I stumbled through the staircase door and down to my room, if I could find it. Yes, I remembered where it was, so I must be OK, mustn’t I. OK? I watched my hand shaking and I was amused, distracted, as it tried to get the card in the lock, as if it wasn’t mine. Red to green. In.
Sat for a moment on the bed, head between knees, thought I was going to be sick and went to the bathroom, paced about some more, gasping as if I’d forgotten to breathe, but careful not to hyperventilate or I might faint, hand grasping at an invisible chain of pearls. Splashed some water on my face. Opened the window and closed it again – the body on the pavement, cheek pushed to the ground like a baby asleep, raising a lip in a curl.
I sat on the edge of the bed again, glancing around the room, everything slowing down, retreating from me slightly, my fevered face cooling. The pressure off my face and chest. I wondered if this was what a heart attack was like. Picked up my phone and stared at it as if I hadn’t seen it before. It had received a text. I didn’t care and threw it aside. No time for that now.
This was worse than when I was cowering in the rocks after I’d escaped. But my room was now returning to some sort of natural focus, one of the breaks between attacks. And I knew I needed to get out again, just to keep moving, away from a floral bedcover and the drugstore print of the ruined temple at Eritrea. I composed myself, taking control. I leaned on the desk and looked at myself in the mirror. I was a bit older now. But the eyes – is that how I looked at other people?
I sat on the lav and emptied myself. There was that faint but persistent tinnitus in my ear again. I started to look around me, as if it was all new. The tiles were black, cool to the touch. My knees were more pointed than I’d noticed before. Everything was surprising me. The fan sucked air out and a cobweb that the maid had dislodged swung like seaweed in a current before it. Terms of reference were returning.
Again I picked up my phone. My hand was steady, though still cool with sweat. I needed to be among people, lost among them.
In the lobby, it was strangely serene. I sat cross-legged at the end of a sofa, by a huge pot plant, needing no magazine. I watched hotel guests arrive and leave and declined the offer of a drink from a waiter with a wag of a forefinger.
I rotated the gold band on the finger of my left hand, recognising with detachment that I was still married. I thought briefly of Adrian, wondering less where he was than whether he really existed anymore. It had never occurred to me to contact him. Why would I? Why would he contact me? I pondered this while I stared at the suited ankles and black heels of two men checking in.
One was Arab, already showing rich, dark stubble on a face that had been shaved that morning. The other was European white, with a slim valise, no real luggage. Perhaps it had gone up before him. He strolled from the concierge desk, shaking his head. They had been checking out something for him that was wrong, I thought. He was smiling with that self-assurance that everything could be so much better if only the world was run by his executive colleagues. He walked to nearly in front of me.
“Hi.” American. “Never book through Amex.”
I half-shook my head, indicating that I maybe knew what he meant, but also that I didn’t care.
“You staying here?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Like it?”
“It’ll do, I guess.” Oh, there you go, I’d started talking American already.
“Been here long?”
He was sitting now, on the padded armrest of the sofa opposite me.
“Rather too long. Unexpectedly.”
I wasn’t looking at him. I sounded irritated and I didn’t mean that, and actually it was helpful to have some human engagement. I just couldn’t let him in my bubble.
“Miss a flight? I tell you, the organisation here is third world. Our major market in the Middle East and it may as well be South-east Asia.”
I said nothing, but feigned a half-smile. If I was polite perhaps he’d go away.
“I’m here maybe four, five, six times a year and I have more trouble here than in any other developed region we travel to. It’s not just the security at Ben Gurion – Abu Graibion, I call it – it’s the whole financial services thing. Trouble is, it’s run by Arabs and Israelis. No one knows what they’re doing. How was it when you were banged up in your little room, missy, playing checkers with the brown boy?”
Now I was looking in his face. He was leaning across the aisle, smiling.
“What did you say?” I tried to sound calm, but I stammered.
“Only I wouldn’t let my staff here, because you have to know their ways, don’t you? But actually I love it here for all that. Have you eaten in the Armenian Quarter?”
“What did you say to me?” I repeated. His smile flickered.
“You can eat best, I think, in the Armenian Quarter. If you know where to go. But I guess it’s hard to eat when you’ve ripped a kid’s throat out as you fucked him.”
Everything now was moving slowly, really slowly. I heard my own words echo in my ears, down a cavern.
“Who are you?” I sounded calm and I was surprised.
I wasn’t scared, even if he was going to kill me. But if
