She could taste herself when she proceeded to give Joshua a long and intense French kiss. Then she took his hand and led him to the bed, lay down on her back, pulled him towards her and lovingly ordered him to fuck her as hard as possible.
Tears came to her eyes when, with both arms resting on the mattress and with a yell from somewhere very deep down, he came inside her.
She didn’t want to let go of him. If necessary, she’d lie here for the rest of the night, with his still-shuddering body on top of hers. But he slid off and lay down next to her, his eyes on the ceiling. Farah turned on her side, caressing him. But the smile on her lips was full of doubt, as the boy slipped through the vents of her subconscious and she knew that sooner or later he’d make another appearance. Not quietly, like Raylan Chapelle, who’d simply sidled up to her in the afternoon, but suddenly and forcefully. The way he’d suddenly appeared before her in the carousel, giving her no choice but to hit him head-on.
‘Joshua?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m scared.’
He sat up and turned to face her. ‘There’s no need. I’m with you.’
The needle of the record player had been circling the final groove of the LP for ages. She sat up and felt dizzy.
Joshua put his hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘From the very first moment I laid eyes on that boy, something quite extraordinary happened. I looked at him and felt – apologies if this sounds stupid – I felt as if he was a part of me; a forgotten part. As if I were his age again and recognized him as the little brother I never had but used to fantasize about.’
‘Do you remember what that forgotten part looked like?’ he asked tenderly.
As she thought about the afternoon she felt a burning sensation in her eyes. She looked at him long and hard and thought that maybe this is why she’d come to him. After all the unexpected ghosts and echoes from the past, here was a chance to open up her heart to someone who’d marvel at it.
‘I don’t really know, to be honest,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’ve made up about my former life in Kabul and what really happened.’
‘How old were you when you came to the Netherlands?’
‘I must have been nine. But I gave a different date of birth.’
‘Why?’
She swallowed a couple of times before she replied.
‘Because I was scared. My father was Aadel Gailani. He served as Minister of Interior Affairs in President Daoud’s cabinet for three years. When the communists attacked the presidential palace with planes and tanks in April 1978, he and the President were assassinated, along with thousands of others.’ She spoke slowly, as if trying to convince herself that this was how it had all happened.
‘My mother was a lawyer. Her name was Helai. Helai Durani. The communists arrested her during the coup too, but eventually released her. She’d been tortured. We fled together, a couple of months after the Russians invaded the country. That was late 1979. The coldest winter I’ve ever experienced.’
‘What happened to your mother?’
‘She didn’t survive the journey. She … I don’t want to talk about it now, Joshua.’
He caressed her. ‘So you were alone when you arrived in the Netherlands?’
‘Ultimately, yes. To begin with, there was a small group of us. A family with two children. I didn’t know them, but I was supposedly their third child. They stayed behind in Germany. I continued on to the Netherlands.’
‘And then what? Where were you given asylum?’
‘In a refugee centre in Drenthe. That’s where I fell ill. Seriously ill. Double pneumonia. I was taken to a hospital, where I spent two months. The doctors told me it was a close call. One day I received a visit from an older man and his wife. He was a physician and a friend of the doctors at the hospital. The couple had no children, and when I got better I moved in with them. The months in hospital were almost like a form of quarantine but it allowed me to slowly get used to the life and language here. As soon as I was on the mend again, I began reading. Adventure stories. The Secrets of the Wild Wood. The Letter for the King. Nobody’s Boy. The Brothers Lionheart.’
She showed him the photograph she always carried in her purse: a strapping little girl with pale-brown skin and startlingly blue eyes, thick, dark-brown hair that fell well below her shoulders and a bold look in her eyes. On the back it said, FARAH, 12 YEARS OLD.
‘I was an anxious child.’
‘It doesn’t show.’
‘I kept it hidden. Even from myself.’
She got up and walked naked across the wooden floor to the half-open porthole.
‘It didn’t matter where I was,’ she resumed softly, ‘in school, during the day, halfway through dinner at home, and very often in bed at night. It would feel like I was plucked from reality and dropped in a cinema where I was forced to watch the most gruesome things. And then I’d panic. Because no matter what I did, the film kept playing and I had no choice but to keep watching. Except I knew it wasn’t a film. It all really happened.’
Recounting the story had worn her out, but she wasn’t ready to stop yet.
‘Between the moment they assassinated my father and detained my mother and the moment I arrived in the Netherlands, I’d seen and experienced so much I couldn’t understand that I didn’t have the words to tell others about it. All I could do was try to forget.’
Joshua gazed at her for a long time, a sad look on his face. ‘Was there anything you did want to remember?’
‘My father showing me martial arts moves in the garden. My mother in a beautiful gown reciting the wisdom of Rumi at a picnic, “It is time for you to go out into the world and learn from it what you can.” ’
She stopped there, sought his mouth, his tongue. She sought everything that might give her comfort.
34
Until late in the night, consumed by his desire to win and under the influence of the beating he was taking, Marouan had been unable to pull himself away from the poker table. When he finally staggered outside, he did so as the pathetic owner of a larger debt. With much difficulty, he restrained himself from hurling both his shoes at the statue of Rembrandt van Rijn, peering down at him with pitying eyes from his marble pedestal on the square.
He crossed back over the Blauwbrug with only one desire. To dissolve into thin air. To disappear. For good. He slowed his steps for a moment and gazed across the Amstel. People were largely made of water. He could throw himself into the river here. Escorted by a pair of swans he would float away into oblivion. Fish and crabs would first nibble at the soft tissue of his face. His skin would wrinkle and soften and eventually fall off his bones. And once the decomposition gases were expelled, his bloated body would end up somewhere at the bottom of the Noordzeekanaal. Cruise ships, pleasure yachts and barges would pass over him while eels slithered around in his body cavities.
Instead of jumping he walked back along the cobblestoned streets to the Oude Kerk. He pretended that time had stood still. That he hadn’t walked away from here earlier that evening. That he hadn’t gambled. That he’d stood here the whole time. From a distance he watched the younger version of Aisha still standing there in her panties and bra behind the large window, luring male passers-by inside with a smile, a seductive wink and her delicate hand gestures.
Enough interest. They all wanted her. Just like all the men of his village had wanted Aisha at the time. But he had been given her. He, Marouan Diba. With the promise that their children would grow up in a new world, he’d won the heart of the most desirable girl in the village.
It was wintertime when he left the arrivals hall at Schiphol with her. He thought she’d be impressed, just like he’d been when he first landed there. But she didn’t say anything. He interpreted her initial silence as astonishment. Not as numbness, an unfeeling acceptance of fate, as it later turned out to be.
He had no idea how accustomed she was to living according to how others dictated. Aisha didn’t live the wa
y she wanted to, but the way she was expected to live. By her father, her family, by Allah. Her feelings were not taken into consideration. Just like her marriage to the policeman was ultimately not part of her story, but that of her parents.
During their wedding night Aisha had let go of her reticence for the first time. She’d given in to his every wish. And blinded by sexual desire he’d mistaken obedience for passion.
If it had been Aisha’s own wish to obey him, perhaps the story would have turned out differently. But her obedience stemmed from a fear of deviating from the path that her family had mapped out for her. Aisha married out of fear, not out of love. She gave Marouan two children and raised them guided by the same fear. It was too late by the time he realized that Chahid and Jamila weren’t rebellious because they were teenagers, but because they wanted to free themselves from that fear.
He began hitting them: his beloved wife and his children. He beat all three of them, just like he’d seen his father do, and he only stopped on the day Chahid finally hit him back. It was too late now for atonement, or for questions about the whys of everything. Any kind of regret and all possible answers were long overdue.
He finally ended up back in the car park to pick up the Corolla, and he aimlessly rode around the city for a time. Hours later, when he drove on to the ring road, the early morning sun glared in his windscreen.
Aisha and Chahid were already up when he parked the car in front of the house. He woke Jamila, silently grabbed the suitcases and bags from the hallway and piled them into the trunk. He estimated that he’d have to pay a hefty overweight charge. They drove to Schiphol without speaking. Jamila listened to music on her iPhone with her eyes closed and Chahid stared out the window with a disinterested gaze. Aisha’s eyes were focused straight ahead.
At the check-in desk Marouan paid for all the excess baggage. He handed Chahid the tickets and escorted them to Customs. Every step felt like a stabbing pain. He said he’d call them every day.
He watched them disappear into the large departure hall. They didn’t look back.
35
When Farah woke up, Joshua was no longer lying beside her. She thought of how he’d held her with the canal water splashing softly against the boat. The gentle movements of their bodies. He’d caressed her small scars, kissed them without asking questions. And amidst the murmur of his reassuring words, the calming timbre of his whisper, her eyes had slowly closed.
‘Go to sleep. I’ve got you.’
She put on her T-shirt and walked past Joshua’s digital weather station with its flashing green weather symbols and red numbers. It reminded her of the monitors on the Intensive Care Unit where the boy was being treated. Last night she’d given the staff at the WMC her number, but her mobile display didn’t indicate she’d missed any calls.
She found Joshua crouching on the afterdeck. Some swans were gathered around him in a semicircle, like a group of disciples. He spoke to them warmly as he fed them, and the swans actually seemed to be listening. But as soon as one of them spotted her the magic evaporated. Joshua turned around. His smile betrayed that he’d known all along that she was standing there. He beckoned her closer.
‘Will they be okay?’ she asked warily.
‘Sure, as long as you don’t pull any Pencak Silat moves on them.’
‘In your fantasies,’ she teased. ‘What do you know about Pencak Silat?’
He slowly pulled her close. She didn’t put up any resistance and allowed his hand to find her breasts underneath her T-shirt, while the fingers of his other hand played with the string of the thong between her buttocks. She closed her eyes and was about to kiss him passionately when she felt they were being watched.
On the bridge across the canal a man was training his telephoto lens on them. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a Marlboro commercial and didn’t even seem embarrassed about being spotted. When Farah showed signs of wanting to run after him he quickly snapped a few more shots before striding away.
Joshua stopped her.
‘Just about every foreigner thinks of downtown Amsterdam as an open-air museum, and of us as the extras,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m used to it.’
‘But what we were doing … he’s got pictures of it.’
‘And back home he’ll show them to his mates and tell them just how liberated we are here in the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Lowlands. Allow a tourist his illusions. Or would you like me to arrest him?’
‘He didn’t look like a tourist to me,’ Farah said suspiciously.
Joshua shrugged. ‘Probably an American from one of the cruise ships, doing a tour of the historic city centre first thing in the morning. You’ve no idea how often I’ve been photographed on deck by the Chinese, Arabs, Americans, you name it. I bet I’m world famous without even realizing it.’
In the tiny shower cubicle Farah tried to rinse away her discomfort while listening to Joshua humming along to a Vivaldi violin concerto. When she reappeared above deck fifteen minutes later, she was practically bowled over. A large fold-down table boasted a festive selection of Japanese bowls filled with consommé, porridge, pressed cucumber salad, jam, ginger and miso soup with steamed pak choi and lemon.
It was all too wonderful. Too light. Too carefree. Her vibrating phone and the appearance of Edward’s name on the display brought her back down to earth. She gestured to Joshua that she’d be back in a couple of minutes and walked to the afterdeck.
‘Hafez? I want you at the press conference this afternoon,’ Edward said as soon as she answered.
‘Good morning to you too, Ed. I’ll be in The Hague this afternoon. Parliament is debating the general pardon.’
‘Hafez, at times I think our dear Lord put you on this earth for the sole purpose of tormenting me. Speaking of which, is it true you haven’t been in touch with that Russian since you landed her in hospital?’
‘Says who?’
‘Marant on The Headlines Show last night.’
‘It was on TV as well?!’
‘Of course. When Marant has something spectacular to report, she exploits both De Nederlander and The Headlines Show. Kills two birds with one stone!’
‘After the fight I actually went to the hospital to see how the Russian was doing. That’s when the boy was brought in.’
‘Good to know. Because we need to keep the boy out of this. Otherwise things will get tangled up. And we can’t let Marant get wind of our investigation. What if I move that press conference to five o’clock? Will you be able to make it then?’
‘Do I have to, Ed? Can’t it wait?’
‘I’ve got a bad feeling that Marant is up to something. That woman will go to any lengths to throw mud at us. I’m eager to nip it in the bud. Especially now that we’ve launched the investigation. By the way, what’s that I hear in the background? Are you on the water?’
‘Yes, er … Ed, I need to go and finish breakfast.’
‘You never eat breakfast, Hafez.’
‘Mind your own business. See you later.’
‘One more thing: Paul? You’ve got until this afternoon to make up your mind. If you haven’t decided by then, I’ll decide for you. Call me, all right?’
For a split second, everything seemed to stop. She realized that she couldn’t put off making a decision forever. Her past had needed a long run-up, but finally it was about to catch up with her. Paul was the one who’d raise the dead. She wanted to tell Edward that she wasn’t ready yet, that she’d never be ready.
‘I’ll be in touch, you old grouch.’
The instant she hung up she felt a familiar despair take hold of her. The morning’s earlier lightheartedness was gone.
‘Bad news?’ Joshua asked, sounding worried.
‘My boss.’ She forced a smile. ‘He wants to organize a press conference in response to my fight at Carré the night before last, and the way I was portrayed in De Nederlander. He reckons they’re waging a smear campaign.’
‘Who are “they”?’
‘
De Nederlander and IRIS TV. It’s actually not aimed at me specifically, it’s more of a vendetta against the AND in general, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘I don’t get it. What’s a martial arts gala got to do with a vendetta against the newspaper where you work?’
Farah took a sip of her tea. ‘Armin Lazonder is the owner of IRIS TV.’
‘Lazonder, the property tycoon?’
‘That’s right. Two years ago he set his sights on the AND. He wanted a broadsheet as part of his media conglomerate. One of the fiercest opponents of that impending takeover was my boss, Edward Vallent. He waged an impassioned campaign against it, both in the paper’s editorials and in the media at large. He wanted to avoid at all cost that “his paper”, the AND, one of the last remaining independent quality newspapers, would fall into the hands of someone he considers to be one of the most crooked property tycoons this country has ever known. Ed’s no stranger to a bit of melodrama. But it was partly due to his efforts that the AND’s management refused to get on board. The sale never went through.
‘In the end Lazonder bought De Nederlander. Since then he’s been trying to buy up our best people and De Nederlander is out to screw us every time we make a mistake or slip. But they’ve never stooped to personal attacks before. Now, after the incident at Carré, they’re doing so for the first time. They want to make their readers believe it was assault. By putting me in a bad light they’re hoping to cast doubt on the credibility of all of the AND’s journalists.’
‘And is it working? Do people believe this kind of claptrap?’
‘Lots of people hang on Cathy Marant’s every word. She can make them believe anything.’
Farah looked at her breakfast. The small dishes and bowls looked like something from a dream, just like the entire boat felt like something from another world − and she didn’t belong here. She thought about David and what she’d say to him.
Without a word, they sat opposite one another. Neither of them ate anything. The sight of Joshua’s inquiring gaze made her feel sad.
‘Do you have any coffee?’ she asked tentatively.
Butterfly on the Storm Page 14