The Ambassador's Wife

by Jennifer Steil

  But now, that image for Miranda is an unattainable paradise. For now she would give anything, pulverize any star quality she has left, for the privilege of feeding her two moon children again.

  She wrenches her mind from the girls before the fear and grief engulf her. Nothing is more soul-strangling than contemplating her child and little Luloah, when she is helpless to go to them. Her lips are dry and cracked; no one has yet brought her water. It occurs to her that she could drink her own milk if she had a cup. She sits up, presses a little into her right palm, and laps it up. Her hands are filthy. That was probably a bad idea. No one has yet thought to bring her a pot, so she has urinated into a drain in the corner of the floor. Her room has one tiny window, set so high in the wall she cannot reach it. Not that she could squeeze out of it if she did reach it; it’s the size of a lunch box. Why do we measure everything with food? she idly wonders. When she was pregnant, the baby websites had informed her that Cressie was the size of a blueberry, then a walnut, a plum, an orange, a melon. Bigger than a bread box. Better than sliced bread. The game of free association has become a way of life. Her mind leaps about in the emptiness, seeking order. The images of food keep coming, garish, taunting. Still life after still life of gleaming apples, dusty plums. A faint burning in her abdomen suggests she is hungry, but she cannot imagine swallowing. She cannot swallow this.

  The three tiny stars and crescent moon she can see through her window are fading. Again she thinks of Remedios Varo, her crescent moons in the windows of the tiny rooms where isolated women work—or step from the walls. Her crescent moons brought inside, where they glow like lamps, like sculpture. She thinks of her father and wonders if Finn has told him. Her poor father. For the trillionth time, Miranda wishes she had a sibling, someone left for him. Her mother apparently didn’t need anyone. (Or that was the impression she gave.) Her father had tried to hide his fear when she told him where she and Vícenta were moving. “Oh,” he had said, turning his glasses over in his hands. “I thought something like this might happen.” She and Vícenta had already taken several long trips together, accepting grants and residencies in far-flung locales they hoped would take their work in new directions. They’d begun in Italy, working in separate studios in a stone farmhouse in the foothills of Mount Subasio outside of Assisi, and spent subsequent summers in Senegal and Peru. It was one of Vícenta’s German cousins in Buenos Aires (“the Nazi side of my family,” Vícenta called these descendants of refugees from postwar Germany) who had told them about the German Haus grants in Mazrooq. “It’s one of the last untouched cultures of the Middle East,” she’d said. “One of the few places that hasn’t yet caved to materialism and malls.” Neither Miranda nor Vícenta had traveled to the Middle East, and they shared a craving for novelty. No one they knew had ever been to Mazrooq. “Let’s go exploring behind the veil,” Vícenta had joked. “Find out what they’re hiding.”

  “I’ve already got a name for my first painting,” Miranda had said. “The Mazrooq Mystique.”

  Vícenta’s mother hadn’t been quite as resigned as Miranda’s father. “Are you fucking NUTS?” she had said over Skype to New York. “You’ll fucking die over there, Vícenta. You and Miranda both. You claim you love her and you are taking her back to the fucking dark ages?”

  Yet oddly, once they were there, Miranda and Vícenta had stopped worrying that the true nature of their relationship would be discovered. It wasn’t in the least bit unusual for Mazrooqi women to share a bed or hold hands on the street. Miranda’s students slept in the same bed with their sisters and friends every night; countless times both women had been invited to stay over with Mazrooqi women. It simply didn’t occur to anyone that anything sexual could be going on. (Miranda and Vícenta had heard rumors of clandestine lesbian activity in the hammams, the local bathhouses, but they hadn’t ever witnessed it.) In a way, it had never been easier to live in a lesbian relationship.

  Still, the country had been their undoing. While Miranda became more and more absorbed in the culture, in the lives of her students, Vícenta found herself more and more repulsed by its misogyny, unable to see beyond it. By the time Vícenta’s fellowship was up in February 2005, her bags were already half-packed.

  “Mira?” she asked, as their departure date loomed.

  “Mmmmm?” Miranda was sprawled naked across their bed, a fat king-sized mattress that took up most of the floor of their room, her head resting on Vícenta’s warm stomach. Half-asleep, she breathed in Vícenta’s sharp scent, damp earth and evergreen. “It’s like I’m making love to Christmas,” Miranda used to tell her. She was dreaming up a new painting, a landscape composed entirely of women’s bodies. She had never done anything entirely composed of women’s bodies. An Amazonian rain forest (made of actual Amazons!)? The Cascades? Or what about Jordan’s Petra? Petra could be fun…so many different temples and canyons and tombs. She could paint a whole series of Petras…Somewhere she still had the photos she and Vícenta had taken on vacation there. Woman as a tomb. Life springs from women. Could it also end there? Sometimes it does, she thought morbidly.

  “Have you talked with your women yet?” Setting aside Body Art/Performing the Subject, Vícenta twirled a finger in Miranda’s curls.

  “What do you mean?” But Miranda jerked awake, knowing too well what she meant.

  “Do they know you’re leaving next month?”

  “Ummmm…”

  Vícenta pulled her fingers from Miranda’s hair and rolled onto her side, letting Miranda’s head topple onto the mattress.

  “Come on, Mira, you’re not being fair. Give them a little notice before you disappear into the sunset.” This was the last month of Vícenta’s fellowship, and she couldn’t wait to get back to Seattle. She was fed up with being harassed on the street, leered at by taxi drivers, and trying to understand why the women did not simply rise up and revolt.

  Miranda pushed herself into a sitting position and pulled her knees into her chest, her heartbeat suddenly deafening. “Well, it’s just…I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh?” Vícenta slid from the mattress and stood up, turning to look down at Miranda with her arms folded across her bare chest, as if protecting herself from whatever words were about to come.

  Miranda took a deep breath and looked into Vícenta’s eyes, opaque emeralds in the dim light from their one tiny window. “I don’t think I am ready to leave.”

  “Oh Jesus. I was afraid of this.”

  “You were?” Miranda was surprised. It was unlike Vícenta to be particularly perceptive of the internal lives of others.

  “You don’t like to disappoint anyone. It’s your fatal flaw.”

  “It’s not just that.” Miranda had only just begun to feel at home in this strange land. She had learned her way around the labyrinthine Old City, figured out where to find black-market bourbon, and sorted out how to pay their electric bills. She enjoyed living in a three-story house she could never afford in Seattle. But most of all, she had grown to love her women, her artists.

  “Vícenta, I feel useful for the first time in my life. These women, they need me more than the rich kids at Cornish. Who else do they have? What will happen to them when I am gone?” She was talking around the only real issue here: Whatever she felt for Vícenta was not strong enough to pull her away. Yet she was too cowardly to say this, too afraid of losing Vícenta completely.

  “That’s not your problem, Mother Teresa. I don’t want to sound harsh, but you could sacrifice your life a million times over to women in the developing world and what would be the result? A bunch of paintings that never see the light of day. A bunch of women still held hostage by their families, their religion, their society, their—”

  “True.” Miranda thought for a moment. “But they want to learn. They are desperate to learn. They don’t know how to live without drawing or painting, without creating something. Like us. They are happy when they are painting, happy when they are getting better, even if no one ever sees the result. Is it poss
ible that this is also a valid way to live as an artist? To create for creation’s sake, and not for an exhibition, for an audience?”

  “No. No, it’s not fucking valid. What happened to communication? If art fails to communicate something to someone then what is the fucking use of it at all?”

  “Maybe they are communicating with themselves.”

  “Great. So we’re teaching a bunch of women to mentally, to artistically masturbate. To monologue in paint. Fabulous. And how exactly does this change their lives?”

  Miranda sighed. “I don’t know if it does.”

  “So?”

  “I just feel like I want to stay a little longer, see what happens. Give them all of the tools I possibly can and then see.”

  “How very lofty of you. How very noble. But all this idealism of yours, that isn’t what this is really about, is it? Could it be that you’ve become particularly attached to one little apprentice?” Vícenta had backed against the wall, leaning away from her.

  Fury rose in Miranda’s chest. “I cannot believe you just said that. You, of all people.”

  “Well, who have you spent more time with in the past month, me or your little painter? What am I supposed to conclude?”

  “Why do you have to sexualize everything? It’s possible to care about someone and spend time with her without wanting to fuck her. Not that I would expect you to understand that.”

  “Sorry, but wasn’t it you who confessed to having slept with half the planet before we met?”

  “And wasn’t it you who slept with half the planet after we met?”

  “Not fair, Miranda. Just once, and I was honest about that.”

  “Were you honest about our waitress at the Daily Grind or that reviewer from the Times…”

  “Those were just flirtations and you know it. You know nothing happened with them. Didn’t you want that reviewer to like your show?”

  “And you thought that was the best way to convince her? Because my paintings were such crap she needed your magnetic sex appeal to sway her? Maybe she wrote a good review because she pitied me for having such a faithless girlfriend. God. You know, I think one of the reasons I thought it was a good idea to come here was that at least the women wouldn’t all be making passes at you. Or vice versa.”

  “No, that seems to be your role here.”

  “That’s absurd. Why do you have to misconstrue everything? Why can’t you just try to understand? There isn’t a single woman here I would sleep with even if I could convince her. Tazkia’s like a little sister to me.”

  Vícenta fell silent, turning her gaze to the floor, something broken in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Vícenta. I promise I’m not doing this because there is anyone else. I’m not doing this because of something you have done.” This was not entirely truthful, but was there any point in hurting her even more? She tried for a lighter tone. “And I like it here. We spend no money, we have endless time to work, and it’s one of the friendliest places I have ever been.” Her own painting had flourished here; she could scarcely stay away from her easel. But this she didn’t say; how could she suggest she was putting her paintings ahead of her heart?

  Vícenta lifted her head. “And one of the most depressing. If I have to spend another week around all of these abayas I am going to lose my mind. I am going to strip down and walk around the Old City singing show tunes.”

  “I’d like to see that.” Miranda attempted a smile, but Vícenta was unmoved.

  “What I really don’t get is, how can you want to stay in a culture that treats its women like this? How can you stand it? How can you not go insane with rage every single day? I read these stories about these child brides and I want to go tear all of the men’s throats out. I can’t live at this level of rage all the time. If I am always at boiling point, eventually I’ll just evaporate and be nothing but angry currents in the breeze.” Vícenta’s hands rose to her hair, tugging at the thick black strands as if she could uproot unwelcome thoughts. It was so like her to take up something—a country, a project, a relationship—with all-consuming, white-hot passion and then abruptly abandon it or her when she got bored or frustrated. Of course, she had finished her own work here, but still. To Miranda, everything felt undone.

  “But it’s because of the women I want to stay. How can we just do nothing? Isn’t it better to do something tiny, something that a few women so passionately want, than nothing at all? And maybe just by seeing us, by seeing the way we live our lives, free of parents and brothers and uncles and choosing our careers, maybe that will change their concept of what is possible for them.”

  “Nothing is possible for them. Not here. And what do they see of our real lives? Can you tell them the truth about us? Can you chat with them about the virtues of strap-ons and feathers? Their heads would explode.”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “I’m not. Your point is entirely clear. You don’t care enough to come home with me. To our home, our friends, our lives. Not to mention your job. Have you thought about your job?”

  “This has nothing to do with how much I love you.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Mira. Clearly you don’t love me enough. You can’t seriously think I’m going to just twiddle my fucking thumbs in Seattle until you decide you’ve enlightened enough women here?”

  “I don’t know, Vícenta. I haven’t thought it all through.”

  “Obviously.” Vícenta turned away from her to walk to the dresser, pulling out drawers and slamming them shut. Even now, the sight of Vícenta’s long brown legs and the curves of her back made Miranda tremble with renewed desire.

  “Please,” said Miranda, still curled in a ball on the bed. “I just want to see what happens.”

  “I’ll tell you what fucking happens,” said Vícenta. “What happens is that your nights are about to get pretty fucking lonely.”

  “Don’t,” whispered Miranda, rocking back and forth on the sheets. “Don’t.” Unfolding her legs, she stretched herself out on the mattress in her Le Long du Chemin pose, leaning back on her elbows with her head thrown back, her thighs inching apart. When Vícenta turned to look at her, eyes still incandescent with rage, the black lace bras and panties she intended to pack slipped from her fingers to the cold stone. “That’s so unfair, Mira,” she said.

  “All’s fair—”

  “No,” said Vícenta, sliding to her knees in front of Miranda’s prone form. “All is not fair…” She dropped her head to Miranda’s belly, her body quaking. “I’m scared for you,” she said, her voice finally breaking. “You get this tunnel vision when you’re all excited about something, and it scares me. It’s like you don’t even hear me. Like I’m not even here.”

  “I do. I do hear you.”

  “Then listen, Mira. Don’t be an idiot, okay? Don’t go getting yourself killed.”

  Reaching for her, Miranda cupped a hand around Vícenta’s warm head and felt hot tears run down her thighs.

  —

  THE FUNNY THING was, everyone back home had seemed to relax when Miranda moved in with Finn. Not only was she in a safe, heterosexual relationship but she was locked up in a house with gates, guards, and a bevy of armed men to protect her. Her father was downright cheerful at the prospect. Now he could go back to pondering the infinite heavens without the nagging worries about his daughter’s safety. Her mother had also sent a congratulatory note, though she couldn’t help adding, “How conventional of you, dear! I hope you’re happy.”

  But Miranda had never felt in danger until she moved in with Finn. When you’re tailed everywhere by a man with an automatic weapon, you start to wonder when he will need it. Life with Finn took place in the middle of a dartboard. The Bull’s-Eye, that’s what they should have named the Residence. The day after she moved in, Tucker had come by with his laptop to give her a lesson on how a close protection team worked, as well as her first lesson on personal protection. Using PowerPoint, he’d explained the importance of awareness of her surroundings
and what to do if she felt she was being followed. There was an acronym involved—SAFER. What did it stand for? Situation, Awareness…she can’t remember the rest. She and Tucker had made it through a substantial amount of gin that night. Obviously she had been a shit student to end up here.

  They just hadn’t taught her the right things. At the annual security training for staff and their partners at the embassy, she had learned how to work the radios they all kept in their homes in case the phones went down; what to avoid saying on a cell phone; and how to check a car for explosives. In the parking lot of the embassy they had stood around one of the Toyotas, practicing looking under the car, above the wheels, and in the engine. “Look for clean places on the car, where someone may have recently touched it,” Tucker had said.

  “Good reason not to wash the car,” Miranda had whispered to Finn.

  “Sweetheart, we leave armed men in our cars. At all times. We might not have to check our own vehicles.”

  Still, Miranda had been fascinated. She’d watched carefully as Tucker showed how to open the door just a crack, standing away from the opening, and run a piece of paper around the edge of the door, to detect wires.

  “And if we find a wire?”

  “Get as far away as possible as fast as possible.”

  Tucker had tested them, hiding a fake bomb in the car for them to find. Not one of them had managed to discover it. To Miranda, it had looked a lot like a car part. She should have taken that auto mechanics class in high school.

  But in the end, none of it was of any use to her.

  In the years before Finn, she had wandered freely, under any official radar, unregistered with any embassy, expecting hospitality and receiving it. She loved traveling alone, loved stopping in to visit her neighbors for tea, loved her daily conversations with taxi drivers. They were her best Arabic teachers. From them she’d learned her numbers, how to give directions, and the critical sentences “Five hundred dinars? Are you out of your mind? I won’t pay it! Two hundred maximum.” Bizarrely, they’d never guessed her nationality, running through nearly every country full of white people and giving up before they got to the United States. It didn’t occur to them that an American would be wandering around a land where her government was so unpopular. She remembers her last taxi ride, the day before she moved in with Finn. It’s not that it was particularly remarkable. She had had similar conversations with innumerable drivers. But she remembers it because it was her last one. Once her final suitcase had been dragged up the steps of the Residence, taxis were forbidden territory.