Obsession

  “I have to ask you for a favor: don’t mention to the boss that Yasmín was here today. I want to talk to him myself and explain it.”

  “Don’t worry, Sanny. Our lips are sealed.”

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  Sándor and Yasmín stared at each other until the car turned right and she was out of sight. Sándor stayed on the corner, his gaze lost in the empty street. He recalled the tragedy of his family in Srebrenica, the horrors he and his parents had suffered at the hands of the Serbians, while his sisters were being humiliated in the concentration camp in Rogatica. Someday I’ll have to do something about that, he said to himself. But today I’m happy again.

  He was desperate to see her. He had returned from Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, in the early afternoon, and since then he had spent his time checking his watch, hoping it would be time to go to pick her up from the institute. He left the George V offices too early, so he got to Rue Vitruve just after six. Spring was coming and the days were getting longer, so it was still light out. He parked the Aston Martin far from the entrance of the institute so that Diana wouldn’t see him; he assumed that Markov would be in the classroom with Matilde.

  At 6:20, Diana got out of the car and posted herself beside the entrance. Al-Saud’s heart leaped when he saw Matilde come out with Markov behind her. He reacted like a fifteen-year-old; he couldn’t help it. He sat up in his seat with his forearms on the steering wheel. Matilde was surrounded by a crowd of classmates who were hogging her silvery gaze and getting laughs out of her. He had hoped to find her bitter and sad. How naive! Matilde said good-bye to them all with a kiss and greeted Diana with a smile that would have tamed a ravenous lion. He had noticed this characteristic of Matilde’s—she paid attention to everyone around her, even the marginalized, exactly the people he wouldn’t have given a second glance. She didn’t want anyone to be unhappy, to be treated like “a piece of furniture”; at least that’s what she had screamed at him on Saturday night at the Savoy. “Matilde, Matilde,” he sighed. His Matilde. His love, his life, his treasure, his redemption.

  He liked that Markov was made alert just by the sound of the Aston Martin’s door closing. In the shadows gathering on the sidewalk, the bodyguards couldn’t tell that it was him until he was within a few feet of them. Diana had hurried to push Matilde inside the car, while Markov scrutinized the approaching silhouette with a hand inside his coat.

  “Eliah!” Diana said happily, and Al-Saud saw Matilde’s little face suddenly pressed against the window. They looked at each other intensely through the glass, and he thought the way she smiled at him was special. She hadn’t smiled at anyone else like that: her eyes widened, her skin lit up, her lips trembled with excitement and her accelerated breathing steamed up the glass. He opened the door and Matilde jumped into his arms and he buried his face in her neck. He felt peace, delight, excitement, jealousy, anger. He kissed her, trying to establish her as his property in front of the group of her classmates who were still chatting around the door of the institute and, just in case, in front of Markov. She returned the kiss with a gentle devotion.

  Al-Saud lifted his gaze and looked at Matilde’s bodyguards, who suddenly turned their heads away, pretending that they had been watching their surroundings all the time.

  “You can go. See you tomorrow.”

  Matilde struggled to turn toward her guards and smiled at them. She felt so happy that she wasn’t even embarrassed.

  “See you tomorrow, Diana. See you tomorrow, Sergei. Thanks for everything.”

  “See you tomorrow, Matilde.”

  “Sergei, huh?” said Al-Saud, in a teasing voice, and squeezed her a little more.

  “That’s his name.”

  “And you don’t want anyone to be treated like a piece of furniture, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did your exam on Monday go?”

  “I got a ten.”

  “My woman is very intelligent,” he said with sincere pride.

  “Were you angry with me, was that why you didn’t call?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was angry with you too, but it’s passed already.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  “So much, Eliah. Did you?”

  “You can’t imagine how much. Shall we make peace?” Matilde nodded and Al-Saud pressed her against him again. “Let’s go home,” he begged in her ear, “and make love.”

  Eliah’s plans were ruined when they found the kitchen teeming with people. It wasn’t just Mike, Tony, Peter and Alamán, but also Yasmín, who wrenched Matilde out of Eliah’s hands and dragged her away to talk. Al-Saud cursed under his breath while he put on comfortable clothes and washed his hands for dinner. He had been hoping desperately for a peaceful evening with his woman. After eating, they went up to the music room and, while Matilde and Yasmín plunged deep into conversation once more, surprising Eliah, his partners asked him for an account of his time in Asmara. He finished telling them about the details of the meetings with the military leadership of Eritrea and asked them, without beating around the bush, to get out and leave him alone with his woman.

  “Let’s go, Yasmín,” Alamán urged her. “I’m taking you home.”

  “I’ll go later with Calogero and Stéphane.”

  “No, now,” Alamán ordered, deepening his frown.

  “I think Eliah is throwing us out. I don’t need to explain why to you, Matilde.”

  Al-Saud saw Matilde blush. The awkward smile she gave Alamán and Yasmín melted his heart. Sometimes, when she smiled that way, with her red cheeks, and looked to the side, as though she were hiding her shame, Al-Saud shook with love. He wanted them to leave at once, he wanted her just for him, he wanted to make up for the bad taste Saturday had left in their mouths. In Asmara he had had time to relive the situation and finally came to the conclusion that he could use his cynicism and arrogance to battle with an egocentric and complex woman like Gulemale. Matilde, on the other hand, with her innate goodness and pure heart, sensed the perverse undercurrents of the African woman and was incapable of hiding her repulsion. He reproached himself for not having protected her from Gulemale’s malevolence and he was furious with himself for having prioritized his work.

  He walked his guests to the hall and, when the house was empty, took Matilde by the waist, drew her to him and bent down to rest his forehead on hers.

  “I’m still dying to make love to you. And you?”

  “Me too.”

  “A moment ago I had a fantasy. When I saw you lying on the pillow in the music room, while you were talking to my sister, I wanted you so much and I imagined us making love right there, on the cushions.”

  “What music was playing while you were thinking such naughty things?” she asked him as she slipped her hands under his shirt and excited him by dragging them over his hard stomach.

  “Mike had put on a symphony by Mahler,” he said, and squeezed her bottom until it hurt and she cried out, but she didn’t ask him to stop; she withstood the rough massage by digging her nails into his arms. “But when I make love to you in a few minutes, I don’t want there to be any music, because then I won’t hear when you moan, which drives me crazy, or when you say my name without realizing it, or when you ask me for more.”

  “Eliah…”

  “Are you excited?” Matilde nodded, her forehead still on his. “Let’s go.”

  They ran upstairs. Al-Saud cornered her against a wall, in the hall, next to the door to the music room, and kissed her, blindly. It was a prelude to what they would share later, completely naked on the psychedelic print rug, surrounded by pillows; a night of sex in which, however they tried, they couldn’t get close enough to show the magnitude of what they inspired in each other, the irrational need to have one inside the other, to possess the other completely in both body and soul. It was a night of new experiences. Al-Saud made use of his entire body—his penis, his hands, his tongue, his fingers and his breath—to drive her to new, unknown heights of
pleasure and to make her scream. He made her get on all fours and took her from behind, provoking three consecutive orgasms, while he venerated her tarantula bottom. He said to her in French, “Give me my petite tondue,” and made her spread her legs so he could taste her. And then Matilde tasted him and made him shudder. And, finally, when they made love on the rug and Matilde pulled her face away, gasping for air, he fell on her lips and penetrated her with his tongue with the same cruelty with which he thrust into her, suffocating her. They were exhausted, sweaty, worked up, he was still on top of her, inside her; her breasts bumped against him with her violent inhalations, and the vapor of the fragrances that exuded from their bodies—her baby perfume and his Givenchy Gentleman—mingled with the smell of sex in the air.

  Eliah sat up, leaning on his forearm, and brushed the damp strands of hair off Matilde’s forehead, her eyes still closed. He liked the feeling of their tangled legs, their touching abdomens. He kissed her eyelids with a gentleness he hadn’t employed during the sex.

  “I love you, Matilde. I love you more than I ever imagined being able to love another human being.”

  Matilde didn’t dare to open her eyes for fear that they would leak tears. Like a blind woman, she lifted her hand and caressed his forehead, touching a tuft of hair, which fell and tickled her, and traced out the shape of his nose and lips.

  “Eliah, my love,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “You don’t know how much I regret that the night of your birthday was ruined. It was my fault for not telling Gulemale to go to hell. I let her rob us of our moment.”

  “I’m to blame too. I got very jealous.”

  “That’s fine.” Al-Saud smiled vainly. “I love that I make my woman jealous.” After a pause, he continued, “I had high hopes for that night. I was just about to claim my prize.”

  “Yes, you were going to ask me a question and I couldn’t say no.”

  “I think I’ll claim my prize now. Matilde, look at me.” She lifted her eyelids slowly, reluctant to depart her comfortable state of repose. “Will you marry me? Do you want to be my wife forever?”

  Matilde twisted her face away rapidly and pressed her cheek into a pillow. An intense pain surged through her chest, and the magnitude of the question made her mind go blank. Actually, a single phrase was echoing through her head: Don’t ask me that, for the love of God, don’t ask me!

  “I don’t believe in marriage,” she lied, with feigned serenity. “I think it’s an obsolete institution.”

  Al-Saud saw the way she bit her bottom lip and blinked rapidly. He also felt how her body, so soft a second before, had tensed up like the string of a violin.

  “I know you had a bad experience with Blahetter, but…”

  “It’s not about the bad experience I had with him. I simply don’t believe in the institution of marriage because in the end, it takes away everything good a couple has, especially their freedom.”

  “My parents have loved each other for forty years,” he replied, “and they’re happily married.”

  “They’re an exception.”

  “We’ll be another.”

  “No,” she said, and shifted to get Al-Saud’s weight off her. He didn’t make a move, and she turned her face back to him to shoot him an exasperated look. “Eliah, please.” Nevertheless, she softened her expression when she saw the anguished look on his face; it was the first time she had seen him like this. “Eliah, you know that I have plans for my career…”

  “Nobody is telling you to abandon those plans. We can get married when you get back from the Congo.”

  “My plans don’t end in the Congo. I want to have a nomadic existence, to bring my knowledge to the corners of the world that need me. A marriage would be like an anchor for me.” She deliberately used the word Yasmín had used to describe Eliah’s marriage to Samara. She took strength from weakness and dared to face him. There was so much confusion and sadness in those green eyes that it took her breath away. “Don’t look at me like that, please. You’re not made for marriage either. You’re a man who values your freedom above all. You’re a Horse of Fire.”

  “Yes, I value my freedom, but I don’t think you’ll take it away through being at my side. In these weeks living together, I never felt my freedom violated or limited.”

  “I brought you so many problems! How can you say that I didn’t violate or take away your freedom?”

  “Yes, you brought me problems, but also the greatest and fullest happiness I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m a new man thanks to you, my love.”

  “Eliah!” Incapable of continuing with the farce, she threw her arms around his neck, pulled him against her body and burst into tears.

  “Don’t cry, my love. I’m begging you. I can’t stand it when you’re sad.”

  “Don’t pressure me,” she sobbed. “I have things I have to resolve in my life before I can make such an important decision.”

  “Fine, I won’t pressure you. But will you tell me what those things are?” She shook her head, with her eyes shut tight and her mouth a single line of nervous anxiety. “It doesn’t matter. You know that I’m here for you. Always, my love.”

  Matilde squeezed herself against Eliah’s chest again and cried bitterly.

  * * *

  * * *

  CHAPTER 23

  * * *

  * * *

  The latest message from Anuar Al-Muzara instructed Udo Jürkens to take the ferry that sailed almost two hundred and twenty miles from La Valeta to Tripoli, in Libya. Since his failed attempt to trap Al-Saud’s woman, he had been hiding in the Belgian city of Herstal, in the house of a female friend whom he hadn’t had a terrible time with. He left a fat stack of Belgian francs on her bedside table to thank her for the nights of pleasure he had spent imagining that he was penetrating a blonde with long hair and the face of an angel, who had slipped through his hands in the apse of a chapel.

  He looked at his reflection in the window of the boarding lounge in the port in La Valeta. His hair was brown now and he wore dark contact lenses; he constantly stuffed cotton over his gums and was letting his beard grow out. He couldn’t change his appearance any more without getting plastic surgery.

  He boarded the ferry and stayed away from the rest of the passengers with his sunglasses on the entire time they were crossing the Mediterranean Sea. As usual, the climate in Tripoli was warm and dry; he prayed that there wouldn’t be a sandstorm in the city—he had experienced that once and it wasn’t a happy memory. They docked in the harbor at Tripoli, in the part of the bay designated for ferries. Even from a distance, Jürkens could see that Tripoli had grown since his last visit in the seventies.

  According to Gérard Moses, the message said that he should take a taxi to Green Square and wait for a turquoise Volkswagen Beetle to pick him up. They had told him to wear a dark-blue baseball cap and carry a yellow bag so they could identify him. He didn’t wait very long. As soon as he got out of the taxi, the turquoise Beetle approached him and Jürkens got in. There were two guys in the backseat; he sat next to the driver. Nobody spoke during the trip to the east of the city.

  Days later he would know that this group of houses in the suburb of Beb Tebaneh constituted the general headquarters of Anuar Al-Muzara, one of the men most wanted by Mossad and the CIA. He didn’t see Anuar much. The first day the Palestinian terrorist greeted him laconically and immediately asked him for Gérard Moses’s design of the new missile. After glancing at the drawings and the notes, he warned him that the use of cell phones, radios, beepers, computers connected to the Internet and any other kind of electronic devices was forbidden. If he needed to send a message to the outside world, he should talk to him. Right away, without pausing or waiting for a question from Jürkens, he explained his plan for the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. He handed him the building blueprints, a map of the city and introduced him to a group of six men who would help him execute the objective. It didn’t take Jürkens long to realize that these men knew as much about commando
operations as they did about needlepoint, so he dedicated himself to training them from dawn to dusk, leaving them exhausted. Sometimes, Anuar would watch them exercising and approve with a complacent smile.

  Jürkens got used to the routine at the training camp, the five daily prayers, the young men’s conversations; he took the opportunity to practice Arabic. Sometimes he would wonder about his boss, Gérard Moses, who was determined to finish the prototype for the uranium centrifuge; sometimes he missed Baghdad and his great friend Fauzi Dahlan. Most of the time he thought about Al-Saud’s woman.

  He noticed the time. Three in the afternoon. He left the George V parking lot and headed to his house. He needed music to relax, and decided on a CD of Celtic compositions that Yasmín had given him for his birthday. He smiled at the thought of his sister. That’s why she was so happy last night, he said to himself. More than happy. Euphoric. That morning, when he got to his office, he had run into Sándor in the waiting room. He had seemed very stiff and nervous, and was immaculately dressed. Sándor jumped to his feet as soon as he saw Al-Saud appear. They greeted each other with a hug.

  “You look good,” Al-Saud commented, slapping him on the back.

  “I’m very well.”

  “Do you want to know when we want you back at Mercure?”

  “Yes, but I also came to talk to you about something else, something very important to me. Do you have five minutes?”

  They settled in the armchairs in Al-Saud’s office.

  “Tell me, what do you need?”

  “I want you to understand that I didn’t come to ask your consent. I just want you to hear it from me. I wouldn’t want you to find out from a third party.” Al-Saud sat up in his chair and arched an eyebrow. “Last Tuesday, your sister Yasmín and I started dating.”

  “You and Yasmín?” was all he could say.