The Cairo Affair

3

Sophie called from the spare cell phone as he was driving, and without preface she asked what he’d found. “Not much,” he said, then promised to be home soon.

He had begun the day full of good intentions, still regretting his lie about Balašević, but he realized that he couldn’t open up to her yet. Not until he had a better idea of what was going on. Harry was right—to assume that they really knew anything was folly, and he was terrified of saddling her with half-truths and rumors that would eat away at her. He believed he understood to some degree what she was going through, and he knew how, in the absence of verifiable truths, guilt and paranoia could ruin a person. Her last moments with her husband had been spent admitting to an affair—how could she not be broken by this?

He stopped by a restaurant for takeout, and when he got home Sophie was at her iPad, sitting exactly where he had left her. Her skin was pink, though—she must have gotten some sun on the terrace, perhaps gazing at those pyramids. She looked serious. “Something?” he asked as he gave her a kiss, but she shook her head. She was looking at Yahoo! News.

He presented grilled chicken, and though she played along well he felt in his bones that she was keeping something from him. She said, “Did you find out about Jibril Aziz?”

He covered his hesitation by walking into the kitchen to plate the food. “Not much,” he called to her. “Just his position in the Office of Collection Strategies. I sent him an e-mail—maybe he’ll get back to me.”

“No phone number?”

“None,” he lied.

“Why not?”

Because he’s a corpse, Stan wanted to say, but he’d thought through this on his drive home. Aziz was Sophie’s only solid lead, and if she knew he was dead there would be no reason for her to stay. “Sometimes they don’t list numbers,” he said, muddling his way through some semblance of bureaucratic logic. “Either they’re changing offices or the section head wants them undisturbed because of a project.”

“How about a wife? A family?”

“None,” he lied again, remembering the panicky woman on the phone.

He could hear the frustration in her silence. He said, “I’ve got a few leads I can follow up on tomorrow.”

“Like what?”

“Well, he’s Libyan by birth, and I’ve sent out feelers to some of the exile groups mentioned in the Stumbler memos.” He was surprised by the fluidity of his own invention. “If he’s moving in their circles, we should be able to track him down easily.”

“Okay,” he heard her mutter.

How much did they lie to one another? he wondered as he collected utensils. How often had they lied? He flashed suddenly on his own parents—a father who lived by lies, and a mother who allowed her husband’s lies to drive her to alcoholism. Though divorce had not been a part of their worldview, by the time his father died they were only a washed-out facsimile of a married couple.

Maybe this was why he decided, despite his fears, to be a little more open with Sophie. He wanted something lasting with her, something more permanent in his life of transience—and that required a measure of risk. Not much, but some. Over dinner, he said, “I need to tell you a few things about Emmett.”

He told her that, last year, he had discovered Emmett was leaking information. He paused, searching for a reaction in her stony gaze. He found nothing, so he said, “Emmett was reporting to Zora Balašević.”

She blinked a few times, digesting this, then made the connection that he’d feared would be her first stop. “You pretended you’d never heard of her. You lied to me.”

“You caught me off guard. I’m sorry, I won’t do that again.”

“You lied,” she repeated.

He saw the hurt in her face and felt the desire to slam his own face against the edge of the table. Instead, he said, “You just appeared. Suddenly, back in my life. I was confused. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. But I’m telling you now: I won’t do it again.” That, perhaps, was the biggest lie. “Do you believe me?”

The hurt was taking residence in her features. She nodded almost imperceptibly, but it was a nod, then she said, “Go on.”

He cleared his throat and wiped his lips with a napkin. “When I discovered it, I confronted him. I told him to cut it out. Do that, and no one need ever know. But I think he was more scared of whatever Balašević was holding over his head. I could have just reported to Langley, but that would have ended in disaster. Instead, I brought it to Harry.”

After a while of staring, she said, “He told me this. Before. It.”

He frowned. “About me, too?”

She nodded again, and the understanding flooded into him. This was the secret she’d been carrying the previous night, the distance he’d felt between them. She’d known from the start that he was holding back, and she’d been waiting for this moment. He’d been right to open up to her. He watched her get up from the dining table and sit on the sofa, where she’d apparently spent most of the day. She said, “Where is Zora?”

He followed her and settled down beside her. “Serbia. She went back home in September. Since Emmett was gone there was no reason for her to stay.”

Sophie blinked, taking this in. He waited for her to ask more, for the questions had to have been numerous, but she didn’t push yet. He said, “She told Emmett she was working for the Serbs. That was a lie.”

She raised her head to look squarely at him, squinting. “What? Are you sure?”

“My Serb contact says that by then she was working for the Egyptians.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t believe anybody.” After a lengthy silence, he added, “But, yes, I suppose I do believe him.”

Her gaze wandered around the room before returning to him, eyes moist. “He told me he was innocent. Emmett.”

“He told me that, too.”

“Why didn’t you believe him?”

Stan sighed. “Because he met with her.”

“How often?” she asked, interest now in her face.

“Just once that we verified. But we had a look at his computer—he took home the same files that were leaked.”

She nodded at that, and while she looked as if she might cry, she also looked as if she believed him, so he didn’t bother saying that Balašević also claimed that Emmett had been innocent. What was the point? Finally, she said, “What kind of disaster?”

“What?”

“You said that if you’d brought Emmett’s crime to Langley, it would have ended in disaster.”

“Right.”

“Well?”

He paused. “They would have taken him out of Cairo. He’d have been ruined.”

“But he was giving away secrets.”

“The disaster is that you would have left, too.”

She drank some wine, giving him no sign that she understood the sentimentality of his statement.

He said, “What did Balašević have on Emmett?”

She sighed loud and long, then leaned closer and laid her head against his chest. He raised an arm to hold on to her, wondering where this sudden tenderness was coming from. Exhaustion? Was the tenderness real, or did she feel she owed him? Did she believe she had a choice?

That was a question. What choices did Sophie Kohl have in Cairo, and who was in control when Stan kissed her neck and stroked her leg, making his desire clear? When she responded with a hand on his thigh, then raised her face so that he could reach her lips, what was motivating her? A widow fresh off her husband’s murder wasn’t expected to reciprocate like this—but what did he really know about widowhood? He suspected there was a whole world of complications and motives inside of Sophie that he would never get in touch with, so that it would always be impossible to say precisely what bent her to his will at that moment.

That night, though, he set aside these concerns. She was with him, finally, and his appetite rose. They were out of most of their clothes while still in the living room, and then she—she, not he—led him to the bedroom, where she allowed him to finally have her.

Afterward, he watched her drift into sleep, feeling possessive and eager and childlike. It was so much better than it had been before, and in that postcoital glow he resolved to put all his efforts into taking care of her. Clear up the mysteries around them and quell her fears and confusions. She was so still that he held a hand under her nose and waited to feel her warm exhale; then he rested a hand on her hip under the covers, and closed his eyes. He had no answers, but some things are better than answers.