“I owe you a story.”
“You don’t have to,” says Daniela.
“I want to.”
He begins at the beginning. Nicola had worked for the National Library of Iraq, tracing and restoring the priceless manuscripts and books that had been looted or damaged during the invasion. It shouldn’t have been a dangerous job, but the library had been bombed twice and attacked by snipers who had shot out several windows.
Luca had gone to do a story on the restoration and Nicola took him on a guided tour of the library, explaining the importance of the collection and how much was still missing. Passionate and beautiful, she’d been educated in Geneva where her father had worked as a diplomat before falling out with Saddam. Later she studied bookbinding and restoration in Venice.
It took Luca six weeks to convince her to have a coffee with him. Her sister acted as chaperone. “I’m not going to fall in love with you,” Nicola told him, “because you will leave me one day.”
They were together for nearly two years, “not in love” she insisted, but that was just playing with words. One Friday afternoon the wages didn’t arrive at the library. Nicola offered to collect them from the bank because it was a long weekend and people needed money for food and fuel. She took a taxi as far as al-Mutanabi Street, which was only five hundred yards from the library. The street is named after one of the greatest Arab poets, who lived in Iraq in the Middle Ages. Famous for its bookstores, it is a favorite place for writers and impoverished intellectuals.
An explosion shook the windows of the National Library. Amid the grey smoke, there were tens of thousands of papers, flying high, as if the clouds were raining books. Some of the pages were burning.
Nicola was blown off her feet and showered with glass, but recovered. She saw two children crouching next to their dead mother. She picked them up and carried them to the side of the road, away from the fire trucks and police cars. An ambulance arrived. She ran towards it and called to the driver, but the man just looked at her. He was praying, rocking back and forth.
She must have realized he wasn’t a paramedic. She pushed the children away as the second bomb exploded. Fifteen killed. Forty injured. They found her broken body amid the rubble.
Daniela takes the photograph from Luca’s hands and examines the image of a serious-looking young woman with dark eyebrows and large eyes.
“Were you in love with her?”
“Yes.”
Flinching almost imperceptibly, she studies Luca’s face as though she’s seeing the details for the first time; his brown eyes, his long lashes, the dark beard trimmed tight to his jaw. She wants to ask him if she means that much to him, but she won’t. Instead they sit in silence, listening to the distant sirens and the steady hum of the air conditioner.
Luca slides his back down the wall and perches on his heels. It’s a universal posture of men who can’t find any more words and are too exhausted to search for them.
Edge accelerates on the divided highway, crossing the wind-ruffled river and passing suburbs of yellow and brown buildings, dotted with trees and rusting water tanks. No hint of rainclouds on the horizon. No hint of relief from the scorching white orb.
Route Irish was once the most dangerous road in the world. Now the military patrols have reduced the roadside bombings and hijackings. The wrecks have been cleared away and the hiding places bulldozed.
There are four checkpoints on the journey-two of them are run by the US military-mirrors sweep the chassis and suitcases have to be unlocked and searched.
Daniela rests her head on Luca’s shoulder, exhausted and pleased to be going home, but mostly sad. There have been very few men in her life since her husband. None of them like Luca. There was the German diplomat with a wheat allergy; a French activist, who wanted her to stop shaving under her arms; a Dutch translator with a kink in his penis-none of them had Luca’s passion for life or streak of self-loathing.
People had warned her about him. They said he was crazy living outside the wire, a maverick with a death wish, hunting his own headlines. Every line of reasoning told her to walk away, to not get involved, to wish him luck and leave him behind. This is stupid, she thinks. We hardly know each other. He doesn’t know my middle name, or my favorite book, or movie, or what flowers I like, or how I used to work on my uncle’s farm every summer until I broke my leg falling off a horse.
The Land Cruiser has stopped outside the terminal building. A passenger jet passes overhead, complaining noisily as it climbs.
Edge is out of the vehicle, unloading suitcases. Through the doors there are X-ray machines and body scanners. Daniela waits in line at the check-in.
Luca has taken a phone call. It’s Jamal.
“Where are you?”
“At the airport.”
“Are you leaving?”
“Not yet.”
“I found someone at the prison. A cleaner. He asked the office staff about Ibrahim. He’s no longer at Abu Ghraib.”
“Transferred?”
“According to the records, Mohammed Ibrahim died in custody four years ago.”
“Cause of death?”
“Not given.”
“What about a death certificate?”
“Could take months. You could ask the Commission of Public Integrity. Judge Kuther is supposed to investigate deaths in custody.”
Luca checks his watch. Daniela’s flight is due to board any minute. He puts in a call to Ahmed Kuther. Waits. Thinks. Stares at the red-and-white control tower, the coppered glass, the minarets like sharp pencils jammed into the sky. The events of the past few days have left him with a dangerous sense of incompletion. Secrets still buried. A job half done. He never supposed this search would have a good end, but what sort of ending is this?
The judge finally picks up. “I hear you’re leaving.”
“Good news travels fast.”
“I will be sorry to see you go.”
“You could do me one last favor. There was a prisoner, Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Muslit. He’s a former lieutenant colonel in the Republican Guard. Arrested December 2003. Last known address, Abu Ghraib, where he died four years ago.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Confirmation.”
Daniela has her boarding pass. She has to stand on her toes to kiss Edge on the cheek. He bends and picks her up. Her heels are off the ground.
Luca has to say goodbye to her now. He doesn’t want to lose this woman. He wants to go to bed with her an infinite number of times. He wants to take her somewhere with white sandy beaches, palm trees and blue water; taste the salt drying on her skin and between her thighs.
His phone is ringing again. Daniela wants him to leave it. He looks at the screen. It’s Tony Castro from Damascus.
“Bad time?”
“Could be better.”
“That warehouse you asked me about: Alain al Jaria is registered in Syria as an import/export company. It has a postal address in Damascus and a couple of local directors who don’t appear to exist. The only listed shareholder is a company called May First Limited, with a registered address in the Bahamas. And the only name associated with both companies is an Egyptian national with a British passport-Yahya Maluk.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He’s a big player. Connected. He’s a friend of President al-Assad in Syria and Mubarak in Egypt. Made his money smuggling oil for Saddam, according to the rumors. Nobody could ever prove it.”
“Where is he now?”
