The Ambassador's Wife

by Jennifer Steil

  Granted, she kept letting them in. Miranda had always been more of a why-not? kind of person than a why? kind of person. So when she met someone who was attractive, bright, kind, and slightly eccentric, she couldn’t find a reason not to get involved. Which was why after Vícenta left she had striven to keep herself unattached for nearly two years, aside from a few minor flings. Solitude, it turned out, was wonderful. She loved not having to report her whereabouts to anyone. She loved eating alone in her kitchen with a book. She loved sketching in her diwan over the first cup of coffee of the day. It was an entirely new kind of freedom.

  But Finn she chose. She chose him when she led him the long way through the Old City so that they’d have longer to talk. She chose him when she invited him home. She wanted to keep choosing him.

  AUGUST 9, 2010

  Finn

  Cressida is hot and restless in his arms, squirming against his thin T-shirt. She is dressed for bed, in her blue flannel pajamas and fleecy sleep sack. It still gets cold at night, especially in this vast marble-floored monstrosity of a house. Numbly, Finn had somehow managed the bath and bedtime stories. They’d read Ferdinand, Dear Zoo, and Giraffes Can’t Dance. Nothing that mentions a mummy. He is thankful for the routine of lifting his daughter into the bath, pouring water over her curls, and rubbing the flannel lightly over her back and bottom. Usually he sings, but that was the one thing he couldn’t do tonight. He’d tried, as he brushed her eight tiny teeth and smoothed the lavender lotion over her fat little thighs, but his voice had cracked and died.

  He is trying to get her to drink. Along with everything else, he’d panicked over what to give her before bed, without Miranda there to nurse her to sleep. But thank god for diplomatic connections. He’d rung one of the German dads from Cressie’s playgroup in desperation, and less than an hour later he had several canisters of imported powdered formula. It wasn’t long before Cressie could have cow’s milk, he thought, but he couldn’t remember the exact age. Miranda has always done Cressida’s meal planning. She insists on whole grains, vegetables, and as much organic food as they can import in overstuffed suitcases. She would never have let Cressie drink the milk here. There is hardly any fresh milk available; they drink only the long-life milk that comes in boxes. “By the time Cressie is old enough for cow’s milk, we’d better be living somewhere that has organic dairy or I’m buying a cow,” she said.

  Once he had the formula, Finn couldn’t remember whether he was supposed to mix it with boiled tap water or with bottled water. Miranda had said something about bottled water being bad for babies, too high in minerals or fluoride or something. His mind raced now, trying to recall her words, her directions. Why hadn’t he paid better attention?

  He finally opted for the bottled water, sure that whatever was wrong with it couldn’t be worse than the local tap water.

  But Cressida isn’t having it. Apparently sharing her mother’s militant aversion to formula, she spits out the teat every time he tries to press it between her lips. Pushing the bottle away with both hands, she burrows her damp head into his armpit and wails. “Mummy mummy mummy!” Her small fingers claw at his chest, pulling down the collar of his shirt.

  “You won’t find what you’re looking for there, sweetheart,” he says softly, rocking her. She opens and closes her mouth like a fish, catching the cotton of his shirt. He tries again with the bottle, but it only makes her cry harder. How is he going to get her to sleep if she won’t drink her milk? How long will it take her to dehydrate if she keeps refusing her bottle? He catches himself. If she gets thirsty enough, she’ll drink. She already takes water with her meals, doesn’t she? She’ll be fine. Even with no milk, she’ll be fine. He lifts her to his shoulder and stands. Walking from room to room, switching out lights as he goes, he finds he is able to hum. And nearly forty-five minutes later, when he has hummed “Scarborough Fair” at least a dozen times, her sobs subside and she drifts off to sleep against the rumble of his chest.

  Downstairs, Negasi, Teru, and Desta are huddled in the basement bedrooms they use occasionally after late dinner parties and before early breakfasts, refusing to leave Finn alone in the house. They had wept and hugged his rigid body. He was unable to respond, except by awkwardly patting their warm backs as if it were they in need of comfort. The dinner plates of hammour and creamed spinach, the potatoes and rhubarb crumble, meant for the EU ambassadors, were stacked in rows in the refrigerators, uneaten.

  Gently, Finn lays Cressida down in her cot and stands looking at her. At least she isn’t old enough to understand what has happened. She isn’t old enough for him to have to explain. Still, she is old enough to be devastated by the absence of her mother.

  The first twenty-four hours are the most vital in a kidnap, as he knows all too well. If the victim—god, can he really think of Miranda as a victim? She just isn’t the victim type—isn’t found in the first twenty-four hours, the chances of finding her diminish rapidly. He’s been working all evening, pulled constantly between the urgency of finding Miranda and his desire to comfort his daughter. But even the frenetic activity hasn’t been able to stifle the intrusive thought that somehow this is fitting punishment. Doesn’t he deserve this? Hasn’t he been waiting for seven years for this particular darkness to catch up with him? He had been careful—painfully, lonesomely careful—for so long. Until he met Miranda. Still, if he deserves this, surely Miranda doesn’t. Some people might call—and no doubt have called—her past checkered, but he would call it honest. She loved fiercely and freely, without thought of consequence. And she fit an awful lot of people into that tough little heart of hers. “I don’t understand this societal obsession with one true love,” she said. “How can we be so small-minded? Don’t we have things to learn from many loves?” She hadn’t tried to hide anything from him. She refused to live a lie. This is what he loves most, and what frightens him the most.

  But it never occurred to him he could lose her like this. It was supposed to have been him. This is why he has ten bodyguards; he is the target. The FCO hadn’t even been sure that Miranda needed close protection at all. What were they thinking? If an ambassador was a target, surely his wife was at an equal risk? Why has this not occurred to anyone? He cannot stop hearing that shot. It was all he heard. He doesn’t know who dialed the phone that second time, Miranda or Mukhtar or someone else. He had answered and heard only the blast of a rifle and some muffled noise before the phone had been shut off. It could have been a warning shot, he constantly reminds himself. The shot itself does not necessarily mean that someone is dead. He cannot contemplate that. Cannot begin to contemplate anything so final.

  —

  THE ENTIRE EMBASSY has been mobilized. Tucker and the team set out with both armored cars as soon as the call came in, driving to the area where the cars were parked and fanning out from there along the route the women had taken. Finn had demanded to go with them, but Tucker was unmoving on the topic. “With all due respect, sir, the last thing we need is the distraction of looking after you while we’re trying to find her. Not to mention the fact that I cannot knowingly drive you into danger.” Tucker could not forgive himself. If only he hadn’t allowed Miranda to go. If only he had personally gone with her. He and the men had walked for hours without finding a trace of the women. None of the locals they questioned had seen them. How was that possible? Someone must have seen them. A group of Western women was not inconspicuous, no matter how modestly they were dressed. Mukhtar’s radio seems to be working, but no one answers it.

  Finn had spent part of the evening meeting with ministers and local police officers, while Leo, his defense attaché, worked with the local military. None of these meetings has filled him with confidence. But he hasn’t stopped moving, hasn’t stopped calling and organizing and brainstorming strategies. He has not broken down, has not wept, has not delegated any of his duties. It occurs to him that Alastair and the others have only just landed back in the UK. Will they now return? He isn’t sure. Sometimes they send different
men. Or women. There are women officers these days, though Finn hasn’t met too many of them.

  Cressie rolls onto her stomach, her right arm curling around Corduroy and dragging him underneath her body. Her right cheek presses against her cot mattress, her bottom in the air. She breathes so quietly that Finn has to lean close to her face to reassure himself that she, at least, is still living. He cannot bear the thought of walking out of this room. To leave this room is to return to the echoing emptiness of the rest of the house. To the devastating tidiness of Miranda’s side of the bed. To thinking. And to work.

  JUNE 7, 2007

  Miranda

  It looked just like a light switch: a small white plastic square set into the wall next to the bed. The room was dim, and Miranda was tired. So how was she to know? It was Thursday, the start of the Mazrooqi weekend, but Finn had gone into the embassy to finish up some work, leaving her slumbering. She had not woken up in this room very many times, and never alone. So when she slid from the sheets to stand, her sleepy fingers fumbled for the nearest switch, and pushed. A short, piercing beep was the only response. The room stayed dark. That didn’t bode well. She stood naked next to the bed, puzzled. But hearing no further noises, she made her way downstairs in search of lime juice. There was no point in getting dressed. She was alone in the house and it was warm. Besides, there was something a little thrilling about walking naked down such an elegant staircase, in a house usually bustling with overdressed people.

  Her cell phone rang before she was back upstairs. “Sweetheart, are you all right?” Finn, sounding out of breath, phoning from the embassy.

  “I’m fine,” she said, setting the glass of pale green juice down on the table next to the bed before she spilled it. “Why?”

  “One of the house panic alarms has gone off—”

  “Oh no…” Her stomach started to curl into itself.

  “Did you hit an alarm?”

  “Well, um, it looked just like a light switch…” She wondered how much trouble she was in.

  “Well, Tucker is on his way over to reset the alarms, so let him in. Probably useful for you to know anyway.”

  “I’m really sorry. But you might have mentioned it was an alarm; it really looked so much like—”

  “It’s all right, but six armed men are about to break down the front door, so you might want to get downstairs.”

  “Oh god, I’m not dressed!” Just then the house phone began to ring, and she heard a pounding on the front door. “I have to go!”

  “Go, go. They are just going to want to check the house, so let them do that.”

  “Okay, okay. Shit, I’m really sorry.”

  She put the phone down and reached for the closest things she could find to put on, a green Indian blouse and black skirt left on an armchair. Pulling the blouse over her belly as she ran down the stairs, she reached the bottom just as the front door flew open and several dark men with machine guns stormed the front hall. Immediately, they moved toward the living room and kitchen, their eyes searching the upstairs balcony for intruders. A rosy-cheeked British man with short-cropped blond hair led the team of invaders. This must be Tucker. She hadn’t met him yet; he had arrived in Mazrooq only recently, to take over the training of Finn’s close protection team. Hell of a way to introduce herself: her clothes wrinkled and twisted around her body, her corkscrew curls standing out from her head in every direction, her face still creased from sleep. And obviously too dim-witted to know what a panic button was. She had so hoped that they’d get along.

  “I am so, so sorry!” she said. “I’m afraid this is all my fault.”

  “No worries!” Tucker smiled at her, his blue eyes still glancing around the house. “At least this way I finally get to meet you. You must be Mira.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Tucker.” He shook her hand before continuing. “Actually, we’ve never tested that particular button, so now at least we know that it works.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “We just have to check the house anyway,” he said. “In case there is someone in here making you say things.”

  “Okay,” she said, feeling incredibly foolish. “Go ahead.” Not that anyone was waiting for her permission.

  He ran upstairs, and she apologized to the CP team as well, in her halting Arabic. They were kind, saying “mafeesh mushkila” (no problem!) before going off to search the corners of the house for terrorists. She sat down at the bottom of the long marble staircase, her head in her hands. She obviously wasn’t quite prepared for her new life.

  Of course, her new life hadn’t really quite started. She was still in between lives, in between homes, in between security regulations. And in Finn’s life, she didn’t officially exist.

  AUGUST 14, 2010

  Miranda

  It is dark when Miranda opens her eyes. Her left hip aches from lying on the earthen floor. She can feel a thin mat underneath her, but it offers no cushion. She wonders how long she has been here. How is it possible that she had actually fallen asleep? As she pushes herself up, her palms pressing into clammy grit, she feels the dampness of her shirt against her skin. Her body doesn’t understand what has happened, dumbly continuing to churn out milk. She puts a hand to her breasts, lumpy and swollen under her bra. Cressida. Tears prick the backs of her eyes, but she wills them away. To cry would be to admit that this is real, that this isn’t just another nightmare. But then the memory of the night before flashes through her in all of its horror. Could it have really happened? But even as she asks herself the question, she knows the answer. Knows that this is what she has been waiting for, ever since she met Finn. How could she have ever for a moment thought she could get away with that life? But then how stupid, how narcissistic of her to think of this as some kind of personal punishment. She isn’t the only one who has been punished. Kaia and Doortje. Their husbands. Their children. Mukhtar. Even if they are alive—and they probably are, she tries to convince herself—they may still never make it home. Do the kidnappers know who they are, where they come from? France and the Netherlands generally pay ransoms, but the British and Americans do not. Is this why the other women were dragged from the truck? Why she has been separated from them? Because her homeland won’t pay to get her back? While she isn’t worth money to them, they could certainly use her to make a political point. If they know who she is. Is there anyone terrorists hate more than Americans and the British?

  Her stomach drily heaves, as if she could somehow vomit out the shock and sorrow. Slowly, her arms trembling, she pulls herself into a sitting position, her back pressed against the wall of what appears to be a small stone hut. It’s cold, and she reaches for the thin blanket that had been draped over her and wraps it around her shoulders. It stinks of male sweat and prickles with some kind of animal hair. She spits a mouthful of sour bile toward the wall and blinks, shapes appearing as her eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. The room is empty, save for a thin, dirt-caked carpet spread across the back. There are no windows, but through the open doorway she can see the pale light of dawn. Just inside the doorstep is a round black lump that Miranda eventually decides is a woman, sleeping. Her guard. She wonders if the woman has a gun, and decides that she doesn’t. Surely the men are close enough to run to her aid should Miranda try to make a break for it.

  She must try to think, but her brain is a carousel of horror and she cannot make thoughts line up in an orderly fashion. Her mouth is dry and she longs for a glass of water. What happened to her backpack? She tries to remember. There was water in her backpack. Images come to her as she sits, her head tipped back against the stones. Mukhtar, slipping to the ground. The phone, skittering away over the stones. The thin, wispy mustache of the teenager with the AK-47 who had prodded them toward that first house and later into a truck. Or what she assumes was a truck. They had all been blindfolded. The pressure in her breasts is distracting. Miranda reaches a hand between the buttons of her shirt and unsnaps the nursing bra to squeeze out a bit more
of the milk. How long will the milk be there, undrunk, before realizing it is no longer needed? She stops herself from pursuing this line of thought. Finn will come for her, or will send someone for her. It is possible that she will be with Cressida again before her milk disappears. It is possible that her life will continue. Isn’t it? After all, she is still alive now. Cressie will be distressed without her milk, but this is a relatively minor worry at the moment. Finn is there. Finn will take care of her. He will not let her go hungry. He will sing her to sleep. Miranda has faith in little else, but she has faith in this.

  She refuses to think about how Cressida must feel about the absence of her mother, about how long she could be gone. The craving for Cressie’s weight in her arms, her petal-soft skin against her stomach, is so fierce it steals her breath.

  —

  THEY DROVE FOR most of the night. The men had kept all of them in the small house near their picnic site until dusk, and then herded them onto the back of a truck. A tarp had been pulled over them and fastened. They hadn’t spoken. It wasn’t possible over the grating of the engine, the flapping of the old, slick tarp, and the wind in their ears. Frozen with terror, they had simply tried to roll close to each other, to touch as many parts of each other as possible, elbows to waists, ankles to knees, heads to shoulders. It was cold, unbearably cold, in that truck after the others were gone.

  She doesn’t know in which direction they had traveled. They could have gone west, into the mountains, or north, toward the rugged rebel-held province, or east, toward that vast empty desert. Had they gone through the mountain pass, that treacherous gateway to the North? It is possible. It had been freezing in the truck. She doesn’t think they have gone south. At some point they had been handed over to different men. She knows this because the voices changed, because the man commanding her into this hut last night was not the man who led her to that first house. There are dark implications to this handover. Implications she doesn’t yet feel strong enough to contemplate.