“You can talk! You’re talking!” Miranda was crying and laughing, looking up at Finn, who took one of her hands between his. Only when he felt its rough texture did he notice the bloody bandage.
“I do smell,” she said to him in Arabic, her teeth chattering.
“How could you possibly think I care?”
Miranda’s forehead abruptly creased. “Where is Luloah?”
“Who?” He wondered why she was still speaking in Arabic.
Dr. Jay walked in then, just as Negasi appeared from the kitchen, a small, gray-skinned girl in her arms. “Umi!” the child cried, stretching her arms toward Miranda.
“Negasi!” Miranda smiled at their housekeeper through her tears. “That’s Luloah.”
“Madame,” said Negasi, coming to hug her. Then Teru and Desta and the gardeners and Tucker and Dax were all there, reaching for her, crying and laughing and crowding near. Luloah began to wail in Negasi’s arms.
“I fed her some banana and yogurt,” she told Miranda. “Is that all right? She was hungry.” Miranda reached up and took the child from Negasi, rocking it against her breast. As she hummed and murmured in Arabic, slowly her body stilled. Dax and Tucker retreated, promising to return later.
Finn knelt by his wife, euphoria and confusion fighting for dominance. Miranda looked suddenly alarmed. “Finn, can you call Tazkia? Tell her I am here and safe?”
“I’ll call people later, sweetheart, when you’re resting.” He put a hand on her hair, gritty and oily under his fingers.
“No, no. It was the women who brought me. They’re waiting. Please, just call?”
The women? Finn stood and pulled his mobile from his front pocket, searched for Tazkia’s number. “She’s here,” he said simply when Tazkia answered. “You brought her back?”
“We thought the Residence would be safest. Is it okay? She is fine?”
“Is it okay? Tazkia, it is the most fantastic thing in the world.”
Dr. Jay, the UK-trained Indian doctor who treated all embassy staff, waited quietly at the edge of the room, clutching a large black case. She didn’t normally make house calls, but this was hardly a normal circumstance. It was Celia who finally dispersed everyone, reemerging from upstairs to shoo the staff back to the kitchen. “You can all talk with her later,” she said. “But what Miranda needs right now is quiet. And a doctor.” She led Finn and Miranda upstairs to their old room, where Dr. Jay could examine her. Miranda protested leaving the girls downstairs. “I need to see my daughter,” she said. “And Luloah will be terrified.”
“They can come up in a minute,” Finn promised.
“You should examine Luloah too,” Miranda said as Dr. Jay prodded her swollen ankle. “She’s malnourished I’m sure and could have god knows what else.”
“Actually,” said Dr. Jay, who until then had hardly uttered a word, “before I bandage her hand and ankle, why don’t we get her into the bath? The child too. They need to be cleaned.”
After injecting Miranda with a painkiller, the doctor retreated downstairs for a cup of tea in the kitchen while Finn filled a bathtub with warm water and bath salts. Miranda lay still on the bed, looking up at him with exhausted eyes as he carefully undressed her. Had her shoulder bones always poked up in little triangles like that? It frightened him to see her so thin. The skin over her ribs was pale, bruised, and covered with tiny red bites. There were more on her legs and stomach and arms. Some were swollen and infected-looking. Dark hair covered her calves and armpits. One ankle had doubled in size, and what had happened to her hand? Only when he unwound the strip of bloody cloth from her palm did she stir, whimpering as he pulled the last bit from the gaping hole in her left hand. He fought back nausea and tried to smile reassuringly. Questions fought their way to his lips, but he was afraid to overwhelm her, to somehow accidentally aggravate her condition. If she had some kind of posttraumatic stress, and she probably did, he couldn’t remember how he was supposed to act with her.
Squatting, he slid his arms under her naked body and carried her to the bath like a baby, like Cressie. She closed her eyes as her skin touched the warm water, turning it almost instantly gray and rusty. Finn lathered what was left of her hair, soaped her body, gently ran a flannel over her bites and sores. Afraid to touch her hand, he swished water past the wound. When he had rinsed her once, he let the water drain away and filled the tub again. Miranda lay still. As he shut off the taps, Negasi knocked, the strange child in her arms, Cressie holding on to her skirt. Miranda sat up with a jerk. “Give her here,” she said.
Finn helped her to wash the baby, with Cressie leaning over the bath to watch, fascinated. “Cressie, this is Luloah,” said Miranda. “She has had a hard time. Can you be especially nice to her?”
“Why she has hard time? Why?” It didn’t strike Cressida as odd that her mother—or this woman purporting to be her mother—spoke to her in Arabic. Everyone except her father spoke to her in Arabic, or Amharic.
Miranda leaned out of the bath to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “I missed you so much, habibti,” she said. “I missed you more than anything in the whole world.”
More than you missed me? Finn can’t help but wonder. But he doesn’t say it out loud.
Luloah was reaching up for Miranda, puckering her mouth like a guppy.
“Finn,” said Miranda. “I need to nurse her. But I don’t think Cressie…?” Bewildered and yet understanding, Finn led his daughter out of the bathroom. Celia had left a stack of fluffy white towels on the bed, along with a terry-cloth robe and cotton sundress and panties. “We’ve sent the guys to the Old City for your things,” she told Finn through the closed door. “They should be here in an hour or so.”
When Miranda was dry and wrapped in a robe, she held out an arm to Cressida. “Sniff me now,” she said. Her daughter cautiously sniffed near Miranda’s arm but didn’t move closer. “My mummy doesn’t talk like you,” she said. Finn saw a flicker of pain cross Miranda’s face.
“She just needs time,” he said.
Miranda nodded, blinking back tears.
Dr. Jay returned to examine both Luloah and Miranda, disinfecting and bandaging their various wounds, wrapping a splint around Miranda’s ankle. “You will need to see a surgeon about your hand,” she said. “As soon as possible and preferably not here. When you are back in London. There is damage to both muscle and ligaments, and possibly some of the smaller bones. You need a specialist if you want to regain the use of this hand. I’m also putting you on antibiotics.”
Miranda shook her head emphatically. “I can’t go to London. I have the children.”
“And you’ll need help with them, until we can get this fixed.”
But Finn’s mind had traveled elsewhere. “It’s her painting hand,” he said. “We have to fix it.”
“I can’t leave.” Miranda looked at him pleadingly.
“Sweetheart, we’ll talk about this later. We’ll figure everything out, I promise.”
“As for the child,” the doctor continued, “she probably has a vitamin D deficiency. Which is easy enough to treat. We may need to take blood to see if there is anything further. I don’t suppose you know if she has had any vaccinations?”
“I’m pretty sure she hasn’t had any.”
“We’ll do that too, as soon as you both get a few days’ rest and some warm meals.”
Desta dragged a box of Cressida’s outgrown clothing from her old room, and Miranda pulled a flannel sleep suit dotted with planets over Luloah’s frail limbs. Once everyone was dressed, Negasi arrived with carrot-lentil soup and some bread on a tray. Halfway through her bowl, Miranda began to slide down the wooden headboard, like one of the spineless dolls Cressie rejected in favor of furry animals. Finn removed the bowl, helped Negasi finish feeding Luloah, and not knowing what else to do with her, tucked her in next to Miranda. He had expected Cressida to protest Luloah’s claim to her mother, but his daughter was still cautious, unsure. Not in the least bit interested in climbing into bed wit
h this stranger who was allegedly her missing mother, Cressie was happy for Finn to tuck her into her own familiar cot, which embassy staff had brought over along with the rest of their things. As she lay still, surrounded by a sleuth of bears, Finn read her the original Corduroy book, her favorite, read it over all three of them, like a benediction.
Hours later, he climbed in next to his wife, reaching out an arm to pull her into him. He wanted desperately to curl around her, to make her feel protected and secure. But the instant he touched her she had bolted upright, crying out, and it took him half an hour to talk her back into herself again. The child did not wake.
“I can’t sleep,” Miranda whispered to him around 2:00 a.m., when she woke for the second time. “The bed is too soft.” And she slipped down, taking the top blanket with her. A moment later Luloah began to wail and was inconsolable until Finn set her down next to Miranda.
—
NOW LULOAH IS stretched out on the floor beside her, the glowing Saturn on her stomach expanding and contracting with each breath. In a corner of the room, Cressida softly snores in her cot. Finn can’t sleep either, but it isn’t the softness of the bed keeping him from the arms of Morpheus. Why is Miranda nursing this child, and who are her parents? Where will they all go now? The Office will want to talk with her tomorrow, to convince her to get on a plane to London. It occurs to him that this is going to be harder than he thought. Much, much harder.
FEBRUARY 17, 2011
Miranda
She cannot sleep. On her back on the cool stone of their bedroom floor, she listens to the jazz symphony of her heartbeat as pain burns its way from her palm up through her forearm and triceps and the back of her shoulder. Please, let there not be nerve damage. Let my hand emerge from this prison. The ghost of that spike remains in her palm. Tentatively she flexes her fingers, sending sparks of agony up her arm. She rolls to her right side, propping her left arm up with a pillow, as Dr. Jay had shown her, but it doesn’t help. She should have taken the sedatives offered to her, but she hadn’t wanted to dull her mind. Not now, when she needed more than ever to be present. Sitting up, she glances over at Finn, curled like a child on his side, mouth drifting open, breathing quietly.
There he is, so miraculously close. And yet, she is still trying to find her way back to him. For months she had dreamed of throwing herself into his arms and now she recoils from his touch. His unfamiliar scent. She doesn’t understand it. Where is the physical ease they had always shared? Even talking feels difficult, sometimes impossible. So much seems to lie between them; the thought of trying to tell him everything that has happened, that she has thought and felt since she last kissed him good-bye, is overwhelming. She doesn’t know how to begin. He is patient with her, undemanding, but she senses his loneliness. He wants his wife back—his real wife, lively and laughing, not the anesthetized ghost she has become. Luloah lies between them, close to rolling under the bed but unmoving for the moment. How can she explain Luloah?
A crush of thoughts crowds her brain. She had hardly arrived home, had hardly taken a long look at her husband and daughter, when the Brits began thrusting crisis counselors in her face and talking about getting her to England. Security staff want to debrief her, friends want to come see for themselves that she has survived, and Dr. Jay wants her hand treated in London. Decisions are being forced on her from every direction. If only she could pause everything until her mind has caught up with it all. For now, she wants nothing but Finn and Cressida, to sit with them relearning their faces and listening to their voices. She isn’t ready to get on a plane. She isn’t ready to be psychoanalyzed. She wants stillness and space. She wants to press her unfamiliar family against her skin until she relearns their shapes. Couldn’t they just be left alone?
Shifting her weight onto her right palm, Miranda pushes herself to her feet and walks down the hallway to Cressida’s room. Since Miranda’s return, Cressida has not allowed her to pick her up or even touch her, backing away toward her father or a bear. Fearful of scaring her, Miranda resists doing the one thing she has dreamed of more than anything else for six months. Now, she stands over her alien daughter, still sleeping on her back, still surrendering in her sleep. Carefully, using her right arm and her left forearm, she hefts Cressida toward her. She is heavy, her weight unrecognizable. It takes the last dram of Miranda’s strength to heave her up, but the reward is inestimable. Leaning on the end of the crib, sweating from the pain, she slides to the floor, cradling the still sleeping child. Miranda bends her head to inhale Cressie’s scent, sunshine-baked earth with undertones of Finn’s aftershave. She has hair now, most of her head covered with Finn’s curls. Miranda kisses her eyebrows and her still-chubby cheeks and her nose and fingers and belly. She opens her mouth to sing to her, but nothing comes out. Her mouth is dry, empty. Still, she sits there soaking in her daughter, her greatest love, even while her arm burns.
She lacks the energy and motivation to rise. Only toward dawn, when Cressida awakes and cries to find herself in unfamiliar arms, does Miranda release her. A sleep-creased Finn appears in the doorway, cradling an equally distraught Luloah, and silently, they trade children.
MARCH 11, 2011
Miranda
The island air clings to their skin like damp silk, the relentless sun painting their bodies with sweat, but Miranda refuses to wear a hat. “I’ve missed out on a lot of UV poisoning,” she said. “I have to catch up.” She does, however, concede to wear sunblock, and slathered both girls with it so that they now resemble iced gingerbread people. They are playing at the edge of the water, Luloah sitting in a soggy diaper arranging pebbles in straight lines, Cressida in a long-sleeved UV-protecting suit, flinging gleeful arcs of sand into the sea.
Miranda sits on the sand a few yards away, watching them with her knees drawn up to her chest. She still isn’t allowed in the water; her bandaged hand is recovering from surgery. “What I don’t understand,” she says, “is what they were hoping to accomplish. Even if they killed me, what would it accomplish? Did they really think that would stop the drones? Or have any effect whatsoever? I’m a completely unimportant person.” They have already been over this, countless times, but she is still uncomprehending. Something is wrong with her memory; she hears things and they fail to stick, slipping away from the frictionless fingers of her mind when she tries to retrieve them.
“It’s hard to know for sure.” Finn sits several feet away from her, in a long-sleeved T-shirt, khaki shorts, and a panama hat. “We’re thinking that it was a combination of things. Mukhtar was probably offered good money for delivering you. More than he would earn in a lifetime with the embassy. It’s possible that the people who took you from him didn’t initially realize they wouldn’t get a ransom for you. Or they simply wanted to spread fear. If they can get an ambassador’s wife with a bodyguard, they can get almost anyone. And then of course you were perfect—in their minds—for trying to make a statement. About the drones, US foreign policy in general. The usual. American civilians will be kidnapped and killed until the US withdraws from all Arab lands…That sort of thing.”
“And it was just luck they got the other two women?”
“That was opportunistic, we think.” Miranda can tell he is unsure how much to tell her. She is to be treated like a ticking time bomb with an elusive detonator, the therapists have probably instructed him. No telling what might explode her fragile equilibrium.
She is silent for a moment, thinking. Cressida scoops up two handfuls of Luloah’s pebbles in her chubby fingers and tosses them into the sea. The little girl gazes in horror at the ragged disruption of her orderly line and begins to wail. Miranda scrapes up a handful of pebbles from the sand beside her and takes them to Luloah. “Here, habibti. Cressie, don’t take things from the baby. She doesn’t understand.” Ignoring her, Cressida grabs another handful. “Sweetheart…No more, okay?” No answer. Her daughter no longer responds to her as an authority. Sighing, Miranda picks up Luloah, moves her a few feet farther down the beach,
and turns back to Finn.
“And Tazzy’s paintings? Who would take those?”
“I have an idea about that. I need to think it through.”
“You mean you think you know? Finn, you realize there are paintings of me too, don’t you? Did Tazzy tell you?”
Finn stares at her, the pupils of his hazel eyes shrinking to pinpoints in the sunlight. Apparently Tazkia had left that part out. “Finn, find those paintings. Please, as soon as we get back. I can’t take on any new enemies right now. The last thing I need is the modesty police after me.”
He nods slowly, still calculating what it all means. They aren’t supposed to be back in Arnabiya for another two weeks. Miranda had, after a prolonged battle, miraculously convinced the Office to let them both stay in the country until the end of Finn’s posting in June, on the condition that she accept trauma counseling and draconian security precautions. She and Finn haven’t had very much time alone together since her escape. The Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) assessors showed up about seventy-two hours after her arrival, to debrief and assess her. Apparently they hadn’t found her too irrevocably damaged, or they wouldn’t be letting her stay. “Some people find revisiting the scene of traumatic events helps them recover,” one counselor said to Finn. “It is possible she needs to be here for a little while, to somehow defuse or neutralize her memories of her experiences here.”
Miranda had a simpler explanation. “I don’t want to be afraid of Mazrooq, of my life here. This is not how I want to leave the place that has been my home for so many years. And won’t the terrorists be impressed that I haven’t run straight home to the cushy West?”
The counselor had patted her knee gently and said, “Let’s not worry about impressing terrorists now, love.”
One counselor has suggested that she try something called EMDR—eye movement desensitization and reprocessing—apparently the latest thing in treating trauma victims. This involves moving her eyes in a way that mimics the way they move in sleep, which is supposed to help store traumatic events in long-term memory, where they are less troublesome. Miranda is happy to try it—especially if she gets to stay in the country—but she feels pretty lucky on the trauma front. Really, what has happened to her? She was beaten only a few times, was never raped, and had eluded torture. She hadn’t physically suffered as so many others had. As had the man in the cell next to hers. That is the memory that causes the strongest waves of nausea, the one she will use when she tries EMDR, she decides. But does overhearing someone else’s trauma count as her own trauma? It doesn’t seem right. And yet. She wonders where that man is now. Has he died in the bombing, or has he somehow also escaped?
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