The Ambassador's Wife

by Jennifer Steil

  “Sa’adat as-safir,” the doctor had said, ushering Finn into the abandoned room. “Do you need anything?”

  Mutely, Finn had shaken his head, his fingers in danger of crumpling the paper cup. Yusef had hovered in the doorway. Gently, he’d touched Finn’s elbow. “Take your time, sir,” he said.

  The doctor had shut the door.

  It was hard to imagine a situation less conducive to masturbation, but he’d managed to cover the bottom of that cup. He had to, if only to make the little man’s exile worthwhile. As Mira had predicted, there wasn’t anything wrong with him. “I knew you had swimmers,” she’d said. But there wasn’t anything especially wrong with her either. It was probably simply anxiety that had kept them from conceiving thus far. Still, she was older now, and a second miracle might be too much to ask.

  She had been shocked that he wouldn’t consider adoption, but he honestly felt that he could never love a stranger’s child with its alien genes as much as he loved Cressie, child of his flesh. Wouldn’t they always be worrying about what might lie hidden in a strange child’s DNA? Genetic diseases, antisocial behaviors, inconvenient allergies—the possibilities were infinite. Every day scientists were discovering new ways in which our genes mold our personalities and behavior. At least with their own child there would be no surprises. Or at least fewer. It was the most serious argument he and Miranda had had in their short marriage. “It’s just, you’re so good with kids,” she’d said, uncomprehendingly. “At the children’s Christmas party, you were like a kid magnet. Do you really mean to tell me you don’t love those children?”

  Of course he loved those children. But not as he loved his own. And it would not be fair to ask another child to live in the shadow of his uncomplicated love for Cressida.

  —

  HE HAD DONE his best to create a festive Christmas for his daughter, hanging the stocking Negasi had knitted for her in the diwan under the Star of David stained-glass window and helping her to make gingerbread Christmas biscuits to leave for Santa. While Finn’s mother had made shortbread smothered in green and red hundreds-and-thousands, Miranda had always preferred gingerbread people. Not only people—she would make dinosaurs and complicated flowers and the Snow Queen from The Nutcracker, first drawing them on cardboard, then steering a knife through the dough to cut around the shapes. She did this even before they had Cressida, and when their daughter was still too tiny to eat them. It amused Finn that Miranda was so averse to cooking a meal but would spend entire days on holiday cookies. Icing them involved a palette of twenty different colors. No one decorated gingerbread cookies like Miranda. They were miniature masterpieces. Eating them always felt deeply disrespectful. This year he and Cressie had stuck to simpler shapes: bells, stars, trees, little girls.

  This was the first Christmas that Cressie could really appreciate; she had been less than a year old for her first one and had slept through most of it, thank god. He and Miranda had hosted a party for all of their friends remaining in the country over the holidays, including not only the obligatory British diplomats but also dozens of Miranda’s friends from the Old City and her travels. There was too much food, too much champagne, too much dancing. No one had gone home until long after midnight, and the house had been a minor catastrophe. He and Miranda had fallen asleep on the floor by the faux fireplace, naked and entwined, until Cressida woke up hungry around 3:30 a.m. It was the best Christmas of his life.

  This morning, he made Cressida a bastardized version of her grandfather’s stuffed French toast, using brown sugar instead of maple syrup. Cressie had been too excited to eat much but seemed to appreciate his efforts, painting her cheeks with cream cheese. Wiping her face, Finn was seized by a spasm of grief; his parents will never know his daughter. She will never know them. In fact, Miranda’s father is likely to be the only grandparent in her life. For the millionth time, he wished he came from a large family, with seven siblings, dozens of first cousins, aunts and uncles and grandmas galore. He was too alone in the world.

  When Cressie had finished pulling all the small toys and books and a satsuma from her stocking, the two of them had spent the morning patting pastry into tins to make a dozen mince pies. It wasn’t Christmas without mince pies. Miranda had her gingerbread cookies; Finn had his pies. While they were cooking, Finn had opened the bottle of champagne Negasi had smuggled over along with a Tupperware box of sausage rolls. By the time Cressie had finished opening her gifts the champagne was nearly gone. Her grandfather had sent a packet of glow-in-the-dark stars through the diplomatic bag, and the Residence staff had all sent over small gifts of clothing and sweets. Tucker had stopped by after breakfast to present Cressie with a tiny bear dressed in the uniform of the Royal Military Police. “Your very own bodyguard,” he’d said. “May you never need him.”

  Now, Cressie drives the car all over the diwan, losing and picking up bears along the way. Finn lies on his side, sipping the last of the flattening champagne and watching her determined little face.

  “Yalla! Yalla, bears!” she cries. “We have to hurry.”

  “Where are the bears going?” asks Finn idly.

  Cressie looks up at him. “To find Mummy,” she says. Her voice is matter-of-fact, devoid of sadness or sentiment. Finn wonders what she remembers of her mother, if anything. When she says “Mummy,” does she still have an image of Miranda’s face? Or has Mummy become an abstract concept? Finn talks to her about Miranda as much as he can, shows her photographs, trying to keep her from forgetting. Unsure of how to explain Miranda’s absence, he has told her that her mother went for a walk and became lost. Kind of like Hansel and Gretel. Cressie always greets this story with an expression of such skepticism that he wonders if she believes any of it. “Mummies don’t get lost,” she’d told him finally. “Ah,” he’d said, struggling for words. “But she must be lost, or she would have come back by now to find you. She would never choose to be away from you, therefore she must not be able to find her way home.” At this point usually Cressida’s attention wandered and she went back to organizing her bears or collecting the tiny green raisins from the cracks of the kitchen linoleum.

  Now he is so lost in thought, it takes him a minute to register the sudden silence. Cressida has wandered out of the diwan while Finn, heavy with the champagne, feels unable to move from the cushions. Shaking his head to clear it, he stumbles to his feet to find his daughter. It doesn’t take long; the minute he steps out in the hallway he can see her little bare feet. She is lying facedown across the threshold of her room, arms akimbo, the new bodyguard bear clutched in her left hand, its beret already coming loose. When he reaches her, he can hear the reassuring sound of her congested snores. What time is it? Past nap time, evidently. Bending over, he gently lifts his daughter, rolls her limp body toward his chest, and places her in her cot.

  —

  HE AND CRESSIDA are eating an early supper when they hear a banging at the gate, followed by the murmur of voices. Whoever it is has met Bashir’s approval—a moment later Finn hears a voice calling from the courtyard. He runs down the steps barefoot and opens the door to a breathless Madina, her arms full of packages. “A few things Santa left at my house by mistake,” she says.

  “Madina,” says Finn. “You’re Muslim.”

  “Yeah, so? He’s a broad-minded guy. And don’t forget my dad’s Catholic. I think that entitles me, no?” She starts up the stairs ahead of him, pulling up the hem of her dragging abaya to reveal glittering red pumps. Santa, indeed.

  “Mina!” Cressie is overjoyed to see their neighbor, abandoning her carrots to launch herself at Madina’s knees.

  “Merry Christmas, habibti! These are for you.” Madina carefully sets her stack of packages in the middle of the hallway and picks up Cressie to kiss her. Finn looks at the pile of boxes, all wrapped in glittering red and green paper. Where did they come from?

  “They’re from the girls,” Madina explains. “They left them with me, for all the usual reasons.”

  Cressie i
s already investigating the boxes, pulling at the bows. “Open open open!” she says. Finn frowns at her. “Please?” she adds hastily.

  “Okay, habibti, but upstairs, okay?” He and Madina carry the boxes up to the diwan and settle on the cushions to unwrap them. Finn tears off the paper of a square package the size of a place mat to find a small oil painting of a woman. She stands in front an easel, her curly hair held back by a green scarf. Smiling. A smile he recognizes. Finn turns the wrapping paper over to look at the card. Nadia. It’s a good likeness. He realizes suddenly that he doesn’t have any paintings of Miranda. Vícenta must have masses of them, but apparently she took them all home.

  Cressida runs her fingers across the paint and looks up at Finn. “Mummy?”

  “Mummy,” he confirms.

  Together they unwrap the remaining paintings, Finn saving Tazkia’s for last. Every single one is a portrait of Miranda. “I had some photos,” explains Madina. “So they worked from those.” There is a painting of Miranda standing outside of the Grand Mosque, her long white skirt and blouse billowing in the wind; one of her standing by an Old City produce stand, a fat yellow pomegranate in each hand; and one of her sitting meditatively in the diwan, almost precisely where he and Cressie now crouch. Tazkia’s is slightly larger, rectangular. “Careful,” he says as Cressida tears at the wrapping. When he has unwound the layers of paper, he props the painting against a cushion. It’s a dancing scene. Someone’s wedding. Girls in gaudy sequined gowns populate the periphery, twirling, hands in the air or on their hips, their faces blurred and unrecognizable. In the center is Mira, in a familiar ankle-length emerald dress, holding on to the small hands of her daughter. Cressida, in a white lace dress he’d bought for her in London, is laughing up at her mother, her lips parted to show tiny white teeth. Mira gazes down at her daughter, smiling, as though there were no one else in the room.

  DECEMBER 8, 2010

  Miranda

  It has been six days. She counts them now, unnerved by how unmoored she has become in time. It is so hard to keep track in a country with no familiar seasons. Six days that Luloah has been without her. Six more days plus several months Cressida has been without her. Every morning, afternoon, and evening after she has finished her allotted cup of tea, Miranda compresses her engorged breasts, taking care to keep her dirty hands from touching her nipples, squeezing milk into the cup. She drinks it herself. She has never heard of a mother drinking her own breast milk, but it couldn’t hurt. And it will keep the milk coming a little longer. Just in case. Hope is a resilient little beast. You can bludgeon it with reality within an inch of its life, and somehow it drags its mutilated body up from its earthen deathbed and goes on.

  The nightmares have returned. It wasn’t long after she moved in with Finn that Miranda began dreaming horrors that left her panting and sweaty. They weren’t mysterious or difficult to interpret. In the first dream she remembered, she was getting on a plane in Texas, a state Miranda had never had any inclination to visit (except maybe Austin. She wouldn’t mind going to Austin someday). Her host, who was to take her to the airport, made her late by taking her on a tour of an oil refinery. By the time she found a clock, she had only an hour to get to the airport and onto the plane to Mazrooq. There was no way she could make it. Her host, a tanned, amiable older man, did not seem worried. But he obligingly hustled Miranda to the airport. As she was checking in with two women at the gate, they conferred with heads bent together before turning to her. “Look, we’re not supposed to do this,” they said. “But we like you. Don’t get on this flight.”

  She looked at them in alarm. “Suspected terrorists.”

  They nodded. “And several armed men.” The small plane was to be packed with air marshals. Miranda looked at her host, who nodded. She realized he was an air marshal, and was one of the armed men protecting the flight. “This is why you wanted me to miss the plane,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  But she got on. Because at the end of the flight was Finn.

  —

  IN HER DREAMS she was often naked, her clothing constantly disappearing. She would put on black skirt over black skirt, and they would dissolve into the air. Men were knocking at the door, and she could not cover herself in time. Even in her dreams, she could not protect herself from men. Finn never appeared in her dreams, staying just out of reach. Either she could not get home to him or he could not get home to her.

  Only in the months before her capture had the dreams subsided, had she relaxed into her life. Now everything for which she has been grateful is gone. Her love, her daughter, her work, her home, her little Luloah. (For if Luloah was not hers, whose was she?) She still has her life, she supposes. If you can call this life. And relative health, all things considered. She is filthy, covered with insect bites, some of which have become infected sores, and her skin seems to be turning gray. But nothing serious. No, the only serious injury is the evisceration of her heart.

  Before Finn, Miranda had contemplated having a child but never longed for one. Her biological clock had been faulty, ticking too quietly for her to hear. She and Vícenta had discussed the possibility of a baby from time to time, but neither of them had felt strongly enough to actively pursue it. They were so involved with their work, their friends, and each other. It had felt like enough.

  At first it had felt like that with Finn. There was no intimation that their life together was lacking in any way. He was enough. They were enough. They traveled, they stayed in bed for entire afternoons, they read plays and poetry aloud, they took seven-hour treks in the mountains. It was he who had first broached the subject of a child, one weekend in Istanbul as they lay naked in bed demolishing the free fruit platter. “I’m happy with our life the way it is,” he’d said. “And I could be happy with our life together forever. But I wonder if we wouldn’t enjoy raising a little person together.”

  Miranda had paused mid-grape to look at him. He had been smiling, his tone free from anxiety or urgency.

  “Finn,” she’d said. “You’re not a morning person.”

  “True. But if I can manage to get out of bed on time for work, surely I could rouse myself for something—someone—slightly more important?”

  So they had pulled a sheaf of hotel stationery onto the bed and written up a list, Pros and Cons.

  Pros: Free entertainment. Unconditional love. The chance to observe human development up close. Opportunity to buy limitless stuffed animals and reread favorite children’s books. Harriet the Spy; A Wrinkle in Time; and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Lego. Fulfillment of biological destiny. Contribute a new member to the Democratic Party (Miranda). Add voter to the Green Party (Finn). Someone to visit the nursing home and make sure we don’t get bedsores in our dotage. A reason to sing in public without shame. People will stop asking us when we will have kids. Christmas.

  Cons: Travel more difficult. Life more expensive (though not here). Diapers/Nappies. Environmentally unsound. Early mornings (not an issue for Miranda, who always wakes with the light). University tuition. Child would eventually be a teenager with access to Facebook. Bullying. Eating disorders. Public tantrums. Strangers glaring at us on airplanes. Constant guilt.

  But they had failed to list the greatest con of all: the possibility of unabsorbable loss.

  JANUARY 2, 2011

  Imaan

  Imaan sits in the dim hut across from her aunt, the question burning in her throat. She has been here two hours now, and there has been no sign of a child. No crying, no gurgles of joy. Nothing but an almost eerie silence. Why shouldn’t she ask about the child? She chides herself. Isn’t it natural to take an interest in a baby? It has been more than a month since her last visit to Aisha. To visit sooner, which has never been her habit, would have looked suspicious. She has handed over an invitation to another cousin’s wedding—fortunately there is nearly always a cousin getting married, except during Ramadan. Fidgeting with the embroidered hem of her abaya, she misses her son. Without him she feels purposel
ess, doesn’t know what to do with her hands. What did she do with her life before she was a mother? Kabir has focused her energies, lent them meaning. But she hadn’t wanted distractions on this trip. Dry-mouthed, she picks up her teacup and finds it empty save for a sticky, sugary residue.

  “I’ll make some more,” says Aisha, heaving herself to her feet.

  “Please don’t trouble yourself,” says Imaan. “Sit. You must be tired, caring for those men all day.”

  Aisha only gives a curt nod and slumps back to the floor. “I have no complaints, praise Allah.”

  “Auntie,” Imaan starts. There is no reason not to ask. There is no reason not to ask. “Where is the baby who was here last time? Is she here?”

  Aisha lifts her head and stares at her for a moment. “That child,” she says and then stops.

  “She isn’t dead?” Imaan’s stomach tightens.

  “She was very sick, Imaan. Very sick. She wouldn’t eat.”

  Imaan thinks she might vomit from fearful anticipation.

  “She would not take a bottle or drink the tea we gave her in a cup. But, Imaan, we could not allow that child to die. You don’t know who that child is. Who her father was. Because of this, we could not allow her to die.”

  “But if she won’t eat?”

  “She will eat now. We have sent her to someone who can feed her.”

  Someone with milk, Imaan presumes. Could it be Miranda? Was she here, and if so, where has she gone? And who are the little girl’s parents? Careful, she warns herself. You don’t want to know too much. Aisha’s men are dangerous men.