Obsession (Year of Fire) (29 page)

His fears and suspicions disappeared when he heard her arrive at noon.

“Bonjour, Thérèse! Bonjour, Victoire!
Ça va?
”

“
Ça va bien
, Matilde.”

She had won the sympathies of his secretaries and partners, who went out to greet her as soon as they heard her arrive at the reception. But who wouldn’t love her at first sight, who wouldn’t fall under her spell simply by looking at her? Hadn’t it happened to him that day at the airport in Buenos Aires, when Matilde’s hair brushed the floor and caught his eye? That day seemed long ago, even though only a few weeks had passed.

He emerged from his office and when he saw her in her ivory coat with her rustic bag over her shoulder, sometimes with her hair in braids, everything fell into place. He hugged and kissed her, conscious that he was being driven by primitive instincts, a male marking his mate and his territory, and always came up with excuses not to eat lunch in the George V; he wanted her all to himself. Around two o’clock he took her to the institute—except on Thursdays, when Medes took her because he had an obligation—and went to pick her up at six thirty. Juana always came back with them and filled the air with her jokes and wisecracks. They would buy groceries, which Al-Saud never let them pay for, on their way home to the apartment on Rue Toullier, where Matilde made dinner while the three of them chatted.

On Friday afternoon, Al-Saud asked his secretary to make a reservation at Maison Berthillon, the ice-cream parlor and teahouse on Île Saint-Louis, which Parisians regarded as the best place in the city to get
glaces et sorbets
. He took them there for a snack after they left the institute. They were enjoying themselves, tasting each delicacy that Al-Saud ordered. Matilde was laughing at an anecdote from Eliah’s childhood when she
remembered that she had to take her medication. She excused herself and went to the bathroom. Juana watched Al-Saud watch Matilde and stare daggers at her admirers in the café. She stretched in her seat and looked sharply at him, as though sizing him up.

“Mat has never been as happy as she is right now. And it’s all because of you, stud, so thank you, from the bottom of my heart.” He remained silent with a serious expression on his face. “Mat’s life hasn’t been easy, and in twenty-two years this is the first time that I’ve seen her so relaxed and outgoing.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that Matilde’s life was difficult. What happened to her?”

“She’s suffered everything under the sun. Our gentle little Mat had to put up with it all on her own, because with the family that was given to her, she got no help from anyone. I expect she’ll tell you about it later on, if you earn her trust, which isn’t easy. For now you should just be happy that she’s noticed you. Even I’m amazed. You may be yummier than dulce de leche, but that doesn’t matter to Mat, just as she wasn’t impressed by your Rolex, your Aston Martin or your designer clothes. You should’ve seen all the doctors at the Garrahan, the hospital where we used to work, who followed her around drooling. She acts as though she has no idea what’s going on. There was one…” She gave a small, melancholy laugh. “Poor Osvaldo…he’s quite cute and the nurses were crazy for him. But he only had eyes for Mat. If she had asked him to be a rug for her to walk on, he would have done it.” Juana squinted her eyes at him, examining the man in front of her. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?
Very
jealous.”

“I didn’t know I was until now,” Al-Saud admitted. “The truth is I’m more used to provoking jealousy and being pursued than the other way around. I was always the object of suspicion, not the suspicious one.”

“Well, Mat’s as trustworthy as Christ himself. There’s no one more noble and faithful than her, I’m saying this to you as someone who has known her since she was five years old.” Juana put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Tell me something, stud. The women that you make jealous, do they have good reason to be suspicious?”

Matilde came back to the table and saved Al-Saud from his inquisition. He noticed a brooch on her black wool sweater that he hadn’t seen before. He held it between his fingers.

“
C’est la Médaille Miraculeuse
,” he said, without thinking. “The Miraculous Medal,” he translated.

Matilde smiled because she loved to hear him speak French. That afternoon she found it especially attractive. She realized that Al-Saud had gone home to change, because he wasn’t wearing the same suit as he had at midday but a light-blue shirt by Roberto Cavalli and dark-blue jeans that showed off his long, thin horseman’s legs. He was wearing olive-green shoes and a short brown leather jacket. His beard darkened his face, and his hairstyle, gelled and combed back, showed off his forehead, giving his features a different look. She was so captivated by his beauty that she didn’t realize that she was just breathlessly staring. Since Eliah’s return, she had stopped regretting allowing Ezequiel to buy her clothes at Galeries Lafayette. Eliah Al-Saud had thrown her life upside down so radically that things she hadn’t given a second thought to before had started to take on a new importance. She wanted to look pretty for him.

“Have you seen the Médaille Miraculeuse before? My grandfather’s wife gave it to me.”

“I know it well,” Al-Saud confirmed. “My mother and my grandmother Antonina wear it.” He didn’t mention that his mother’s and grandmother’s were made of gold; Matilde’s wasn’t even silver but an alloy that had lost its shine and was peeling around the edges. He released the medallion and grabbed her hand.

“I love my Médaille Miraculeuse. I never go out without it. It makes me feel protected.”

“Are you very Catholic?”

“Not at all. My Médaille Miraculeuse has nothing to do with religion, just my empathy for Mary, Jesus’ mother.”

“Our relationship with the Catholic Church,” Juana interrupted, “ended one Wednesday night in ’88. Do you remember, dear Mat?” Matilde smiled and nodded. “I’ll tell you, stud, when Mat and I were teenagers, we were part of a parochial group. The little group,” she said in a derogatory tone, “was run by the church that administered to Córdoban high society. Mat belonged to that high society; I didn’t.”

“My grandmother Celia made me go. Otherwise I wouldn’t have attended.”

“So the group organized a camping trip during the winter break, in Catamarca, a province in Argentina. Mat and I went there. We suffered from hunger, cold and boredom. The only good part was when I met Mateo, a divine boy who was just as uncomfortable in the countryside as we were. We fell in love. But the thing is, it was forbidden to return to Córdoba as the girlfriend of someone you had met at the camp in Catamarca.”

“What do you mean, forbidden?”

“They didn’t want people thinking that Capuchin religious camps were really an orgy. You had to wait a few months to announce that you were going out with someone you had gone to camp with. Mateo and I didn’t give a damn about the prohibition and we got together as soon we got back to Córdoba. At the first group meeting after camp, a Wednesday night, before reading the liturgy or giving the sermon, the president announced over the loudspeakers, in front of four hundred people, that Mateo and I were expelled for having broken the rule. They asked us to leave the room and never return. We got up and left hand in hand. Your dear Mat, in the middle of a deathly silence and with everyone staring at her, stood up and followed us out.” Juana took her by the cheeks. “You’ve got balls, babe!”

Al-Saud brought Matilde’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. The iron streak he had suspected certainly did exist. He had the feeling that while she seemed soft and gentle, she would defend whatever she loved and believed in ferociously.

“Mat’s grandmother went crazy when a friend told her what had happened. She punished her for months. She tried to make her go back to the group, but Mat can be very stubborn when she wants to be. And she didn’t go back.”

“Do you practice any religion, Eliah?”

“No, none, although I was educated in Islam. My father is Saudi Arabian and he wanted us to learn everything about his religion. An imam came to the house twice a week and taught us suras from the Koran and the main precepts of the religion.” He didn’t tell them that, unlike other Muslim boys, he and his brothers hadn’t been circumcised, because Francesca had opposed it. “The only good thing about those classes with the imam is that my brothers and I learned how to write in Arabic.”

“Do you speak Arabic, stud?”

“It was my mother tongue, along with Spanish and French.”

“I don’t know anything about Islam,” said Matilde. “I’d love to find out more.”

Al-Saud couldn’t take his eyes off Matilde’s, which looked almost opaque in the dim light of the Berthillon, like mercury. A movement from a figure a few tables away, near the main door, caught his attention. The Dutch journalist, Lars Meijer, had followed him in a taxi from the George V and was now pretending to read
Le Figaro
. You had to give the man credit for his perseverance.

A little later, as they stood up to leave, Al-Saud guided Matilde between the tables with a hand on the small of her back. Before reaching the exit, he stopped next to the Dutch journalist’s table; Juana and Matilde stopped as well.

“Lars Meijer, isn’t it?” Al-Saud said.

“Yes, Lars Meijer.” The man stood up, his eyes popping out of his head. “Good evening, Mr. Al-Saud! What a coinci—”

“Call my office on Monday and make an appointment with my secretary. Not here, but in your home city.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Monday…”

“Good night.”

They went out into the dark street. Al-Saud took Matilde’s hand and they walked in silence. As they turned onto Pont Tournelle, where the cold grew keener, he put an arm around her shoulder and drew her to him to warm her up. Juana pointed out the
bateaux-mouches
, the flat-bottomed vessels that took tourists up and down the Seine, and, leaning over the parapet, they admired the apse of the Notre Dame Cathedral, whose lights were silhouetted against the black sky.

“Your city is so beautiful, Eliah!” Matilde said. “I’m in love with Paris,” she added. Al-Saud turned toward her, and the intensity of his look cut through the night.
And do you love me?
His unspoken question floated between them.

At the end of the bridge, Juana realized that they were opposite La Tour d’Argent, the famous Parisian restaurant.

“Stud, have you ever eaten at La Tour d’Argent?

“Yes, once or twice,” he said, but didn’t inform her that he and his family were actually
habitué
.

“My grandfather Esteban told me that he had dinner in this restaurant once and ordered an exquisite duck.”

“The duck is La Tour d’Argent’s specialty, but I prefer the lobster.”

“Oh, yes, lobster!” Juana looked up at the sky, licking her lips.

They got to the parking lot on Boulevard Saint-Germain, where they had left the Aston Martin. Unbeknownst to the girls, Al-Saud pressed a button on a small device he was hiding in his jacket pocket, which worked as a detonator to make sure that no one had hidden a bomb in his engine. All his vehicles were fitted with bulletproof glass, a reinforced chassis and an antimine undercarriage, as well as electronic countermeasures—most importantly a GPS blocker, a device that prevented any secretly planted devices from sending out a signal. In Alamán’s opinion all these were unnecessary excesses, a result of the trauma Eliah suffered after his wife Samara’s death, or perhaps from being the victim of a failed kidnapping by leftist extremists in the seventies, to whom his family of Arab magnates was a desirable target. Eliah didn’t think it was a result of trauma or an excessive precaution but the logical consequence of having served as a member of L’Agence and losing the capacity to be surprised by the perversion of human nature. Someone like him couldn’t allow himself to get careless, or overcautious.

“Put on some music, please.”

Al-Saud looked at Matilde with a smile. She rarely asked him for anything.

“What would you like to listen to?”

“I loved what we were listening to on the way.”

“Really? That’s my favorite composer. His name is Jean-Michel Jarre. And you were listening to his album
Revolutions
. One of my favorite works by him.”

“It moved me.”

They made the short trip back to Rue Toullier in silence, with the overture from
Revolutions
pulsing inside the Aston Martin, beating in Matilde’s chest and infusing her with life and energy. She worried about feeling so alive when she was with him, because she had no idea what would happen to her when it all ended. She turned away so that Eliah wouldn’t see her doubts. He put his hand on her left knee for a moment before removing it to change gears, and later, when she felt it on her neck,
she turned and smiled at him to let him know that she was happy, that he made her happy. The music, with its little explosions of treble and bass notes, altered her, making her different and more daring. At a stoplight, she put her hand to the back of his head, pulled his lips toward her and kissed him the way he had shown her; passionately, without pretense or fear. Nothing mattered, not Juana’s presence or his surprise, which quickly became excitement as he opened his mouth and devoured her lips. Matilde could feel in the wildness of his tongue how much he yearned for what she didn’t yet dare give him. She pulled back when she heard a honk and Eliah stepped down on the accelerator with a grin.

As he entered the apartment on Rue Toullier, Al-Saud used the tiny scrambler that Alamán had given him so that the hidden cameras and microphones wouldn’t transmit data during his visit.

Juana, claiming to be exhausted, went to bed, and Al-Saud immediately sensed the tension that seemed to seize Matilde every night when they were alone that had kept him at arm’s length. At that moment his self-control flagged, especially when he remembered the kiss she had given him in the Aston Martin. As he came out of the bathroom, he saw her in the kitchen with her back to him, making coffee, and walked blindly toward her. He grabbed her waist and pushed the hair away from her neck so that he could smell, nibble, kiss and lick it. He heard her moan as he pressed her against the counter. Matilde lifted her arms and seized his neck, looking for support, and the movement made her breasts strain against her tight black shirt. Al-Saud couldn’t restrain himself and cupped them in his hands for the first time. This new contact shook them both to the core. Matilde felt faint, and Al-Saud was paralyzed by the furious throbbing in his groin and the pressure of his penis against the gabardine of his pants; a single rub against Matilde’s behind and he would explode like a teenager.