Highlander - Donna Lettow [96]
“Your Israeli friend will probably not like this agreement,” she said after a while.
“He thinks I’ve picked the wrong side,” MacLeod said, unable to suppress a huge yawn. While he found the conversation interesting, Maral’s touch, just her very presence, were lulling him into a state of complete relaxation. Even his anger at Avram had washed away, replaced by compassion and a sense of pity.
“There are so many like that,” she said sadly, “Arabs and Jews. Men whose idea of peace is not marriage, but bondage. The other side must be conquered completely, unable to cry out, unable to voice their dissent. Only then can there be peace. I feel very sorry for them.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t think the side of true peace is ever the wrong side, do you, Duncan?” There was no response. “Duncan?”
Almost against his will, he’d fallen asleep against her shoulder. The tense lines of worry around his eyes and across the planes of his face had softened, and now he looked like an overgrown child, or perhaps an angel, as he slept. Maral didn’t have the heart to wake him. She slipped out from under him carefully and lowered him so his head rested on a pillow at the end of the couch.
Maral wrestled the enormous bedspread from the bed and carried it back to the couch, tucking it in around MacLeod’s sleeping form. He looked so beautiful as he slept, she couldn’t help but kiss him sweetly on the forehead before she turned out the lights.
Climbing into the spacious bed and sliding under the covers, Maral realized that for once she wasn’t struck by the same gut-wrenching loneliness the bed usually inspired. Just hearing the easy even sound of his breathing from across the room was like a lullaby, and she felt safe and protected. She smiled a little smile in the darkness and closed her eyes.
It was the middle of the night when she was gently awakened by the jostling of the bed. She rolled over and felt his warmth as he slipped under the blankets next to her. She reached out to him, and they held each other close until morning.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” MacLeod asked Maral the next morning. The Palestinian delegation was gathered in the lobby of the hotel preparing to leave for the negotiations, but first the gauntlet of media arrayed outside the doors had to be faced. The press had been promised a statement regarding the impending agreement, and it had been decided that Maral, as the most telegenic and Western-friendly of the delegates, would be the one to issue it.
“Why can’t we just get this over with?” she complained, pacing nervously like a prizefighter before the first round. “It’s the waiting that’s killing me.”
Farid came out of the glass revolving doors back into the lobby. “CNN has arrived,” he announced. “Now we can proceed.” He gestured the others to follow him out.
A small podium had been placed at the top of the stairs just outside the door, and representatives of the best and brightest of the world’s media services were jockeying for position around it. Farid cleared a path, and MacLeod escorted Maral to it, Assad sticking close to her to deflect the microphones and cameras pushing and shoving their way toward her. “Dr. Amina!” “Professor!” even “Maral!” the insistent voices called, but she ignored them until they reached the podium. The other delegates ranged themselves around her in a show of solidarity.
Maral stepped up to the podium. Assad stayed just behind her, MacLeod off to one side with the delegates, both men vigilant. At the microphone, she cleared her throat politely, and the clamoring news crews settled down to hear the prepared statement.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the international press”—she could barely see through the sea of camera flashes and television lighting—“on behalf of President Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, I thank you for coming.” It was probably the last