Obsession (Year of Fire) (19 page)

“That’s what Sabir says.”

“Listen, Shiloah. If half the people and governments in the world were as patriotic and loved their country as much as Israel, it would be a different place. It’s true that the way the Zionists took the land was controversial, but they turned the desert into an orchard and built thriving cities out of the rock. You shouldn’t lose sight of how hard they’ve worked.”

“I know, I know. But the time has come to look at our neighbors with empathy. We can also show compassion,
mon frère
.”

Al-Saud didn’t have anything to say to that, so he fell into a relaxed silence. Pink Floyd was still playing. Suddenly, Shiloah sat up. The movement alerted Eliah. He raised his eyes and studied his friend suspiciously. The second glass of Remy Martin XO was having an effect. Shiloah, with his head leaning forward and his elbows on his knees, asked him, “How do you live without Samara?”

Al-Saud’s heart started to thump. He thought that if “Another Brick in the Wall” wasn’t filling every cubic inch of the room, Shiloah would have heard its drumming.

“Sometimes Mariam’s absence becomes unbearable.”

Al-Saud closed his eyes again to hide his tears. The guilt left him breathless.

The car lift rose to street level at Rue Maréchal Harispe, where there was an independent entrance to the base that the employees used. Masséna stuck his head out of the window and stared at the monitor as it captured images of the street. Since he didn’t see anyone, and nothing raised his suspicions, he pressed the button to open the forged-iron gate. He closed the windows before the wheels touched the sidewalk and went out into the cold, lonely night. He drove slowly for a few yards down Rue Maréchal Harispe before coming out onto Avenue Elisée Reclus, where the main entrance to the Al-Saud mansion was. He noticed that his boss’s Aston Martin was parked outside. He envied him the English sports car, in addition to the coarse toughness of his Arabic features, his athletic body and his height. Sometimes he tried to imitate his walk, but after a few feet, he would inevitably fall back into the stooped gait of a computer user. Though he hadn’t seen Eliah’s women, he was sure that there were many, and that they were beautiful. He wasn’t surprised when Tony Hill had vehemently described how beautiful his wife, Samara, had been. At least on that front they were equal; his Zoya’s beauty was beyond compare.

He took a bottle of cologne out of the glove compartment, the same brand as Al-Saud used, and doused himself in it. Stephanie, one of the computer experts that Mercure hired to assist him—and watch him, he was no fool—had given him the name: A*Men, by Thierry Mugler, and it was a good choice, because as soon as Zoya scented it she became pliable and willing.

The only car parked on the next block caught his eye. Thanks to his sharp vision he was able to read the license plate: 454 WJ 06, that same one Al-Saud had ordered him to look for in the government records. As usual, the boss’s intuition had been proved to be correct. The suspicious
car had returned to the scene. A man like Eliah Al-Saud, a mercenary by trade, an arms dealer when the occasion justified it, a spy when necessary, son of a Saudi prince and multimillionaire, probably had many different sets of eyes fixed on him. Who was Udo Jürkens? From the German Secret Service? If he could find out his identity, it might give him an ace up his sleeve. Masséna still wasn’t sure exactly how he had ended up in prison. The appearance of Al-Saud’s lawyers, led by Dr. Lafrange, from the Paris office of one of the most prestigious law firms in London, which billed five hundred pounds an hour, had been too fortunate. The tempting offer to get him out of prison in a few days in exchange for signing a contract to work for Mercure raised his suspicions that he didn’t yet understand was going on behind the scenes.

He was tired. After celebrating New Year’s Eve with two nights of exhausting sex and sixteen hours of nonstop work the following Friday—it was raining contracts at Mercure and though his salary remained the same, the workload was escalating exponentially—he yearned to go to Zoya’s house, take a bath with her, eat something and fall asleep in her arms. He clenched his fists and bit his lip as his doubts assailed him. Would Zoya be with a client? He hated her job even though in the past prostitutes had formed as important a part of his life as computers. He had met Zoya that way, in a bar. Zoya had never charged him, however, not even the first time. “I fell in love with
you
, Claude,” she would tell him again and again. “The rest are just a job for me, nothing more.” Though jealousy gnawed away at him, he had to put up with it because, although Mercure paid him a substantial salary, it wasn’t nearly enough to provide Zoya with the luxury she was accustomed to—dinners at La Tour d’Argent, winters in Gstaad, summers in Greece, furs, jewels, designer clothes—or to send money to Ukraine to support the prostitute’s younger siblings.

CHAPTER 6

On Saturday morning, Al-Saud called them at nine. Matilde was lounging in bed and gestured to Juana to tell him she was busy.

“You never lie!” her friend reproached. “Never. Why do you have to start with the stud? What’s going on with you? Have you gone crazy?”

“Juana, I don’t want any more problems. I don’t want another man in my life.”

“Another man? Treasure, this is
the
man! God!” she exclaimed, looking up at the sky. “You really give bread to those with no teeth! You’re scared to death, aren’t you? Is that it? That you’re afraid?”

“Yes, I’m scared! But I’m not going to talk about that. Also, we don’t know him. We don’t know anything about him. He could be a kidnapper!”

“No, he’s not a kidnapper. He’s Jack the Ripper!”

A while later Sofía, Aldo Martínez Olazábal’s younger sister, whom Matilde had never met, called. Sofía had been her father’s favorite, and along with Enriqueta had supported them economically while Aldo served his sentence. She had never returned to Córdoba, not even for her father Esteban’s funeral. She was spoken of in whispers. Grandmother Celia forbade her name to be mentioned, and Matilde only heard her say it once when referring to her husband—“that horrible little darky” was what she’d called him.

Sofía invited them to come over for lunch and sent a chauffeur to pick them up. “The horrible little darky” had done pretty well for himself judging by the Mercedes Benz that was waiting for them outside and the apartment at number fifteen Passage Jean Nicot, near the Eiffel Tower, where they were received by a housekeeper who led them to the
living room. Sofía was waiting for them there along with her husband, Nando, and Fabrice, their only son and the youngest in the family at sixteen years old, who couldn’t take his eyes off Juana and immediately endeavored to strike up a conversation with her in his heavily accented Spanish.

“You’re just as beautiful as your mother,” Sofía cooed, stroking Matilde’s cheek. “How is she?”

“Good. She lives in Miami with her husband, so we don’t see each other very often.”

“We were never friends, Dolores and I,” Sofía confessed with palpable sincerity and mature poise. “Maybe because I was jealous of her. Your father and I were buddies, we loved each other very much. I spoke to him on the phone this morning,” she announced.

“Yes?” Matilde didn’t hide her anxiety. “How is he?”

“He was happy when I told him I was inviting you for lunch.”

The meal passed in a relaxed and friendly fashion. Matilde’s initial worries disappeared in the vestibule of the luxurious apartment, when her aunt hugged her and looked at her with a maternal sweetness she wasn’t used to. Neither Dolores nor her grandmother Celia had had much sweetness or maternal instinct in their natures. “The horrible little darky” turned out to be an absolute gentleman who spoke with a slight accent and looked lovingly at his wife and son. Before leaving—he excused himself saying he had a game of golf to get to—Nando took Matilde’s hands and assured her, “Niece, this is your house and we are your family. Don’t forget that.”

Sofía invited them to come and drink coffee and tea in another room farther into the apartment, with a huge window that looked out onto the building’s garden and allowed sunbeams to stream in and dance on the parquet floor. The housekeeper came in, pushing a cart with the tea service.

“I’ll do it, Ginette,” Sofía said. “Thank you. You can go.”

Fabrice, who was making no attempt to conceal his infatuation with Juana, invited her to his room.

“I want to show you my CD and movie collection,” he explained, after a look from his mother.

Sofía and Matilde were left alone. After a pause, the older woman turned to look at the young girl with a serious but kindly expression.

“Matilde, I want to tell you why I never went back to Córdoba, not even for your grandfather’s funeral.”

“But first I want to thank you for the economic help you sent us when my father got into trouble. I don’t know what we would have done if you and Aunt Enriqueta hadn’t helped us. They took everything, even the vases and paintings. For a while we lived off Grandmother’s jewels, but they didn’t bring in much money and disappeared quickly.”

“In part it helped to make up for what a terrible aunt I was to you and your sisters. When I found out about…well, about your problems, I was going to come, but I confess that I didn’t have the strength to face my parents. They caused me a lot of pain, Matilde, a lot of pain. They did something to Nando and I, something unforgivable. You know my mother well, I know she practically raised you on her own, so I don’t need to tell you what she’s capable of doing to keep up appearances. I confess that I was happy when I found out that Papa had left her to run off with Rosalía, a maid, his lifelong love. Don’t judge me for being happy.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“It must have been a terrible blow for her; she was so proud of her surname, her ancestry, her mansion. Oh, remembering all this makes me feel awful. Resentment is so…”

“You don’t have to tell me, Sofía.”

“I’d like you to call me
Aunt
, as you do with Enriqueta.” She looked at her, and Matilde didn’t look away; she felt comfortable with this woman, maybe because she reminded her of her father. “You’re very sweet, Matilde. There’s something so beautiful in your eyes that makes me want to tell you a secret that very few know about.”

“Only if it will make you feel better to tell me.”

“When I was very young, I met your uncle Nando, back when he was just a simple clerk in Papa’s office, in Córdoba. He was a humble young man, from Mina Clavero, who hadn’t even finished high school, but it was love at first sight. To make a long story short, just after we started our affair, clandestinely of course, I got pregnant. You can imagine the scandal that erupted in the Martínez Olazábal household. They threw Nando out and threatened him, warning him not to come back. They shipped me, like a package, to a house not far from here, in Paris, so I could have my baby. It was imperative that no one in Córdoba find out. They were the hardest
months of my life. I gave birth in that same house, alone and terrified, with a broken heart, helped by a midwife I feared. When I came to after that terrible delivery, they told me that my baby had died. Don’t cry, love.” Sofía went over to Matilde’s chair and wiped away her tears with a napkin. “Don’t cry, treasure. This story has a happy ending. Listen. I went back to Córdoba, to my parents’ house; I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I wasn’t the same. I think that for a while I was teetering on the edge of insanity. I had lost the man I loved and my child had been stillborn. I wasn’t even allowed to bury him. The pain felt like a hole in my stomach. The only person I could count on was my childhood friend, Francesca.”

“Francesca? The daughter of the cook from the Martínez Olazábal mansion?” Sofía frowned in confusion and Matilde explained hurriedly. “Rosalía, Grandfather’s wife, always talked about them. She had a lot of affection for them.”

“Yes, that’s the Francesca I mean. She was my confidante and biggest supporter. A year later, Nando came back for me and our child. It was a hard blow for him to find out that the baby had died. He felt guilty. He told me that he should have taken me away, that the baby would be alive if he had. It was all so painful.” She sighed and her teacup shook in her hand as she took another sip. “Francesca married an Arabic magnate, and they moved here, to Paris. A little later they sent for Nando and I. Francesca’s husband offered Nando a job, and they ended up becoming great friends. It was he who he went off to play golf with this afternoon. So, as I was saying, we ended up in Paris. Despite the associations with the loss of my baby, I was happy here in the city. I had gotten away from the hell of the Martínez Olazábal mansion and I was living with Nando and close to my best friend. As the days passed, I saw that something was troubling Francesca. She became taciturn, quiet, as though she was dealing with a serious problem. When I mentioned it, she burst into tears and confessed that she had hidden the truth from me for my own good and that it was weighing on her like an anvil. Through Rosalía, she had found out that in reality my baby was alive and that my parents had ordered that he be taken to an orphanage, here in Paris, right after he was born.”