Obsession (Year of Fire) (87 page)

“What does Matilde say about that, the
Paris Match
thing?”

“Nothing. The truth is that she isn’t talking much.”

“Is she eating more?” Juana shook her head. “Please, Juana, you
have
to do something to make sure she eats.”

“Don’t worry. Ezequiel is on it. When they gave her the chemo and she didn’t want to eat because everything sickened her, it was Ezequiel who sat by her side and got food into her mouth by making her laugh. He was the only one who could get her to manage a few bites. He’s doing the same thing now.”

“My God. Matilde…” His voice was strangled and he looked away so Juana wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes.

“And you, stud, how are you?”

“Juana, I never thought I would say anything as cheesy as what I’m about to say to you, but I can’t live without her.”

“I know. And it’s not cheesy, Eliah. When you love someone as much as you two love each other, you start to form one body. Without one part, that body can’t live. But tell me about you. What have you been doing during the day?”

Al-Saud thought about the times he had put up with the scenes Céline made in the lobby of the George V, when she slipped in without the guards seeing her, or on the sidewalk, or even at the door of his family house on Avenue Foch. Fortunately, she didn’t know about the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus. Sick of battling with this crazy woman and frightened that she would hurt Matilde, he called her agent, Jean-Paul Trégart, and threatened him: either she changed her ways or a juicy piece of gossip about her nearly two-month stay in a detox clinic would show up in the editorial rooms of the country’s magazines. The day before, Trégart had called to inform him that Céline would be going to Milan for a long while.

Al-Saud also thought about the many meetings he had had in Dr. Lafrange’s law firm to plan the lawsuit against the weekly
Paris Match
and Lars Meijer. They would get a few million francs out of those bastards and make them publish a retraction or his name wasn’t Eliah Aymán Al-Saud. The article was very provocative and tendentious. It was ambiguous in certain passages such as its mention of the tragedy in Amiriyah, when it suggested that Al-Saud ended his career as a pilot because he had bombed the bunker full of women and children; the reader might assume that after Eliah had destroyed the place on his own initiative, the air force had kicked him out when, in reality, the opposite had happened. Only one man could have provided Meijer with certain information from his past as a member of L’Agence: Nigel Taylor. That son of a bitch would pay as well. By revealing the information, the little swine had violated the oath of silence taken upon entering the ranks of L’Agence.

“I’m doing what I always do,” he answered. “Working a lot. Céline is gone, isn’t she?”

“Yes, stud. Jean-Paul got her a contract in Milan. She was still up to all her old tricks before she left. On Tuesday she managed to get into the building and planted herself in front of the apartment door and started to kick it because Suzanne wouldn’t let her in. Jean-Paul went out and threatened to have her committed again if she didn’t stop behaving like a crazy person.”

“She is crazy, she’s completely unhinged.”

“I’m sorry to stick my nose where it’s not wanted, stud, but how did you get involved with her? She’s beautiful and sexy, that I know, but…”

“We started seeing each other right after she arrived in Paris. She was older than me, which attracted me, very beautiful, and she made passes at me every time I saw her, which was often because she was living with her aunt Sofía at the time and you already know that Sofía goes to my parents’ house regularly. I had just gotten married, I was young and stupid. You can imagine the rest. Céline became a drug to me. I liked that she was so frenzied, free and audacious, she was everything my wife wasn’t. I left her after Samara died.”

“Is it true you were with her when your wife had the accident?”

“Yes. Samara was looking for me everywhere to…” He looked down and played with the spoon. “…to tell me that she was pregnant.”

“Stud, that must have been terrible for you.” Al-Saud nodded without looking at her. “I’m so sorry.”

“The guilt overwhelmed me. I left Céline. A year later, more or less, I started going out with a girl…”

“The Natasha who Celia mentioned?”

“Yes, Natasha. She was very sweet and made me feel better. A few months ago, she disappeared. She vanished from one day to the next. I know she’s okay, but I don’t know where. I had a lot of affection for her, but I didn’t love her. Right after Natasha disappeared, Céline called me and invited me to dinner. We started getting together occasionally until the thirty-first of December, when your friend came into my life and took over every corner of it, and gave me back my will to live and happiness. She showed me what it really was to be in love.”

His cell phone sounded like gunfire at this emotional point of the conversation. Al-Saud frowned and checked who it was.

“Juana, let me take this call.” He got up and walked to a less busy part of the restaurant. “
Allô
, Olivier.
Ça va?
”

“Eliah, I’m calling because I have news about the guy who attacked Miss Martínez in the chapel of the Médaille Miraculeuse.”

“Go on.”

“An individual says that he saw him on Sunday, March first, in Gare du Nord.”

“And you’re telling me now?” Al-Saud demanded, annoyed.

“I just got back from a trip, that’s why I’m reporting it now. He saw him in a bathroom in the station, where he caught his eye because he was taking some pieces of cotton out of his mouth. Just afterward, while he was waiting for his train, he saw the Identi-Kit on a television at a bar. Coincidentally, he ended up seeing him again on the same train he was taking. After looking at him for a long time, he was convinced that he looked very similar to the Identi-Kit, despite having bulging cheeks.”

“Thanks to the cotton. Did you find out where the train was going?”

“It was a Thalys whose final destination is Brussels.”

“Do you have the list of passengers that got on at the Gare du Nord?”

“Yes, I’ll send it to you.”

“Yes, do that, but for now read me the last names of the passengers quickly, so I can see if any of them sound familiar.”

When he got to
J
, Al-Saud sharpened his attention. Jacopi, Jaspers, Jennings, Jürkens.
There you are, you little son of a bitch
, he muttered to himself.
Where are you now?

“Did any of the names sound familiar?”

“No, none. I’m sorry. What will you do with this information?”

“We already reported it to our colleagues in Brussels. They’ll check the security cameras in the train station at the time that the Thalys arrived. I also called you to tell you that Forensics determined the type of nerve agent that killed the Iraqi boys. It was an extremely high dose of cyclosarin, a nerve agent similar to mustard gas, often used in Iraq during the war with Iran.”

“Cyclosarin isn’t like ricin, which can be made in a home laboratory. It requires serious technology. What countries produce it?”

“Since the Convention on Chemical Weapons from the UN, its production is prohibited. Of course, not all countries have ratified the convention. We have to investigate them. As you can imagine, Iraq is at the top of the list. I’ll keep you informed of any advances.”

“
Merci beaucoup
, Olivier.”

“
De rien
, Eliah.”

He went back to the table.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. It was an important matter.”

“Don’t worry, stud.”

“Juana, it’s been seven days since that awful episode. I’ve been patient, I’ve respected her wish to be alone, but I
need
to see her. She can’t keep denying me. Matilde and I
have
to talk.

“I ask her every day, stud.”

“What does she say?”

“She says that if she looks at you, she’ll see you in bed with Celia and she can’t bear it.”

“
Merde!
”

“Stud, Matilde asked me to get the rest of our things from your house. We’re out of clothes. Can we go now? I have time before I have to go to the institute.”

He agreed reluctantly; he had cultivated the illusion that if Matilde’s clothes and things were still in the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus, there was still hope that she would come back to him. That hope was starting to vanish.

“Afterward I’ll take you to the institute.”

They parked the Aston Martin at the doors of the Lycée des Langues Vivantes. Al-Saud was in a terrible mood because Juana hadn’t packed the dresses, shoes, purses, perfumes and all the rest of the gifts he had given Matilde in their relationship.

“If it were up to me, stud, I would have brought it all. But Mat was very insistent that I shouldn’t bring any of that and I don’t want to contradict her. What a waste!” she lamented.

They remained in silence inside the Aston Martin. Juana knew that Al-Saud was waiting for Matilde to arrive. A few minutes later, Ezequiel’s Porsche parked in front of them, and Diana and Markov’s car followed behind. Al-Saud straightened in his seat to see her. Ezequiel offered her his hand to help her get out. Juana opened the door of the Aston Martin and stuck half her body out.

“Hey, Mat!” she yelled, and Matilde spun around.

Al-Saud saw that her gaze passed from her friend toward the driver’s seat. She couldn’t see him through the tinted glass; however, they both felt the energy that flowed between them.
I love you
, he said with his thoughts. He got out of his car and stood, leaning on the doorframe. He took off his Serengeti glasses and looked at her across the short distance. When he made a move to approach her, she rushed into the institute. Juana rolled her eyes.

“Be patient with her, stud.”

Matilde was arranging her notebooks and books on her desk when Juana sat down next to her.

“Why didn’t you wait a minute? The stud wanted to talk to you.”

“Now you’re better friends with
the stud
than with me?”

“Don’t be unfair. The poor thing is devastated. He sought me out to talk about you, to find out how you are.”

“I’m devastated as well. Didn’t you tell him?”

“Yes. He’s very worried that you’re not eating well.”

“Ha! Not eating well. That’s the least of my problems.”

“Why won’t you agree to meet him so you can fix the problems between you?”

“I already told you a thousand times.”

“Enough with this business about imagining him with Celia in bed! That’s just an excuse.”

“An excuse? The man I love and lived with for almost a month and a half is my sister’s lover and I’m just making excuses?”

“He
is
not your sister’s lover. He was.”

“You don’t know that. They were together the night of the party at Jean-Paul’s.”

“He wanted to talk to her, to tell her that he was in love with you and they were finished forever.”

“You believe that?”

“Of course!”

“When I asked him if they had been lovers, he said they were just friends. He lied to me!”

“What did you want him to say? ‘Matilde, I fucked your sister because she’s a whore and she threw herself at me’?”

“Celia hates me because I took everything away from her, my father and grandmother’s love. I don’t want to take Eliah from her as well.”

“You know what, Mat? You’re making me want to slap you, so I’d better go sit on the other side of the classroom.”

“No, don’t go,” she implored her, grabbing her wrist. “Tell me the truth, do you believe him when he says that after me, he never got together with her again?”

“Matita, I know men much better than you and I know well when they’re lying and when they’re telling the truth. The stud is telling the truth when he says that he can’t live without you, that he loves you more than ever and that he hasn’t been with Celia at all since he fell in love with you.”

Juana’s words shook and moved her, and prepared the ground for the speech that followed.

“This isn’t about the thing with Celia, it’s about your pride. Why won’t you admit that you haven’t wanted to face Eliah since he found out that you can’t have children? You detest the idea that he knows that you’ll never be a mother, that you couldn’t give him children if you married. Or am I wrong?”

Matilde jumped up from her desk and ran to the bathroom. Juana followed her and hugged her when she found her crying.

“I love him, Juana! I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone. What I’m feeling is so huge that it doesn’t even matter to me that he’s a mercenary, or an arms dealer or whatever he is.”

“The stud told me that it’s libel and they’re already suing
Paris Match
and the journalist who wrote the article.”

“You and I know there’s some truth in all of that.”

“And is there some truth to my saying that you won’t face him out of pride?”

“Yes, pride and shame. I didn’t want him to know that I’m an incomplete woman. I know Eliah wants to have children. He told me once and Yasmín mentioned it too. I can’t bind him to me, I can’t. On the one hand, I can’t give him children and, on the other, we both know that the disease I had could return; the risk of a relapse is high. I don’t want to tie him to a sick person.”

“Don’t say that! That fucking disease isn’t going to touch you again.”

Matilde put her hands on the granite sink, leaned forward and let her head hang. She blew out a sigh.

“If it’s true that Celia loves him so much, I have to disappear to give them a chance. She can give him children and I can’t.”

“How could you wish that evil on the love of your life? Because I promise you, Mat, wanting him to marry that crazy snake Celia is to wish evil upon him.”

The next Tuesday morning, Al-Saud was in a meeting with the Israeli businessman Shaul Zeevi when his cell phone rang. It was Juana. He excused himself and picked up anxiously.

“Stud, Auguste Vanderhoeven called us yesterday. Remember him? The doctor from Healing Hands?”

“Yes,” he grunted.

“He informed us that we’ll be leaving for the Congo sooner than we planned. There’s been a very serious meningitis outbreak and they need every available resource. And we’re available.”