The Amateur Spy

by Dan Fesperman

  “I’m told it’s a charity. Raising money for a new hospital. I’ve heard the hotel might have some literature available.”

  “A hospital for Bakaa?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps the organization is located there.”

  “Apparently it has an Amman office as well.”

  “I am sorry, I am not familiar with this organization. But I can refer you to the local offices of the United Nations. Perhaps they will know it. Would you like me to place the call for you?”

  “No, thank you. I’m familiar with that number.” I turned to go.

  “Perhaps Save the Children would know.”

  “Yes. I’ll try them. Thank you.”

  I asked at the front desk for Aliyah Rahim. Was she still registered?

  “Yes, sir. You may call her room on the courtesy phone.” He pointed across the lobby. “Dial zero and the hotel operator will connect you.”

  There was no answer, so I scribbled a note on hotel stationery asking her to call, and handed it to the desk clerk.

  “Could you place this in her mailbox, please?”

  “Absolutely, sir. I will make sure she receives it.”

  Whether she would call was another matter.

  The Cinco de Mayo’s bar was just down a corridor from the lobby, a cozy spot with few customers. Nura and the others hadn’t arrived, so I took a seat on a cushioned bench at a trestle table. The place was lit dimly by flames hissing from gas jets lined up behind a pane of glass along the far wall. There were bowls filled with pistachios. I grabbed a handful and ordered a gin and tonic to wash them down. The subdued sound system was playing salsa, and the decor featured enough exposed wood and tasteful earth tones to offer the illusion that you were in, say, L.A. instead of the Middle East, especially if you’d downed a few drinks at the long polished-oak bar.

  I cracked open the tough little pistachios and dropped the shells into the ashtray. A waiter attired just like the bartender, in black slacks and a sky-blue shirt, swooped in at regular intervals to empty the ashtray and replenish the nuts. As the gin kicked in I tried to think about anything except Mila, and wound up contemplating all the people of my ilk who must have passed this way since I had last been here. I had arrived in the summer of ’90, along with a huge first wave of aid workers and reporters. Our two tribes were like rival theater troupes, our tours crossing paths in places like this as we put on one show after another. Some of the faces I remembered from them were now dead—an Irish aid worker who had been ambushed in Liberia, a Swiss nurse who took to drinking and plunged a van off a road in the Pyrenees, an American scribbler sawed in half by an Afghan desperado—all of them casualties of this itinerant lifestyle.

  “Freeman?”

  I looked up to see Nura Habash. It had been fourteen years, and she had aged gracefully, even admirably. Her years in the desert sun, rather than drying her up like a raisin as happened with most people, had winnowed her down to the essentials, which in her case were striking. She was deeply tanned, with dark brown hair pulled back in a bun and matching brown eyes that lit up when she smiled. Or maybe it was a reflection of the tiny flames along the wall. As I stood to greet her I caught a cinnamon whiff of her perfume and experienced a mild and somewhat vengeful thrill of arousal. This one’s for Petros, I thought, as I offered to buy the first round.

  Two others were with her, and only one was at all familiar, a woman who looked to be in her sixties.

  “Rasheeda?” I said, taking a stab at it as I offered my hand. “From the Red Crescent?”

  “Yes. But I am retired now. It was that or go to Iraq. Somehow I didn’t feel up to it.”

  “I understand completely.”

  The other person turned out to be her old boss, a fellow named Tariq who now worked for the Ministry of Health.

  With Ramadan having officially ended at sundown, all of them were in a jubilant mood, a welcome contrast to the gloom of my own day. The first topic of conversation was how they were spending tomorrow’s celebratory feast day of Eid al-Fitr.

  “I will have to leave here early, I am sorry to say,” Rasheeda said. “Or else I’ll never finish getting ready. Ten relatives are coming to our house after morning prayers.”

  “Only ten?” Tariq said. “My wife is cooking for seventeen! I’ve packed away enough fireworks for the children to start World War III.”

  “Remind me to avoid your block,” I said, intending it as a jest.

  But Tariq, seeming worried that I’d meant it literally, hastened to add, “Oh, it is really quite harmless. Mostly sparklers and little poppers. Not to worry.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Did he really believe Americans had become that paranoid?

  We talked of old times, of course. Tariq claimed to actually remember me, so I nodded and said that he, too, looked familiar. He had visited one of the tent cities that Nura and I helped set up in the blistering heat of August 1990, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. We were there on into early ’91.

  Rasheeda was almost nostalgic in recounting how innocent the subsequent war had been by comparison to the present one.

  “It was over in just seconds,” she said.

  “A hundred hours,” I added, remembering how the U.S. commanders had liked the tidy sound of that number when they picked a time for the cease-fire. As if that might tie up all the loose ends for future years.

  From there we eased into shop talk, with its usual doses of rumor and gossip, and sprinkled with the requisite acronyms of our trade. Our set can be every bit as exclusionary and snobbish as the habitués of Monte Carlo or Capri, because deep in our hearts we’re convinced that only we are on the side of the angels. The problem with that point of view is that we can never seem to find the actual angels as we make our way around the globe. So we anoint ourselves as their proxies, excusing our excesses and failures as the fair-market value of our services.

  After only two rounds and barely half an hour, Rasheeda and Tariq rose to offer fond farewells, which left only Nura and me. We were seated on the same bench.

  “Nice to see them,” I said, at a loss for words now that the evening had suddenly turned into something resembling a date. The only other people left in the place were four British tourists with three children who were tearing around the room. So there we sat, Nura and me, a little closer than before in a firelit world of possibility, while the Latin brass blew sweetly and the congas kept pace with my pulse. She devoured the last of the nuts, seemingly ravenous. I realized she must have been fasting all day and probably could use some dinner. She was one of those Muslims who fasts but also drinks, sort of like a Baptist who likes bourbon but won’t dance.

  She ordered her third drink, a gin like mine. Perhaps, like me, she was merely lonely.

  A waiter approached. He carried a small wicker basket, which he thrust beneath our noses. It was filled with foil-wrapped chocolates.

  “Please, take a sweet,” he said with a smile.

  “He is getting married,” Nura said.

  The waiter nodded in reply, grinning from ear to ear. She took a chocolate to let him spread his cheer. I considered doing the same, even though the flavor would be a poor mix with the gin, and the waiter’s visit already seemed like an intrusion.

  But I had noticed the Brits turning him down earlier. Perhaps they suspected some sort of fee or obligation. And I felt a sudden urge to make a good showing for the West, to let him know—and Nura as well—that we were not all so clumsily reserved or stodgy. So I smiled and reached into the basket.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  Nura gave my other hand a squeeze. Did she know I was married? Should I tell her? For an uneasy second or two I flashed on my wedding in a Christian Orthodox chapel, the priest in his severe getup and menacing beard. The somber drone of biblical verses in Serbo-Croatian, followed by a joyous feast and lots of dancing. My young country bride and me, the toast of the town. That marriage had become the main pillar of stability in my life, but in my current
embittered mood it felt wobbly, a mockery to my years of vigilance.

  “Are you all right?” Nura asked.

  “Just tired. It’s been a long week.”

  Her hand alighted on my thigh, softly as a sparrow. My erection was almost instantaneous, even though I couldn’t quite shake the disapproving stare of the bearded priest, still gazing from the altar.

  Our waiter reappeared.

  “Do you want another?”

  The music had switched to a mild version of hip-hop in Arabic.

  “Why don’t we leave?” Nura suggested.

  I nodded for the check.

  “Would you like to have dinner?” I asked.

  “I would. But I should call my mother first. She will be wondering where I am.”

  “Does she live with you?” Something about the possibility disappointed me.

  “Next door. So she keeps a close watch. Sometimes too close. It will be nice to have an evening out.”

  As we crossed the lobby on our way out of the InterCon, Nura stepped away for a moment to make her call. That was when I glanced across the room toward the lobby bar and saw the American, Aliyah Rahim. She was having drinks at a far table, and seated with her was none other than Dr. Hassan. What’s more, she looked uncomfortable, like a woman being taken advantage of by an overbearing date. Or maybe that was a reflection of my own situation.

  Dr. Hassan’s manner didn’t seem as stuffy as it usually did, and he certainly wasn’t employing his doctorly gestures, with their vague air of brusque disdain. Predatory, that was the word for it. He looked poised to strike at any moment.

  If I’d had nothing better to do, I might have approached them, or at least waited around to see what they did next. But Nura returned on a cloud of her cinnamon scent, and by then I was too preoccupied to really care. If I was still curious later, I could always ask Dr. Hassan.

  It did make me wonder if maybe Nabil had been telling the truth after all. Maybe he really had intended to take the American to see Dr. Hassan but never made it to the office. Perhaps the Rahim woman really was interested in the charity.

  Nura took my hand as we dashed recklessly across the street, dodging screaming cabs and serveece vans, to a trendy restaurant called the Living Room. Every table was taken, so we wound up at the sushi bar. A loud sound system was playing hip-hop and techno. Another place with seemingly no connection to its locale. From L.A. to Manhattan in only half a block, yet still in the heart of Amman.

  An Asian sushi chef offered a minor floor show as he worked in front of us, attired in a white judo robe with the unlikely name “Mario” stitched in blue. We ordered more drinks with our food. The music was so loud we had to lean into each other’s faces to hear ourselves above the din. That gave her words a feathery edge, and I felt the warmth of each syllable against my lips.

  When the check arrived, she suggested that we share a taxi. I offered to accompany her home.

  “You can walk me to my door, then.”

  “Won’t your mother see me?”

  “You mean if I invite you inside?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose.”

  She smiled, and placed a hand on the back of my neck to draw my face closer.

  “Perhaps. This is why sometimes I leave the light off on my porch. Like tonight.”

  That was the moment, I suppose, when guilt needed to give a mighty heave in the game of tug-of-war that it had been playing all night against jealousy. But by then lust had joined the match as well, and between it, the drinks, and Nura’s perfume, I found myself climbing into the back of a cab while Nura squeezed my hand. The taxi took us west through the city, all the way to the Seventh Circle before turning north. She had the driver drop us off on a main drag that looked like so many other main drags in Amman, a commercial street four lanes wide, only a block from her apartment. This was no Abdoun, yet nascent prosperity loomed on every corner. Young men were lined up outside food shops. Others were still at work, long after dark and on the eve of a holiday, no less, putting the finishing touches on a new storefront that looked only days away from opening. We rounded a corner and stepped up a flight of stairs into a stucco apartment building. Nura put a finger to her lips and smiled as we approached a darkened doorway. She pointed next door, presumably her mother’s place. Then she unlocked the door as quietly as possible before we practically tiptoed across the threshold.

  Once inside, she slipped her arms around me, and there was no longer room for second thoughts. She tilted her face to mine for a kiss, and I greedily obliged. Then her warmth and softness overwhelmed me, and from that moment on it was all about forward motion, and how to best maintain it. Her hands reached for my belt, slipping it from the loop. A quick zip and a gentle tug. My trousers tumbled to my ankles. Moments later we made our way down a hallway to her bedroom, stopping only to remove one item or another of our clothing. Then she lit a candelabra on a table by her bed, which cast us in a bright soft glow of amber. For the next half hour I celebrated the end of Ramadan in her arms, breaking fast as it were, in a deliciously secular feast of desire.

  Immediately afterward, of course, guilt rejoined the match with the sharpest of tugs. And that wasn’t the only feeling that made me sad. If I had tripped across the line so easily, then perhaps Mila had as well. But did I really believe that this was what my wife had been up to with Petros? A few hours ago I would have offered an emphatic yes, but now my gut told me otherwise. Then why hadn’t she called?

  Nura didn’t seem to notice my sudden moodiness. She fetched a bottle of brandy and lit a cigarette, and to my relief she carried the load of conversation, picking up where we had left off earlier in our rundown of old friends and colleagues.

  “Do you ever wonder where they will all end up, all of those people in our business? Not just the ones who used to hang out in Amman, but over on the West Bank, too? Fighting all the old struggles, over and over.”

  “Sometimes. Were you over there much? On that side of the river, I mean.”

  “Oh, yes. Not so much during the intifada, like you. But later, after Oslo. During the thaw.”

  “Or what we thought was the thaw.”

  “Yes. Terrible seeing what’s become of it. That idiot Sharon, just walking up to the Temple Mount, swaggering like he owned it, with all his soldiers. What did he expect, that everyone would just take it lying down?”

  I had participated in this argument on one side or another for years, usually playing devil’s advocate for whichever side needed one. And even that night in Nura’s bed I couldn’t leave a one-sided version standing unopposed.

  “Hardly seems enough provocation to start all that’s happened since, though. It’s probably exactly the reaction he wanted, and they were fool enough to oblige him.”

  “Same as always.”

  “Yes. Same as always.”

  We swapped a few more memories and a few more names. I wasn’t much interested in further affection, and hoped she wouldn’t notice. Fortunately Mila’s name never came up as we rummaged further through our past—I don’t think the two of them had ever met—but Chris Boylan’s name did.

  “You knew him?” I asked.

  “Of course. I thought everyone here in the business knew him.”

  “Well, he wasn’t around during the Gulf War.”

  “No. But later. On the West Bank. He used to tell all your war stories from the intifada. About you and Omar, all of you out there in your VW Passats, like cowboys in the Wild West.”

  I smiled in the dark. We really had been foolhardy. But in those days the risks had seemed worth it, even if our results never amounted to much.

  “I ran into Chris the other day.”

  “In Amman? When?”

  “On Tuesday. Downtown. He seemed tired.”

  “I didn’t know he was living here.”

  “He’s not. He’s in Iraq.”

  “No wonder he’s tired. What was he doing here?”

  “Just passing through.”

  “To visit you
?”

  I had already said more than I should have. Chris probably wouldn’t have appreciated being the subject of pillow talk, given his skittishness.

  “No, no. Just happened to bump into him down at the Roman Theatre. Didn’t have time for much more than a hello and a good-bye.”

  “Who’s he working for now?”

  “Some consultant. He didn’t really say.”

  “Oh.”

  And then, dead air, the unfinished topic hanging between us like the afterimage of a photo flash. Something about it made me mildly uneasy, or maybe it was just the guilt, peeking again over my shoulder. So I got up to take a leak, and brought back a glass of water. When I climbed into bed, Nura snuggled against my back and said no more. A few minutes later she was asleep, leaving me alone with troubled thoughts of Mila.

  In the morning, Nura invited me to stay for coffee, but I begged off by claiming an early social appointment across town. Omar had indeed invited me to spend the holiday with his family, offering to let me share in everything from the morning prayer service to the festive dinner and fireworks afterward. But I had begged off from that invitation, too, with yet another manufactured excuse. I was lying to a lot of people lately. I suppose the necessities of the spy business were partly to blame. But that seemed like scant justification as I quietly rode a taxi to Othman Bin Affan Street, perhaps because I knew Mila was next on the list of those to be deceived.

  Her time came sooner than expected. The phone was ringing as I unlocked the door, even though it was only seven. I could tell she was upset by the tone of her voice.

  “Where were you?”

  The question I least wanted to answer. Not that I didn’t handle it like a professional.

  “Out at Bakaa. What’s wrong? And where were you the other night?”

  “Oh, Freeman, stop it! I’ve needed you. It was horrible.”

  “What was?”

  “The entire evening, after our trip to Glyfada.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the way back. We were out on the highway. They could have killed us, and it was all my fault. Then when we finally made it back, I kept calling and couldn’t reach you for two days, so of course I was expecting the worst. You don’t know how close I came to just hopping on a plane for Amman.”