Olives

by Alexander McNabb

  Harb paused and Lynch’s urgent voice filled the gap. ‘They’re bombers. The Dajanis. They’re destabilisers. They’re the whole Al Qaeda model. Trigger a war, trigger a conflict. That’s Daoud’s purpose in all this.’

  I half turned. ‘Fuck off, Gerry.’

  His voice was close enough to my ear for me to feel his boozy breath. ‘Is there a problem with that, Paul? Did you honestly never stop to think it all through? The Jericho bomb? The Arafi boy?’

  ‘The problem is acute. The challenge is real. We have to manage and maintain our country’s water resources with every tool at our disposal if we are to give our people access to the most fundamental building block of life. And yet we are not alone. All around us, other nations face the same challenge. So we must make the most out of our own resources while bearing in mind the need for our neighbours, our partners, to make the most out of their own resources, too. That partnership is critical for success moving forwards. We must seek mutual benefit from our mutual challenges.’

  ‘Did you think it all a coincidence? That Daoud’s a good guy just trying to drive Israel into the ground by stealing their water? Oh, he got you good, Paul. He got you good. Jaysus, but he’s a cute hoor, all right.’

  Harb was a master orator. The room was silent as he spoke, his eyes like a lighthouse passing around the room, its beam taking everyone in, his voice melodious and paced as he carefully enunciated commonplace phrases and trotted out the language of corporate communication. Now Harb introduced a new urgency, patting the lectern to emphasise his words. ‘Partnership means shared responsibility, however. It means recognising the needs that drive us all. It means respect. And it means building trust between partners. The peace we concluded in 1994, the peace that has brought Jordan to the attention of the world as a nation seeking advancement and prosperity for all, was built around this trust. And water. Water for all. A shared challenge and resource.’

  Lynch’s skin touched mine. ‘He tell you he’s in danger from the Israelis, Paul? He tell you that? Did he tell you he tied the green ribbon around his brother’s head before sending him off to destroy a busload of children, Paul? Or that Daddy raised money for the PLO until he got blown to fuck by the third Israeli mission sent to do for his worthless fucking life?’

  ‘Jordan does not have access to the water resources it needs today, let alone tomorrow. We need to address that issue across every possible stage of the life cycle of this most precious commodity. We need to educate our people to use their water wisely and sparingly. We need to build programmes that help to make agricultural water use more efficient. We need to use our sustainable resources wisely. We need to recycle wherever it is not only feasible, but possible.’

  ‘Well, whatever happens, I suppose you could count yourself lucky not to be doing time in an Israeli jail. You’re a lucky boy, Paul.’

  I kept my voice steady to deny him the satisfaction of getting to me, but his words had driven cold doubt into every part of me. ‘What do you mean, Israeli? They had nothing to do with my dumb court case. It would never have been a problem if you hadn’t been involved and we both know it. Get to the point, Gerry.’

  ‘The point? That is the point, Paul. I’m not talking about you going down for a silly assault charge. I’m talking about shipping highly sophisticated Czech explosives across the King Hussein crossing, Paul. I’m talking about bombs that killed innocent Israeli citizens because you helped the Dajanis ship the stuff in your car, Paul.’

  I lost track of Harb’s words. My tongue felt thick in my dry mouth. The room swam in and out, coming to me through a haze I realised was tears. I suppressed the urge to wipe my eyes. Lynch would see me brush the tears away, but he couldn’t see them trickle down my cheeks. Harb continued, drawing applause three or four times before I brought my thoughts back to the here and now of the darkened auditorium. My dry lips pulled apart painfully as I spoke.

  ‘Daoud is going to win this, Gerry. Jordan is going to win it.’

  ‘We also need to find new and sustainable sources of water to underpin our country’s development and our people’s needs. And it is this element, this crucial element, that has driven our evaluation of the bids for the privatisation of Jordan’s water resources.’

  ‘You brought her in your car. She ask you to carry anything here, Paul? Your mo’? Your bird? She bring any presents or cuddly toys for anyone’s kids? Any extra luggage?’

  ‘No,’ I spoke too loudly, making the woman two rows in front of me turn because of course, yes she had asked me to carry an extra piece of luggage. A flight case with a camera in it. I clamped my lips shut. I wasn’t going to give Lynch the pleasure.

  Lynch chuckled dirtily. ‘You know what we think, Paul? Ghaith Mcharourab, the kid who died in the nightclub bomb. Remember him? He was the bomb maker. We reckon he was handing a device over and muffed it. That bomb was no more Israeli than I am. We think he’ll do it again, Paul, because he needs instability between Jordan and Israel. Daoud wants a war to play with and the way he’s going, he’s going to get it.’

  Harb was smiling, his arms spread. ‘...have decided to award the management, operation and exploitation of Jordan’s water resources to the Jerusalem Consortium.’

  The room erupted, the audience taking to its feet and applause breaking out, swelled by cheers.

  Lynch squeezed my shoulder. ‘Stay away from them, Paul. For the love of God, stay away. This is not over and it’s going to turn ugly. I don’t ask you to like me, or to love me. But just listen to me. Stay away. I’ve sent you home, son. So go while you still can.’

  I finally summoned the anger and guts to turn and face him, ready to strike out at him no matter how public the brawl would be, to silence his sinister hissing. But Gerald Lynch had gone.

  The exhibition area was empty, everyone packed in the auditorium as I strode through the shell-scheme stands to get to the press office and send out the news Daoud had won control of Jordan’s water resources. I operated on autopilot, Lynch’s skewed version of events too much to allow, too much to even consider. If he was right, everything had been a lie and everyone a liar, including my lover.

  I sent the file off to the Petra news agency and the Royal Court public relations people before I packed my stuff into my shoulder bag. Walking back out through the exhibition area, I watched the crowd streaming out of the auditorium and heard the clink and clatter of the china cups laid out across the glass-topped coffee stations. The whole area was buzzing, happy-faced people shaking hands and clapping each other on the back. I looked for Aisha, but she was lost in the throng, her mobile off. I ached for her, for the warmth of her presence and the certainty we were doing the right thing.

  I pushed my way into the auditorium, the house lights were up and the massive room was emptying fast, a few small groups of people left behind holding their conference bags and chatting. I reached the technical desk, where Aisha had stood during Harb’s speech. The engineer said she had gone back to the hotel.

  I made my way out through the crowd in the exhibition area, groups of people knotted around the high cocktail tables, drinking coffee and chattering, the sound of a thousand voices echoing in the high, glass-roofed foyer area. I was almost at the front door when the world went dark, a momentary eclipse. I looked up in time to see the shattered glass opaque above us before the crazed panes collapsed into a scintillating hail, scattering the crowd with tiny bouncing shards skittering on the marble floors. The explosion came a moment later, a bass concussion that shook the ground. I was surrounded by the sounds of breaking crockery, screams and loud, confused voices.

  I shoved through the immobilised crowd, breaking through the edge of the throng as they started to flee in panic, people losing their footing and bringing tables down with them, exhibition stands collapsing as the crowd heaved. I ran out into the daylight and heat, up from the driveway onto the road in front of the convention centre. I could see the dark cloud rising above the car parking area, sirens already wailing all around me, cars
glittering in the sun, the hot air shimmering over the massed metalwork, flames leaping high in an area of blackened, twisted shapes that had been cars, stick people staggering and holding their heads in their hands.

  The police cars started to cordon off the area, an army warthog barrelling down the road towards me and bouncing over the central reservation. Barked commands rang out in urgent Arabic, distorted by the bullhorns. I wheeled away and ran towards the hotel, a few hundred metres to the right of the convention centre.

  My laptop bag banged against my hip as I ran, passing groups of stunned-looking people, one guy throwing out an arm as if to stop me. A car had mounted the pavement, the driver standing and looking around him, bewildered. For a second the sound of my own ragged breaths and the pump of my feet on the paved walkway were all I heard before the wailing sirens blocked out all sound. One car slowed, the police waving at me to stop. The distinctive whump of a helicopter beat in the distance as I pressed on, ignoring them. There was a painful stitch in my side and an odd, iron-tang taste in my rasping throat.

  Turning into the hotel grounds, I ran downhill and into reception, careening through the pandemonium that filled the reception area, people arguing with staff at the reception area, concerned-looking groups standing around and officials shouting at their walkie-talkies.

  Running to the lifts, I slammed against the wall, hitting the call button. Waiting, the sweat on my shirt cooling and clammy against my hot skin, I bent double and drew shuddering breaths.

  The lift took a silent eternity. Reflected in the mirrored wall, I was sweaty, my collar pulled open by the laptop bag and dark patches on my chest and down my sides.

  I hammered on the door of Aisha’s room. She opened it, the security chain fixed. It shut again before she let me in, walking away from me as I entered.

  She had been crying, her eyes were smudged and her face tear-streaked. She looked up at me, her mobile in her hand. I hated her, then, more than I hated myself. Her betrayal of me seemed so complete and profound. She had used me, as cynically as she had used her own self, given her mind and body to me while she was following her own purpose. She had used my stupidity, exploited my vanity, torn me apart and left me with nothing.

  We stared at each other. She looked scared, shocked and vulnerable. I burned at how she could look like that, how these deaths could bring her to tears after so many others had gone before.

  She lifted a hand to me. ‘Paul…’

  I stuttered, but then the words flowed. ‘Don’t. Don’t use my name. Don’t pretend any more. It’s there outside. They told me you would. They told me and I ignored them. You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You used me, Aisha. You’re helping him to bomb them, to kill women and children. And you’ve been using me.’

  She shook her head as I shouted at her. ‘It was the car, wasn’t it? You just got me to drive you around and carry your bombs for you.’ I counted off on my fingers. ‘Jericho. Haifa. Nai. And now the Dead Sea. The camera box. You used me to kill them and you fucked me to use me and I went along because I loved you and you were laughing at me all the time.’

  Her face was in her hands and she shouted my name but I shouted louder, jabbing my finger at her. ‘You helped him bomb, you helped him kill. You lied to me. What for, Aisha? For your precious fucking Palestine? For your father? What turned you into a fucking whore?’

  Aisha took her hands from her face, screaming at me, mascara streaked across her eyes like stage makeup. She whirled around and I caught a silver glitter, ducking just in time to avoid the flight case as it smashed against the wall, the shower of plaster as the case burst open and the black body of a camera flew out of the foam interior, lenses tumbling to the floor as I lost my balance and fell sideways, hearing her hoarse voice scream, ‘Daoud’s dead.’

  I rose unsteadily to my feet, using my hands against the wall. Aisha stood at the open door.

  ‘Aisha. I’m—’

  Her soft voice trembled and her lips curled down in an ugly grimace. ‘Get away from me. Fuck you, Paul. Fuck you.’ She took a choking breath, wheeled around and fled, slamming the door behind her.

  I slid back down the wall to the floor, exhausted and confused, scrabbling through the pieces of foam and camera parts, the tears streaming down my face.

  I picked my way back through the chaos of the hotel lobby and out into the street, past the wailing police cars and ambulances and against the flow of disoriented people walking from the conference centre to the hotels. Some had cuts, others were being supported as they walked. Police were starting to direct the flow and one uniform put out a hand to block me but I pushed past him and he didn’t follow me.

  There were ambulances outside the convention centre, three covered stretchers by the front door. I stood in front of them, the tick tick tick of the ambulance lights marking the sweeps of light across the shapeless forms under the blankets. I saw blonde hair poking out from underneath the rightmost blanket and in an instant I knew. I stepped forwards but a paramedic had been watching me and stopped me with his arm outstretched. I was numb.

  ‘I can identify her.’

  He dropped his arm and I leaned down to pull back the blanket. Anne’s blue eyes stared back at me, blood streaked across her pale features. I let the blanket drop. The urge to be sick welled up inside me, the acid in my throat burning.

  ‘You know this woman?’ A police officer, important braid uniform.

  ‘Yes, yes I do. Her name is Anne Boardman. She is a lawyer. Was. Was a lawyer. Part of the British delegation to the conference.’

  ‘You have personal relationship with her?’

  ‘No. No I don’t.’

  I turned away. They eventually found me wandering down the road towards Bethany, apparently, and someone took me back to my hotel room.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I waited for a long time by the car before I finally found the courage to push my legs up to the house. I paused again before ringing the doorbell. Nour answered, blinking in the morning light. She wore a black kandoura, the wide sleeves loose at her side. Her face was puffy and pale. She let her hand fall from the door and walked into the house. I followed her into the kitchen where she stood with her back to me, looking out of the window.

  I waited behind her until she turned, her face crumpling as I stepped forward. She lifted her arms to me and I held her, as she cried, beating my back and sobbing ‘Why?’ until she couldn’t cry anymore and stood, quiet in my arms. She finally pulled away, holding my shoulders and looking into my wet eyes, her own blurred with the tears that streaked her face.

  ‘He was my boy. First my husband, now my boys.’

  ‘You have Aisha.’

  ‘For how long, Paul? She is hiding from them. How much more can they take from me?’

  I didn’t have an answer for her as she looked into my face, scanning me for a reaction. She nodded, a little fierce smile lighting up her face for a moment.

  ‘Sit down. I’ll make us coffee.’

  I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen as she bustled with the brass long-handled jug boiling on the gas burner before she poured the thick, black liquid into two tiny cups.

  She lit a cigarette from the butt of her last, drawing the smoke deep down into her lungs. I finally broke the silence.

  ‘Is Aisha here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you—’

  ‘No, Paul. Ask Ibrahim maybe. I do not know.’

  ‘Have you talked to her?’

  Nour looked at me for a long time before she answered, her eyes dropping to her coffee cup. ‘Yes.’

  The fridge motor kicked in, its faint hum breaking the silence. I took one of Nour’s cigarettes and lit it. ‘I pushed her away, Nour. I didn’t mean to. There have been a lot of lies and half-truths around me. I let them get to me.’

  ‘You had an argument.’ Again, she was making a statement. I wondered how much Aisha had told her.

  ‘Yes, we did. It was my fault.’

  There wa
s a silence between us. I could feel the accusation, the pressure to unburden myself, to tell her what a shit I had been to her daughter when Aisha had needed me most.

  Nour took a gulping breath. Her mobile rang and she snatched it from the kitchen counter, fumbling to find the green key, her voice shaky as she talked, ‘Allo, Na’m.’

  I watched Nour as she listened. Her eyes were on me, unseeing, as she nodded dumbly. They widened momentarily as she nodded again, ‘Shukran,’ before letting the mobile drop, clattering to the marble surface. I watched her face crumple.

  ‘Nour?’

  She looked up at me, battling for control.

  ‘A helicopter. The farm. Mariam.’

  I was swept by an awful hollowness. The olive trees, their leaves bouncing in the rain, the water trickling along the baked red soil around their roots and the smiling old lady in her kandoura who tended them. Please, Christ, the girl who used to play in them, imagining they were a royal court packed with courtiers. Just like I would imagine the crows circling above were delta-wing fighters.

  I went around the breakfast bar to her, letting her cry into me, rubbing her back in automatic, repetitive sweeps of my hand as she grieved. We stayed together in our frozen pose for long minutes until, finally, she lifted her head, brushing her tangled hair back in the gesture I had come to associate so strongly with Aisha. She smiled at me, a terrible, shaky, devastated smile.

  ‘You have better leave now, Paul,’ she entreated me. ‘Leave me alone with Mariam, yes?’

  I knew better than to argue with her. ‘Nour, if you see Aisha, tell her I am sorry. That I love her.’

  She nodded. ‘I know this, Paul. Go. Please.’