by Karen Swan
‘Five.’
‘Ah yes, well, I must get his Christmas present sorted.’
‘Oh don’t worry too much about that, you know I don’t like to go in for him getting too much stuff.’
Dita made a clucking sound. ‘What did I always say? You can take the girl out of the war zone . . . You still like to travel light, then?’
‘Travel light. Live light.’
‘I hope you’re not still sleeping on the floor?’
It was Lee’s turn to laugh. ‘I’ll have you know I transitioned back to beds quite a while ago now, thanks.’
There was a small, comfortable silence as the waitress came back with their breakfasts, Dita watching Lee with her keen gaze. ‘And no one special’s come along?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’ Lee spread her hands in a bewildered gesture, feeling another inward ripple of humiliation as Sam’s face drifted into her mind’s eye again and she recalled the shock of finding him in her studio yesterday morning. She smiled harder, banishing him from her thoughts. She would never see him again now. What did it matter?
Dita laughed again, shaking her head as she reached for her cup. ‘Oh Lee, you’re a tough nut to crack.’
Was she? Lee often felt she was the opposite of that.
‘And how’s Cunningham? You two talking yet?’ Dita asked lightly, sipping her coffee, but from the way her eyes flickered up to gauge Lee’s reaction to his name, she knew her old boss wasn’t asking after his health. She was digging. She wanted to know if Lee knew he’d gone.
‘Actually, I was hoping you could tell me,’ she said evenly, sitting back in the chair, elbows splayed over the arms. ‘Did you know he was going?’
‘Going?’
‘To Syria. Did you send him out there?’
Dita looked back at her, seeing that she knew, that bluffing was useless. She sighed. ‘No. I didn’t send him out there. But he did call me a few weeks ago, asking for me to arrange the paperwork to get him back in.’
Lee felt her heart accelerate, as it did every time it was mentioned. ‘And did you?’
‘I tried.’ Dita shrugged. ‘But I couldn’t do it in the timeframe he wanted. As you know, he quit almost a year ago, surrendered his visas, permits . . . All the paperwork needed fresh approvals, so . . . these things can’t be done overnight.’
‘So you didn’t get him out there?’
‘Well now, I didn’t say that,’ Dita said obliquely. ‘Just that I couldn’t get the paperwork he wanted arranged in time.’
Lee felt a shot of acid burn her stomach. She knew exactly what this double talk meant. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she demanded.
Dita arched an eyebrow. ‘I’m not allowed to mention his name in your presence, but if he’s leaving the country you need to be told?’
‘It’s Syria, Dita. It’s not just anywhere. You know that.’
‘Look, I didn’t think he’d actually do it. When we spoke about it, he was conflicted. He sounded a mess. I think he’d been drinking. He was rambling, making no sense. He’s going to be a father soon. I thought the baby would keep him here. That’s a big reason to stay.’
Clearly, though, there was a bigger reason to go, Lee mused. And if this trip hadn’t been instigated by Dita, then that meant he wasn’t out there for a story. So what was he doing over there? The memoirs notion was seeming less credible too: he’d never been motivated by money and he certainly wouldn’t prize it over his new little family. ‘Do you know where he is out there? I heard Palmyra.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘His wife.’
‘You saw his wife?’ Dita looked surprised. ‘You must be worried.’
Lee ignored the question. ‘As far as I’m aware, things are pretty stable in Palmyra at the moment. There’s no obvious reason I can see that he would choose to go there. You and I both know that’s not where the headlines are.’
Slowly, grimly, Dita nodded. ‘He said Palmyra to stop her from panicking. He doesn’t want her stressing about him and risking the baby.’
‘Okay.’ Lee’s muscles braced, knowing this meant bad news. If he was giving out false information to stop his pretty young wife from worrying, then clearly there was reason to worry. ‘So where is he then?’
‘He was smuggled over the Turkish border in an aid convoy.’
Lee’s eyes narrowed, her heart giving a small skip of fear. ‘Where on the border?’
‘Near Jarabulus.’
Lee inhaled sharply. She knew it well – it was in the northern region of the Aleppo province, where the Euphrates flowed in from Turkey. The road came in from Karkamıs¸ on the Turkish side and was – as far as she knew – open, controlled by the Syrian National Army.
She felt a kernel of anxiety take root in her stomach. Jarabulus was close, too close to be coincidental . . . She could feel Dita watching her, trying to read her reactions. ‘And now? Where is he heading for?’
Dita shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He’s gone off-grid. One of our guys heard he’d hitched a ride with a US unit heading east, but that’s all we know.’
He was heading east.
Dita sat forward, her fingers interlaced between her knees. ‘You’re worried. I’m worried. This isn’t like him. Cunningham’s a pro. He knows the protocols. Without the right paperwork, he knows there are no back-ups in place if anything goes wrong, he’ll have no UN protection.’
‘So then why did you help him?’
‘He wasn’t going to be stopped. If not me, he’d have got someone else to get him out there. This way, at least I knew the drop point.’
Lee blinked, her eyes feeling dry, her breath a rasp. ‘It could all be perfectly innocent. Perhaps he really does just want one last run before domesticity hits.’
‘No.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because he left a message on my personal phone once he was over the border, the night he disappeared.’
‘Saying what?’
‘That he’s got some unfinished business to deal with.’ She stared directly into Lee’s eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you know what that would be, do you?’
Lee felt her thoughts become jumbled and confused, like they were snow in a snow globe being shaken. ‘Why do you think I’d know?’
‘Because the last thing he said before ringing off was that I was not to tell you.’
‘You’re agitated today,’ Dr Hansje said, seeing how her fists clenched and unclenched.
Lee looked down, catching herself, and stretched them out, sliding them slowly down her thighs. ‘Sorry. It’s been a shit week.’ She breathed out through an exaggerated exhale.
‘Are you ready to begin?’
Lee closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. ‘Sure.’
A silence was allowed to breathe and grow, filling the room, and as she found a rhythm in her breath, the world began to fall away, and Lee felt herself become smaller, disappearing into the couch.
‘Then let’s go back to where we left off last week. You had arrived in the village . . .’
They walked slowly through the streets, aware of the many faces watching them from windows, doorways, around corners. Cunningham kept stopping to ask questions, his Arabic better than hers. All she could pick up was Moussef’s name, and see the direction in which the men pointed down the narrow streets. She felt their eyes upon her as they walked – westerners in a foreign land, conspicuous by their pale skin and light hair – even though she was covered up, her head and shoulders wrapped in the scarf she kept in her bag, and she was careful not to look anyone in the eye too directly.
The village was operating as usual – shops were open, market stalls set up – although some of the buildings had taken hits at some point in the past, heavy artillery shelling having blown out the middles of some of the taller dwellings, collapsing the roofs of others. But there were no burning cars – suicide bombers weren’t going to waste their martyrdom on minimal casualties here when there were headline-making number
s to be had in Kobanî. It felt almost normal here.
‘What did he say?’ Lee murmured, her fingers twitching on the camera slung about her neck, as they walked on from the latest directions.
‘Third street on the right,’ Cunningham said, staying close to her. It was clear from the looks they were attracting that there were no other reporters here yet. Cunningham was going to get his exclusive again. She could practically smell the anticipation on him. He was on the hunt.
They turned at the third corner. A heavy, acrid smell hung in the air, the dusty ground volatile and unsettled, their feet kicking up plumes as they walked.
‘There.’ He stopped walking, pointing fractionally with his finger in the direction of a building with steel rods bent and poking through blasted concrete, a pile of rubble on the ground.
She followed him over, her hands clasping the camera now, ready to shoot. They walked into the lobby of the building but there was no relief to be had, no coolness in the shade. Harry tried the door of the nearest apartment. It was unlocked, the rooms scattered with splintered furniture, dirty mattresses on the floors. Food smells seemed recent, an open bottle of arak attracting flies. She had a sense of missed activity, like walking into a room after a secret was shared.
She began to shoot, adjusting the focus, the zoom—
She heard the click behind her and fell still. Slowly she let go of the camera and raised her hands. Cunningham had heard it too.
‘Don’t shoot,’ he said in Arabic as they both turned slowly. ‘Press.’
A man was standing behind them, wearing patched trousers and pointing a rifle at them.
‘Press. American,’ Cunningham repeated. ‘Are you Moussef?’ The man said nothing but his surprise at the name indicated familiarity. Recognition. The gun was lowered, the man staring at them both with hard eyes. He looked at her, then said something to Cunningham. She didn’t understand but she heard Cunningham say Abbad’s name.
He looked at them both again, his eyes particularly hard on her. Then he jerked his head towards the door. ‘Follow me.’ It was one of the few terms she understood. That and ‘prostitute’.
They followed him through the building and out the back. A cluster of lower dwellings were built in a square, creating a courtyard, some children kicking a ball made of a bunched-up towel knotted with twine. They stopped playing as she and Harry walked through.
The man led them towards a building at the back that was low and narrow. Several women were sitting against the wall in the shade, some holding babies, one washing clothes in a bucket. She smiled at them, trying to establish a connection, but their gazes back were distant and mistrustful. Their guide stopped just inside the doorway and spoke to someone. Lee couldn’t see in but the low rumble of a male voice drifted through the open windows. She listened as Cunningham said something, Abbad’s name being mentioned several times; then he stepped back.
A man came out into the harsh sunlight. He was large both in height and girth, with a broken nose and a lantern jaw covered in a beard. He looked at them both for a moment, his gaze, of course, sweeping over her like she had two heads. But then he smiled, his teeth looking exceptionally white against his skin as he raised his arms towards them in greeting.
‘Welcome, my friends. I have been expecting you. I am Moussef.’
Chapter Nine
‘It looks incredible,’ Mila said firmly, sitting cross-legged on her bed with a glass of champagne in her hand as Lee twisted one way, then the other, in front of the mirror.
‘It’s not very me,’ she said, almost baffled by her own reflection. She was so used to seeing herself in long, floppy layers that enabled her to move easily, get down on the ground, get to the angle she needed for the shot. And black, always black. Not this claret-coloured velvet – it wasn’t red exactly, but it sure as hell wasn’t black. ‘I mean, I don’t do dresses or . . . frilly bits.’ The sleeve had flounces at the end and she shook her arm, seeing how they rippled as she moved. Sort of intriguing, also highly irritating.
‘No, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. It looks good on you. Feminine. Soft.’
‘I am neither of those things.’
‘Of course you are. You just try to pretend you aren’t. We are all a mix of everything.’
Lee groaned.
‘Anyway, tonight is a business function. You have to play the game and that means wearing a nice dress and being visible.’
That one sentence summed up everything her old career hadn’t been about. And why she’d loved it so much.
‘I know! What about if I wore this to the Hot dinner?’ If she could delay . . .
‘The what?’
‘You know, the Hot List I’m doing for Black Dot. We have a dinner afterwards, all the celebs, editorial staff. Basic hell.’
‘You can’t have dinner in that dress. You’d be trailing your sleeves in the soup. I’m sorry but no. My answer is final.’
Lee looked back at the black Yohji Yamamoto dress on her bed that Mila had ordered her to take off as she walked in, handing over the ‘surprise’ hanging bag like it was a holy relic. ‘Why can’t I just wear that? It was expensive,’ she added, in case that made a difference.
‘It’s also shapeless, hides your figure and the colour is blah. It won’t photograph well, trust me.’
Lee arched an eyebrow. The photographer was being told what would photograph well? Mila sputtered on her champagne as she too realized the irony a moment later. ‘I mean, just trust me, because you’ve never been good at seeing yourself from the outside. You’ve got no vanity, that’s your problem.’
Lee was baffled as to how a lack of vanity could be considered a problem. ‘Ugh, whatever,’ she said, losing interest and turning away. ‘It’s not like I’ve got to look at myself. But don’t think about telling me to wear contacts,’ she warned, pushing the heavy black geek frames up her nose. ‘My glasses are me. I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror without them.’
‘You can’t see yourself in the mirror without them,’ Mila quipped, raising her glass in a little toast to this sartorial victory. She was already wearing her outfit – a flesh-coloured tulle dress with black polka dots that had a Dior New Look vibe – and her shoes were so pointy Lee would have classified them as weapons.
They went down the hall, Lee peering into Jasper’s room as she passed, but he was already fast asleep. Brigit, the babysitter, a twenty-year-old philosophy student at the university, was sitting on the sofa surrounded by files. Lee ran through the drill with her again, lest he should wake up, have a temperature, a nightmare, separation anxiety . . . She saw the babysitter’s eyes slide over to Mila once or twice, as if asking for help. Or strength.
The pre-booked cab was already waiting when they went downstairs – Mila had put a veto on cycling over, on account of her hair – and they slid into the back seat together.
‘So how are you feeling?’ Mila asked her quietly as the car pulled away. ‘Feeling okay? Nervous? Anxious?’
‘Well, I am now you’re banging on about it,’ Lee snapped, feeling a sudden spike of both those things.
‘It’ll all be fine.’
Lee looked across at her bossy, kindly friend, her face barely visible in the dim light. ‘But what if no one comes?’ The question had nagged at her all day, her nerves growing by the hour.
‘Of course they will.’
‘But they might not.’ Lee could hear the ripple of panic in her own voice. Had she been too quick to judgement, shooting down Bart’s pleas to get a celebrity crowd in? She’d been so particular about the guest list, so certain the ‘wrong sort’ might undermine her message, that she risked an only half-full room even with a 100 per cent acceptance rate of those she had invited.
‘How could they not? It’s you, Lee Fitchett, Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer. This is the first exhibition you’ve put on since you retired from war reporting. It’s your first public gig in Amsterdam. Tonight is a big deal. People will be dying to see what you’ve
done.’
‘No they won’t. They don’t want to see what fists can do to a smaller body than theirs; they don’t want scenes of aerial bombings or children bleeding out. They want girls in bikinis with lip fillers, they want free champagne.’
Mila reached for her hand and held it in her own, feeling how it trembled. She squeezed it tighter. ‘You’re panicking. Just relax. Even if it’s just you, me, Liam, Noah and a teenage reporter from the Metro, you are going to knock it out of the park. I don’t think you realize the impact your images have on people. You’re a living legend, Lee.’ She smiled. ‘Although of course, to me, you’ll only ever be the person who made spaghetti Bolognese with lamb mince and who thinks tacos filled with French fries is a balanced meal.’
Lee chuckled, mollified somewhat.
They both stared out into the night, looking at the lights that usually reflected and glowed on the inky water, but the ever-thickening ice absorbed the reflections tonight so they were mere smudges of brightness.
‘Do you think it’s going to snow?’ Lee asked in a murmur, looking skywards.
‘Yeah. It can’t stay this cold and not snow, can it?’
Globes of light picked out the graceful arches of the small bridges, traced the roof lines into peaks, laced the canopies of trees in climbing whorls. Christmas trees were shimmering like grandes dames in the squares. Everywhere felt lit, special. Amber light glowed throughout the city, spilling from the facades of the tall narrow townhouses that stood shoulder to shoulder in elegant rows on the grand Old Town canals; and down the side streets, with the cobbles and straight avenues of trees and smaller canals, there was a toytown charm, as though they were all living in dolls’ houses; a living, breathing Lilliput.
The car slowed as the driver looked at the building numbers and Lee leaned forward to show him where to stop.
‘It’s just up there,’ she said, pointing to the gallery up ahead. ‘Right by the—’
‘Oh my God,’ Mila murmured, as the two women looked at each other in alarm, blue lights flashing.
‘Are we happy? Are we happy?’ Bart asked, his own eyes wide with excitement (and possibly something else) as he successfully pulled them through the crowd. It had been a battle just getting in through the door. They actually had security guards in place, police managing the crowds outside.