The Distance Between Us (2 page)

The driver shrugs.

“Brilliant.” Marcus swings out of the jeep, the two Nikons around his neck bouncing.

Their pear-belly guard stiffens, aiming his gun at Marcus’s chest. Caddie reaches from the Land Rover to try to grab Marcus’s arm, but he’s too far away.

“Okay, okay.” Marcus raises his hands. “I need my card back. Card. Back.
Comprenez?
”

The guard holds his gun steady.

“Tell him, Catherine.” He’s still grinning, still outwardly confident that this adventure is manageable, no more threatening than a Ferris wheel ride. But Caddie knows he drops her nickname only at serious moments,

“My colleague, please, must have his press identification,” Caddie says in Arabic, addressing both militiamen, trying for a there-must-be-a-
small
-mistake smile. “Then we will depart, thank you.”

The mustachioed militiaman speaks shotgun-fast to the driver—to Caddie it sounds like “these beans should be fried again in Syria”—and the driver listens without expression. Caddie’s Arabic isn’t bad, but now she wishes, deeply, for a better grasp of local colloquialisms.

Another man emerges from the hut. Shirtless, skinny and muscular, he appears younger than the others. His face is creased in irritation. His hair sticks up in tufts as though he’s been unwillingly roused from bed. Carrying no weapon, he walks with shoulders high, hands alert, fingers slightly extended. Caddie’s tongue suddenly tastes metallic.

“You still here?” The shirtless man speaks in English.

“I need my identification card.” Marcus enunciates as if to a child. “What a
fashla
,” he says to Caddie in an aside, using the Arabic for “mess-up.”

The young tough squints. “What you want?” he asks in English, in a tone that convinces Caddie the best answer would be “nothing.”

Marcus chuckles. “This guy speaks pretty good caveman.”

Caddie speaks sharply, quietly. “Shit, Marcus. Shut. Up.”

Yes, this sleepy-eyed militiaman is a fool, made silly by the handful of power he holds over a hut and two armed men. But Marcus, it’s clear, has a case of Superman Disorder, the disease that worms its way into journalists, fooling them into believing they’re so seasoned, their instincts so developed, that every risk is manageable. That even the clouds and the dirt will back off in their presence. That a little cockiness will simply give them Godspeed. She’s avoided that pit of overconfidence. So has Marcus, until now. She shoots him a pointed look. He seems to need reminding that this is not a disciplined army. These are thugs led by a man who smuggles and kidnaps and kills. They let mood swings, and a very personal interpretation of Allah’s will, dictate when and where they fire their guns.

“C’mon, Marcus. Let’s get out of here,” she says.

“I don’t go without my card.” Marcus takes a step forward and speaks in one long breath. “We’re more than happy to scoot, you bloody bloke, but first, it would be brilliant if you could go peek under your pillow and see if you can find a little card, one with my face on it.” He finishes with an ersatz smile.

The shirtless boy fighter surely can’t understand much of Marcus’s racetrack sentences or clipped accent. But he leans forward attentively as if examining vermin, then pushes closer to their Land Rover, bringing with him the scent of barbecued onions. He glances in Caddie’s direction, then grips Sven’s arm. “Go,” he says in English, shoving Sven and motioning at their driver. “Go!” The word comes out guttural.

“Bit testy, aren’t you?” Marcus remains jaunty, but he’s finally edging back toward the jeep.

“Still, I think it’s a good suggestion,” Sven says, sounding strained.

The baby-faced guard, gratingly calm, lets off a shot into the dirt that produces a pregnant swell of dust. He levels his gun and jerks it to motion their driver forward. The driver shifts into gear. Caddie grabs Marcus’s arm and tugs him back into the vehicle as the driver punches the gas pedal.

“My card,” cries Marcus mock-meekly, raising his arms in an empty-handed gesture. Having lost, he’s clearly decided to treat this as good fun. “Why
my
card?”

“Why
my
wife?” Rob speaks over the engine noise. “Life is arbitrary.”

“Why do we always end up talking about your divorce?” Sven asks over his shoulder.

“Right,” Rob says. “Who cares? Let’s just get the interview. We’ve got to be almost there. When we get back, Marcus, you can tell the press office your card went through the wash.”

“What wash?” says Marcus. “Who’s holding out on me? Is anybody using anything besides the sink?”

He’s too jovial, considering this nonsense could have caused them to be detained for hours—or worse. Caddie jabs him. “You won’t even need the damn card in a couple days.”

“Right you are. A whole month in New York.” Marcus, oblivious to the edge in her tone, is annoyingly cheerful. “I’m overdue. So cheers-
ciao-salaam
,” he says, running the words together.

She twists slightly away from him, reminded now however irritating she finds his reckless behavior, it doesn’t bother her
nearly as much as the fact that he has more or less spontaneously booked this flight to the U.S. He insisted he needed a break, had to get out, even yesterday was too late. She argued for days to get him to postpone it long enough to make this foray into Lebanon. Once they are done here, he’s taking off. She only hopes that he doesn’t miss any huge stories—major flare-ups of violence or government collapses. Nobody based in the Middle East takes photos as good as Marcus’s.

Caddie glances behind them and her chest finally loosens: the roadblock is out of sight; surely the worst of the day is history. They pass a couple buildings still showing the kiss of battles—gapes and scars where walls should be. Then a patch of trees with leaves implausibly green against the fresh sky. Mt. Hermon rises in the distance, a landmark she knows, and the region becomes rocky again.

Their driver slows as they pass a woman in a long, loose dress and a headscarf who totes a toddler straddled on one shoulder, a basket on her head. She looks middle-aged, though she’s probably in her twenties, eroded by having borne a child each year since age sixteen. Caddie has interviewed women like her. She lives in a one-room hut with a husband who shows more fondness for his gun than his family. Every day she scorches her fingertips making pita, and every night she rubs sore calves with callused hands. When she speaks, the wind carries away her words. When she needs help, she leans against a tree. She rarely knows surprise.

Their driver has courtesy enough, at least, to spare the woman the discomfort of being covered in dust. As they crawl
past, she acknowledges them with the smallest of nods. Her toddler, frightened by the noisy vehicle and its load of strangers, lunges forward, blocking his mother’s sight. She wipes his fingers from her eyes with her free hand in a gesture that seems to rebuke and soothe at once, and the intimacy of that movement sets off a longing within Caddie, irritating but not unfamiliar.

“Stop,” Caddie calls out in Arabic. “Back up. Please.”

The driver slows, shifting his face toward Sven for direction. He’s been paid to cart them where they want to go and,
inshallah
, he’ll do it. But Caddie knows what he’s thinking: taking orders from a woman, no one told him about that. It appeals as much as walking barefoot on glass shards.

Caddie stares hard and Sven remains silent. The driver blows frustration out his mouth, then brakes and shifts to reverse, halting his vehicle alongside the mother.

“Caddie,” Rob says. “What the—?”

Caddie turns her head away; she knows what he’s going to say and doesn’t want to hear it: that the criminal they will interview is as mercurial as he is dangerous and makes enemies with the ease that most people drink water. That there are warrants on his head in Syria, Israel and the United States and he’s always on the move to avoid detection. That if they are late, even a little, he will not wait.

This won’t cost them but a minute. Sven could move to the back and squeeze in next to them, leaving the front seat for the woman. Caddie herself will hold the child on her lap. A lift of a few miles might save this woman hours of walking.

She rises to make the offer.

But the mother’s chin is raised in sharp rebuff, and Caddie recognizes—a moment too late—what she already knew. The woman would never climb into this car. She would be called a whore, and possibly beaten, if a brother or husband or even a neighbor saw her in a car loaded with foreign men, and with Caddie, who is not an ally, who is only an outsider, a stranger and transient. Who has no place pretending otherwise.

Even worse, she’s just shed her journalistic detachment. The moment reeks of sentimentality, no greater sin among reporters.

With the Land Rover out of gear, the driver revs the engine. She feels Rob’s stare.

The mother moves past, eyes averted. The toddler stares over his mother’s shoulder, then ducks to hide himself. No one in the vehicle moves. No one speaks. Finally their driver turns to Caddie, his expression empty, his contempt strong enough to emit a sour scent.

She tightens her left hand into a fist, searching for a question she might ask this driver, one that could allow
her
to smirk.
What would you put on a vanity plate for this bullet-dodger?
2-TUF-2-SPIT, she imagines him answering. That brings a smile that she hopes looks mysteriously smug to the driver, and to Rob.

Then she nods, a gesture intended to display confidence. She sits as the driver faces forward to lean into the gas pedal. The Land Rover jumps, leaving the woman in the trail of dust he had avoided the first time.

Rob speaks first. “Where the hell did
that
come from, Caddie?”

“This damned pressure-cooker,” Marcus says. “Woman, you need a break too.”

“As if we all don’t,” Sven says.

“Sunday brunch in the Village,” Marcus goes on. “Mimosas and Eggs Benedict and a stack of frivolous glossy magazines. We’ll go windsurfing off Long Island. You can browse all the bookshops on the Upper West Side. And buy fresh bagels every day.”

For a moment, she does miss New York. She misses blending in, not having to concentrate on the language. And street signs—God, how she misses street signs right now on this dusty, no-name road.

Marcus smiles. “I see it in your eyes. Come out with me, away from this madness.”

“The paper wants me here,” she says.

“Tell them how dead it is; then they won’t. Point out that everyone in your country is preoccupied by the election right now. About the Middle East, no one gives.”

Caddie shakes her head. “It’s never dead here, Marcus. And didn’t you see all those farm-fed American boys in the Inter-con bar last night? They didn’t make the trip to get laid. Spooks, for sure.”

“She’s got a point,” says Rob.

“CIA—so what?” Marcus grimaces in mock despair. “All that means is no photo ops for sure. C’mon, Caddie.”

Caddie shakes her head. “If I need a break, I’ll take a couple days off in Jerusalem.”

“Why?” he says. “Why do you have to stay?” When she doesn’t answer, he exhales in loud frustration. “Okay, then,” he says. “But not me. That’s the joy of being a freelancer.” He puts his hands behind his head as though leaning back in an easy chair. “Poof. I’m gone.”

The driver slows again to about five miles an hour. Except for scrawny gray bushes hugging the roadside, the area seems forsaken. “Enough delays,” Rob calls, bouncing his right leg. “Let’s get the show rolling.”

“Don’t worry.” Sven half-turns in his seat. “We must be almost there. Isn’t that right?” he asks the driver in loud Arabic. “We are there?”

Their driver doesn’t answer—in fact, Caddie realizes she’s never heard him speak. She has no idea what his voice sounds like, and that suddenly registers as odd.

Before she can ask another question and wait him out until he’s forced to reply, she catches sight of a bush up ahead to the right, jerking in a way it shouldn’t. The air hisses and loses pressure like a deflating balloon. “Hold it,” Caddie says, but she doubts anyone hears because right then a passing shrub rises and makes an inexplicable
ping
. “Hey—” Marcus exclaims, and he half-stands, faces her and raises his hands as though to block her from the bush. Then he leans on her, shoving her down, and Caddie is dimly aware of a
crack
and grayish smoke as she hears Sven in the front yelling, “Gas, hit
the gas you idiot, go, go, go for Christ’s sake!” It occurs to her that their situation must be serious for cordial Sven to call someone an idiot, and Rob sinks to his knees on the floor of the jeep, pulling her toward him, saying, “Oh Jesus oh fuck oh Jesus,” so she’s sandwiched between the two of them, Rob and Marcus, and she’s aware of a peppery scent, and then, at last, she feels the jeep plunge forward and she tastes the dust that has settled on the leather seats but she sees nothing since her head is near her knees and Marcus is slumped over, protecting her, and the air becomes too dense to breathe, as though she’s underwater, and they seem to be turning because she falls to her left in slow motion and she realizes she should definitely be afraid right now, very afraid, yet she feels separate from it, in it but apart, like she’s that dirt caked behind the driver’s ear, and they spin to their right and Marcus, who is still covering her body with his own—God, he’s heavy—half falls off and at that same moment she feels something sticky like tree sap on her cheek and she touches it and it’s blood. “I guess I’ve been hit,” she says, shifting her body toward Marcus, keeping her voice light because she’s already been flighty today about the woman and her toddler so hysteria now is impermissible, and then she knows, she knows right away and without any doubt. The blood is his and he’s gone.

S
HE’S HEARD IT SAID
that everyone’s blood is the same color. An insistent moral position: we are all as one underneath. But it’s not true—or perhaps it’s that once spilled, the hue varies
widely based on whether the day is humid, balmy, overcast. On whether the blood splatters on concrete, dirt, gravel, or grass.