recently. “I just didn’t recognize the translation to English.”
There’s a strange jingling coming from her bag, and she pokes around in it and comes out with a black phone about the size of a large spectacles case.
“Damn. Nabil, I’m sorry. I need to get this. Can you wait a minute?” And I wonder where Sam could think I need to be going in such a hurry that I’d have trouble waiting a minute for her, or five, or twenty. “Of course,” I say, but I feel that she has hardly heard me, because she is already putting the phone to her ear and bellowing into it. “Wait, I can’t hear you. The reception here sucks.” And she walks away, moving to the other end of the pool while holding the phone out straight in front of her, like it could be one of those falcons the men in the Gulf States train to fly and return home again, landing dutifully on its master’s arm.
She then raises the phone to her ear and turns her back towards me, leaving the fat antenna pointed in my direction. I can still hear her from across the pool.
“Hi Miles. Sorry. Can’t always get good reception at the hotel because of the tall buildings.” Sam is quiet for a minute. “Jonah? Yeah, he’s all right. Well, some of Saddam’s security guys actually arrested him while he was filming somewhere without permission and took him to Abu Ghraib. You know, where they torture people for fun. No, I think they just roughed him up. He’s very lucky.”
She drags a plastic chair from a nearby table and sits down. “Well, yeah, everyone was worried. After we heard that report about the bodies of two European-looking men lying near Haifa Street, and they said one looked like him and all.
She looks back at me, rolls her eyes, and mouths: “Sorry.” She’s nodding, issuing several “uh-huhs.” She lunges to one side and then the other, like a football player stretching out. “He’ll be all right. No, no. I’m definitely staying.”
A waiter comes to ask me if I want to order anything, and I decline, not wanting to miss what she’s saying.
“Axelrod’s big story? Yeah, I read it. Quite the scoop.” She hesitates. “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know how he gets his stories. But yeah, good for him. I mean, good for us.”
Sam turns and looks at me again. Her lips have the look of sucking on something sour.
“Of course, Miles, I know we need more of that. I’ve got a few things cooking here on the INC that could be really good. Just give me some time. Sorry, Miles? I really have to go. You got me in the middle of trying to hire a new fixer.”
Trying?
She seems frustrated and her expression is very different from the one she wore when she leapt down the stairs.
“Sorry. My editor. Nagging me for investigative stories at two o’clock in the bloody morning. For him, I mean.” She stands the black phone up on the table. Across the top in Arabic and English, it reads Thuraya.
“You can get a mobile phone that works in Iraq?”
She smiles as though I’ve said something silly. “It’s a satellite phone. It connects to a satellite somewhere over the Indian Ocean. You haven’t seen one yet?”
I have to admit that I haven’t, and I wonder, should I have? Our phones have been out of order for weeks. The government said it was because of the US bombing our stations, but now there are rumours that the government itself shut down the lines to prevent the Americans from listening in on any of Saddam’s advisors and figuring out their strategies. Even when we did have service, we couldn’t call overseas. But we could get calls from abroad, and there were only two types of those. A short call from Ziad every month, and a yearly call from one of my father’s old colleagues in England, wishing us a happy Christmas and a jolly good New Year.
“Samara, I must tell you, nobody in our country is allowed to have these kinds of things, not even a satellite
There’s a strange jingling coming from her bag, and she pokes around in it and comes out with a black phone about the size of a large spectacles case.
“Damn. Nabil, I’m sorry. I need to get this. Can you wait a minute?” And I wonder where Sam could think I need to be going in such a hurry that I’d have trouble waiting a minute for her, or five, or twenty. “Of course,” I say, but I feel that she has hardly heard me, because she is already putting the phone to her ear and bellowing into it. “Wait, I can’t hear you. The reception here sucks.” And she walks away, moving to the other end of the pool while holding the phone out straight in front of her, like it could be one of those falcons the men in the Gulf States train to fly and return home again, landing dutifully on its master’s arm.
She then raises the phone to her ear and turns her back towards me, leaving the fat antenna pointed in my direction. I can still hear her from across the pool.
“Hi Miles. Sorry. Can’t always get good reception at the hotel because of the tall buildings.” Sam is quiet for a minute. “Jonah? Yeah, he’s all right. Well, some of Saddam’s security guys actually arrested him while he was filming somewhere without permission and took him to Abu Ghraib. You know, where they torture people for fun. No, I think they just roughed him up. He’s very lucky.”
She drags a plastic chair from a nearby table and sits down. “Well, yeah, everyone was worried. After we heard that report about the bodies of two European-looking men lying near Haifa Street, and they said one looked like him and all.
She looks back at me, rolls her eyes, and mouths: “Sorry.” She’s nodding, issuing several “uh-huhs.” She lunges to one side and then the other, like a football player stretching out. “He’ll be all right. No, no. I’m definitely staying.”
A waiter comes to ask me if I want to order anything, and I decline, not wanting to miss what she’s saying.
“Axelrod’s big story? Yeah, I read it. Quite the scoop.” She hesitates. “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know how he gets his stories. But yeah, good for him. I mean, good for us.”
Sam turns and looks at me again. Her lips have the look of sucking on something sour.
“Of course, Miles, I know we need more of that. I’ve got a few things cooking here on the INC that could be really good. Just give me some time. Sorry, Miles? I really have to go. You got me in the middle of trying to hire a new fixer.”
Trying?
She seems frustrated and her expression is very different from the one she wore when she leapt down the stairs.
“Sorry. My editor. Nagging me for investigative stories at two o’clock in the bloody morning. For him, I mean.” She stands the black phone up on the table. Across the top in Arabic and English, it reads Thuraya.
“You can get a mobile phone that works in Iraq?”
She smiles as though I’ve said something silly. “It’s a satellite phone. It connects to a satellite somewhere over the Indian Ocean. You haven’t seen one yet?”
I have to admit that I haven’t, and I wonder, should I have? Our phones have been out of order for weeks. The government said it was because of the US bombing our stations, but now there are rumours that the government itself shut down the lines to prevent the Americans from listening in on any of Saddam’s advisors and figuring out their strategies. Even when we did have service, we couldn’t call overseas. But we could get calls from abroad, and there were only two types of those. A short call from Ziad every month, and a yearly call from one of my father’s old colleagues in England, wishing us a happy Christmas and a jolly good New Year.
“Samara, I must tell you, nobody in our country is allowed to have these kinds of things, not even a satellite
Similar Books
