But she moved about among tables like she owned the place. The afternoon sun was harsh now and she adjusted the awning to give us some shade.
“Hide the sun till dark,” she said to herself with a smile. Her phone played the opening bar of Star Wars. She picked it up and rocked it between her thumb and finger at me.
“For you? I think? Your boyfriend?” She laughed.
The text said, “Hold tight. Coming. T.”
Yeah, you and whose army, I thought. Still, maybe Esther would be my witness. I moved inside and sat at the window and watched the square. I watched it to see if its character changed, whether more police turned up, any heavies in shades. I couldn’t see anything that might indicate a security presence, but then I wouldn’t, would I?
The fruiterers smoked. The tourists took photos. The women came and went, talking until it was time to go. The square continued its turnover.
Esther was sitting opposite me, smoking but not drinking.
“Some terrible things have happened to you,” she said.
“I’ve done some terrible things,” I replied, looking down.
“That’s what I said. Terrible things have happened.”
Neither of us spoke. She poured me more wine.
“Whatever it is, Maria, you can be made clean again. It’s OK.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been clean, Esther. But thanks.”
She looked at me for a few moments.
“You should be washed. We have tvilah. Jews wash away their sins. Makes us pure again.”
“Show me where to find those waters,” I said. It was a scriptural reference and I couldn’t be sure if she knew it. She was silent and watched me.
“There’s nothing that can’t be washed away,” she said at last. “You’ve been among the dead?”
“Yes.”
“We wash ourselves clean again when we’ve been among the dead. It gives us life, pure life, again.”
I couldn’t go where she was taking me.
“I’m so lonely,” I said suddenly. I remembered the doctor in Sudan. “And tired. I’m just so bloody tired.”
“I know. Wash it away.”
“Thanks, Esther,” I said and tried a brief smile. “I’ll try to remember that.”
It was only with a languid curiosity that I watched Toby’s silver hatchback pull slowly into the square, over Esther’s shoulder, its red brake lights flickering querulously along the line of palms as if he was looking for his date. Or kerb-crawling.
He put two tyres on the kerb and stopped. Was he phoning? But a moment later, he got out, hoiked up his trousers, looked around like a batsman at his crease. He’d had his hair cut, I noticed. He took off his cotton bomber and opened his back door, hanging it over the back of the driver’s seat.
There was no point in waiting any longer. If there was a team covering the square, they’d find me soon anyway. If someone shot me from an upstairs window, it might as well be now as later. A blissful calm washed over me, as if I’d chosen my ending.
He – they – may not know what I was wearing. And they may not take the risk of a shooting in a busy Nazareth square. I was in control again. And I can’t deny I was enjoying the feeling. Always have.
I took a long drag on the last of Esther’s cigarettes and stubbed it out. She smiled that broad smile. She was leaning back on the bar now, arms crossed under her perfect cereal-bowl breasts.
“I’ll see you later,” I said. “I’ll come back and pay.”
She crossed and kissed me on both cheeks, holding my arms.
“I don’t think so. But God go with you, Maria,” she said.
I suddenly felt a sharp pang of shame that I’d lied to her.
“Natalie. My name’s actually Natalie.”
“Maria to me. If anyone ever asks, I’ll tell them Maria.”
Her mobile chirruped its text signal again and she shrugged with a laugh.
“You’d better go. He’s chasing you.”
“Thank you, Esther.”
I hugged her. I suddenly wanted to stay with her for ever, hide in her cafe, snuggle down in a tiny room upstairs, mop the floors at dawn. But life can never be like that.
I wrapped the shawl over my head and across my face in the Arabic day-style and stepped on to the terrace. There were pedestrians passing Toby’s car continuously in both directions. Sufficient cover if I timed it right. I fell in behind two women with laden shopping baskets, a young man overtaking swiftly on our right. It was perhaps only seventy or seventy-five metres or so. I walked briskly behind the young man – we could look like we were together. He was going to walk around the offside of Toby’s car. That was cool. If Toby was watching his wing mirror, he’d see the white shirt and jeans of the young man, some Arab woman in his wake.
A whole narrative can fit into a single thought, I know now. And, as I stepped off the kerb behind Toby’s car, I had several of them competing in my brain, complete and concurrent premonitions in a single synapse snap. The back door would be locked. Toby would have thrown the central locking, of course he would. He’d hear me try the handle, swing out of the driver’s door and stand before me, watching me dragged to the ground by the heavies he’d fixed.
Esther would be watching and would see that and that would be sad.
Or he’d stay put and loads of little, tight-suited men would run up and bundle me in the car, or pin me to its roof. Or they’d simply shoot me with silenced guns, the thuds of rounds entering my chest and abdomen. Or they would swing a hood over my head, like Burly did, my throat constricting again, unable
