When he woke, the bed was empty.
Memory sent a hit of adrenaline pulsing through him, pushing away the vestiges of sleep. Was she gone? He raised himself up, felt the pain flow through his arm and hip, and shuffled to the bedroom door. He grabbed the door handle and was about to turn it when he heard voices. Two women, talking. Atef’s wife, and then, after a while, the other woman replying. Rania.
Clay exhaled long, let go the handle. She was still here. She hadn’t run. And yet, after what had happened in the City of the Dead, he knew that they would have to leave Atef’s place as soon as they could. If the two men he’d attacked had indeed been cops, then his description would already be circulating the city. They needed to return the girls to their mother and get out of Egypt as quickly as they could.
Clay shuffled to the bathroom and closed the door. He checked his bandages. Not too bad. He hadn’t even realised he’d been cut until he was in the taxi. He knew the taller guy had hit him a couple of times, but they hadn’t felt like strikes with a blade, just punches. Adrenaline did crazy things, warped your brain, tricked your pain centre. He lowered his face to the sink, splashed himself with cold water and looked into the mirror. A stranger gazed back out at him, hollow-eyed, dripping, unrecognisable. And then, the realisation: in a few minutes, he would walk out into that room and she would be there. But before he could begin the dangerous imagining that he knew was coming, he shut it all down, pushed it deep. Whatever she might still feel for him, and he for her, there was no room for any of it now. There was space, now, only for this: survive and get out. Everything else was secondary. If you do it right, plenty of time after for all that other shit. If you don’t, none.
When he emerged from the bedroom, Rania was sitting at the dining table with Atef and the two girls. Morning light streamed through the windows, cinder grey and diffuse. Four pairs of eyes gazed up at him.
Atef stood, reached out his hand. ‘My good friend,’ he said.
‘Sabah al kha’eer,’ said Clay. Good morning.
Atef glanced at his bandage. ‘How are you?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Clay.
‘It did not look as nothing last night, Mr Clay.’
Atef’s wife came to her husband’s side. He gathered her in under his big right arm. ‘My wife is a good nurse.’
Clay bowed. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Tonight I will change the dressing. Please, no strenuous exercise for a few days. Especially here.’ She pointed to his hip.
Clay nodded, looked to Rania. ‘We must leave very soon,’ he said. ‘We must return these young ladies to their parents.’
The girls frowned and looked to Rania, but remained silent.
‘To their mother, yes,’ said Rania. ‘But before we go, may I please use your telephone, Mr Atef? I need to call overseas. I can pay, of course.’
‘Please,’ said Atef, pointing to an old rotary telephone sitting on a side table in the lounge. ‘You are among friends. Do not speak of money.’
Rania stood, touched Atef’s arm. ‘Of course, forgive me.’
Atef and his wife went to the kitchen. Clay sat with the girls, poured himself coffee and watched Rania sit on the divan as she picked up the telephone receiver and dialled. But for the eyes, she might have been a different person to the one he’d known in Yemen and Istanbul and Cyprus. Her cheekbones cut sharp ridges above hollowed-out cheeks, underscored deep sockets. The fullness of her body was gone too, the curve of hip and breast, as if her flesh had been flensed away and all that remained was bone and ligament. And yet, as she turned toward him, her eyes burned like the dark planets he remembered.
She was talking now, in French, a brief acknowledgement; then she listened. She scribbled something on a piece of paper, hung up the phone and looked at her watch.
Five minutes later, she picked up the phone again, dialled, waited. She glanced up at Clay and nodded. Clay tried a half-smile. He heard the line engage, a male voice on the other end. Rania spoke briefly, listened. She nodded once, again, glanced away and back towards Clay. She was listening intently now, staring into his eyes, right through him. Then she gasped, put her hand to her mouth, held it there. Tears welled in her eyes, poured across her cheeks. She lowered her head towards the floor, spoke a question, listened to the reply, and then looked back up at Clay as she put the receiver back into its cradle.
Clay went to her. She stood and folded herself into him. He wrapped his arms around her, felt the tremors run through her body as she sobbed. He held her a long time as she cried.
‘What is it, Ra?’ he asked after a while. ‘What’s happened?’
‘God is great,’ she whispered. ‘Truly.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Eugène,’ she gasped. ‘My son.’
‘Did they find something?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
She took a deep breath, held it, exhaled slowly, looked up at him. ‘He is alive, Claymore. Alive.’