The Network - Jason Elliot [88]
When the time comes, I find a seat among an audience of about thirty people and remind myself that I’m supposed to have found my way there by accident because the woman I’ve come to see hasn’t even told me her name yet. Listening to her speak about the inter-agency appeal targeted at multi-sectoral activities, I’m reminded that the world of humanitarian aid is almost as afflicted by jargon as the army. But when it’s time for questions, I make sure I’m the first to raise my hand, introducing myself and my company in the process, to ask about the risk of anti-personnel mines to children in the region.
There’s a flicker of puzzlement on her features as she wonders where she’s seen me before then delivers a textbook answer. At the end of the session I linger by the door as the others file out, and am glad to see that while she’s talking to another of the participants her eyes turn in my direction several times. I don’t make any effort to hide my pleasure at seeing her again. She walks up to me, clutching her papers across her chest.
‘So, Mr Tavernier.’ She’s Frenchified my name. ‘Is it a coincidence that you are here, or are you spying on me?’ The charm in her restrained smile robs the suggestion of seriousness, but her manner is bold all the same.
‘It’s a coincidence.’ I return the smile. ‘Although I’m sure I would enjoy spying on you too. Unfortunately I’m in Khartoum only for a short time.’
She puts out her hand and introduces herself. She uses her maiden name. The surname bin Laden is not mentioned. ‘It’s nice to meet you again,’ she says. ‘I gave your rope to a village chief. He liked it very much. I have a few minutes before my next meeting. Would you like some tea?’
We walk to a small cafe in the gardens behind the building and sit in the shade under a canopy. She asks me about mine awareness in the Sudan and I tell her what I know: that the problem of mines and unexploded ordnance affects not only the central and southern areas where there’s been recent fighting, but also the Eritrean border east of Kassala, and places on the country’s other borders with Chad, Congo, Libya and Uganda.
She nods approvingly as if satisfied that I really do know about mines. I go on to explain my hopes for designing a mine awareness programme in collaboration with the UN. As I talk, I realise I’m having trouble taking my eyes off her and am hardly listening to my own words. She’s exceptionally beautiful. Her eyes are dark and calm. At moments they express a faintly imploring quality, magnified by her habit of tilting her head almost imperceptibly downwards as she looks at me, as if she’s hiding something she wants to tell me. Her face is narrower and her skin lighter than the Sudanese women I’ve seen, and her smooth rounded forehead and high hairline are unmistakably Ethiopian.
‘You have Tigray blood in you,’ I say impulsively, then regret it. It’s too personal a detail for our first meeting and she’s visibly taken aback, as if I’ve reached too suddenly into her world. I apologise, explaining that she reminds me of a friend’s wife, who was from Ethiopia. She was very beautiful, I add.
‘From my mother,’ she says, and her tone is both curious and guarded.
Yet the conversation survives, and remains unexpectedly personal as we speak of our parents and families. Her mother was born in Ethiopia to a Christian family and her father in Khartoum to a Muslim one. Their marriage was a rare combination but the difference in religion had not interfered with their happiness.
‘The Islam of the Sudan is not like anywhere else,’ she says. ‘Have you seen the stars in the desert yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must, before you go. The stars are great teachers.’
I’m watching her closely as she speaks, observing her face as it traces over each different emotion that rises in her, and catching what I can of its beauty like the glimpse of a butterfly that settles and opens its wings in the sunlight before dancing away. Then suddenly I remember that my purpose in meeting this beautiful woman is to deceive her, and this hits