Obsession (Year of Fire) (16 page)

“I will.”

For a while they savored the delicacies and sipped at their hot drinks, talking about inconsequential subjects. Eliah watched her eat and speak openly; he was distracted by her rosy cheeks, the two braids that fell under the table, her small nose, her big eyes, each a little distance away from her septum, giving her an exotic look. He also noted her small bony shoulders against the light wool of her sweater and asked himself once more what the hell he was doing with this woman. In an interlude, he asked her again, “Matilde, why do you want to go to the Congo?”

“Because it’s the reason I studied medicine, Eliah.”

It was one of the rare times she used his name. The effect was devastating. If he had to choose a word to describe it, he would have to say
melt
. Yes, he melted before her.

“I studied medicine so that I could cure the poor, the helpless, the people who no one sees or even wants to see. That’s why I chose pediatrics as my specialty. While I was studying, I felt as though I was wasting my time. The urge I felt to heal people made me impatient. Juana and I studied as hard as we could to graduate as soon as possible. We took extra courses to qualify. We graduated very young and left for Buenos Aires right away, because my greatest wish was to perform my specialty at the Hospital Garrahan, one of the best pediatric hospitals in South America. I still remember how hard we studied for the admission exam. Those were good times.”

“How did you decide on the Congo?”

“I didn’t really decide, the humanitarian organization Healing Hands did. A colleague of mine at the Garrahan, who worked with them in Somalia, told me about her amazing experience living in Marka, near Mogadishu. Juana and I sent our resumes to the HH headquarters along with letters explaining our desire to go to a country in sub-Saharan
Africa. They called us within a couple of weeks and, after a few interviews and all kinds of tests, they told us that we were accepted and invited us to Paris to do what they called preparation course for the first destination. A few days later, they informed us that in a few months there would be openings in a pediatrics project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the Kivus area.”

When he heard the name of the area, Al-Saud’s heart jumped; the provinces of North and South Kivu, in eastern Congo, were among the most violent regions in the world. “We accepted immediately. Then HH asked us to take a French course during the intervening period.”

“You’re lucky that they’re sending both you and Juana together.”

“Yes, that’s true. They could have sent us to different places, but at the headquarters in Buenos Aires, they saw how well we complemented each other, as I’m a pediatric surgeon and she’s a clinical pediatrician. Also, we had expressed our desire to go to Africa together and they indulged us.”

“Who funds you during these months in Paris?”

“HH covers the French course. We cover everything else—house, food, transport.”

“Rent in Paris is pretty high. Are you a little rich girl?”

“Rich? Not at all. I’m squandering all my meager savings.”

“Are you staying with a friend while you’re here?”

“No. We’re living in my aunt’s apartment. She uses it during the summer. The rest of the year she lives in Córdoba, my hometown.”

“Do you have friends in Paris?”

“My sister lives here, but we don’t get along, so I’m guessing that I won’t see her that much. Anyway, she’s pretty busy with her work.”

“And friends?”

“Yes, Ezequiel, our childhood friend. He, Juana and I were always together in high school.”

Why the hell didn’t she mention René Sampler? And who was this Ezequiel, her childhood friend? He remembered that she and Juana had mentioned him on the plane.

“You didn’t eat much,” he noticed.

“It’s all lovely, but I’m stuffed.” Seeing his surprised and disappointed face, Matilde explained, “Sometimes I think that my stomach is as small as my fist.” She held out her fist with a smile.

Softly, as though he was catching a butterfly, Eliah covered Matilde’s fist with his hands and kissed her index finger a few times, with his gaze fixed on her. Matilde allowed herself to enjoy this unexpected moment. She was tethered to his eyes and the fleshiness of his lips; their dampness, a softness that gave her goose bumps, tickled her stomach and ended in painful tingling between her legs. The truth was that she had never experienced anything like it.

“Oh, Matilde, Matilde,” he murmured into her skin, and closed his eyes, as if he was suddenly overcome by exhaustion.

Matilde pulled her hand back gently. Al-Saud didn’t move his, keeping them at mouth level, as though her hand were still there. He lifted his eyes and looked at her. There was sincerity in that tired face.

“I’m happy to have found you on the métro. Are you, Matilde?” She just nodded. With something of the brightness from before, Al-Saud asked her, “Will you accept me as your new friend in Paris? I’ll be an excellent guide. Nobody knows this city like me.”

Eliah got his way and she allowed him to accompany her back to the apartment where she was staying on Rue Toullier. But first he escorted her to a supermarket two blocks away, on Rue Malebranche, and helped her with the bags. She wouldn’t let him pay for the groceries.

“Hi, Juani! I brought a visitor,” Matilde called from the door as a greeting.

“Eze?” The other guessed, and came out of the kitchen. “Oh, the stud from the plane!”

Al-Saud laughed and Matilde felt the sound vibrating in her chest. He and Juana chatted as though they were old friends. With her hat and coat still on, Matilde looked at his profile: his straight nose, big nostrils; the bags under his eyes, the dark color of his eyelids. She felt an urge to wipe a finger along his bottom eyelid to make sure that he wasn’t wearing eyeliner. Finally she decided that it was his dark eyelashes that created the effect. She looked at the finely drawn cheekbones on his straight, square face, and also the protuberance formed by his Adam’s apple, which bobbed in his thickly bearded neck as he spoke. She also looked at the nape of his neck and how his muscles tensed when he laughed, his evenly cut, military-style black hair, and she imagined messing it up with her hand. Why was she thinking about the book in her bag? Why
was she imagining scandalous scenes? Why was she getting excited at features she would previously have considered unimportant?

Before he left, Al-Saud asked Matilde for her cell phone number.

“No way, Eliah!” Juana interrupted. “Our Mat doesn’t have a cell phone. At first she said that the radiation they gave off was dangerous. Now since she found out that the batteries are made from coltan, a mineral stolen from the Congo, she won’t use them for ethical reasons.”

Eliah turned his head and looked at her with the same expression he had worn in Café La Frégate: he gave off a patina of exhaustion that she interpreted as sincere. He, meanwhile, was wondering,
What kind of woman are you, Matilde?

After Eliah left, Juana appeared in the doorway of her friend’s room, leaning on the frame to chat. Matilde, who was reading
Rendezvous in Paris
, put the book down.

“I’ve already said all there is to say. Now let me sleep.”

“It’s just that I’ve been thinking and thinking, Mat, and I can’t believe that you met him on the subway. It can’t be a coincidence! Your destinies are linked.”

“Don’t get hysterical.”

“Scooch over.” Juana got under the covers next to her. “Oh, girl,” she sighed, “you’ve landed a hunk.”

Matilde put the book on her bedside table and lay on her side so she was facing Juana. She took out Eliah’s handkerchief and the glove she had under her pillow.

“Juani, was it bad that I brought him to the apartment? Was it wise? He insisted so much. And you know me, I don’t know how to say no.”

“It was perfect! Perfect! He’s a decent man, I can feel it.”

“I felt so clumsy the whole time with him. You know that I don’t have your skill with men.”

“Well, your clumsiness, my dear friend, has captivated him. He’s crazy about you.”

“Do you think he’s married?”

“He wasn’t wearing a ring.”

Matilde smiled and hid her face in the handkerchief. Still veiled, she confessed, “Juani, I never get tired of looking at him. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Yippee!” Juana kicked under the covers. “Mat is in love! For the first time in her life!” Juana smacked her forehead. “I forgot! Your aunt Sofía called.”

“My aunt Sofía? What did she say?” Matilde sat up in bed.

“She wanted to invite us to her house. She wants to meet you. Tomorrow she’ll call again.” She kissed Matilde on the forehead. “Good night, babe. You cheered me up with the stud.”

Alone again, Matilde opened the drawer on her bedside table where she had hidden
The Perfumed Garden
. She opened it at random.
The Position of the Blacksmith. The woman lies on her back with a cushion under her buttocks and with her knees raised as far as possible toward her chest, so that her vulva stands out as a target; she then guides his member in. The man executes the usual act of coitus for some time, then draws his tool out of the vulva and glides it for a moment between the thighs of the woman, just as the blacksmith withdraws the glowing iron from the furnace in order to plunge it into cold water.

CHAPTER 5

The car’s body pulsed with the chords of
Équinoxe
, by Jean-Michel Jarre. He wasn’t listening to it because he liked electronic music, but because he knew Eliah Al-Saud considered it to be one of the best works of French music. He waited inside the car to catch a glimpse of him and so feel the wave of energy that emanated from his magnificent, healthy body. After so much time, he had to work up the courage to confront him, and when he did he had to keep up a pretense. This way, sneaking in and out, he could fully bask in the pleasure, without having to repress himself.

He opened the window and stuck out his head despite the cold. The night concealed him. The loneliness and silence on Avenue Elisée Reclus calmed him. His illness wasn’t on his mind. For now it didn’t bother him, although he had already been hit by a ferocious attack, with agonizing stomach pains, vomiting and hallucinations, which had kept him in bed for a few days. Even more than the fact that he had inherited it from his father, it upset him that the porphyria was stealing time away from him. Eventually, it would steal his sanity. Would it also steal his intelligence, his most prized gift?

He turned back to the street. On this corner of the Septième Arrondissement, formed by the corner of Avenue Elisée Reclus and Rue Maréchal Harispe, a few yards from the Eiffel Tower, stood Eliah’s
hôtel particulier
, inherited from Jacques Méchin and which his brother Shariar’s construction company had remodeled and adapted at a cost of over two million dollars, with security and infrastructure technology fit for a CIA bunker. It was a solid three-story building from the end of the nineteenth century built in a style that, although it clearly demonstrated
its classical origins—a compact sober look, slate roofs, a surrounding garden—also had elements of a more eclectic architecture: a combination of limestone and exposed brick, pointed arches in the windows, and the balcony at the center of the facade, which had a Moorish air. The bars across the balconies and doors, shaped like climbing plant stems with flowers and leaves, indicated the influence of the Belgian architect Victor Horta.

He thought that Avenue Elisée Reclus, with its mansions and decorated sidewalks, was the most exquisite part of Paris. Sometimes he missed it, though without Berta, it lost its charm. After the cremation and setting her affairs in order, it hadn’t been difficult for him to leave the area. He enjoyed his nomadic life. The idea that someday he might have been to every country in the world excited him, excepting Israel, of course, where he would never set foot. Gérard and Shiloah Moses, his father and brother, lived there. How he loathed bearing the accursed name that had plunged him into this miserable state! How he loathed his father’s surname! Such awful blood ran in his veins! He hated them just as intensely as he had loved Berta and as he still loved Eliah Al-Saud.

Characteristically silent, Udo, his chauffeur and right-hand man, a ferocious-looking man from Berlin, handed him a block of
gianduia
chocolate. He took it without saying anything either and nibbled at it. His strain of porphyria required constant feeding, so he ate something every two hours to avoid the attacks.

“What time is it, Udo?” he asked.

“Almost nine, sir.” Udo’s metallic, artificial voice mingled with Jarre’s synthesizers as if it were part of the composition. That was the reason the Berlin thug venerated his boss and would have done anything for him, not only because had he saved his life that night when he had been shot in the neck by gunmen sent by the notorious terrorist Abu Nidal, but because he had also restored his voice with an electronic device of his own invention, implanted by surgeons in Baghdad, all at his expense, of course.

“Here he comes, sir.”