Obsession (Year of Fire) (7 page)

Leaning to the left of his seat so he could see her better, he noticed a tear form at the corner of her eye before rolling down her cheek. Without thinking he sat up and wiped the tear away with his index finger. She gave a start and the look of panic that shot across her face disturbed him. She looked more terrified than upset. “Forgive me!” he said quickly. “I saw you were crying. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He handed her his silk handkerchief.

“It’s okay. Thank you,” she said, drying her eyes.

The sweetness of her voice disarmed him; he could have kissed her right at that moment. How many times, in just a few hours, had he felt the urge to kiss her?

“It was just that I was reading a really sad part.”

“Which part?” Al-Saud tilted his head, pretending to be interested in the book while he inhaled deeply to fill his nostrils with her scent.

“The part in which Salem describes the massacre of Sabra and Chatila.”

Al-Saud remembered that chapter. It had made him feel impotent rather than sad. If he had been at one of the Palestine refugee camps in Lebanon, he might have been able to deal with a few members of the Christian group known as the Lebanese Falange. But in September 1982, he’d been only fifteen years old.

“Is this the first book by Sabir Al-Muzara that you’ve read?” he asked, to take her mind off the genocide at Sabra and Chatila.

“No. I’ve read all his work. I started to follow him three years ago when I found a copy of one of his books in a used bookstore on Avenida Corrientes. Do you know Avenida Corrientes?” Eliah nodded. “I admire him greatly. I was so happy when I found out he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. He deserves it! He’s not just talented, he’s a genius.” Her silver eyes shone with excitement; it was clear that, though delicate and timid, Matilde had a passionate side. “I loved the speech he gave when he received the Nobel.”

Actually
, Al-Saud thought,
Sabir didn’t read the speech during the ceremony but afterward, during the banquet.
It felt as though months had passed since the event, but it had only been a few weeks since the tenth of December, Alfred Nobel’s birthday. As was traditional, the ceremony had taken place in Stockholm. Though he had been unable to attend because he was in Sri Lanka, negotiating with the Tamil rebels, his parents, siblings and Shiloah Moses had accompanied Sabir. The speech in Stockholm would have caused a political uproar if it had come from anyone else’s lips. Al-Muzara was one of the few people respected and admired equally by both the Palestinians and the Israelis, and he was allowed to speak truths that others would have been too afraid to utter. This hadn’t always been the case; Sabir had earned his position in one of the most conflicted regions on the planet. His message of peace and
love had won him various nicknames, including the Palestinian Nelson Mandela, Gandhi in Gaza, the white Martin Luther King Jr. (Sabir’s pale face stood out) and the Arabic Jesus, which displeased the Catholics, although Pope John Paul II said that if Jesus were to meet Al-Muzara in Jordan, they would have become friends. For his part, Yitzhak Rabin declared that every few decades a Palestinian with good judgment was born, while a director of Mossad admired him for his leadership qualities: he was clever, charismatic and brave.

“One day he’ll win the Nobel Peace Prize,” insisted Matilde.

“Which part of Sabir’s speech did you like?”

“Right at the start I was moved when he dedicated the prize to his Palestinian brothers and Israeli friends and neighbors. It’s a sign of forgiveness, don’t you think? Because he was kept prisoner by the Israelis for years.”

Few people knew as much about Al-Muzara’s captivity as Eliah Al-Saud. One night in August 1991, two agents from Shabak, the internal Israeli intelligence service, showed up at his apartment in Gaza and arrested him; it was a form of “administrative detention,” a legal phrase that allowed a subject’s incarceration for “security reasons” for an indefinite period without recourse to legal aid. Sabir spent five years in Ansar Tres, as the Palestinians call the prison on the Ketziot military base, in the Néguev desert. On several occasions, he was tortured in an attempt to learn the location of his older brother, Anuar Al-Muzara, who was the leader of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas.

In response to Yitzhak Rabin’s statement, “If only the Gaza strip would sink into the sea,” Anuar Al-Muzara had declared, “The practical thing about all the Jews gathering in Israel is that it saves us from having to go all over the world looking for them.” Finally the Shabak agents were persuaded that Sabir didn’t know Anuar’s whereabouts. They were wrong; Al-Muzara knew where his brother was hiding, but despite the rift between them—one advocated passive resistance, the other armed struggle—he hadn’t betrayed him.

During his years in prison, the figure of Sabir Al-Muzara took on unsuspected dimensions. In spite of his confinement and torture, Al-Muzara was able to smuggle out letters to his people, asking them to be calm, and above all, not to respond violently, which would only
engender more violence. He asked them not to organize street protests to demand his release because they could be infiltrated by groups with other agendas and cause more trouble; he would cite celebrated quotes from great men and offer chronicles of his days at Ansar Tres, refraining from any mention of the torture and miserable conditions. The letters ended up being published in Israeli newspapers such as the prestigious
Ha’aretz
and
Breaking News
, appearing the next day in the morning papers in London, New York and Paris. Eventually, these letters were gathered together and appeared in a best-selling book.

Kamal Al-Saud, Eliah’s father, and Shiloah Moses, son of the multimillionaire Israeli Gérard Moses, who owned the newspaper
Breaking News
, had campaigned to set Sabir Al-Muzara free. Kamal hired the best lawyers in Israel, while Shiloah, who had excellent connections in both the political world and in the press had tried to work behind the scenes. Eventually, prominent figures including the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (the Argentinean, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980), Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter and authorities from institutions including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Peace Now joined forces to demand the release of a man who had never raised his hands in anger.

“I also liked,” Matilde continued, “the part where he quoted Martin Luther King, when he repeated that beautiful phrase: ‘I still have a dream. You’ll think it sounds like a utopia. I promise you that tomorrow it will be a reality. I dream of peace in my land and seeing a nation made up of both Israelis and Palestinians, united in the understanding that we are all creatures of God.’”

Al-Saud thought about how Sabir’s adapted phrase had paved the way that Shiloah Moses would take in a few weeks: the struggle for the creation of a two-nation state. Eliah thought that his friends were crazy, that the idea of a two-nation state was a mirage. Suddenly he remembered that, like him, Sabir and Shiloah had been born in the year of the Horse of Fire; they weren’t ordinary men and they’d never think or act in ordinary ways.

“And I thought it was a magnificent moment when he looked upward, pushing his speech to one side, and declared: ‘I didn’t say Allah and I didn’t say Yahweh, I said God, a universal term that we all know, because there is one God for all of us.’”

Eliah began to understand that he wasn’t going to seduce this girl with expensive watches and French perfumes. He would win her with enthusiasm and attention to the things she was most interested in—for example, it seemed, the acceptance speech given by the latest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. She glowed so beautifully when she was passionate about something. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone as she delicately waved her long-fingered hands, the same hands that apparently, though it was hard for him to believe, could handle a scalpel. A moment later, as she continued to talk, she was rebraiding her hair, and Al-Saud regarded the mixture of nearly platinum-blonde strands with darker shades. In her fervor for Al-Muzara, Matilde had drawn her legs up into her seat and was sitting cross-legged, facing toward him.
She’s small enough to fit sitting like that
, he pondered.
How would it feel to hold her?

“But my favorite part,” Matilde resumed, “was when he mentioned the children.”

“Mat!” Juana interrupted without turning around, “Don’t say
children
, for the love of God!”

Al-Saud laughed out loud at the face Matilde made. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and bit her bottom lip, revealing straight, white teeth; her front teeth were adorable; square, well-proportioned and flawless.

“Juana, it’s not polite to listen to other people’s conversations.”

“I couldn’t help hearing, darling Mat, you’re talking loud enough for the whole plane to hear.”

“Anyway,” Matilde went on, more quietly now, “I loved it when he said that, above all, he dedicated this prize to the Israeli and Palestinian children, the ones who had left and the ones that were still there, because the peace he was fighting for was for them, so that they could walk the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Gaza and Ramala with smiles on their faces and without a care in the world. And he was so right to say, ‘Because I abhor the idea of children having their childhoods taken away from them, forced into adulthood at ten years old.’ I was moved to hear that he had donated the prize, which is a lot of money, more than a million dollars, to the Palestine Red Crescent.” She fell silent, her head bowed, as if she was meditating on her last words. “He’s not a wealthy man, is he?”

“No, to the contrary. He lives a very simple life.”

“Do you know him well?” Matilde was amazed. When Al-Saud didn’t answer, she added: “Of course, Al-Muzara must earn a lot from his book sales.”

“He donates it all to charity.”

“His speech wasn’t very long,” she noted after a pause.

“They don’t call him the Silent One for nothing.”

“Yes, that’s true. I read that he prefers listening to speaking.”

Eliah found that Matilde’s devotion to Al-Muzara was starting to irritate him.

“Why is the part about the children your favorite? Are children important to you?”

“Yes, very much,” she answered, but quietly, without any of the previous emphasis. The sudden change disconcerted him and he kept quiet, looking at her. She lowered her head, as though to bring an end to the matter, and leafed through her book. Matilde was becoming a challenge, and Al-Saud suspected that behind her angelic appearance she hid a rich spirit, full of both light and shadow.
Matilde, who are you, really? What were you doing with Blahetter’s grandson? Is he your husband?
He didn’t want to know.

“I suppose you have to love children to decide to become a pediatric surgeon, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, much better. I’m completely recovered.”

The flight attendant came over with glasses of champagne and informed them that the new year had just begun in France. Juana jumped up from her seat and joined them in the toast. After they had clinked glasses, Eliah leaned over to Matilde and kissed her on the left corner of her mouth.

“Happy ’98, Matilde.”

“The same to you.”

She looked down uncomfortably and, while Juana and Eliah were wishing each other a happy new year, she wondered whether he had meant to audaciously kiss her close to the lips or it was just because of their uncomfortable position in the seats. She noticed that he had put the full glass of champagne down on the tray table; he hadn’t even taken a
sip. When Juana finished her glass, Matilde handed her her own without saying a word.

“You don’t drink champagne, Matilde?” She liked how he said
champagne
; she liked it even more that he hadn’t drunk any.

“Mat drinking champagne? Not in a million years, Eliah. My girl hates alcohol. She never drinks.”

“Neither do I,” he said.

He stared at her deliberately, and Matilde knew that his kiss had been intentional.

“You don’t drink?” Juana was surprised.

“No, never.”

“How strange! I don’t know any men that don’t drink. Don’t you like it?”

“I don’t care as much about it as everyone else seems to. I like other drinks. For one thing, I don’t like how alcohol slows my reactions and for another thing, the human body wasn’t made to process alcohol. It’s damaging.”

“They say red wine is good for your health.”

“There are other perfectly good ways to keep your arteries clear that don’t affect the liver like red wine.”

“You must take good care of yourself,” Juana supposed.

“It’s the only body I have.”

Matilde had grown in confidence and, while he was addressing Juana, she watched him with naked interest. She was captivated by his lips, not just because of their shape—thick and moist, though small and well-defined—but also the way he moved them when he spoke, with the top and bottom lips barely touching. She was surprised to find herself noting his teeth; she never noticed that kind of thing.
Maybe his teeth look so white because his skin is so dark.
She realized that he wasn’t just tanned; he was dark-skinned, like Juana.

She admired how easily he and Juana spoke to each other, with a facility that hardly ever occurs between strangers. In fact, Juana could form a relationship with any living creature; Matilde was the one who had had trouble striking up friendships with people, except children. She quickly looked away when he turned back to address her.

“You neither, Matilde?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Juana swallowed a giggle. Her friend was as subtle as a bull in a china shop.

“I was asking if you’ve been to Paris.”

“No, I’ve never been.”

The flight attendants collected the glasses before dimming the lights, plunging the cabin into twilight. Juana stretched.

“The champagne has made me drowsy, so I’m going to try and get some sleep. Good night, Eliah.”