“Look, Cressie,” she says, pulling a woolly animal from the bottom drawer. “This is the sheep that used to help you sleep at night.”
“How?” says Cressie. “How?” She’s so tall now, it still catches Miranda by surprise. Every part of her is longer and thinner; her face has lost some of its roundness. Only her eyes are the same, wide and green, with her father’s long lashes.
“It makes sounds, see, like this…” Miranda pushes the switch on the back until they can hear the sound of gentle rain. “Can you tell what that is?” Cressida reaches for the sheep and plays with the switch until the animal begins to shudder with a regular thudding sound.
“This sound?”
“That’s a mummy’s heartbeat. It was supposed to reassure you because it was the sound you heard when you lived inside me.”
Cressida listens quietly for a few minutes, holding the sheep to her ear. “Where inside you?” she asks.
Miranda rests a hand on her belly. “Right here,” she says. “You lived here. I’ll show you…” On her hands and knees she crawls to the bookcase and pulls out a photo album from the bottom shelf. “Look, habibti, this is you.” She has more than a dozen ultrasound photos—every time she saw the doctor here she got another one. These are definitely coming with them. Cressida looks at the photo in wonderment. “Is me?” she says, tracing her fingers across her profile at five months, her perfectly rounded head, tiny curled legs.
Miranda pulls out another album, with all of her pregnancy photos, and a third with their first photos of Cressida, her body still covered with its protective yellow wax, her eyes wide and bewildered. Cressida turns the pages, rapt.
“Mummy?” she says, pointing to a photo of Miranda, puffy-eyed and exhausted, holding the sleeping child. “My mummy?”
“Yes, sweetheart. That is your mummy. That’s me. I’m your mummy.”
Cressida frowns at the photo and then looks back at Miranda, as if comparing the two images. “Mummy,” she says meditatively, inconclusively. But when Miranda touches her shoulders, she relaxes back into her arms.
MAY 8, 2011
Finn
The city is only just emerging from the shadow of night when Finn arrives at the embassy. He is the first to reach the walled fortress, glowing white in the sun’s first rays, aside from the guards, who shuffle from foot to foot wrapped in down anoraks and earmuffs, rubbing their hands together to warm them. Once through security, Finn uses his keys to open various offices. Soon, his hastily pulled-together evacuation team will assemble to coordinate their departure. He wants to be prepared.
Miranda, Tazkia, and the girls had left the Residence just before him, in one of the armoreds and with two guards. They would drive to the American school on the fringe of town, the gathering point for the US evacuation. From there—after the chaos of queuing for hours and presenting their paperwork—they would join the convoy to the coast, some two and a half hours away. A military ship would await them. Getting the ETDs hadn’t been as hard as he had imagined. He explained to Sally that Tazkia was in immediate and grave danger, a likely victim of a so-called honor killing, and that Luloah was her niece, whose mother had recently died after a long illness. Trusting him, Sally hadn’t asked too many questions.
Now, anxious to join his family, he wants to ensure his own evacuation goes as smoothly as possible. In all likelihood—because of those fatal ETDs—this will be his final act as an ambassador.
As he passes the consular section, Finn sees a light from one of the offices. Could Sally have beat him here? It wouldn’t surprise him; she is often here early, and today will likely be her busiest yet. But the light isn’t from her office; one of the local staff has left a lamp aglow on her desk. Finn switches it off and walks next door to Sally’s office. Dawn is creeping in the windows, bright fingers stealing across the butterscotch wood. In a neat row across the top are about a dozen recently issued passports, waiting to be claimed. Normally they’d be locked away in the safe, but Finn guesses Sally wants to get people on their way today as soon as possible. Any passports left here after the evacuation will likely be destroyed.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he returns to his office. Only a few more days now. Standing by the hulk of his mahogany desk, he glances around the room, memorizing its unremarkable interior. Fat black leather armchairs and matching sofas. The glass coffee table cluttered with Mazrooqi newspapers and magazines. Miniature UK and Mazrooqi flags flying from a wooden holder on his desk. He picks up his mug, the Seattle Starry Night one that Miranda had brought back for him once, with the Space Needle superimposed on Van Gogh’s swirling masterpiece, and tucks it into his red lunch bag to take home. Well, his home for a little bit longer.
His heart trips as he thinks about leaving, about those ETDs. Finn loves being an ambassador. He loves the diversity of the work, the constant education, the chance to use all of his languages. Few things exhilarate him like mediating feuds and debating with presidents. He even secretly enjoys national days. Pick a country, any country, and he can hum you its anthem. In a perfect world, he would have loved another fifteen years of this. New countries, new colleagues, new foods, new friends, with Miranda at his side.
He is relieved to be rid of the lurking shadow of Norman, who had lost the Mali job and been reassigned to London after the pornography debacle. It’s still possible that Norman will spill the Afghanistan story in his bitterness over losing his posting. But he can’t blame Finn for the paintings. And at this point it hardly matters. After illegally issuing the ETDs, Finn won’t be landing any plum postings in the future. Or any postings. That should appease Norman.
The paintings themselves have all been destroyed, though only after that cousin of Tazkia’s who worked in customs had had plenty of time to see them. No one at the airport had recognized Miranda, and it hadn’t been hard for Finn to talk the customs officials into burning such sacrilege. If only they knew what Tazkia’s cousin had seen, what he would say. This evacuation could hardly be better timed; he just hopes Miranda can get Tazkia out.
He crosses behind his desk to duck into his private bathroom, making sure he has removed his razor and face cream. The room’s sterility—the empty shelves and blank tile walls—triggers a surge of subterranean grief. In the stark fluorescent light, Finn stares at his face in the mirror. Lines that were faint when he moved here several years ago have sunk deep into his forehead, and the curls at his temples are flecked with white. Pain casts dark shadows in his eyes. “Ma’a salaama, sa’adat assafir,” he says. Farewell, ambassador. And he turns out the light.
MAY 8, 2011
Miranda
Miranda squats in a vacant lot across from the school, holding Cressida under the arms as the little girl urinates into the dust. Next to them, Tazkia jiggles Luloah on her hip, her face rigid with anxiety. “Good idea to go now,” Miranda is telling her daughter. “It’s going to be a long trip.” She tugs up Cressie’s pants and takes her hand. With her other hand she hefts the one suitcase she has packed for herself and the girls. Tazkia carries her own few possessions in a small backpack. “Ready?” Miranda says, turning to her friend. Tazkia nods stiffly, and they cross the street together. Sensing Tazkia’s distress, Miranda wants to take her hand too, offer her some kind of reassurance. But there is no time, and she has no more hands.
Despite Finn’s forewarning, Miranda is astonished by the number of Americans fighting their way to the front of the immigration lines. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of women, men, and children streaming past them toward the rust-red doors of the flat-roofed, cinder-block school, lugging suitcases and jugs of water. Where on earth have they come from? Miranda almost never saw Americans in Mazrooq. Could they all be embassy employees, released at last from their gated community? Surely there are not so many.
“Okay.” At the entrance to the school Miranda sets down the suitcase and releases Cressie’s hand to rummage in her purse for the papers. There they are: US passports for her and Cressida (a dual citize
n of the United States and UK), British emergency travel documents for Tazkia and the baby. Glancing up at Tazkia’s stunned expression, Miranda is struck by sudden doubts. They haven’t even given Tazzy’s family or Adan a chance to react to what had happened. Still, she is here. Tazkia would not have come to Miranda in the first place had she not known herself to be in peril. Miranda thinks again of the unfortunate Aila, her scorched palms.
“Shall I take Luloah?” Miranda is wearing one of her new homemade slings, ready for the baby. But Tazkia simply stands there unspeaking, staring at Miranda. “Tazzy,” says Miranda, gently lifting the child from her arms and tucking her against her breast. “Tazzy, we’ll be all right. I’ll be with you the whole way, I promise. Can you trust me?”
Slowly, Tazkia shakes her head, her eyes never leaving Miranda’s. “I can’t go,” she says flatly. “I can’t.”
A bolt of panic spears Miranda’s heart. “Tazzy, you must!” she cries. “You’re in danger here. If not from your family then from this war; Tazzy, your country is about to fly apart.”
The tiny woman does not move, her feet planted firmly in the earth. “Then I will fly apart with it.” She lifts a hand, as if to reach for Miranda, then lets it fall. “You don’t understand; there is no life for me without my family. There is no world without my family, no country, no home. We are not like you, we cannot transplant ourselves.”
“But you’ve never left, you don’t know—” There is desperation in Miranda’s voice, desperation to save her friend, but also herself. Tazkia is the reason she has stayed, the one person who has given direction to her last several years. Could all of her work, her coaxing and cajoling, her careful cultivation—of all of them—have crumbled into insignificance? Has she done nothing but purposefully push her women toward a precipice they cannot navigate?
“Everything I know is here.”
“But you can’t create anything here! You cannot be an artist, you cannot be who you are!”
Tazkia looks at her curiously, as if seeing her for the first time. “If I cannot be who I am here, then who am I now? Who have I been for my entire life?” She pauses, the lines of her face softening, growing calm. “Mira,” she says. “Painting is not life. Brushes and canvas and ink are not life. They are a pleasure, a luxury, but not life itself.” She crouches down next to Cressida, who is sitting on the suitcase pretending to breast-feed a teddy bear.
“Cressie,” she says, her small brown hand resting on the dark curls, “take care of your mama.” She kisses the child’s cheek and rises to face a bewildered Miranda. “I also need to say this. You should not take the baby.”
Miranda stares at her, wordless.
“This is her home. Her people are here.”
“She has no people left!” Miranda cries. “Tazzy, I thought you understood.”
“She could have Nadia.”
“Nadia?” Miranda’s mind reels.
“Nadia comes from her tribe. Her family would take her.”
“But, Tazkia…” Why has Nadia never said anything? She hasn’t even come to visit the Residence since Miranda’s rescue.
“You will do what you want, of course. I only had to say this. So that you will think, please, before you go.”
For a moment Miranda cannot breathe. How could the person closest to her here fail to understand? Luloah knows no mother but Miranda. And Luloah would suffer here as Tazkia had, as all of her women did, her own life and all of its decisions handed over to men. If she survived at all. Miranda’s windswept heart struggles to beat.
“Ma’a salaama, my friend.” Once more, Tazkia kisses Cressida, Luloah, and Miranda before turning to walk away. She does not look back.
Not until she has watched—half-paralyzed with shock—her friend vanish among the throngs of refugees does Miranda realize she has a new problem. Without Tazkia to pose as Luloah’s mother, she will not be able to get the child out of the country. The alarm this thought provokes temporarily overrides her heartbreak. Mourning and soul-searching will have to wait. “Mummy, biscuit, please?” Cressida is pulling at her skirt. Digging through her purse, Miranda comes up with a fruit and nut bar she hands to her daughter. Luloah whimpers, protesting her exclusion, and Miranda breaks her off a chunk. Having thus bought a moment’s peace, she takes her phone from a pocket and dials.
—
THIRTY MINUTES AFTER she hangs up, Finn is there. Stepping out of the armored car, he presses a small brown envelope into her hand. “Use this,” he says. “We’ll cope with the fallout later. The important thing now is to get out.” Cressie runs to throw her arms around her father’s legs as Miranda slides open the flap, glimpsing the familiar burgundy of a UK passport.
“Whose is it?’
“It doesn’t matter. Someone who hasn’t come to claim it.”
Miranda opens the cover to look at the photo. A dark-skinned baby, about a year old, stares solemnly at her. She doesn’t look anything like Luloah. “You’re sure.”
“Stop asking me if I’m sure.” His voice is exasperated. “I should think I’ve demonstrated my resolve by now.”
“I’m sorry!” Miranda can feel the tears hovering close now. Is this how the end begins? “I’m so sorry.” Only now does she suddenly feel the loss in all of its enormity: not only Finn’s career, but their entire life together, everything they know. Everyone they know. She looks up at him, attempting a smile. “I was just starting to get the hang of this ambassador’s wife thing.”
“You were.” He takes her hand. “I’ve got to get back.” But he doesn’t move. They stand for a moment looking at each other with naked eyes, the chaos around them sliding away. “Will we make it?” she finally asks. She doesn’t mean to the ship or to a new country. She means something greater, something all-inclusive.
“I don’t know,” says Finn, resting a hand on the warm head of his daughter. “I hope so.” She is not sure which question he is answering.
JULY 14, 2011, LONDON
Finn
Finn lies on the slender, unforgiving rectangle the guards euphemistically refer to as a bed and gazes between the square, whitish bars of his cell. The narrow bands feel momentarily a flimsy divider between him and the criminal multitudes surrounding him. It is mostly air that separates them, stale, anxious air. But he shouldn’t make such distinctions, not now. Isn’t he here legitimately, as an honest-to-god criminal himself? He is and he always will be. This is the only thing that sends a shudder of terror down his spine, grabs him like a recurring electric shock. Not the days and years he will spend confined to this space, to its stink of disinfectant and male perspiration. He is used to bars by now; hasn’t he lived behind bars for the last several years of his life? These at least are honest bars, naked in their intentions, unadorned by bougainvillea. No, it is the days of freedom that lie beyond them that frighten him the most.
What would be waiting for him, beyond, in those future roofless, wall-less days? No ambassadorship, no career, perhaps no employment at all. But Mira. If she were there, she and Cressie and yes, even Luloah, if he found them standing at the gates five years from now, or however long it would be, he could live. In fact, Luloah must be there; her presence is essential for his life to retain any meaning at all. If he has forsaken everything to get that child out of Mazrooq only to see her slip back into the hungry chaos, the motherless abyss, awaiting with murderous jaws to swallow her whole…Well. He can’t dwell on it. He won’t.
They are still awaiting word on their asylum plea. Luloah was an orphaned and abandoned child in a country where civil war now raged. To send her back now would mean certain death. And if they were to send her back, to whom would they send her? They knew of no surviving relative. They had told the truth to the courts, the truth as far as it served their purposes. Surely no judge could be heartless enough to tear a parentless child from the breast of a woman who had kept her alive with milk meant for her own daughter? If they were fortunate enough to receive asylum for the child, they would begin adoption proc
eedings. He has agreed. He has wholeheartedly agreed. Not that he is in any position to parent at the moment.
They are not far from him, just a short expanse of rain-soaked pavement away, crowded into that bachelor apartment of his that he is now grateful never to have sold. Despite having been left alone with two young children in a city not her own, Miranda has not uttered a word of complaint. She had been furious with him for sacrificing himself without her explicit knowledge or consent but has moved on to loathing herself for not having guessed the result of their actions. “I couldn’t have told you,” he insisted. “I wasn’t sure what my punishment would be, and if I hadn’t done what I did, we’d have left Luloah behind.” She would never have forgiven him for that. “We survived your captivity; with any luck we can survive mine.” With the FCO wanting to minimize publicity, the cases against Miranda and Finn had been settled out of court. She had escaped with a fine for possession of false identity papers with improper intent, but Finn’s crimes and punishments were greater.
He worries about her in London. One of the things he loves most is her American openness to the world, her need to launch herself into conversation with strangers, which here is consistently stymied. He once saw her attempt to talk with a woman on the Tube who was reading a biography of an artist she loved, only to be granted a chilling stare and subtle shift away. He cursed his insular, parochial people.
Yet he also has infinite faith in her ability to adapt, to gradually see beyond London’s stony exteriors. The city keeps its colors close, secreted like packets of sticky boiled sweets in its many tweed pockets. But they are there. And Mira is an explorer. She will find them.
He doesn’t worry excessively about Cressie; she is young, malleable. Her memories of him, of their time as a shrunken, compacted family, will fade into a dream past. Life with her mother—and sister—will come to seem enough. Yet the thought also destroys him, rakes his rib cage with pointy steel prongs. No less than Mira, Cressie is his love, irreplaceable and essential. He would not have survived Miranda’s disappearance without her. That she will grow these next few years fatherless, because of him, because of something he did, is a saturating grief. How will they ever be what they were? It still spins his heart, to drag his eyelids open each morning to find himself here. He waited so long for Mira, so long, only to lose her again.
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