Finding Nouf Page 16

  Jahiz gave an exasperated sigh. Nayir paid for Nouf's glasses, thanked Jahiz again, and escorted Miss Hijazi out of the store. They stopped on the sidewalk.

  "Why would she buy glasses without a prescription?" he asked.

  "Maybe for show?"

  He nodded uncertainly and handed her the glasses but realized that she wasn't looking at his hands. "Here," he said. "Take them."

  She accepted the glasses, but she seemed lost in her thoughts. For an awkward moment Nayir stood there trying not to look at her, not certain how to say goodbye.

  "Thank you, Nayir," she said. "I can walk myself to work from here."

  He was so surprised to hear her say his name that his goodbye came too late, after she'd turned away. Confused and embarrassed, he went back to his Jeep.

  16

  A CARDBOARD SIGN at the doorway read, WOMEN ONLY. Yet the doors were wide open, with people passing in and out—women mostly, all unveiled and smiling. Two Arab men strode blithely into the room. Both wore Western suits and were chatting in English, but one man had a string of prayer beads woven through his fingers.

  Buttoning his coat, Nayir followed them inside.

  The hotel conference room was cavernous. Thick carpets, heavy drapes, and the presence of so many people had a muffling effect, quelling loud voices and the garrulous laughter that always seemed to accompany groups of Americans. Yet the crowd gave off a sense of conclusion. A few Indonesian busboys were clearing the wreckage from a dozen banquet tables while the guests milled about, reluctant to abandon their fun. In passing, Nayir drew a few untroubled glances.

  A bazaar curved like a queue through the center of the room. There were three dozen tables of handcrafted gifts, art supplies, books, baked goods, children's clothing. Nayir made his way to a table of books. He picked up How to Survive a Year in Saudi Arabia: A Handbook for Expat Wives and Stitching Like a Bedouin: Authentic Patterns for Macramé, Embroidery, and Weaving Projects! and thought, finally, there could be no doubt that this was the American Ladies of Jeddah meeting. He scanned the other book tables, studied their occupants from the corner of his eye, and was just about to ask about a cookbook called 1,001 Recipes from Arabia when a certain stall caught his attention. It had a display of paper art yet was small among the others, and a reminder that sometimes in seeking the obvious one finds the subtle instead.

  From the depths of a pocket, Nayir produced the yellow-patterned stork he'd found in Nouf's bag of possessions. He hid the damaged bird in the cup of his fist and drew closer to the stall, grateful that other people stood nearby to deflect from his massive male presence.

  The stall's owner, a tiny woman in a T-shirt and jeans, sat on a high, skinny chair. She was absorbed in her work. Nayir's first shock was seeing a woman so close, his second was seeing a woman unveiled, wearing tight clothes and apparently no undergarments. Immediately—almost—he reverted to habit and looked at her hands. They were nimble and quick, wielding scissors better suited to a mouse as they snipped tiny squares from a sheet of red paper. And then a glance at her face: green eyes, warm, ruddy cheeks, dry wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes, odd on such an elfin, youthful girl.

  Her artwork lay before her, its humor uncloaking her further still. From delicate colored paper she had recreated a Bedouin teapot, the holy Kaaba, a camel, some sheep, and an entirely too romantic desert scene replete with embroidered cushions and a hookah. Between these Nayir saw a darker component: an obese prince on a throne, on his lap a whole tray of half-eaten origami hamburgers and McDonald's wrappers. Fat thighs spilled over the edge of the seat. He seemed disgusted, stifling a burp. Another scene showed a man standing on a prayer rug with a GPS system embedded in it: "Always pray toward Mecca!" But beside it a voice bubble quoted him shouting into his cell phone, "I'm sick of these infidels invading our culture!" But the worst one of all, the one that made Nayir blush, was a string of origami men in white robes holding hands like paper dolls. She had sketched their faces, and they were smiling lasciviously. A sign beneath their feet read, "Men are more fun."

  He wondered if she was so wry about her own culture.

  The other customers had wandered away and left him studying her work in a silence that suddenly felt unbreakable. She paused in her cutting.

  He forced a look at her face. It was okay, this face. It invited a look. Americans did that. Summoning the English he'd learned from Samir's friends and from his own dealings with desert tourists, he said, "This is your work," not sure if it was a question or a statement until she glanced at him and answered.

  "Yep."

  The origami stork was now a crumpled ball in his sweaty fist. He set the stork on the table and attempted to straighten it.

  The woman leaned forward and took the bird, studying it while adjusting its folds.

  "A lovebird," she said. "For fertility. It looks like one of mine. Where did you get it?"

  "Do you know a man named Eric Scarberry?"

  She let her eyes linger on his coat. "Yep. Sure do. Who's askin'?"

  "Me."

  She saw that he was serious and laughed, a sweet prickle. "Well, all righty."

  He had the sudden urge to satisfy his curiosity: to ask her name, why she was here, was she married, did she have children, and were they all like her, blond and boyish? What was she doing in Saudi, a woman like this, not really a woman but almost a man? Was America in some general way embarrassed by women like her, or was she normal? But what he said was, "Do you know that Eric is missing?"

  She set the scissors on the table, reflexively chewing her bottom lip. "You a cop?"

  "No."

  "What, then?"

  "An investigator."

  "A police investigator?"

  "No, I'm just investigating for a friend."

  She nodded, reflecting, then suddenly shot him a devilish smile. "Then you've got to explain the coat."

  He looked at her hands. "How about this: if you answer my question, I'll answer yours. I want to know if you can help me find Eric."

  He dared another look at her face, right into her eyes, and found that she couldn't meet his gaze. She picked up her scissors and continued to clip, still chewing her lip. When she looked up again, it was exactly as if she'd veiled herself within.

  "That's not a fair deal," she said. "Answering your question is going to have more implications than answering mine."

  "How do you know?"

  She eyed him. "Then you go first."

  "Only if you promise not to laugh," he said.

  She smiled, a mercurial spasm. "Okay. I won't."

  "All right. I bought the coat because I wanted a ... tilasm?"

  "A talisman."

  "Something to help me when..." He looked up at the ceiling, unable to describe the thing he had not yet described, even to himself.

  She set down her scissors, and leaning over the table, she extended a hand. "I'm Juliet," she said. "And you?"

  He stared at the hand, considered it, then cupped it with the same care he had taken with the stork. "Nayir ash-Sharqi."

  "Nice to meet you." Her smile was warm, curious, no longer so sexy. "I gave the stork to Eric," she said. "Last year. I don't usually make storks—they're so clichéd—but that's what happens when you fall in love. Every dumb cliché..." She wiped the paper scraps from her lap and stood up. "But I really did want to have babies with him. Lots of babies. Like ten. Or twenty." Her eyes betrayed a sadness. "I'm too old now for twenty, but I could still do ten, if I got busy fast."

  Nayir gave a polite smile.

  "And I don't really know where to find Eric," she said breezily. "We lost touch after we broke up. He used to live at Club Jed, but I've heard he moved in with his boy—" She froze, glanced at Nayir. "Does that answer your question?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  Nayir looked away and noticed the two men who'd come in earlier, the Arab men in George Bush suits. They were talking to a blond American in a skimpy dress that might have been an undergarment, for all he
knew. It was clear that the woman was enjoying the attention and that the men, slightly awkward, were trying to see how far they could go. Testing the Americans. A cultural study. And he was suddenly ashamed, of himself, of his pleasure in talking to a woman he'd known for only ten minutes, who could just as easily have fallen for the men in the suits. She was ridiculously free, Miss Shake-My-Hand-and-Watch-Them-Jiggle, Miss I'll-Give-You-Ten-Children, and by the way what's your name?

  "So you don't know where I can find Eric," he said.

  She didn't reply.

  "Aren't you even curious—" he began, motioning to the stork.

  "No." She jerked up. "I don't think I could take it." A wave of the hand. An old wound, yet as soft as an overripe fig.

  Nayir plucked the stork from the table. "Well, the woman who had it is dead now."

  Juliet looked up. "Who?"

  "Her name was Nouf ash-Shrawi. Did you know her?" She kept her eyes fixed on Nayir. "No."

  "She died in the desert recently. She had the bird when she died, but it was in better condition. I crushed it by accident."

  "And you think Eric did it—that he killed her?"

  Nayir shrugged. "Eric may have known her. I'm just looking for him."

  She stared blankly at the floor, sifting through what seemed like messy emotions. "I'm sure he had nothing to do with her death." She laughed nervously. "If you're after him for sex crimes, believe me, you're after the wrong man."

  "I just need to ask him some questions," he said.

  "You're not going to arrest him, are you?"

  He shook his head. "I don't have that power."

  She started biting her thumbnail.

  "Look, if he's innocent, then this will prove it. I'll just get a sample of his DNA and he'll be cleared. No problem."

  "How did you find me, anyway?" she asked.

  He explained about finding the cookbook. She seemed suspicious when he told her about Eric's apartment, but the suspicion gave way to a certain resignation.

  Quietly she began to gather her belongings. She folded them flat, slipped them into plastic folders, and stacked them in a briefcase. Others she placed in boxes—the little scenes, the Cadillac. He felt the impulse to assist but didn't dare; it would have been like touching her skin.

  "Eric doesn't live in the compound," she said. "He keeps the apartment, but he's never there. He lives in the old town with a friend of his."

  Nayir heard an unpleasant emphasis on the word "friend." "Where does this friend live?"

  She gave him an address. Nayir thanked her, but she'd become absorbed in her thoughts and only managed a distracted reply.

  "Just don't tell him I sent you," she said. "And don't hurt him. I'm trusting you to treat him with respect."

  "Of course," Nayir said, and he meant it.

  17

  A MAN OPENED the giant walnut door. He was in his forties, with graying blond hair and keen blue eyes. He looked Nayir up and down.

  "May I help you?"

  "I'm looking for Eric Scarberry."

  "I am Eric."

  "My name is Nayir ash-Sharqi. I'm a friend of the Shrawis. I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind."

  Eric seemed to hesitate, but he stepped aside. "Well, any friend of the Shrawis is a friend of mine. Please come in." Nayir entered a cool foyer.

  "What is this about?" Eric asked.

  "The death of Nouf ash-Shrawi."

  Eric nodded sternly and led Nayir down an elegant hallway and into an enormous sitting room at the center of the house. Broad cedar beams studded a majestic ceiling. The dark wood floors offset the white sofas and chairs, and a slanted skylight let in a touch of sun. The room might have been welcoming if not for the books, thousands of them, each as dusty and ragged as if it had been toted to the desert and back. They crowded the walls, the tables, the chairs. They were stacked on the floor, emitting fungal smells. At their highest reaches, they loomed over the room with the threat of a seismic collapse.

  "Have a seat," Eric said. "I'll be right back."

  Nayir glanced at the books. Archaeology textbooks, every one of them. He had never seen so many in one place. As he picked his way through the intellectual remnants of one man's obsession with All Things Dead, the floorboards creaked dangerously beneath his weight.

  The sight of a courtyard caught his attention. Slipping through a pair of French doors, he entered a cool grotto shaded with lemon trees and palms. The ground shimmered with the vibrant blue of medieval tilework, which rose to form a circular fountain in the center of the patio. Nayir dipped his hands in the water and splashed his neck. How much of it would evaporate each day? Gallons, he thought. Only the superrich could afford such waste. He wiped his neck on his sleeve and looked around. Most Ottoman-style homes in the old town were owned by royalty and Jeddah's elite families; the few that went to market cost millions. Yet this one, it seemed, was owned—or rented—by an American.

  Nayir remembered how Juliet had referred to Eric's "friend," and he wondered if Eric was gay. It seemed impossible and foolish—a gay American living in Saudi Arabia. Did he know that the kingdom executed gay men for breaking religious law? According to Nayir's friend Azim, there were plenty of gay men in the Corniche district, but they were discreet, and the authorities tended to leave them alone. When the police wanted to capture gay criminals and make an example of them, they went after foreign men.

  Eric appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame, as lithe as a woman. Nayir kept his eyes on a sprawling mosaic that formed a geometric symphony on the southern wall while he studied Eric from his peripheral vision. He wore khaki trousers and a white linen shirt. His hair, swept back like sails in a breeze, shone despite the shade, and with that faint impatience in his slouch, he made Nayir uneasy.

  "Tea?" Eric asked. "Or coffee?"

  Nayir faced him. He had trouble matching the svelte Eric with his previous image of a man who would live in a cramped hovel in Club Jed, only returning to pay his bills, and killing his bird out of neglect. "Tea is fine, thank you."

  Eric nodded and disappeared. He was, Nayir thought, a terrible match for Juliet as well. She was far too open and friendly, yet there had been a genuine sweetness in her. Nayir didn't know many Americans, but he knew a jackal when he saw one.

  He returned to the sitting room just as Eric entered with a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses. He set them on the coffee table and motioned for Nayir to sit in a powder puff chair that looked to offer all the comforts of a Venus flytrap. Eric returned to the kitchen. Carefully Nayir perched on the edge of the seat and watched with amazement as Eric came back with a large plate of meats, bean paste and breads, spinach pastries that blossomed like roses, broiled peppers and eggplants set like leaves. He noticed Eric's arms, reddened as if they'd been scrubbed clean to the elbow.

  Eric poured a drink, sat in the opposite chair, and, without formalities, invited Nayir to eat.

  Nayir was unsure about the food. Although refusing it would be awkward and rude, he half wanted to do it, just to see Eric's reaction. But he forced himself to eat a little.

  "I always believe in treating guests as if they were kings," Eric said, his nut-brown voice deepened by the food. "It's one of the things I love about this country."

  "You're an archaeologist?"

  "No, I'm an oil research analyst. My roommate is the archaeologist." He motioned to the books.

  "That's an odd combination."

  "Well, we do have the desert in common."

  "Where exactly do you work?" Nayir asked.

  "In the mountains, mostly. The Arabian Shield. There are a number of different sites."

  Nayir remembered that the Bedouin map had shown a possible drilling site not too far from the wadi. "I'd like to know precisely where they are, if you don't mind."

  Eric hesitated. "Why?"

  "Nouf was found in the desert not far from an oil research site."

  "You think I had something to do with it?"

  "Did you?" />
  "Of course not!"

  Nayir studied his face and decided that his indignation was real. "How do you know the Shrawis?" he asked.

  "They've funded my roommate's research in the past. They're very generous donors."

  "Is that how you met Nouf?"

  If the question alarmed Eric, there was only a slight unease on his face to show for it. "I really didn't know her that well."

  "I have it on good word that you were helping her plan an escape to New York."

  Eric set his bread on the table. His mouth looked pinched. "I have no idea what you mean."

  "I understand that you were meeting Nouf at the Corniche to arrange the terms of your deal."

  Eric drew himself up, but Nayir noticed that his hands were shaking. "Listen—Mr. Sharqi, is it? Are you with the police?"

  "I'm doing this for the family."

  "Yes, fine. Then as a courtesy to the family I'll tell you this. I'm not in the habit of courting young girls from powerful families. If you think her death was suspicious, then I suggest you look into her life, in particular her family life, since that's probably all she knew."

  "According to my sources, she was meeting you in various places around the city to arrange a future for herself in New York. You were going to help her get a visa, an apartment, maybe admission to a university—everything she would need."

  "And your proof of this is...?"

  Nayir reached into his pocket and took out the origami stork. "Have you seen this before?"

  "I've seen dozens."

  Nayir set the stork on the table. "You gave it to Nouf."

  Eric snorted. "I suppose you can prove that."

  Unflinching, Nayir reached back into his pocket and took out the key that Muhammad had given him. "And this? Does it look familiar?"

  Eric blanched.

  "It's a key to your apartment in New York. You also gave this key to Nouf. You told her she could stay there for a while, until her own place was ready." Eric was silent, so Nayir went on. "I think you were helping her. She needed someone to arrange her new life, and she needed an American. You probably liked the idea of assisting. There was money in it. Probably a lot of money. Who knows, maybe you even liked her? She was young and sweet. It was the perfect plan—until you discovered she was pregnant."