“Understatement,” said Thea.
With a gentle laugh, he went on, “I like to see guests coming to me with their problems or their compliments. If they complain, I will fix it. If they speak kindly, I will pass on their praise to whichever staff member has earned it, and I tell myself every time that whatever they need, I will make it happen. In my job, I can make this person or that person have a much better day.”
Not a bad way, she agreed, to spend one’s working hours. In turn, she told him that after leaving school, she had taken a secretarial course, found herself a job and a surfer boyfriend, and indulged her sporadic inclinations to shake up her life.
“Like coming to Baghdad?” he asked. “Good career choice, by the way. First-class.”
Thea thought that a little flirtatious, but on the other hand—and there was always another hand—the night was long, it was quiet down there, and what else had he to do other than killing the hours by chatting amiably to one of the guests?
But there was no room for doubt a few nights later when he said, as they hung up, “If he phones tonight, call me and I’ll be there in two minutes,” adding, with that quiet laugh, “I will rush up to protect you.”
Zawraa Park was dried out and dusty, and along the sandy rim of the comma-shaped lake, paddleboats lay waiting for more peaceful times. There were a few, a very few, people walking, but it felt to Kim and Thea like a post-apocalyptic place, though the women in the office had said that, during Eid and holidays, the park was always crowded with families enjoying the fairground and lining up for rides on the old Ferris wheel. There was an island in the middle of the lake and pergolas along the shore, but it felt so lonely that Thea much preferred their walks along the riverside or strolling down al-Rasheed Street in the evenings, even though it heaved with men and soldiers.
“I can’t wait for summertime,” Kim said wistfully, “when we can swim every day at the hotel, go to Lake Habbaniyah, come here and pedal around on the water.”
“That’s what we think now, but when summer comes we’ll probably be hiding indoors, longing for winter, with the air-conditioning on full blast.”
“Maybe it’s the war that makes everything feel dead. Everyone’s afraid to have fun.”
Thea glanced at her. “How can they have fun when so many have family at the front?”
The next morning, the suspect waiter delivered breakfast. Thea glanced at his lapel—he wasn’t wearing a name tag.
That night, after three, the phone rang. She had no intention of picking it up, but it wouldn’t stop. It went on ringing, bullying her, challenging her. More irritated than fearful, she finally grabbed the receiver and barked, “Hello!”
“I want to make sex with you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, get your syntax right! You make love and have sex!” She slammed down the phone. “I’ve been wanting to say that for weeks.”
She made the call. The damsel-in-distress role didn’t sit well with her, but she had braved this long enough, dark hour after dark hour. The guy was persistent and might be goaded by her anger, and she never again wanted to hear the harrowing sound of a key sliding into the lock.
Sachiv arrived breathless, saying, as she let him in, “This guy! He knows we’re moving you around, but it doesn’t stop him!”
“It has to be the one I suspect—he brought breakfast this morning and he seemed surprised when I opened the door. Like he’d found me again. Bingo.”
“Describe him.”
“Scrawny, thin, a little mustache, curly hair on top.”
“I know the one. He’s on duty tonight.”
Thea sank onto the end of her bed, shaking.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. It’s just—you never get used to it. The intrusion. The fright. Waking up suddenly and hearing that voice.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“He won’t be fired, will he?”
Sachiv sat beside her. “We have to think of other guests. He could do it to someone else.”
“But his family—he’s probably supporting his parents back home.”
“This is not your concern.”
“I just want to be able to sleep.”
“Now you will. Can I send up something? Some tea?”
She smiled as he stood up. “That will only keep me awake.”
He looked thrown, glanced at the wall, and back at her. “Is there anything that would help you to sleep?”
Your voice, she almost said. I would have your voice for camomile.
Action was taken. Thea never again heard, “I want to make sex with you,” and woke from sleep only when the dawn light, growing warmer and brighter with the year, slid under her curtain, as morning spilled slowly across her carpet.
The late-night phone calls, however, still came from the office behind Reception.
There was a sniff of spring in the air. They no longer shivered through the days in the office, blowing on their fingers, and Thea began to look forward to plunging into the pool after work when it was warmer. There were two pools—a huge round one and a smaller one—and from her balcony, the turquoise circles of winter-cold water contrasted with the lazy brown Tigris drifting alongside them.
The night-time conversations drifted also,
