A Hidden Affair: A Novel

  My muscles tense. This can’t happen. I cannot afford to get involved in anything complicated now, while my life is so unsettled and the answers I need from Jared so close.

  Not that I think Ari is looking for a relationship. I’ve known men like him, operatives who travel the world, picking up mercenary assignments. They have women in every country, slip in and out of liaisons as seamlessly as the James Bond–type characters they seem to play. Men like Ari do not, cannot, allow themselves to become attached.

  Drowsiness washes over me then, dulling my confusion. Burying my head deeper into Ari’s chest, I close my eyes and allow myself to be carried off to sleep.

  My eyes snap open. It is completely dark and for a moment I cannot remember where I am. The hotel, I think groggily. What time is it? My arm begins to throb and I recall the confrontation when I went to see Nicole, my encounter with Ari. I reach beside me, feeling for him, but the bed is cold and empty.

  I sit up. “Ari?” I call. Silence. I reach for the lamp. Where is he? I check the pad of paper on the nightstand, but this time there is no note.

  I lie back down, replaying our earlier encounter in my mind, the pleasure we had given each other that, while short of everything, was intense. Did I do something wrong? Perhaps he was angered by the fact that I had stopped things. But I had made that mistake once before. I see it now, an impulsive moment in my college room one spring morning a lifetime ago, Jared rising above me, passion overcoming common sense.

  The scene clears as quickly as it had come, replaced by the darker vision of the doctor’s office. I had taken the home pregnancy test as soon as I missed my period, shortly after returning from England, my heart dropping as the second pink line appeared, confirming my fears. So I was not more than a few weeks pregnant when I called the clinic that I had found in the phone book, located in northern Virginia just beyond the Beltway, begging for the earliest appointment possible. The receptionist’s response was perfunctory, our exchange routine, as if we were scheduling a hair appointment or dental checkup.

  I called in sick to my State Department orientation class that late summer morning and drove to the clinic, drowning out the shouts of the few protesters that stood by the entrance to the parking lot. Yes, I lied as I filled out the preadmission paperwork, there was someone coming to pick me up afterward. I did not listen to the nurse’s presentation as she explained the procedure, the other options that were available to me. I had always been staunchly pro-choice, had marched in the demonstrations as an undergraduate to keep Roe v. Wade legal, even before I was old enough to vote. Anyway, what else was I going to do? I was twenty-two years old and on my own, about to embark on a career that would take me to places around the globe. Jared was dead. There was no place in my life for a baby.

  I do not remember the procedure itself. Afterward, I lay on a recliner in a room with a half dozen other women, nibbling on graham crackers, sipping orange juice, and listening to someone weep. Just a few months earlier I had been at Cambridge, drinking Pimm’s at garden parties, basking in the sunshine. How had I come to be here? It seemed as if my happiness had been so wrong that I was now being forced to atone for it.

  In the intervening years, I never told anyone, not even Sarah. I had buried the memory so deep that it sometimes seemed a figment of my imagination, a nightmare that hadn’t actually happened. Even as I returned to England, chasing the ghosts of my past, I had not allowed myself to think about it. But since learning that Jared is alive, the images have begun to creep into my consciousness again, a persistent shadow reminding me of what I had done.

  Now for the first time, lying in this strange hotel room, the memories and remorse come flooding back unchecked. Assuming that Jared was gone forever, I had taken his baby. Would my decision have been any different if I had known? I want to say no, to shroud myself with the certainty that I would have had the abortion anyway, gone ahead with my solo life and career. But in truth I know that I would have returned to England and told him the news. Together we would have made the decision, I am sure, to take the leap into the chaos of an unplanned child and have a family. If only I had known. It would have been different. Everything would have been different.

  I understand now for the first time that it is not just my memories of Jared that have kept me from getting close to another man all of these years, but my guilt over what I had done. I didn’t believe I deserved pleasure after all that had happened, could not separate in my soul the passion I had enjoyed with Jared from the consequences that would be with me for a lifetime.

  Feeling the walls start to crumble in on myself, I push the memories from my mind. Sarah, I think. Despite the years and thousands of miles that have separated us, she’s always been my best friend, therapist, and confessional, all rolled into one. Now I find myself wishing she were here, that I could speak to her and try to make sense of it all.

  I fish my cell phone from my bag. I hesitate. It is the middle of the night. But that’s never mattered before. I dial her number.

  “Hello?” Sarah answers sleepily.

  “It’s Jordan, Sar,” I say.

  She is instantly awake. “Jordie, what is it? Is everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I reply quickly, feeling guilty and foolish at having woken her. “I’m sorry for calling so late. I just wanted to say hello.”

  “I’m glad to hear from you. How are you?”

  “Fine . . . ” I falter, unsure how much to say. “My initial lead didn’t pan out, so we—”

  “We?”

  I swipe my hair from my forehead. I’d nearly forgotten how much has happened in the few days since I last spoke with her. “I’m traveling with a man named Aaron, who is looking for Nic—” I take a deep breath, realizing that I need to back up and explain, trying to figure out where to begin. “Jared’s married,” I blurt out.

  “Oh.” She is not, I can tell, that surprised. “Are you okay?”

  I falter, uncertain how to answer. Since learning about Jared’s marriage, I’ve focused on the fact of it, what it meant for my search. But it is the emotions beneath the discovery that hit me—for years, Jared’s death was something determined by fates larger than us. It wasn’t personal. Now, speaking with Sarah, the reality sinks in: Jared had chosen a course other than coming back to me. It was rejection, as surely as if he had broken up with me before our time at college had ended. “I don’t know. Anyway,” I swallow, brushing away the subject, “Aaron, the man I mentioned, is trying to find Jared’s wife, Nicole. So we’ve teamed up—”

  “You’re still going after Jared,” Sarah interrupts.

  “I am. I still want answers.” And to see him again. “And Ari thinks—”

  “Ari,” she repeats, her tone observant, noncritical. “What’s he like?”

  “Israeli. Handsome. ‘Fit,’ as our British friends would say.” I cringe, hoping she cannot sense me blushing. “Very stubborn.”

  “Sounds like someone else.” She laughs, then her voice turns serious. “But Jordie . . . ” Though she does not finish the sentence, I can hear the conflict in her voice, mirroring my own internal debate, worrying that I will misplace my trust again so soon after Sebastian, but not wanting to discourage me from opening up if there is finally a chance of finding something real.

  “I know. The timing is all wrong and I still have to find Jared.”

  “I don’t care about Jared,” she snaps. Her tone, sharper than I remember hearing her speak, startles me. “You don’t owe him anything. You mourned him for ten years—needlessly, I might add. You put your life on the line to make sure his research got into the right hands and now you’re traveling around the world trying to find him.” And he’s married, I finish silently for her, knowing that she will not. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again,” she finishes.

  “I won’t. I’m being careful, I promise. But enough of this. How are you?”

  “Great.” Her voice brightens. “I haven’t started my treatments; they’re still running tests. B
ut it’s beautiful here and lovely having Ryan with me. In fact, we’re taking a drive out to the lake tomorrow. So whatever happens . . . ” I can tell that she is trying not to get her hopes up, to be content with Geneva, whether the treatments can help or whether these turn out to be her last days.

  “Don’t say that, Sar. Don’t even think it. You’re in the best place in the world and the protocol is going to work.” It has to work. “Now you go get some sleep, okay? I’ll talk to you soon.”

  As I lower the phone, there is a clicking noise and the door opens. “Hello?” I call the way I might have as a child when I heard my parents come up the stairs.

  “It’s me,” Ari says, the use of the pronoun in lieu of his name as intimate as anything that has transpired between us. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “I was already up. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, I didn’t mean for you to worry. I went to get some water. Oh, and here . . . ” Then he reaches into his jacket and pulls out his pistol, aiming it at the floor and checking the chamber to make sure it is empty. I stare at the gun, surprised. “You said you needed one,” he explains.

  “I do, but . . . ”

  One side of his mouth lifts in a half smile. “I think I can trust you with it.” Then his face turns serious. “And I’d feel better knowing you have it.” There is a protectiveness in his voice that tells me more than I have known about his feelings for me. It is not just physical for him, either. “In case we get separated,” he adds.

  “Separated?” I repeat. In that moment I realize how accustomed I have gotten to having Ari at my side in the very short time since we met, of thinking of us as a team. “Why would that happen?”

  “No reason.” But a strange look flashes across his face, making me wonder what he isn’t telling me. “You know how to use it, right?”

  I smile inwardly, remembering the surprise of my male colleagues when I outscored them all at the range. “Sure.” I wrap my hand around the grip, feeling the weight of the pistol, trying it on for size. “But what about you?”

  He shrugs. “I can use the one I pulled off Heigler’s body.”

  “I can take that one, if you want.”

  “No, take mine. It’s better, more reliable. Be careful, though. Kicks a little to the right.”

  Longing rises within me as I picture my own Glock, left back at the embassy in London. One does not part with one’s own gun easily and it means a great deal that Ari is trusting me with his. “Thanks.” I put the gun in my bag.

  “I should have given that to you before. Of course I didn’t realize . . . ” His voice trails off. Despite all that has transpired between us, he is still stung by my earlier betrayal, the fact that I had gone after Nicole on my own. Then his face brightens. “And I also got these.” He holds up a box of condoms.

  “Oh.” I pause, not sure what the appropriate response might be, whether to thank him or make a joke.

  “Not presuming,” he adds quickly. “But just in case.”

  “Just in case,” I repeat slowly. Desire rises up in me again and I reach for him, pulling him down to the bed beside me.

  As I draw him close, I feel a vibrating sensation, his phone against my leg. He continues kissing me and for a minute it seems he will ignore it. But then he groans and rolls away. “Hello?” I hear a man’s voice speaking rapidly on the other end of the line.

  A moment later Ari closes the phone. “Who was that?” I ask.

  “Someone who might have the answers we need.” He lingers close to me for a second before jumping to his feet.

  I sit up reluctantly, pulling down my shirt. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s no time. I’ll explain on the way. And bring everything with you.” I cock my head. “If we are able to get the information I’m hoping for, we won’t be coming back.”

  chapter TEN

  I OPEN MY EYES and peer across the car in the semidarkness. “Hey.”

  Ari does not look away from the road, but shifts gears, navigating around a sharp mountain curve with ease. The low purring of the engine breaks the night stillness. “Get some rest?”

  “Mmph,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes and sitting up. “Where are we?”

  “Close to the border.”

  We left the hotel a few hours earlier. Ari didn’t check us out, and though he did not say so, I knew that he had done this in case we were being watched, not because he really expected that we would return. Then he led me to the car we are in now, a small black Fiat that had been parked in a garage around the corner from the hotel. I wondered if the car was his or, if not, how he had gotten it, but I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer an explanation. We drove out of the city in silence, the neighborhoods growing more residential as we passed through the outskirts, houses dark and shuttered for the night.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, once we reached the autobahn.

  “Northern Italy. There’s a winemaker there who might be able to help us find Nicole.”

  “Italy,” I repeated, surprised by the distance we were traveling, as well as the fact that we seemed to be doubling back toward the Mediterranean region we’d left so recently. “Wouldn’t it have been faster to fly?”

  He shook his head. “The vineyard is a good distance northwest of Trieste, the closest city, and by the time you factor in waiting for flights, then renting a car at the airport, it would have taken just as long.”

  “Oh.” Though his explanation made sense, I could not help but wonder if this was his real reason for driving, or if he wanted to keep our travels beneath the radar so as not to be detected by Santini’s men.

  South of Vienna, the landscape grew rugged. Ari drove skillfully, anticipating curves and avoiding bumps with the confidence of someone who had traveled the roads before. He did not speak further but turned the radio to a station playing jazz and, lulled by the music and the motion of the car, I soon became sleepy.

  I sit up now, peering out the window and trying to get my bearings. The terrain is less dramatic than it had been a few hours earlier, the topography more hills than peaks. The road, now a single lane in each direction, is deserted as far as I can see.

  “How are you feeling?” Ari asks and I cannot tell if he is referring to my stitched arm or our earlier intimacy.

  I decide to assume the former. “Fine. My wrist is just a bit sore. I could do with some coffee and a bathroom, though.”

  “Me, too, but there’s nothing around here. It makes me miss those American rest stops with their Howard Johnsons.”

  I smile. “More like Starbucks these days.”

  “It’s been a while,” he concedes. “Anyway, no lattes here. If you need to use the toilet, I can pull over once we clear the checkpoint.” He glances up at the sky, which has begun to fade to pale gray, and I can tell he is anxious to cross the border before dawn.

  “I’m okay,” I say, eyeing the thick, ominous brush that lines either side of the road. I open the window. The crisp night air is earthy, perfumed by a mixture of burned leaves and manure. “Are we going much farther?”

  He pulls a bottle of water from his bag and hands it to me. I take a sip, enough to moisten my mouth but not worsen my bladder. “Not too far.” Trieste, I recall, scanning the map in my head, is on that little bit of Italy over by the Balkans.

  Ari takes the bottle from me and gulps several mouthfuls of water. Watching his throat move in the moonlight, I am reminded of our earlier tryst. Despite my eagerness to find Nicole, part of me wishes we were back in the hotel, able to finish what we started.

  We travel farther along the desolate road and a few minutes later reach the border crossing. It is little more than a shed, and through the cracked, dirty window I see two guards, one napping, the other watching a black-and-white movie on a small television. There is no gate or checkpoint, nothing to stop us from passing by undetected into Italy. It seems a sharp contrast to my memories of backpacking as a student, border guards knocking on the door of our train compartment two or
three times each night, turning on the glaring overhead lights to scrutinize our passports.

  Ari pulls close to the shed, raps lightly on the door. The guard sticks his head out and scans our passports idly before nodding us on. “I miss the days with all of the stamps,” I remark when the door has closed again.

  “This borderless European Union has its advantages but that isn’t one of them,” he agrees.

  I notice then that the radio program has changed from music to some sort of discussion in German. “What are you listening to?”

  “It’s a news and commentary program.” He grimaces. “They’re talking about Israel and the Gaza situation.”

  I nod. The latest round of Israeli attacks against Hezbollah had been all over the British press before I left London, the coverage of Israel’s actions and the repercussions for the Palestinians scathing. “I’ve been out of touch for a few days. What happened?”

  “Israel went after a Hezbollah stronghold and some civilians were killed. The U.N. is demanding a cease-fire.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “The collateral damage is awful,” he agrees. “But unavoidable.”

  Hearing his cold, detached tone, I feel myself growing annoyed. Did he regard his own family’s deaths as collateral damage as well? “But if your country—”

  “Which one?” he interrupts, stiffening.

  I falter. With his accent and bronzed skin, it’s easy to forget that he is also American. “Israel,” I say.

  His face reddens. “We have to be able to defend ourselves. No one else is going to make sure that there’s a Jewish homeland. I remember the stories my father told growing up, of his parents being turned away from a dozen countries as they tried to flee Europe. Don’t get me wrong; I love America, believe in it. But there was a time when it turned its back on the Jewish people, along with the rest of the world.”

  “And you think it could happen again?”