He looked astonished. ‘Guilty? In what way?’
‘Well, as Abraham and I were leaving the camp, the grandson of one of our witnesses ran up, asking when they could expect the money and land. It turned out all the witnesses thought the government had sent us to assess financial compensation for what they lost in the war.’
He pursed his lips. ‘That’s not what the camp administrator was told. And I hope it’s not what he told them.’
‘No, but that was what they assumed. That we were there to help. In practical, immediate terms.’
He shrugged. ‘Console yourself with the thought that in the long term what you’re doing for those IDPs, for every citizen of this country in fact, is far, far more helpful than momentary financial compensation.’
I said nothing. I remembered Ali’s puzzlement as Abraham stumbled through a jargon-laden explanation of what we were doing, in which I’d heard, ‘The Hague’, ‘arbitration’ and ‘international boundary’. Ali had nodded so energetically it was clear he had not understood a word. Laying a hand on his heart, he had bowed low and said, ‘Thank you, Miss. God bless,’ then positioned himself next to the main gate. I had gestured at him through the window as Abraham started the Toyota, trying to get him to stand back. He had stared uncomprehendingly, waving frantically as we pulled away, sending a cloud of beige desert grit billowing into his face, just as I’d known it would.
When I think of falling in love with Jake, my school biology lessons come to mind. Those silent shots, taken under the microscope, of a human cell dividing. You start with a jellied glob of fluid, its soup of cytoplasm swirling around a nucleus packed with dark rods of DNA. The nucleus bulges and spasms, its chromosomes clot as the enzymes get to work. Suddenly you notice that two identical mini-nuclei are forming and a translucent membrane appears, spreading across the cell. The squiggly organelles start migrating, forced to choose on which side of the new boundary to lie. The nuclei wrest themselves away from one another and there are now two globs of jelly, complete with dark eyelets, where before there was one.
With Jake, it was that process in reverse. Our cells bumped against one another, independent, self-contained, our respective nuclei safe behind bouncy membranes. But before we knew it, those divisions were dissolving. With every chat, every exchanged glance, a hole was torn in our respective membranes and through those tiny openings leaked our vital ingredients, cytoplasm and mitochondria moving where they had no place to be. We slopped carelessly into one another, DNA intermingling in confused promiscuity. It was effortless; it was largely unnoticed; it was incredibly foolish.
He told his wife, Olivia, none too soon for my liking, but earlier than my friends had expected. He claimed he had done it out of selfishness, not consideration, because he couldn’t bear to keep me to himself. ‘I want to tell everyone about you,’ he said.
For a long time he lived like a student, moving around with a backpack, clothes permanently rumpled. He divided his nights between my place in Greenwich Village, the apartment on Upper East Side he had bought with Olivia and a studio in Alphabet City, a restless shuttling designed, as far as I could make out, to reassure Sophie, Charlotte and Eric, all either at college or setting up in their own apartments, that they would always have a family home.
We spent much of our time in bed, trance-like sessions that cannibalised afternoons and ate into nights, folding and unfolding one another like human origami. I had thought of myself till then as a polite, considerate lay. Politeness and consideration were exactly the qualities missing with Jake, and with their departure went self-consciousness and embarrassment. The expression on my face the first time I sprawled like a sweaty starfish across his hairy chest, listening to his heart pounding as he stroked my sodden hair, must have been one of bemused surprise. How come this had never happened before?
We travelled, as far as our work schedules allowed. Jake’s hobby was military history, so these were not, perhaps, your average romantic retreats. We celebrated the new millennium clinking beakers of Calvados on a hotel veranda in Normandy, where we were tracking the Allied landings. We spent another holiday in Monte Cassino, on a guided tour of the US 34th Division’s historic assault on the Gustav Line. In Istanbul we visited the mosques and Orthodox churches, then drove to Gallipoli to re-imagine the battle of the Dardanelles. Sometimes Jake’s children joined us, Daddy dangling air tickets under their noses, and over meals or walking recreated trenches, we began, warily, to declare peace. Sophie, the indulged baby of the family, showed me the way in. She was an instinctive mediator: social tension soured the mood in a way she would not tolerate. Her wide-eyed charm ensured we reluctantly fell in with her casual plan that we should All Just Get Along.
I suppose we were blissfully content. I think he knew it, but I, who had never experienced loss, knew only that I felt safe, at harbour. All my life, a sardonic, lonely voice had been sounding off inside my head, providing an ironic commentary on my own behaviour. In the silence it had grown shrill and exasperated. But now I’d found my ley lines, established my compass points. Jake had effortlessly taken up residence and that jabbering voice was calmed. In my favourite photo from those times Jake has me in a bear hug, and I have almost disappeared in the folds of his jacket. His eyes are closed in what is only partially spoof ecstasy. Mine are open. I’m looking in wonder at the camera and there’s an artless smile on my face. ‘The Happy Idiot’ is my mental tag for that photo. I don’t think I’ve smiled like that since.
11
I was typing up the field trip when Barnabas deposited a cream envelope on my desk. There was no stamp, and my name was scrawled in flowing black fountain pen. ‘Hand delivered,’ he said, raising a curious eyebrow.
I took out the thick cream card inside. ‘I’ve been invited to lunch by Brett Harris, economic counsellor at the US Embassy,’ I said aloud.
Winston looked up from his desk and exchanged a glance with Barnabas. ‘So, no hanging about. Far be it for me to interfere, but that might be an invitation worth taking up. And I’d like to hear any impressions you’re willing to share afterwards.’
I read the card again. ‘Would I be correct in assuming from your reaction that this man is more than he seems?’
Winston shook his head in fake despair. ‘Tsk, tsk. After all your training, Paula. Never assume. Work on the facts.’
‘Well, is he CIA?’
‘You should ask him what his degree is in.’ This, quietly, from Barnabas, sorting the office mail.
‘Sorry?’
‘When I worked at the British Embassy, local staff always said the ones who had degrees in art history, music or media studies were MI6. In those subjects, you will always pass, even if you never turn up for a lecture. So they enrol, get a certificate a few years later, but all the time they’re learning to be spies.’
Winston beamed. He enjoyed this kind of exchange. ‘Let’s take a more analytical approach. How many expatriates are there at the US Embassy, setting aside the marines?’
Barnabas ticked them off on his fingers. ‘The ambassador, the deputy chief of mission, the political officer, the economic counsellor, the military attaché and his deputy, the cultural attaché and that fat secretary at Reception who sweats a lot.’
‘In a posting like this, there certainly has to be at least one CIA operative,’ said Winston. ‘It’s not going to be the ambassador or the deputy. Or the military attaché or the fat secretary. How smart is the political officer?’
Barnabas was politely silent. Commenting on the intellectual abilities – or absence of them – of members of the expatriate community was clearly not something he saw as part of his job description.
‘OK, does the cultural attaché actually do anything? Cultural, I mean.’
‘A short-story competition on the radio. Opening a new library wing. And he often invites famous American DJs to run training workshops.’
‘So, that leaves the political officer and the economics counsellor. Which one does the most travelling a
round the country? Who has the best SUV?’
‘Mr Harris, definitely.’ said Barnabas.
‘I would guess, then, Paula, that you’re going to have an interesting lunch.’
‘A BA in music. I wrote my thesis on Gregorian chants. Why do you ask?’
I stared at Brett, slightly shocked that everything could fall into place quite so simply, Barnabas’s half-jesting prediction so swiftly confirmed. ‘Oh, I just find it amusing to compare the careers people end up following with the degrees they took. Usually, there’s barely any correlation …’ I blithered on for a bit to cover my tracks, but he wasn’t really listening.
He was as handsome as a shop-window mannequin. Grey eyes, square jaw. Better in profile than head-on, admittedly, but he could have sprung from the glossy pages of the New Yorker, leaning tweed-clad on a golf club in an advert for overpriced watches. I tried imagining him breaking into a sweat, but it was like imagining Barbie’s Ken with pubic hair. Rip open his shirt and you would surely discover a latex chest. The only human things about Brett were his shaver’s rash and his voice, which came, disconcertingly, in two different registers, as though competing personalities were struggling for control. For much of the time he sounded like a CNN anchorman, oaky, resonant – I suspected professional voice coaching – but when he got excited or cracked a joke, his voice shot upwards, turning into a peevish East Coast whine. Which was the real Brett? I wondered. Golden Timbre or Nasal Whiner?
He had booked a table at the Italian Club, just off Liberation Avenue, in an alcove where we could watch the waiters, who sported bow-ties, white shirts and maroon waistcoats, crunch in swift relays across the gravel. Clearly a cut above the Ristorante Torino, it boasted an international menu and a range of local dishes, which Brett encouraged me to try.
‘What’s this one, then?’ I asked him, pointing to the first item.
‘A kind of stew. Beef, I think.’
‘How about this?’
‘Also stew. But different.’
I put my finger on the third item. ‘This one’s stew, too, isn’t it? Never mind, I’ll just have the first.’
He hailed a waiter. ‘In case you were wondering about this lunch, I thought it would be a good idea for us to get to know one another. Not many expatriates here in Lira, you’ll find, so any new arrival creates a bit of a buzz. Especially when you’re virtually one of us. You’re a US resident, right?’ He gave a broad, insincere smile.
A bit of a touchy subject, actually. ‘Right.’
‘We’re eager to maintain cordial relations with your office. I haven’t met Mr Peabody, but I hope to rectify that very soon. It’s been hard to catch him between his trips to The Hague and Washington. A man with a lot on his plate. I wouldn’t want to distract him. As far as the embassy is concerned, you guys are on the side of the angels.’
I didn’t bother to hide my surprise. ‘Really? I thought the Americans had distinctly mixed feelings about international justice. After all, the US has never ratified the statute setting up the International Criminal Court, has it? You didn’t want your soldiers facing trial in Iraq or Afghanistan, right?’
A spasm of irritation flickered across his face. His voice shot from baritone to adenoidal, ‘A superpower’s entire foreign policy is not dictated by one Bible-thumping reactionary.’
I looked at him blankly.
‘I’m referring to Jesse Helms, former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a man who almost single-handedly ensured the US kept out of the ICC. Never mind. That remark was out of line. The point is that, as a nation, we’re bigger than that. Our vision extends further than a trigger-happy Republican administration tangled up in the fallout from 9/11. Administrations may come and go, American values will endure.’
I blinked and nodded in vague, hypocritical encouragement.
‘Look at the grand sweep of history and you’ll find no country has contributed more to the drive for universal justice that followed the First World War than the US, including hammering out the international criminal law that led to the ICC’s establishment. If it weren’t for Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew White and Andrew Carnegie, The Hague would be just another boring North Sea resort. We supported it until we sensed it was being hijacked by nations bent on settling scores with the US. But I can see your eyes are glazing over. Let me show you something.’
He opened his case and fished out a stapled report just as the waiter deposited our dishes on the table. A rich mix of herbs and spices – that smell of Lira – wafted up and I took a deep, appreciative breath.
‘Seen this? It’s the Human Security Report, put out by the University of British Columbia. First of its kind.’
‘Actually, until recently the only reading on Africa I’d done was Tarzan of the Apes and that was when I was thirteen.’ He probably thought I was joking.
Brett flipped through the pages, too fast for me to take in anything but a series of graphs and charts. ‘The centre has carried out a global tally of armed conflict. The long-term statistical trends are very exciting, and they include Africa.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Look.’ He put his index finger on one highlighted sentence and read it aloud in his newscaster’s voice. ‘“In 1992, more than fifty armed conflicts involving a government were being waged worldwide; by 2003 that number had dropped to twenty-nine. Battle deaths have declined even more steeply.” Despite all the stories of genocide, gang-rape and child soldiers, violent deaths in the developing world are actually plummeting. The general public may not have noticed – we’ve the media to thank for that – but Africa is an increasingly safe, ever more peaceful place to live.’
He had genuinely surprised me. ‘I must admit that wasn’t my impression.’
‘It took its time but the end of the Cold War has finally worked its magic. Twenty years ago any pissy little rebel movement with a gripe and a halfway charismatic leader could count on funding and weapons deliveries from us, if only to ensure he didn’t go begging to Moscow. Don’t know about you, but I’m pretty ashamed of my country’s track record in the region.’
I looked at him with suspicion, wondering whether this was an attempt to draw me out. But there was no hint of irony in his face.
He leaned forward, slipping into his upper register. ‘Was there any sick, corrupt psychopath we weren’t willing to fund? Have you driven past the stockpile of old tanks and weapons on the outskirts of Lira? They call it Tank Graveyard.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, you should. It’s a chilling indictment of superpower policy. But those days are over. Everyone recognises now that peace doesn’t come from the barrel of a gun. If you want settlements to stick, they have to be based on mutual agreement. The strategists of the Kissinger variety, with all their cynical realpolitik, are making way for seasoned mediators, UN peacekeeping forces and experts who apply international law.’ His finger was jabbing the table; his voice had jumped half an octave. Who was he trying to convince? Himself or me?
‘Like me and Winston.’
‘Exactly. In the future, parties with gripes won’t go to war, they’ll fight it out in the courtroom. International arbitration backed by global powers, so any rogue government thinking of walking away knows it has to respect the eventual award. Leaders have behaved like delinquent children for long enough. Final and binding agreements, the grown-up way of solving disputes.’ He paused.
I had finished my stew, he’d been so busy talking that his plate was virtually untouched.
‘In theory, yes,’ I said cautiously. His enthusiasm for my job was unnerving.
‘And in practice, too. It’s working, Paula, and as long as we can keep the Islamic extremists in check, Africa’s peace dividend will be immense. Have you been following the arbitration between the Sudanese government and SPLA in Abyei?’
‘Not as such.’ He really had no idea how little preparation I had done. Perhaps the notion of caring so little had simply never occurred to someone as ambitious as Brett.
/> ‘And then there’s Cameroon and Nigeria. They’ve agreed to go to arbitration over the Bakassi peninsula. With any luck that’s two wars avoided. Your case is part of a very promising trend my government wants to encourage.’
He seemed to have paused, so I excused myself and headed for the toilet. As the door to the Ladies swung open, I caught a reflection of him in its glass panel. He was gazing after me with the casually speculative look of a man deciding whether or not to make a pass. Inside, I peered into the mirror and saw myself briefly as he probably did: no great beauty, but definitely presentable, about the right age, shame about the hair. In another life, another Paula might have taken up the challenge. I grimaced at my reflection. He had no bloody idea.
When I returned to the table, Brett was busying himself with the bill. I sat down with a feeling of relief. It was nearly over. ‘And what role is your embassy going to play as the hearing approaches?’
‘Well, of course we can’t take sides.’ He looked, for a moment, ridiculously prim, as though I had suggested having sex under the table. ‘We value our relationship with both governments. Our overriding concern is that we want this legal process to work. So – strictly between ourselves – if there’s anything, practically speaking, we can do to help, just say the word. If your office needs a new photocopier, gas for the office car – we’re expecting the government to introduce rationing, by the way – a few additional computer screens, the odd technological gizmo …’ He shot me a sideways glance and paused. ‘God knows, even getting hold of a memory stick can be quite a challenge here at times … Think of it this way: it’s going to cost us a lot less, in the greater scheme of things, to help you with the practicalities now than to spend years smuggling arms to a doomed rebel movement in the hope it might eventually bring peace to the region.’
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