Obsession (Year of Fire) (69 page)

As he watched her pushing the food around on her plate and picking like a bird, Al-Saud realized that Matilde wasn’t hungry, as she had claimed. André, his sister’s smarmy fiancé, was sitting next to her and wouldn’t stop talking. He had touched her left forearm twice to point out the delicacies on the table and encourage her to eat. Eliah gripped his fork, picturing himself driving it into André’s jugular. What the hell was Yasmín doing with that idiot? Matilde was acting strangely, it worried him. She forced herself to laugh, but it was an empty laugh that didn’t light up her silver eyes. He had left her alone. She wouldn’t forgive him. Drawn to his uncles and cousins to talk about their contracts with Mercure, he had entrusted her to his mother, who must have had to abandon her immediately to play her role as hostess. What had she talked about with Yasmín near the piano?

Matilde thought that the dinner would never end. She failed to enjoy any of the dishes, even though, as Yasmín’s boyfriend told her, they came from the kitchen of La Tour d’Argent, a concession that the famed restaurant made exclusively to Prince Kamal, one of their best and oldest clients. The caviar, appetizers and desserts came from Maison Petrossian. He also explained that they were drinking Dom Perignon to accompany the lobster, while those who had the duck were drinking a 1961 Château Mouton Rothschild, the best claret in the world.

“As you can see, his highness, Prince Kamal,” André said, and Matilde was bothered by how pompously he referred to his future father-in-law, “doesn’t drink, nor do his Saudi relatives, because they’re Muslim.”

It didn’t help when her aunt Sofía, sitting diagonally across from her, spoke to her about Celia’s enforced stay at the clinic, or when she asked about the circumstances of Roy’s death and blurted out how depressed Aldo had seemed on the phone.

Once dinner was over, they listened to famous arias in the living room, performed by a soprano, a tenor and a baritone along with a concert pianist. It was the first time that Matilde had enjoyed lyrical singing. Since she had gotten involved with Eliah Al-Saud, she had realized how ignorant she was about music, and was surprised to find herself fascinated by the selection. For an hour she lost herself in thought about her ghosts and demons and allowed the music to console her.

Al-Saud was dying to leave. He wanted to wrench Matilde out of this house, which was so tied to the memory of Samara. He was desperate to talk to her. She seemed distant and mournful. His grandmother Antonina’s unexpected reaction had hurt her, and he suspected that Yasmín had also found a way to inject a little venom.

He got up from his armchair, bounded up the stairs two at a time and strode quickly down the hall, his bad mood showing in the length of his stride. He went into his bedroom and grabbed his, Matilde’s and Juana’s coats. On the way back, he passed in front of the slightly ajar door of the room where his grandparents stayed when they visited Paris. A maid was turning down the bed. He stopped when he heard Antonina’s voice, shaking with emotion.

“How could Francesca not have mentioned Matilde to me?”

“She must have forgotten,” Fredo suggested.

“Forgotten Aldo Martínez Olazábal’s youngest daughter! The daughter of that…”

“Antonina,” Fredo stopped her, “please, let’s drop the subject. The girl seems sweet and lovely. It’s not her fault that she’s his daughter.”

The maid came out into the hall and closed the door, muffling the voices. Al-Saud walked back to the living room slowly, looking off into the distance.

“We’re going,” he said in a bitter tone, and handed them their jackets.

Francesca came over, smiling, to say good-bye. As he twisted to put on his camel hair coat, Eliah stretched his arm and his shirt opened a little. The Médaille Miraculeuse dangled in front of Francesca’s eyes.

“What’s this?” she said, clasping it between her thumb and forefinger.

“Matilde gave it to me,” he muttered. “She’s very devout.” He bent down to kiss his mother on both cheeks. “I’ll see you, Mamá.”

“Son, thank you for bringing Matilde. I’m so happy that you…”

“
Nonna
didn’t feel the same way. When she found out that she was a Martínez Olazábal, Aldo’s daughter, she looked at her very rudely. She made her feel very uncomfortable.”

“Oh, no, you’re kidding! I’m sorry, darling. It must have taken her by surprise.”

“Whatever. But it made her feel bad. Talk to her. I don’t want it to happen again.”

Francesca watched her son leave. She was torn between two thoughts that generated different feelings. On one hand, she was thinking about Antonina’s reaction and on the other, about the ferocity with which Eliah had just defended Matilde. This was new in him. When Samara had been alive, he had always had to defend himself from his wife’s reproaches and she, Kamal and Alamán, whom Samara turned to in search of consolation, support and advice, had had to intercede. It had been a young, immature marriage.

Matilde didn’t feel well, her head hurt and a light dizziness made her take Juana’s arm. She rested her head on the Aston Martin’s seat and fell asleep. She woke up when Al-Saud deposited her on the bed. She stayed silent and still, touched by how delicately he was taking off her shoes.

“Eliah?” she mumbled, and stretched out her hand, which he took solicitously.

“What?”

“Make love to me. I need you.”

The haste with which he undressed transformed into a gentle patience when he lay on top of her to make love. They didn’t fall asleep when they finished, but stayed wrapped in a warm, serene embrace. Matilde’s back was wedged into the curve formed by Al-Saud’s body.

“What is the meaning of life for you, Eliah?”

“Does it have to have a meaning? I think the whole ‘meaning of life’ idea is overrated. Living is trying to experience it as well as possible, nothing more.”

“Doing what?”

“Whatever we like best.”

“I like treating people.”

“I know.”

“And you, what do you like best?”

Being with you
, he thought without hesitation, but he stayed silent because he thought it sounded cheesy, even if it was sincere.

“I like flying.”

“Flying planes?” Al-Saud drew a yes on her back. “What kind of plane?”

“Any kind of plane.”

Matilde turned around.

“Do you really know how to pilot planes?”

“Yes, I know how to pilot planes,” he answered, a smile spreading across his face as he saw her enthusiasm.

“Where did you learn how to fly?”

“In L’Armée de l’Air.”

“The Army of the Air? Is that like the air force in Argentina?” Al-Saud nodded. “You were a soldier?”

“You don’t hold soldiers in very high esteem, it seems.” Matilde denied this with a slight shake of her head. “The truth is that I never felt like a soldier. In reality, I was a war pilot.”

Matilde remembered the magazines that she had seen in the library in his office,
World Air Power Journal.

“Were you in a war?”

He was afraid of that question, not just because of the answer, but because of the memories it stirred up, especially those of the Gulf War. Because of his reputation as an excellent shot, his superiors had assigned him the missions with the most specific and least accessible targets. Toward the end of the conflict, they sent him to bombard a bunker in Amiriyah, a suburb of Baghdad. The shot would need surgical precision, as the AS 30L had to be fired through the slats of a ventilation system, a space that was only just wider than the diameter of the Sepecat Jaguar aircraft’s missiles. The mission was a success, the bunker was destroyed and the four hundred people inside were reduced to ashes. Four hundred civilians, mostly women and children. The news had infuriated Al-Saud, who, in an unusual display for a measured man like him, had punched the wall and screamed, demanding to be put in front of the intelligence agent who had told him that it was a military bunker. Though they had explained to him that it was and that Saddam had filled it with civilians as human shields, Eliah didn’t find peace. He had massacred four hundred innocent souls.

He was further disappointed with the political leaders, when, in spite of the United Nations Coalition winning the war, Saddam Hussein was allowed to remain in power. For months they had been told that they were battling a demon. The news that the enemy would
be able to continue to torture the Iraqi population hit the men who had put their lives on the line like a bucket of cold water. Al-Saud had realized that the outcome of a war depended more on a political solution than a military victory. The next year he had participated in the Balkan wars until one night, in the middle of a mission, he felt ridiculous firing missiles because a group of corrupt, ruthless politicians, sitting in armchairs in their comfortable houses, had ordered it. When he got back to the Orange base in France, he applied for a discharge and shut himself away on his estate in Rouen.

“Yes, I was in a war. But I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t have good memories of it.”

“Of course. A war could never bring back good memories.”

This latest revelation plunged them into silence, as they allowed their eyes to eloquently do the talking for them. Her anger had vanished as soon as she found him taking off her shoes carefully so as not to wake her up. What right did she have to reproach him for not telling her about his dead wife or his past as a war pilot?

“I don’t know why I said what I did.”

“What?”

“What I said to you when you were holding Dominique. It seems to have upset you. I don’t want you to feel pressured. I know you have a project you need to do. I’m not going to get in your way.”

“I know you won’t.”

They returned to their communicative silence. Matilde smiled at him and caressed his nose with her fingertip. He kissed her finger.

“If I had to define the meaning of life,” he announced, “I think that screwing like we just did and then flying my favorite plane would sum it up pretty well.”

Matilde covered her mouth before letting out a giggle that touched Eliah’s heart.

“How often?”

“As often as we want!”

“What a magnificent meaning you’ve found for life!” They laughed, and as the laughter died down and their faces grew serious again, Eliah knew that Matilde was about to say something that he didn’t want to hear. “Yasmín told me you were married.”

He let out a groan by way of confirmation and lowered his chin to hide his eyes. He cursed Yasmín inwardly, imagining himself giving her the thrashing that his father had never given his spoiled little girl.

“I would have liked for you to find out from me and not Yasmín, who’s…I don’t know how to say it in Spanish!” he grew exasperated. “My sister is a
cancanière
.”

“You mean a gossip. I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“She’s jealous.”

“Did Yasmín love her? Your wife, I mean.”

“Yes, they were very good friends, even though Samara was older than Yasmín.”

Matilde hadn’t expected how much it would hurt her to hear him say that name. She was anxious to ask him more about Samara, about the accident that had killed her, the baby they were expecting, his life as a pilot and his experience in the war.
Did you love her a lot? More than me?
But instead she closed her eyes and pretended to go to sleep.

Gérard Moses deciphered the message from Anuar Al-Muzara detailing the coordinates and date at which Udo Jürkens should present himself. It was urgent that he come up with the plan to raid the OPEC headquarters so they could get hold of the ransom money as soon as possible.

He walked down the gloomy hallway on the top floor of the mansion where he and Shiloah had grown up. The echo of his footsteps on the long oak floorboards deepened the loneliness and silence that had characterized the mansion for years. In the past, Shiloah’s laughter and his friends’ voices had filled it with life and light. The busts and marble statues were laid out in a row down the hall, covered in white sheets, as were the paintings, casting strange shadows. Udo’s gigantic figure appeared silhouetted against the far end of the hall, and Gérard suffered a moment of panic, which he was able to conceal in the half-light.

“Boss,” Jürkens said, “I didn’t know you had returned from Herstal.”

“I arrived this afternoon. What happened with the three Iraqis?”

“Everything went according to plan.”

“It worked, then?”

“Yes, the nerve agent worked. They’re dead.”

“The sayid rais will be pleased with the news. I need you to give me the details for the report. But first I want you to tell me about Al-Saud’s new girl. What have you found out?”

“Tonight, Al-Saud brought her to a party in a mansion on Avenue Foch, on the corner of Malakoff.”

Despite his exhaustion and the fact that his new medicine turned his stomach, it only took Gérard a few seconds to remember that was the location of the Al-Saud mansion.
He took her to his parents’ house.
He turned brusquely to hide the tears that pricked his eyes. It was the first time he had brought a girl home to his parents. Samara didn’t count because, like her brothers, Anuar and Sabir, she had lived in the house on Avenue Foch once Prince Kamal had become their guardian. He cleared his throat.

“Udo, bring her here. I want to meet her.”

“Piece of cake, boss.”

“Then you’ll kill her. We have to be sure that she’s not going to start asking questions about Blahetter’s experiment.”

“According to the letter he deposited in the locker in Gare du Nord and trusting that the translation is correct…”

“I speak Spanish very well, Udo. Didn’t you find the plans where I said you would?”

“Yes, of course. Then in that case, she certainly had no idea about anything. The letter never got to her.”

The finality of Udo Jürkens’s conclusion bothered Moses.

“We can’t be sure.” He couldn’t shake off the lingering suspicion. “She could have read it and then put it back in the locker at Gare du Nord.”

“The envelope was sealed and didn’t look as though it had been opened.”

“Regardless, you’ll get rid of her, Udo. We’ll use her to test one of the other nerve agents the sayid rais provided me with. Or would you rather not do the job? Perhaps she has seduced you as well?” Jürkens gave him a look Moses didn’t know how to interpret; he debated between reading it as guilty or stunned. “I don’t want to leave any loose ends,” he declared calmly. “Once you have accomplished that task, you will meet Al-Muzara to plan the attack on OPEC. I have the coordinates here.”