. Nikko was right.

  The yacht’s ritual runs its course. We put on elegant long robes and retire to a small salon where we recline on cushions to have tea. Morsi prepares a water pipe. Throughout I try to hide my distraction, but he notices something and asks what it is. I answer that I know from now on my life won’t be the same. He nods absent-mindedly. As he smokes the pipe his thoughts are elsewhere, perhaps weighing things, perhaps already planning. Eventually I leave to change into my clothes, and at midnight he accompanies me to the deck where he places a formal kiss on my hand, then sees me descend into the launch. The warning lights have switched to bright. I know that, come what may, this is the last time I will see him.

  Back in the hotel I cannot sleep. Throughout the night I’ m agitated. It continues next day during the return to Bucharest. There’s anger and regret, but mostly there’s fear. With what kind of monster have I been intimate? When he gives his killing orders, does he have that same sad resignation in his eyes? Does Morsi have a death wish for the human race? Is that why he carries on his business? And how did I manage to end up as his pawn ? With what lapse of judgment did I became his lover? How was it that I lived so long with blinkers on ? My disappointment at myself is so deep it makes me tremble. Tormenting me is another question – should I continue to carry his child? Because by then my pregnancy was entering the second month.

  Rachel stopped and looked at me. “Are you appalled?”

  The question jarred me because I had been with her, on the inside of the drama, absorbing the scenes and recording the dialogue. This sudden request that I judge it had the effect of placing me outside it. had no idea,” I stammered. “What you endured. I should have helped.”

  “You couldn’t have. Anyway, I brought it on myself. Maybe Nikko was right. Maybe my sole focus was always myself. I see now that I seriously convinced myself of myself; it blinded me. The Foundation, Nikko, Morsi, and the years before that, when I look back.” Rachel’s laugh came as if from the gallows. “It’s all been.useless.absurd. If you despise yourself, I’ m with you, Carson. Maybe we both have some way to go to become accomplished human beings.”

  For minutes we didn’t speak. This discovery of sameness – it took some time to settle. At last I asked delicately: “Are you still, I mean, pregnant?”

  Rachel nodded. “I thought, if I’ m to be murdered, who will miss me? Anne-Marie and Iain, you perhaps, my brothers in Oak Lake. But who will miss out? Who depends on me? No one except the new life in me. Since I had decided it should come into existence I couldn’t now deny it that. I was suddenly more afraid for it than for myself. How long does it take to organise a perfect killing? I had no idea. If Morsi ordered one right away, could the assassin be sitting next to me on the plane? I began shivering so bad I spilled some of my drink on the passenger in the other seat, a lovely elderly gentleman, an antique dealer from Linz. Not a killer. He wasn’t angry. He said his grandchildren did it to him all the time. Somewhere during the trip back I decided I would keep the child, that I owed it life and would run it no risks. Not one. That meant I had to disappear. I had to get beyond the reach of Morsi’s hit men.

  “Time was short. For a few days in Bucharest I made things look normal, going through the motions: office work, diplomatic calls, a few receptions. The Dutch ambassador asked why I was suddenly off wine. A yeast infection, I smiled back. But the whole time I was looking in every direction for strangers.

  “I understand your world, Carson. I’ve had the briefings. A security type once came who said the information today comes from everywhere and appears on big screens in high definition format. Subtleties and nuances get amplified. Whatever information you looked at, Morsi could too. He’d either buy the view, or the capacity to assemble it. I knew I couldn’t travel normally. But I did know where to go. On the third day back from Alexandria I walked out the residence with a small bag. At the bus station I decided I had to take one risk, a postcard to Anne-Marie, but I balanced it with a precaution. I sent one to Morsi too.”

  “A postcard to Morsi?”

  “I was thinking your way by then, Carson. That fake death certificate you created in Zurich. What was the name on it again?”

  “Radu.”

  “Your way of creating a diversion.”

  “To make sure Benedictus couldn’t come into the picture.”

  “Yes. Well, on the postcard to Anne-Marie there was a Madonna and Child, but the picture for Morsi was of a Romanian knight, mounted, in black armour with a cross on his shield and carrying an immense sword. One swing of it and a decapitation would be complete. On that postcard I wrote: Nikko knows.”

  Briefly I was puzzled. “Nikko knows?”

  “Well, think about it. What does Morsi know that Nikko knows?”

  “That you became Morsi’s lover.” When I got it I clapped my hands. “That’s good, Rachel! Clever.”

  Rachel laughed wryly. “Once I had disappeared without a trace, think Morsi would conclude a vengeful Nikko did me in?”

  “Most likely that would be his fist reaction.”

  “Too bad you’re not in your Service cubbyhole any longer, Carson. With your talent for reporting people dead you could be creating a police file on me in some suitable location, Linz maybe, indicating my partially decomposed body was found in a dump, the autopsy showing death by suffocation. With the attention of Morsi’s killing squad subtly directed there, he would definitely conclude Nikko was behind the arrangements.” Rachel appeared to relish this scenario – dying gruesomely – because a rogue’s smile was settling on her face. How she resembled Jaime that moment, that irrepressibility, that capacity to get over things and shelve such parts of the past as are no longer relevant.

  After Rachel finished describing how the threat from Morsi had been countered, I observed that something in the direction of a fabricated police file, a phoney autopsy report, or a fake cremation could still be organised. She replied lightly: “Maybe it isn’t needed. It could b
e overkill. I’ll tell you how I got here, Carson, and you tell me if I stayed off the high definition screens.”

  Rachel’s face shed the sombreness with which the afternoon began. She became animated reliving her flight from Bucharest. Ironically, the trek that brought her to this porch was not dissimilar to mine. More sameness, more kinship in the making.

  Rachel first goes north to get near the Hungarian border. In a remote, rundown little town, she switches directions. The next departing bus has a southwest direction, towards Serbia. At the border she produces her diplomatic passport, claiming she is travelling through Serbia to Croatia for a conference in Dubrovnik. A transit visa gets stamped.

  She paused to inquire of me, “Would that set the big screen flashing? What’s your guess?”

  I thought back. I had access to plenty of information on certain Serbs, but not much of that material originated in Serbia. Serbia was still relatively disorganised. It lacked databases. “I doubt it got noticed,” I said. “Serbia keeps paper records which are tough to get at. Morsi would have to bribe half the government to gain access to the right files. Time consuming. Not low profile. Anyway, with the postcard he would likely only do some casual checking of standard information to see if you were travelling. He wouldn’t be out to do a full hunt. He’d think Nikko had the dirty deed done somewhere around Bucharest.”

  “I thought that too. So it was mostly a question of staying away from obvious places.”

  In Belgrade, another change of direction. Dubrovnik on the Adriatic coast is mostly south. Rachel goes north. In Novi Sad she embarks on a tour boat for a Danube cruise upstream. The first mate, accepting a generous tip, says he can arrange unseen entry into Hungary. The cruise ends in a riverside town near the border and the first mate leads Rachel to a barge. The barage owner listens, says little, nods once and points at his watch. When Rachel returns on the agreed hour, the barge has filled with scrap metal and soon casts off. She sits on a stool on the back deck. A river bend or two before the border, the captain points to a rusting ice box with holes drilled into the back. Rachel clambers in and the lid slams shut. No problem breathing, even if the posture is uncomfortable. An hour later, inside the European Union, the ice box opens, she climbs out, stretches, and enjoys the river’s scenery all the way to Budapest. Remaining distant from the city centre, using a string of local busses – a kind of improvised milk run -she makes her way through Hungary into Austria. When she nears Vienna, taking the same precautions as in Budapest, avoiding closed-circuit cameras at the central station, Rachel asks the driver to let her off. He obliges near the outskirts and she walks half a dozen kilometres from an autobahn service centre to a tram line. An hour later she is ringing Iain’s bell.