Countdown in Cairo

FIFTY-THREE

On December 24, Alex observed her thirtieth birthday. The event was a bittersweet occasion, considering the events of the year. But she celebrated with a small group of friends in Washington. As was frequently the case with her birthday, falling on the day it did, it was a half-Christmas half-birthday celebration. Friends from work filtered in, as well as friends from the gym. Don Tomás dropped by to speak five languages and keep everyone amused. And once again, Alex missed Robert horribly.

She went to a Christmas Eve service at her church in Washington and then went home alone. On Christmas morning, she did something unusual. She slept.

Over the next two days, she packed. The job in New York had been offered to her, and she had accepted it. The moving men arrived on the twenty-seventh. Her personal bags were packed and stashed in the trunk of her car. The listening devices she had personally disabled. One morning when she was out for a walk, she threw them into the Potomac.

As the moving men worked, she dropped by a few of the establishments that she had patronized in the neighborhood. She said her good-byes.

When she went back to her apartment, it was empty. She stood and looked at it for a long, cold moment. An instinct told her to take a walk through and then another instinct warned her not to. Enough was enough. She closed the door.

She rapped softly on Don Tomás’s door to say good-bye.

He answered. She gave him a shrug and tried to keep her eyes from welling. He did much the same. Then they embraced in a wordless hug. He had been as close to family as anyone in the last days-older brother, uncle, and advisor. She would miss him.

Then she went down to her car.

She turned the key in the ignition, came up out of the garage, and left her block for the final time as a resident. She drove past the monuments again and then watched them recede in her rearview mirror. Thus, on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday afternoon, Alex moved out of Washington and drove north to New York.

By this time, Janet, her protégée, had found her own friends, her own apartment, and a new job. She was happy, living in Brooklyn, and anxious to introduce Alex to her new boyfriend, who-against Alex’s best advice-was one of her former bodyguards.