For Sayid, the next days passed in a haze of pain and drug-induced dreams. Faces swam above him, voices speaking too fast to understand, or so slowly it was agonizing. As consciousness returned two thoughts occupied his mind. Had she escaped safely? and When would the questioning begin? He knew his previous record would mean nothing. A prisoner had escaped on his watch and his superior officer was dead. He would be lucky to get off with a simple demotion. His career as he had known it was over.
There was no one to answer his questions. Nurses and the doctor came and went. His leg would heal. He was lucky. No permanent damage. So he waited and wondered.
In the middle of the night he was awakened by a noise. Someone was in the room. He sat up, only to be pushed back down, a hand firm on his chest.
"Listen to what I say."
As his eyes adjusted he saw the man speaking. He looked familiar, but Sayid couldn't place him.
"I am not here because I want to be. My sister is a fool, but she is a determined fool. You saved her life, so I will attempt to save yours."
One of her brothers? Kahlid? No. "Assef?" Sayid said
"Yes."
"Is Nadia all right?"
"Yes. Now shut up and listen. One of the guards you bribed has told them everything. They know about the visits and assume that the escape and Omar's death were planned. They will be here soon so you need to decide quickly.
"How do you know this?"
"I know much. There is a hearse outside taking bodies out of the city to be buried. I know the driver and we have switched places for the evening. This will not be pleasant, but I can get you out if you come with me now. Yes or no?""
"My family?"
"They will be disgraced whether you live or die. You might as well live. I have some influence. No harm will some to them if I can help it. We need to leave now."
"Yes."
Assef brought a gurney in from the hall and helped Sayid onto it, covering him with a sheet. He pushed the gurney quickly down the hall and into the ambulance bay at the back of the building. Assef pointed out the hearse. "You will need to get in the back. As I said, it will not be pleasant."
Assef hadn't lied. The smell was overpowering. It was all he could do to climb in and find a spot among the bodies. Two were in plain wooden coffins, but the others were wrapped in sheets and stacked like firewood. There was hardly enough room for him.
"Cover yourself with this." Assef told him, throwing in the sheet from the gurney. He did and soon the overloaded vehicle began to move, taking him away from all he had known. After a long while the car slowed to a stop. Assef opened the back door and Sayid stepped gratefully out into the fresh air. They were standing in front of a small store front on a deserted road.
"The man who lives here will help you continue your journey."
"May I ask where I am going?"
"There wasn't time before." Assef explained. "From here you will go to Ar Rutbah. There is a group of Jordanians there who will take you on to Amman. From there you will be free to go where you wish. You have friends in Cairo, do you not?"
"Some." Sayid was puzzled. "Where is she? Where is Nadia?"
Assef looked at him for a long moment. "By now, she is likely in Amman. She said to tell you she will wait for you there."
Relieved, he limped with Assef's help to the door of the building. Assef knocked twice and entered. The room was small and bare except for a table, two cots, and a generator attached to a small refrigerator and cookstove. A wonderful smell drifted from the stove. At the table, a man raised his head from the book he was reading.
"Ah, Assef, I've been expecting you. Is this the cargo?"
"Yes. I trust you can take it from here."
"Absolutely." And to Sayid he said "Sit down, you must be hungry." Assef stayed standing.
"I need to get back to the city. May Allah bless the rest of your journey."
He began to walk to the door, but turned back to Sayid. "I know what you did cost you. You have my thanks."
Sayid nodded. He ate what the man set in front of him, suddenly famished.
"There is plenty." The man smiled "Have more. You will need your strength."
"Thank you. I don't know your name."
"Nor I yours." The man put his finger to his lips. "It is safer that way."
"But you know Assef."
He laughed. "Everyone knows Assef, and Assef knows everyone." He sat down with his own plate. "You will rest here. A day, maybe two." He said between bites. "Your leg needs to heal. I have medicine for pain, and anti-biotics, but hopefully we will not need them. Once our journey begins we will have to travel quickly. The Baghdad-Amman Road is hazardous. I will take you as far as Ar Rutbah, another 200 miles or so. The Jordanians will meet us there. They have all the papers you will need to cross the border."
"All this...all this costs money. Who?" The man did not answer, but Sayid knew who had made these arrangements. How she had managed it so quickly was the mystery.
"You should rest." The man motioned to one of the cots. "Tomorrow I'll get you cleaned up and into some different clothes."
Sayid didn't think he was tired, but he was asleep the moment his eyes closed. The first undisturbed sleep he'd had in weeks. He slept until midday and awoke to the smell of frying meat and coffee. Whoever this man was, he was well supplied out here in the middle of the desert.
He stretched and got up, putting weight on his injured leg gingerly. To his surprise the pain was considerably less than before. Obviously he had needed the rest.
"You're awake. Come and eat."
They sat together, eating in friendly silence. "There is a shower out back. It's primitive, but it will do. He handed him a folded stack of clothing. "These should fit." Then he sat down, picked up his book and lit a cigarette. "You're moving well. We'll rest you yet today and leave in the morning."
The shower felt almost as good as the sleeping. He was careful of the wound in his leg and re-dressed it with a bandage he found with the clothing. When he was dressed he felt almost himself, except that he had nothing to do. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't had some pressing issue or assignment to take care of. All he could do was think. He thought, of course, of her. He wondered where she was. What would happen when he saw her again? He knew, or thought he knew, what he wanted. Did she want him? It would seem so, but he wasn't sure. His entire life had changed in a few days because of her and it was unsettling not to know the future.
When he returned to the house he saw his host had set up an ancient chess set. "This should help us pass the time." He said. They spent the rest of the day playing. Despite being rusty, he managed a few surprises, but the man beat him soundly in the end.
He slept as well that night as the night before. He was roused before dawn by gentle shaking. "We need to leave soon." The man told him.
The man's car looked to be as old as he was. The paint was completely gone, as was the glass in the side windows, but it ran. It took them several hours to reach Ar Rutbah. When they arrived the car stopped in front of an apartment building and the man motioned inside. "Ask for Hassan. He is expecting you. I wish you luck." He handed him a bag from under the seat. "From Assef," He told him. "A change of clothes and some money." He smiled and said goodbye, waving as he drove off.
Sayid walked cautiously into the building. An old man sat in a chair by the doorway. He looked at Sayid.
"I'm looking for Hassan?" Sayid said.
The man took a receiver from a box on the wall and said something unintelligible into it. Then he looked at Sayid. "Two flights up. First door on the right." He pointed to the stairway.
Sayid climbed the stairs slowly. The long car ride had made his leg stiff and sore. Reaching the top of the second flight he turned right. The door ahead of him stood ajar and he could hear voices arguing.
"I don't care! If you had left when I told you to we wouldn't have this problem." A man's voice, obviously very angry.
"I needed to wait for him."
Sayid's heart pounded. Assef said she was in Amman. But that is her voice. Suddenly he felt self-conscious. He stood in the hallway, staring at the door, unable to take another step. After a moment he shook off his doubt. She had waited for him, after all, what was he afraid of? Before he could get to the door it swung wide. The girth of the man standing there completely blocked the doorway.
"I'm here to see Hassan."
"I am Hassan." The huge man said. "Come in." He backed himself inside so that Sayid could enter. Scanning the room anxiously he saw they were the only two people there. A hallway leading further back was the only clue as to where she might be. Hassan seemed to read his thoughts.
"Yes. Nadia is here, much to my dismay. She was to have left two days ago. She risks much by staying here and not just for herself. She has put my entire operation in jeopardy. If she was not Assef's sister..."
Sayid stared at Hassan, not sure how to respond. He heard a noise and turned his head. A moment later she was in his arms. Hassan left them and neither of them said anything for a long time.
She broke the silence. "Your leg," She said, "Is it all right?"
"It will be, yes." He said. "You sent Assef...you arranged all of this...how?"
"Assef did most of it." She told him. "He doesn't approve of me, but he can't deny me, either." She smiled.
"You're his baby sister."
"I am not a baby. Nor a child. " She said. As if to prove her point, she pulled his face to hers and kissed him. Then, taking him by the hand she led him down the hall into another room, shutting the door behind them. He pulled her close and kissed her again, parting her lips with his tongue. Any resistance either of them felt vanished in the knowledge that they were truly alone for the first time.
Afterward she lay sleeping in his arms. He should have been tired, but he was wide awake, holding her, memorizing every detail. She stirred and opened her eyes, smiling at him.
"Hassan is angry that you stayed here." He said softly.
She raised herself on one elbow and looked at him. "Hassan is a mother hen. He is worried that his operation here will be compromised. If he didn't worry and eat he would do nothing!"
"What is his operation?"
Nadia's face darkened. "It is better that you do not know."
His lips brushed her neck and he said "Considering everything, I think it is better if I do know."
She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and took a deep breath. "Hassan is a smuggler of sorts." She began. "He smuggles people into and out of Iraq with help from Assef and others...the Jordanians we will meet soon, hopefully, and a group from Istanbul. He has contacts with the Americans also, but it is too dangerous to work with them right now."
"He said you have put everyone in danger by staying to wait for me."
Nadia made a face. "As long as we are in Iraq we are in danger, all of us. It has nothing to do with when I choose to leave. Where will you go from Amman?" She asked, changing the subject. "Cairo?"
"I know some people there." He said. "I was thinking...maybe you would want to come, too."
"Do you want me to?"
"Yes."
She sat up, keeping the sheet around herself. She was quiet, and he was afraid to press the point. Finally she said. "I want to be with you, but I'm not sure what you expect." He said nothing, so she went on. "I'm not ready to be anyone's wife, perhaps I never will be. I don't want anyone making decisions for me or telling me what to do. " She stopped. "You are laughing at me!" She reached out to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist.
He laughed again. "Do you honestly think that I would ever imagine telling you what to do? You seem perfectly capable of making decisions on your own. You've certainly done that up to this point."
"Yes. And many people, including my family, would be happy to see someone else deciding for me. Do you think it is so easy to put the way we were raised behind us, just because we want to?"
"Not easy, but possible."
It was her turn to laugh now, but he pulled the sheet away and kissed her and the argument was forgotten as they made love again.
They couldn't get enough of each other over the next few days. Nadia knew it was reckless to begin this relationship in Hassan's house. He could very well be reporting everything to her brother. Assef would not be pleased, but she didn't care. She was used to having what she wanted.
Sometimes though, she worried that this time she would lose herself. Sayid seemed so sure of what he wanted. He made it sound so simple. She was only sure that she loved him. They continued to argue, playfully, but still disagreeing, about her coming to Cairo, and about marriage and all that came with it. Whenever he saw he was losing the argument, he would kiss her, or touch her, and she would forget what had seemed so important. She worried that he took her physical response as a surrender.
They lay together, her back pressed to his chest, his breathing soft against her neck.
"I don't think I want to go to Cairo." She said. She felt his body tense.
She turned to face him. "We could stay in Amman. I know people. It's a beautiful city." She smiled at him hopefully.
"I have to find some kind of work. My connections are in Cairo."
"I know , but..."
He interrupted her. "Do you want to stay in Amman for any other reason?"
"What do you mean?" She flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly it felt like he was interrogating her again.
"I mean that it would be easier for you to be in touch with people to know what was going on here if you were in Amman as opposed to Cairo."
She said nothing.
"So," He looked down at her. "I am right? You want to keep your hand in things here?"
"And if I do?" She was angry now, but fighting back tears. "You would have me come to Cairo where I know no one but you. Do you want me to be dependant on you?"
"No." He said quietly. "I want you to be happy. Perhaps Amman is a better choice for you."
"For me...alone?" She asked.
"Do you want me there?"
"I want us to be together."
"Why?"
Nadia was quiet for a long time, weighing the consequences of what she wanted to say. "I want us to be together because I love you. I don't know what I want beyond that. I need time." She looked at him. "Just say you'll stay in Amman for a while. Then, if you aren't happy, we can talk about Cairo."
"You are stubborn." He smiled. " I suppose I could be persuaded to stay in Amman."
"Oh? And how could I persuade you?" She smiled, relieved.
"I'm sure I can think of something."