behind me because I didn't need it anymore. At least she had a photo; I didn't have any mementos of family, schooldays or the Army, not even of Kelly and me. It was something I was always going to get around to, but hadn't.
I went back to the kitchen, realizing I was thinking more about myself than her. And I wasn't looking for me. I was starting to feel quite depressed.
This was going to be a long, long job, but I had to do it by the book if it was going to work.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and went to the fridge, then remembered that the milk was only good for medical research. I couldn't find powdered creamer, so I'd have to have it black. I took the pot with me, and was walking back into the living room just as the Sperm decided to sign off. I threw myself back in one of the chairs and put my feet up again on the coffee table, sipping the hot coffee and thinking, I've got to make a start; it'll be like most things, once you get stuck in, everything's fine.
I finished the first coffee, poured another, got up and wandered over to the sideboard. I plonked the cup next to the CDs, then started to take off my Timberlands. I'd worn boots like this for years; they always seemed the thing to wear with jeans, and I always wore jeans. It felt like I hadn't taken them off for days, and it was time to let my feet and socks add to the apartment's atmosphere.
To work, then. Starting from the top, I opened the first drawer and took out a sheaf of dry-cleaning receipts, theater stubs and folded-up back copies of Time. I studied each item in turn, opening each page of every magazine to check nothing had been ripped out, scored or ringed. Had I found anything missing, I'd have had to go to a reference library and get hold of the issue to find out what was so interesting that it had been removed.
But there was nothing like that.
The second drawer was much the same, just as full of shit. The other drawers were completely empty, apart from one solitary safety pin, still stuck into yet another dry-cleaning ticket.
I was becoming bored, pissed off and very hungry. It was nearing time for my first Mickey D's of the trip. I'd just heard on the radio that McDonald's mission statement for the U.S.A. was something like that no American was ever more than six minutes away from a Big Mac. In the U.K. that would make most heroin addicts jump for joy: scales were old hat for measuring out deals; McDonald's 100-milligram spoons were absolutely perfect.
Before I went to fill my face, however, I decided to give the bookshelves the once over. I took out each book in turn, doing exactly the same as with the magazines. I got quite excited at one stage because a book on political terrorism had passages that had been underlined in pencil and notes in the margin, until I looked inside the cover and discovered it was a textbook from her university days.
It took about an hour, but I eventually got to the bottom shelf. Turning the pages of a photo-history of North Carolina, I admired the tree-covered mountains, lakes and wildlife, with bullshit blurb in the accompanying captions, 'Deer drink contentedly from the pool, next to families enjoying the wonders of the great outdoors.' I could almost hear Kelly groaning a 'Yeah, right!'
I took a look at her other books, about Algeria, Syria and Lebanon, but they contained nothing but photograph upon photograph of mosques, cypress trees, sand and camels.
I threw them on the floor to check through later and started flicking through the atlas. Then I had second thoughts, deciding to go back to the chair with the atlas and the other three books and do the lot now. As I started a careful, page-by-page check, I found my attention drifting to the traffic in the street below, which I could just about hear through the double-glazing. But it wasn't just my hearing that was wandering. For some reason my mind kept going back to the book about North Carolina.
It usually pays to listen to that inner voice. I stopped looking at the books and just stared at the wall, trying to work out what it was that I was trying to say to myself. When I thought I understood it, I got up and went into her bedroom.
I picked up the shoe box and tipped the contents out onto the bed.
When I'd found what I was looking for it was back to the living room.
Turning the pages of the North Carolina book, I tried to match the photograph with the terrain the type of trees, the background hills, the lakeside. Nothing. The spark was soon put out. It might not necessarily have meant anything, but it might have been a start. My head was starting to hurt. It was time for that burger. I'd be back in an hour to start again. I went to my boots and pushed my feet in, tucking the laces inside, too idle to do them up.
Two minutes later I was standing waiting for the elevator, staring at my boots, when it hit me.
I ran back to the apartment door, opened up and headed for her dressing room.
Sarah must have been the Imelda Marcos of the Washington section.
She must have had about thirty pairs of shoes in all, but there were no hiking boots. All the times I'd been with her, she had always worn them when out on the ground. Like me, when it came to footwear, she was a creature of habit.
I was starting to get sparked up again. I turned and checked the rails.
Where was the Gore-Tex jacket? Where was the fleece liner? She had always worn that sort of clothing, and she had it on in the photograph.
It wasn't so much what I saw as what I didn't. Her outdoor clothing; it wasn't here.
I couldn't go to McDonald's. I had to keep thinking about this. I went into the kitchen and threw some noodles into a pan, filled it up with water and got it boiling on the stove.
I realized that was what had been bugging me. I'd known it all along but hadn't switched on, and the ironic thing was that it was Sarah who'd taught me.
She was in the middle of one of her very heated, noisy meetings. We'd been stuck in a cave for hours, the smoke from a large fire stinging my eyes and casting dark shadows in the background, just where I wanted to see the most. Two mujahedin were sitting cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in blankets and cradling their AKs. I'd never seen them at other meetings before, and they seemed out of place amongst the other three members of their group who were by the fire.
Sarah was also sitting on the floor, draped in blankets beside the fire with the other three muj. They were all drinking coffee as Sarah got more sparked up with them. The two men in the shadows started muttering between themselves and looking agitated, and eventually they pushed off their blankets and grasped their weapons. In a situation like that there are only seconds in which to make a decision to go for it or not. I did; I put my AK into the aim as I stood over Sarah.
The result was a Mexican standoff, like something out of a spaghetti western. For two or three seconds all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire. Sarah cut the silence.
'Nick, sit down. You're embarrassing me.'
I was very confused as she talked to all the mujahedin. She sounded like a parent apologizing for her toddler's behavior in the playground.
Everyone looked at me and started to laugh, as if I were some sort of schoolboy who'd got it all wrong. All weapons were dropped and the talking continued. Even the two boys sitting at the back looked on me as some sort of mascot. I was expecting them to come over and ruffle my hair at any moment.
It was only when we were on our way back to Pakistan that she explained.
'There was no danger, Nick. The old guy the one we saw last month?' She smiled as she thought about the event.
'He is the only one with the power to have me killed, and he wasn't there. Those guys at the back were just showing face. Nothing was going to happen.' She sounded like a teacher as she added, 'It's not only what you see, Nick. Sometimes what isn't there is just as important as what is.'
She might have been right that time, but in a similar situation I would still have done the same. Shame on her that she hadn't remembered her own lesson.
I sat down to work out what I wanted to say to Mickey, and the way to say it. I'd already forgotten where I'd put his card, so I got out the 3C, tapped in his name and rang his number.
'Hellooo.' He was eating by the sound of it.
'Hello, mate, it's Nick.'
'Oh, so soon.' He sounded quite surprised. I could hear soft rock in the background and an American voice, just as camp as his, inquiring who was on the phone. His voice became distant.
'Gary, go and do something useful in the kitchen. It's the office.'
Gary, it seemed, took the hint.
'Sorry about that, he is sooo nosey.' I could hear drink being poured and a sip being taken.
