Highlander - Donna Lettow [5]
MacLeod looked back at the maître d’. “Don’t mind him. He’s French,” he said in Arabic. Then he switched to English, playing a hunch. “I’m sure he’s like that with everyone.”
The woman sighed as she settled into her chair. “Maybe some days I’m just more paranoid than others.” Then she looked up at MacLeod with new appreciation, realizing he’d tricked her into answering him in English as well. “So, you know a little Arabic, Mr.… ?”
“MacLeod. Duncan MacLeod. A little. And your English is impeccable, Miss,” he noticed a gold band on her finger, “Mrs.… ?”
“Doctor Amina,” she stressed. “I’m … no longer married. And you may call me Maral.” The “r” rumbled in the back of her throat like a contented cat’s.
“Maral,” he echoed. He liked the way that felt.
The waiter approached their table and rattled off the day’s specials. Maral ordered “just a salade nicoise.” The waiter waited patiently for MacLeod to order, but MacLeod was admiring Maral’s hair. It was thick and long, caught in simple but elegant combs up onto her head, where it shone black as burnished jet in the Parisian sunlight. He had a sudden urge to reach out and gently remove the combs, to watch the hair cascade around her shoulders … “Duncan?” He loved the way she pronounced his name. “Doon-can?” Maral reached up and touched her hair self-consciously. “Were you planning on having any food with your wine?”
“Right. Food.” MacLeod covered quickly. “I’ll have the dorade grillée and some pommes frites.” Then he dismissed the waiter and turned to Maral. “So you’re a doctor?”
“PhD,” she replied. “Chairman of the Western Studies department at Bir Zeit University.”
“In Israel?”
She shrugged. “That depends on whom you ask. It’s in Ramallah, a little town on the West Bank. It’s where I was born.”
“You’re Palestinian,” MacLeod said. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?” MacLead wasn’t prepared for the intensity of her defensiveness.
“Your accent. I couldn’t quite place it.” He thought for a moment. “But you’ve spent some time in the States, haven’t you?”
Maral bristled. “Would you like to see my identity papers? How about my travel permits?” As she busied herself with her water glass, MacLeod could feel a wall click into place between them. He’d obviously rubbed a sore wound.
“Maral, I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. He turned his charm up a notch. “If you let me take my foot out of my mouth, I’ll make it up to you. Promise.” He smiled a wee smile, hoping she’d follow suit.
After a long moment she finally did, her smile a little wry, her dark eyes a little sad. “I’m sorry, too, Duncan. I’m usually not like this. It’s the end of a very difficult, very disappointing week.” She looked beyond MacLeod toward the gothic spires of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, towering over the next block. “I just thought maybe Paris would be different somehow. I always thought that Paris would be magical.”
“Maybe you just need to give Paris a chance. Magic can happen when you least expect it.”
He liked the way her eyes brightened with flecks of copper when she smiled. “When I was eleven, my father took a position teaching political science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.” The way she pronounced the name made it sound like a kingdom in a fairy tale. “He wanted to keep us safe from the trouble at home.”
As Maral spoke, MacLeod came to the sudden realization that he was being watched from the sidewalk.
“So I guess you could say I spent my formative years as a ‘Joisy Goil.’ ” Her attempt at a New Jersey accent made him laugh. As he did, he subtly turned his chair to get a better view of his observer. Olive-skinned, dark glasses, bushy mustache, surveillance earpiece. “I went to college at Rutgers, got my PhD from Columbia.” His first guess was that the man was a Watcher, one of the secret