Embassy Wife

by Katie Crouch

  But she surprised him again, by breaking free from him and marching right past the table of men who were audibly jeering. As if on a dare, she smiled at Mark brightly and sat down.

  He knew she was using him. For what? Protection? A lark? He didn’t care if she used him. He’d be happy if she used him for the rest of his life.

  She had another beer, and she started, at last, to talk to him. She asked him about his school, about what he knew. She liked to tease him.

  “What do you even know about Namibia?” she asked. “Katima is where? South or north?”

  “Ah, south.”

  “No. And Chobe?”

  “North.”

  “Botswana. Wrong country. Do they teach you nothing in your American school?”

  “And what do they teach you?”

  She smiled dangerously. “Math. English. Geography. How to cook an oxtail. How to skin a zebra.”

  “Really?”

  “No. But I know how.”

  Mark realized, at that moment, what an utterly shallow person he was. He’d been just like those guys at the Peace Corps headquarters who bragged about their conquests. You’re just a tourist until you fuck a local, one of them had said when they were all wasted at HQ. Mark had avoided that particular asshole from then on, but he was no better. His interest in Esther had been simply lust.

  Well, not just that. He’d flipped over pretty girls before; what he was now was bewitched. If she told him to jump off the pier and swim in the shark-infested waters to Elba, he would. But once she let him talk to her, he felt himself falling down a deep hole, pausing every so often to marvel at a new, poisonous bloom. Her intelligence was bottomless. Every new corner she revealed was a mystery.

  “So how do you skin a zebra, then?”

  “Like any animal,” she said. “You slit its throat and hang it upside down to drain the blood, then flay the skin, starting with the neck.” She put her fingers to her own throat and made the motion of a guillotine.

  You don’t have to do that, he thought. I’m already dead.

  By the time they returned to the hotel, both were a little wobbly from the beer. They filed quietly up the back stairs, opened the door, turned on the light. Amber still wasn’t there, a fact that shot him through with both joy and terror.

  “Well.” Mark yanked open the doors to the ancient, hulking wardrobe. A family of moths flew out. He swatted at them like a bear, extracted a blanket, and spread it on the floor. “I bet this thing has seen some adventures.”

  Esther didn’t answer. Was it his stupid joke that made her close up again? God, he was a fucking nob. She took her things and went into the bathroom. Mark could hear water running, and the avid brushing of teeth. When she came out, he was already on the floor under a blanket, so that she wouldn’t think he was a sleaze. He could have been a sleaze, of course. He had been so many times. Well, he would make it up to all of them now by suffering through this night, lying next to the most exquisite woman in the world, the one he could never have.

  She shut off the light and climbed into bed. He waited for a while, staring at the ceiling. Every cell of his body was aware of her breathing. He would never be able to sleep, he thought. What was the point of trying? But the pounding heat of the sun and the surges of his heart throughout the day proved him wrong. His eyes closed, and a comforting heaviness began to pull him under.

  And then he was awake again. He could hear her turning over, back and forth, could hear her skin brush the awful scratchy sheets. Should he say something? What? His eyes flew open. She was out of bed. It was impossible. Wasn’t it? Oh God, she was kneeling next to him.

  Mark had received many things he knew he hadn’t deserved. This ethereal being next to him now, it was by far the most preposterous. Oh, he knew he would pay. How could he not pay? He sat up slowly, daring to get close enough so he could smell her clean clothes and the cinnamon tinge of her skin.

  “Can I…” Again, his words felt like bricks. Why was this happening? Was he drugged? She took his hand, felt his fingers, as if she were curious and was learning them. He didn’t dare move or even breathe. He could just make out the outline of her exquisite lips in the dark. Should he kiss her? Was that what she wanted? But no, it seemed to be his hand, solely, that interested her.

  Fine, he thought. You can have that hand forever, Esther. It’s yours.

  She took it now, bringing it to her velvety neck, the same one she had pretended to cut open a few hours ago. His breath caught in his throat as she guided his fingers back and forth over the material of her nightgown. When had she put on a nightgown? How had he missed that? It wasn’t sexy, just another cotton dress, but looser, and soft, so soft. She pressed his hand against one of her nipples, leaning forward into his hand. When he dared to move his fingers, she stayed very still, and the skin that had been giving a moment ago hardened into a point. It was a perfect breast, a perfect sphere tipped by the nipple, oh Jesus, was he going to get to see—

  But no. Something was wrong. She wasn’t pulling away, or saying no. But she wasn’t moving. She seemed frozen, staring at the floor.

  “Esther?”

  “You can go ahead, meneer,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  Mark drew back, looking at her.

  “Ready for what?”

  She didn’t take her eyes from the floor. “For what you paid for.”

  “What I paid for?”

  “Isn’t that why you gave us the money?”

  “Esther.” He stood up, pulling her up with him, then guided her to the bed and had her sit down, taking a seat on a chair opposite. “I just gave Amber money because she said you guys couldn’t afford to come. I would never … pay for sex.”

  “Oh.” Esther blinked twice, then looked out the window. “That was not my understanding.”

  The streetlamp outside flickered and died. Drunken laughter siphoned up from the tavern below.

  “Look,” Mark said. “Look. I like you a lot, Esther. If you must know, I’m completely crazy about you. I mean, I definitely would have had sex with you just then. Thank God you said something.”

  “I’m embarrassed,” Esther said, looking at her hands. She ran her perfect finger along the etching of her bracelet.

  “No. Don’t be. Look, I get it. I mean, I think I get it. You guys must really need money—”

  She let out a shuddering sigh. “We’re finished.”

  “Why?”

  “We were fired.”

  “Fired?”

  “The day we agreed to come. We don’t have anywhere to live, and barely any money.”

  “Oh fuck. I’m so sorry.” He scooted his chair closer, stopping before he got too near. “I’ll help you any way I can. But not that way. I mean, I want to, like, date you.”

  “Date.” Esther laughed sourly. “I cannot date, meneer. I have to plan now how to get food to eat.”

  Again. What a fucking idiot he was. “Look,” Mark said. “Look. Let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll have a nice day, and we’ll figure this out. There must be other jobs. I know how to put together a résumé.”

  “A résumé?”

  “Let’s just go to sleep.” He hesitated. “I really, really like you, Esther. I really do.”

  “That’s very nice.” She smiled at him, and his heart flipped over, then back again. “Good night, Mark.” She leaned forward and kissed him briefly, then got into bed.

  Mark lay back down on the floor, carried by a wave of relief. How close he had come to ruining things with her forever. He could hear Esther breathing steadily. He’d given her the gift of sleep, which felt good, but now there was no way he’d do anything but stare at the ceiling all night.

  * * *

  Mark looked at Anna now. Anna, who was the same age but a million years younger than they had been then. Who would never be able to understand.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” Mark said.

  “That’s good.”

  One of Claus’s cats came into the room and hoppe
d on the table, turning around twice before settling in to a nap.

  “It’s just that there was this girl I met here. A long time ago.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows. “Aha. Love story.”

  “Yeah.” Mark took a sip of tea, now cold. “Aha.”

  “So?”

  “So … well. It’s been twenty years, and I still think about her.”

  “Is it?” Anna narrowed her eyes.

  “It’s like she’s right here.” He tapped on his head.

  “Huh.”

  “But it’s complicated.” Why was he telling her all of this? But now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop. “See, she’s not the one I bought the necklace for.”

  “That’s your wife.”

  “Right. My wife.” As he said the word, it felt unreal, somehow. He was so far away from his wife; hundreds of miles of scorched veld lay between them. “Maybe she shouldn’t have been my wife, though.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sometimes.” He reached over to scratch the cat’s head. The animal sighed in annoyance. “Sometimes I wonder if it was all supposed to be different.”

  “And what does she think?” Anna asked. “The lady from your past?”

  Mark took his hand from the cat, and instead drew a pattern in the dust on the table. “She’s dead,” he said finally. His mouth had a hard time getting around the word.

  Anna frowned. “Sho. That’s not the ending I wanted.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So am I. I’m tired of the soaps on Netflix.” He felt her nonchalance keenly, a blow to the gut. His face must have shown it, because the smile fell from her face. “Just joking, Coach.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So when did you find out?”

  “Last month.”

  Anna leaned forward. “And you’re sure?”

  “Yeah. I went to the morgue in Swakopmund, just to see. I had a feeling, but I didn’t know. Then I got the records.”

  “That’s sure, hey.” Anna nodded. “The morgue. I’m sorry, but that’s sure.”

  “You won’t tell anyone what I said, will you? About me going to the morgue. My wife doesn’t know. I mean, looking for that woman was kind of the main reason I brought us back to Namibia.”

  “The phone would have been easier,” Anna said, raising her eyebrows.

  “I couldn’t bear it. Maybe you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Sure, I understand,” Anna said, looking at him steadily. “You think I didn’t love my dead ass of a boyfriend who knocked up the Boer?”

  She put her elbows on the table, clasped her hands, and rested her chin on the fingers. They were quiet for a long time. The sky ran from white to pink to the purple-blue of a child’s bruise. Finally, Claus emerged.

  “Your rocks are ready,” he said. The old man opened his palm. It was filled with glittering stones.

  / 16 /

  so, will we see them?

  Yeah. I know how to break into the barn.

  So so so so kewl.

  You won’t even believe what people pay for them.

  Its weird. And they are right in yr barn? How did u find them

  I find everything. Like my Mum’s old love notes. And my maid Libertina is 1 millyun years old and she has cigarettes!!!!!!

  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  How is your Mum? Still sad?

  She’s OK. This will help. Hey did you start book One yet?

  Meg, reading is too boring. I live for life.

  Harry Potter is not boring.

  I’ll see the movie.

  No no. At least read book 1.

  You read to me. You are my servant! Garbage!

  Garbage!

  Garbage!

  Blechgrosssseeyousooooon

  / 17 /

  Persephone found it curious that in a country with hardly any people, where there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but cook meat on the veld, everyone drove as if they were late to their own wedding. The drive to Osha was supposed to take just three hours from Windhoek, though getting anywhere in this country inevitably took twice as long as Namibians said it did. It was rather a harrowing trip; fancy white trucks loaded with safari gear zoomed past them using the oncoming lane, even on rising hills. But these people weren’t going to pressure her to speed up on rutted, potholed roads. No. She was perfectly happy to let a parade of angry pickups pile up behind her. It was what it was.

  Amanda, on the other hand, was not so tolerant of the road bullies. “Why don’t they take a goddamned chill pill?” she grumbled as the hundredth huge safari vehicle roared past. Twice they’d had to swerve off the road as cars passed from the other direction, hurtling toward them in their own lane.

  “Dollar,” Meg said from the back. Persephone’s children were safely ensconced in Frida’s care, but since Taimi, Meg’s soul mate, would be at the farm that weekend also, Meg had decided to accompany them. Currently Amanda’s daughter was nestled in the back, her nose buried in a Harry Potter book.

  The scrubbed-bare land, punctuated by huge red fingers of termite mounds, ribboned past the windows. Every hundred kilometers or so, they’d buzz through a hot empty town, where men sat on crates in the droplets of shade provided by hungry trees, and women stared out from open doors. The tourist industry certainly has its work cut out for it, Persephone said to herself. She decided not to share this with Amanda, who seemed to be warming to the place. Instead, they chatted idly about the rhino project.

  “The first thing we need is members,” Amanda said. “It’s not like we can go out ourselves and protect a rhino every week.”

  “Why not?” Meg said. “It’s fun.”

  “We have to be home,” Persephone said. “To nurture our darling children’s minds and feed them nutritious meals.”

  “Well, I’d camp with you guys every week. It’s way better than school. Especially in this thing.”

  Persephone smiled in agreement. It was wonderful, knowing you had everything you needed, down to a hot shower, right in the back of your vehicle. She knew this was about the animals, but she was particularly excited about the orzo salad she had chilling in the battery-powered icebox, the cold salmon, and the kale pesto pasta. And then there was the biodegradable lavender salt scrub she made from desert sea salt and Dr. Bronner’s soap—shipped for the occasion at the government’s expense by Amazon Prime.

  “We’ll need a social media presence,” Amanda said. “So we’ll have to document this trip and put it all online.”

  “And what about our name?” Persephone said. “What should we call ourselves?”

  “I did some market research on that, actually,” Amanda said. “Namibia Rhino Watch is what I think makes sense. The verb watch makes members feel active.”

  “That’s boring,” Meg said.

  “Not boring, exactly,” Persephone said carefully. “And I do like the watch idea. Though I have to agree with Meg … it’s maybe a bit … flat.”

  “Well…”

  “I was thinking we’d call it Tusk. Because, you know, that’s what we’re protecting, correct?”

  “That’s cool,” Meg said. “Only—wait. Do rhinos have tusks? Or are they horns?”

  “I think we can assume they’re called either,” Persephone said. “Besides, we can’t call our organization Horn.”

  “Yeah, but there’s already a Tusk,” Amanda said, frowning into her phone. “Here. Look … Tusk.org. It’s British. William and Harry are into it.”

  “Oh dear,” Persephone said with a sigh. “The royal family does have all the good parts of Africa covered, don’t they? Can’t they just stick to Europe?”

  “You can add an exclamation point,” Meg said. “That’s what China Lisa in my class does. She doesn’t like sharing her name with Zimbabwe Lisa, so she calls herself ‘Lisa!’ She even makes the teacher write it that way.”

  “That’s so clever!” Persephone exclaimed, swerving around a warthog. “I love this idea. Tusk!”

  “Tusk!” A
manda said. “It sounds like something you say when you give a toast.”

  “That’s a good thing.” Persephone nodded. “Tusk! I love it.”

  The sun was rising; by eight the tar road was already beginning to shimmer with heat. Amanda had packed breakfast sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, so they didn’t have to stop. Meg receded once more into the backseat with her breakfast to commune with her iPad. (Since Mark wasn’t on the trip, Amanda had declared all devices fair game.) A small marker indicated a dirt road running north, which, despite its humble looks, was one of Namibia’s major thoroughfares. Switching to dirt made the ride much less comfortable; the truck bounced and swayed over potholes and hidden rocks. Still, just fifteen kilometers in, the land was turning from hopeless red to a happier shade of yellow, then green. They could see a long procession of trees marching across the plain, bending eagerly over a thick stripe of sand. It was an empty riverbed, which filled for three weeks during the violent, blink-and-miss-it rainy season, bringing the area a year’s worth of water in twenty days.

  At 10:08, in a particularly lovely and remote patch of nothingness, the GPS beeped. They pushed open the unmarked gate and roared ahead. The road got worse and worse, weaving through thickets and deep bush. After a while they reached an outcrop of rocks. It didn’t seem possible that the road would continue, but yes, this was it, right up on the red, ancient rock.

  Finally, they reached the top. Amanda, Meg, and Persephone all held their breath as the pass opened up into an expansive valley rimmed by green mountains. The shivering forest was thick and impermeable. They could see giraffe heads poking up through the trees.

  “This looks like Utah,” Meg said. “Like, the whole state of Utah. Do Taimi’s parents own this whole thing?”

  They descended into the valley, and after a few more kilometers, the road widened, surprisingly, into a pleasant country lane. Soon they reached a pretty stone wall with a large wooden gate.