More Than You Can Say

by Paul Torday

  Aseeb and Amir said nothing. I pointed the gun at Aseeb again, then at Amir.

  ‘If I do see you again, this will be the last thing you see.’

  Finally Aseeb said, ‘Adeena, do you choose to go with this man? Because if you do that you are taking a step you cannot draw back from.’

  ‘I do choose to go with him,’ said Adeena in a low voice. She did not look at Aseeb as she spoke.

  ‘It is your life,’ he said. ‘You must dispose of it in the best way you can.’

  I turned and, taking Adeena by the arm, walked out of the room. I glanced back one last time. Amir was looking grim but Aseeb was inscrutable. I shut the door on them. On the hall floor was a large canvas holdall.

  ‘That is my bag. Can we take it?’ Adeena said.

  I picked it up. It was heavy.

  ‘I am sorry. All my things are there, everything I was allowed to bring from Kabul.’

  We hurried to the front door. David, the assistant, was nowhere to be seen. I hoped his job description didn’t include the use of firearms. With luck he was keeping his head down.

  ‘Is there any way of opening the gates from here?’ I asked Adeena. Then I saw something like a TV remote lying on the hall table. I picked it up and pressed it and a green light came on. We rushed down the drive and went out through the gates, running towards the lane where I had parked the car. We hadn’t exchanged a word since we left the house. I unlocked the car and flung Adeena’s bag on to the back seat.

  ‘Get in,’ I said. She climbed in on the passenger side and I was gunning the engine before she had even closed her door.

  We drove very fast down the lane away from the house and I kept the speed up as much as I dared until we came to the main Oxford road. There was no sign of anyone following us. I didn’t think there would be, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Aseeb would be very angry with me and I didn’t doubt he would want some form of revenge. Afghans were good at revenge. But for now we were on our own. I relaxed a little and let the speedometer drop back to something like a legal speed. Adeena was still pale, but otherwise she looked as she had done the last time I saw her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did they hurt you?’

  ‘No, but when they found me in that shop they were very angry with me. They would have killed me if I had not gone with them. I am sorry, Richard.’

  I waited for her to say more.

  ‘They were angry with me for running away from them.’

  I pulled the car into a lay-by and switched off the engine.

  ‘Adeena,’ I asked, ‘did they take you, or did you go back to them?’

  She turned away from me so that I could not see her face and said in a voice so quiet I could hardly hear her:

  ‘Before you came they were talking about selling me.’

  ‘Selling you?’

  ‘Yes, they were going to sell me to a … to a house …’

  She hid her face in her hands. I put my arm around her and waited for her to stop shaking. After a while she recovered some of her composure.

  ‘They were going to sell me to a man Aseeb knows. He said I was of no further use to him after I ran away. This man has a house in the east of London where women have to lie with men who pay money. They have to do unspeakable things for these men. If they do not, they are beaten until they are so frightened they will do anything that is asked of them. It is worse than going to hell, this house. That is what Aseeb told me.’

  ‘You’re safe now,’ I said.

  ‘You came for me, Richard. I knew you would. They said you would not care but I knew you would come and find me.’

  If I had known what Aseeb’s plans for Adeena had been twenty minutes ago while I was still in the same room as him, I would certainly have shot him, no matter the consequences. Perhaps it was just as well I didn’t know.

  Sixteen

  After that Adeena was silent all the way back to Oxford. We returned the rental car and got a taxi to take us to the station. She did not speak until we were on the train.

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘Back to my flat.’

  ‘Will it be safe?’

  ‘I don’t know. I do know that I’m not running away any more. Besides, where else can we go?’

  Adeena looked tired and drawn, but she was still beautiful. I found myself contemplating her face: the bruised shadows under her eyes denoting lack of sleep, her pale complexion. Her sculpted features, the shape of her nose and mouth …

  ‘Why are you staring at me?’ she asked.

  ‘I like to.’

  Before she could say anything more my mobile phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket and answered it. It was Nick Davies.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘On the train to London.’

  ‘Did you get the girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any collateral damage?’

  ‘Not the sort you’re hoping for.’ There was an audible sigh, but he didn’t ask any further questions. Instead, he started issuing orders.

  ‘Go back to your flat now.’

  ‘That was the plan.’

  ‘Good. Once you’re there, stay there. If our friend is going to try to take the girl back, he’ll look for her at your place first. We’ll be watching. If he comes anywhere near you we’ll get him.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. I didn’t have a better plan. I ended the conversation before Nick could give me any more instructions, and put the phone away. Adeena was looking at me warily.

  ‘Who was that?’

  I saw no reason not to tell her. In fact, it might put her mind at rest.

  ‘Someone from the British security services. They’re looking for Aseeb. They will be watching us. If Aseeb comes anywhere near my flat, they will have him.’

  ‘The security services? This is your secret police, yes?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘They are the people who were outside Hartlepool Hall a couple of days ago. They are interested in Aseeb.’

  This was not the whole truth – Nick Davies was just as interested in talking to Adeena. But if he could get a warrant and get his hands on Aseeb, maybe he would leave her alone.

  I asked Adeena: ‘Did they feed you in that house?’

  ‘Some fruit. A slice of bread. Not much.’

  ‘Well, I’m starving. We must get some food. I think we’d better eat in my flat. Do you want me to cook something for us?’

  Adeena’s demeanour changed. The hunted look disappeared and she smiled for the first time since I had rescued her from Aseeb.

  ‘If you are hungry, then I should like to cook for you. Even if I am your wife only for a short time, I should like to do that for you.’

  ‘Can you cook Afghan food?’

  ‘Of course. We shall need a chicken. And some rice.’

  By the time we got off the train I had quite a long list of things to buy. We bought most of them from Mohan’s deli and a chicken from the halal butcher next door.

  Once we were back in the flat she went into the box room and changed out of her burka into the European clothes she had been wearing the first time I had met her. Then she busied herself in my kitchen. Soon a smell of roasting chicken came from the oven, making my mouth water. I sat next door and drank a glass of wine while she prepared dinner.

  Adeena could cook. She cooked fluffy white rice with sultanas in it that she called chalau, and a chicken qorma with onions and lentils and plums and cardamom. Besides that were salads of raisins and nuts, tomatoes and more onions, and some naan bread we had found in the deli.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Adeena, as we sat at the kitchen table. ‘This is not a proper meal in the Afghan way.’

  ‘Why is it not proper? It is delicious.’

  ‘At home in Kabul,’ said Adeena, ‘the preparation of the table is as important as the food. We call it sofrah. There should be many different things on the table to arouse your appetite. There should be dif
ferent kinds of breads – lavash, torshi, naan – fresh from the baker, not out of a packet.’ She sighed to herself and glanced at the feast with dissatisfaction. ‘There should be copper bowls with water to wash your hands in. There should be yogurts, and many kinds of chutney, and different kinds of rice, and more salads. We did not have time. Another day I will do it for you properly.’

  ‘You are a very good cook, Adeena.’

  She was pleased.

  After a while, I couldn’t eat any more. Adeena cleared the plates from the table and then said, ‘Now I will make some tea for you and we will sit and drink it. If we were in Kabul you could smoke a narghile. Do you know the narghile?’

  ‘What is a narghile? Oh, I know – a water pipe.’

  ‘You should smoke, you know. It is very good for men. It relaxes them and helps their digestion.’

  After she’d made some black tea we went into the sitting room and sat on the sofa.

  ‘What other skills do you have, apart from cooking?’ I asked.

  ‘I am very good with languages. Some languages.’

  ‘Good English.’

  ‘Yes, English and French, of course. I also speak some Pashto and Dari. I speak Arabic, my mother’s tongue.’

  ‘You are a very talented girl.’

  ‘Yes, I had a good education in France. My mother taught me Arabic when we lived in Qatar. I learned Pashto and Dari when we moved to Waziristan.’

  ‘You could easily get a job here in London with all those languages.’

  ‘Maybe, if they let me stay. When I worked for the aid agency in Kabul I did most of the translation work.’

  ‘They will let you stay, Adeena.’

  ‘They won’t. They will think I am bad because Aseeb brought me here. They will never stop watching me. Or they will put me in prison. Or they will send me back to Afghanistan.’

  ‘Not if I can help it. I think Nick Davies might do a deal. Let me talk to him tomorrow. He might agree to leave you alone if you tell him whatever you know about Aseeb.’

  ‘But I know nothing about that man.’

  ‘You must know something,’ I said. ‘You probably know more than you think. You might have heard him say something, or seen something that means nothing to you but might mean something to Nick Davies. Help me do this, Adeena, and I swear I’ll do my best to get Nick to allow you to stay. I’m sure he can agree our marriage was legal, and not a sham.’

  I wasn’t sure, but I knew that co-operation with Nick Davies was our best chance.

  ‘Even if they let me stay here for a while, where shall I live?’ asked Adeena. ‘I know nobody. I have no friends in this country. You have been so kind to me, Richard, but I cannot ask you to look after me. You have your own life to live. I am lost.’

  ‘You aren’t lost,’ I told her. ‘You’re with me. I will take care of you.’

  ‘Yes, tonight you will take care of me.’ Suddenly her eyes were wet. ‘But later you will become bored. You will find me too strange; too different to all the English girls you have known. You will want to marry an English girl, not a mongrel half-French, half-Arab like me. And what will I do then? I can never go back to Kabul.’

  I put my arm around her and pulled her to me.

  ‘I’ll look after you,’ I promised. As I said it, I meant it. A feeling so profound I could not identify it swept through me. ‘I’ll look after you. Don’t worry.’

  She leaned her head against my shoulder.

  I kissed her on the eyelids and then on her cheeks and forehead, and finally on her lips. She kissed me back. In a moment we were in a tight embrace. Then she broke free, saying: ‘I am going to bed now. I am very tired. I have been frightened for too long.’

  ‘I will sleep in here,’ I said, indicating the sofa with my hand. She heard the lack of conviction in my voice.

  ‘No, you will sleep next to me. I don’t want to be alone.’

  I waited until she had gone next door and got into bed. Then, very quietly, I opened the bedroom door and went in. I looked down at her as she lay there. She was asleep already, her face exhausted, but peaceful. At least I had put her fears to rest for the moment. I took off my shirt and jeans and lay down chastely on top of the bedspread. After a while I too went to sleep.

  In the middle of the night I was awoken by a sound. I was glad to be awoken. I had been dreaming again. In the dream I was by the side of the road outside Musa Qala, noise and screaming and shouting coming at me from every direction. At first I couldn’t make out why I was awake. Then I heard Adeena mumbling in a language that sounded familiar but which at first I didn’t recognise. I realised she was speaking in French again.

  ‘Je suis aux fonds du désespoir.’ She sounded so anguished. I grasped her by the shoulder and she turned and blinked, then shook her head.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Why did you wake me?’

  ‘You were having a bad dream. You were talking in your sleep.’

  She raised herself a little from the pillow, pulling the blankets around her.

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You spoke in French again. You said you were in the depths of despair. Why did you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She rubbed her eyes with one hand. ‘I can’t control what I dream about. I can’t even remember my dream. Why are you so angry?’

  ‘I’m not angry,’ I said. ‘I just don’t understand you at all. I don’t know why you’re here.’

  ‘Then why did you take me away from Aseeb? You could have left me there.’

  ‘Because I care about you,’ I said angrily. ‘And I need you, and I don’t know who you are or what you want.’ I hadn’t known I was going to use those words, and as soon as I spoke them I knew that they were true. What the hell am I doing? I thought. I have no control over my life at all.

  She was sitting up straight now. The sheet barely covered her breasts and her hair fell over her bare shoulders. I wanted her so badly at that moment I could hardly stop myself from taking her in my arms again.

  ‘Don’t talk any more, Richard,’ she said. She looked straight at me. She was so much stronger than me. She could face anything, bear anything. All my courage had been used up a long time ago.

  ‘You ask all these questions,’ she told me. ‘Why ask? Inshallah. You think too much.’

  ‘I don’t want to lose you. I want you to stay,’ I said.

  ‘Come here.’ She let go of the sheet and reached out across the bed and gently pulled me towards her. Her skin felt like silk. I was lost.

  We made love and then we talked and then we made love again. I said lots of things to her, and made many promises I knew that, even as I gave them, I would never be able to keep. And I called her ‘darling’. She held me tight and said: ‘I like that word. I have never heard it spoken before. Call me by that word again.’

  Afterwards we slept.

  Seventeen

  I remember Emma waking me up in the middle of the night.

  ‘Dick?’ She tugged at my shoulder. I pushed her away and groaned, still half asleep.

  ‘Dick, are you all right?’

  I sat up in bed. She had switched on her bedside lamp.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re soaking – you’re absolutely dripping with sweat.’

  It was true. I suddenly felt chilled to the bone.

  ‘I’ll go and have a shower.’

  ‘It’s half past three in the morning,’ Emma pointed out.

  ‘I can’t go back to sleep like this.’

  The hot water woke me up, and the cobweb of dreams vanished beneath it. I had been dreaming about a man we had found when I was working in Baghdad. He was a Swiss electrical engineer who had been kidnapped by insurgents. They had decided he was an American spy and had hidden him in a spider hole, a space that would have been cramped even for a large dog, with a tiny aperture which let in just enough air to stop him suffocating and light for about five minutes a day. When we found him, he had be
en gone for two weeks and was barely alive, but he was no longer sane. I often dreamed about being in that spider hole myself, slowly suffocating, trying to claw my way back to the daylight. I stepped out of the shower and towelled myself dry. Then I went and lay down next to Emma.

  ‘You should see someone about that,’ she murmured into her pillow.

  ‘See someone about what?’

  ‘About these nightmares you keep having. It’s every other night.’

  ‘I think we probably ate too late,’ I said. ‘It’s going to sleep on a full stomach that does it. I’m sorry I woke you.’

  The next morning she either didn’t remember, or chose not to talk about my nightmares. Of course, I did nothing about them. Emma kept telling me I ought to talk to someone. I knew, if I was being rational, that it was good advice. But it was easier said than done: to whom could I talk? Any normal person would conclude I was a fantasist if I told them half of the things that had happened to me, the places I had been, the things I had seen. If Sergeant Hawke had still been around I would have gladly talked to him. But he was a long way away.

  The restaurant had settled into a rhythm. We weren’t full every night, but at weekends people who hadn’t booked a table were usually turned away. We had a good chef: Mary, who had helped us at first, had not wanted a full-time job so we had recruited a young man called Michael who had trained at one of the top London restaurants. He was fond of classical French cookery: lots of cassoulets and confits and regional French dishes that filled the restaurant with a delicious savoury smell and made you feel hungry even if you had just eaten. When he came, he brought new customers with him.

  Charlie the barman doubled up as the wine waiter. Although rather too fond of filling his tasting cup from almost every bottle he opened, he was popular and had that nice ability to appear astonished at the foresight and sophistication of his customers in choosing their wine, even if it was the house red. He improved our list, got rid of some of the overpriced New World wines and concentrated on good-quality, middle-of-the-range Bordeaux and burgundies. And he mixed excellent cocktails.