‘Okay. Stay on the line.’ She said to the others: ‘Excuse me for a minute.’
Next door to the Dining Room was a small room known as the Beauty Salon, though Pauline did not use it as such. However, it had a TV and she went in and turned it on.
Moore was in a basketball arena filled with his fans. He stood on a stage with a microphone in his hand and spoke without notes. He was wearing cowboy boots with pointed toes. Behind him was a backdrop of stars and stripes.
He was saying: ‘Now, how many of the good people in this room could have told President Green not to put her faith in the United Nations?’
The camera panned across the audience, most of them dressed casually, with ‘Jimmy’ on their Tshirts and baseball caps.
‘Oh!’ said Moore. ‘All of you have your hands up!’ They laughed. ‘So what we’re saying is that anybody here could have set Pauline straight!’ He came all the way downstage and looked into the auditorium. ‘I see some little kids here in the front with their hands up.’ The camera quickly moved to the front row. ‘Well, maybe even they could have told her.’ He was like a stand-up comic, with all the pauses in the right places.
‘Now, if you choose to make me your president . . .’ There was a long round of applause for the modesty of if you choose. ‘Let me tell you how I will speak to the president of China.’ He paused. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long.’ Pause for laughter.
‘I’m going to say: “You can do whatever you want, Mr President – but the next time you see me coming, you’d better run!”’
The cheers were deafening.
Pauline muted the sound and spoke into her phone. ‘What do you think, Sandip?’
‘It’s crap, but he’s damn good.’
‘Should we respond?’
‘Not immediately. It would just ensure that the clip runs all day tomorrow. Wait until we have some good ammunition.’
‘Thanks, Sandip. Goodnight.’ Pauline ended the call and returned to the Dining Room. The appetizer had been cleared away and a main course of fried chicken was on the table. ‘I’m sorry,’ Pauline said to Gerry and Pippa. ‘You know how it is.’
Gerry said: ‘That cowboy giving you trouble?’
‘Nothing I can’t handle.’
‘Good.’
After dinner they had coffee in the East Sitting Hall and resumed the discussion.
Gerry said: ‘I still think what Pippa needs is to see more of her mother.’
Pauline was going to have to confront this. She said: ‘You know how much I wish I could do that, and you know just why I can’t.’
‘Shame.’
‘You’ve said it twice now.’
He shrugged. ‘I think it’s true.’
‘I have to ask why you continue to say it when you know there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Let me guess: you have a theory.’
‘Well, all you achieve is to shift the blame onto me.’
‘This isn’t about blame.’
‘It’s hard to see any other purpose.’
‘You’re going to think what you like, but I believe Pippa needs more of her mother’s attention.’ He finished his coffee and picked up the TV remote control.
Pauline returned to the West Wing and went to the Study to work. She felt frustrated. A UN resolution was a little thing, really, but she had been unable to achieve it. She hoped Chess’s plan of tightening sanctions on North Korea would do some good.
She had to review a summary of the annual Defense Spending Bill but, alone in the little room, late in the evening, her mind wandered. Perhaps it was Gerry, not Pippa, who needed to see more of Pauline. He could be attributing to Pippa the feelings of rejection that he himself was experiencing. That was the kind of thing a shrink might say.
Gerry appeared self-sufficient, but Pauline knew he could be needy. Now perhaps he wanted more from her. It was not sex: soon after getting married they had settled into a routine of making love about once a week, usually on Sunday morning, and that was clearly plenty for him. Pauline would have liked more but she hardly had the time anyway. However, Gerry had needs other than sex. He wanted to be stroked mentally. He had to be told he was wonderful. I should do that more, Pauline thought.
She sighed. The whole world wanted more of her attention.
She wished Gerry could have been more positive. Perhaps Pippa would be a supportive friend one day, but that time seemed a long way off.
I have to support everyone else, she thought, feeling sorry for herself.
Of course I do, that’s why I’m president.
Stop being such a wimp, Pauline, she thought, and she returned her attention to the budget for defence.
CHAPTER 10
The Bourbon Street nightclub had been Kiah’s last chance of making a living in Chad, she knew. But she had failed. I’m a failure as a prostitute, she thought; should I be ashamed of that, or proud?
She ought to have guessed what the job really was. Fatima had offered a home, food, a uniform, and even childcare: no one would do that just to hire waitresses. Kiah had been naive.
Should she have stuck it out? Young Zariah had. But Zariah had been happy with the work. She found it exciting and glamorous, and the money she made on that first night was probably more than she had ever held in her hand before. If Zariah could do it, Kiah asked herself, why not me? She had had sex before, many times, though only with Salim. It did not hurt. There were ways to avoid becoming pregnant. Prostitutes had to do it with unpleasant men as well as nice ones, but every woman at times had to smile and be charming to rude, ugly men. Had she been squeamish and cowardly? Had she thrown away the opportunity to provide for her child and herself? The questions were pointless: she could not do it and never would.
So her only hope was Hakim and his bus.
Her fastidiousness could kill her. She might die on the journey, long before reaching her dream destination of France. She could easily imagine Hakim abandoning all his passengers if he thought he could get away with the money. Even if he proved honest, something as simple as a breakdown could be fatal in the desert. And people said the smugglers sometimes used dangerous small boats for the voyage across the Mediterranean Sea.
But if she was going to die, so be it. She could not do what she could not do.
She disposed of her few possessions to the other village wives: mattresses, cooking pots, jars, cushions and rugs. She called them all into her house, announced who was to have what, and told them they could take the stuff as soon as she left.
That night she lay awake, thinking of all the things that had happened in this house. She had lain with Salim for the first time here. She had given birth to Naji on this floor, and everyone in the village had heard her crying out in pain. She had been here when they brought Salim’s body home and gently laid it on the rug, and she had thrown herself on him and kissed him as if her love might bring him back to life.
On the day before the bus was due to leave, she woke before dawn. She put a few clothes in a bag along with some food that would not spoil: smoked fish, dried fruit, and salted mutton. She looked around the room and said goodbye to her house.
She left home at the break of day, with the bag in one hand and Naji on the opposite hip. At the edge of the silent village she looked back at the roofs of palm leaves. She had been born here and had lived here for all of her twenty years. She looked at the shrinking lake. In the silver light its surface was as calm and still as death. She would never see it again.
She passed through the village of Yusuf and Azra without stopping.
After an hour Naji became heavy, and she had to stop for a rest. After that she stopped often and her progress was slow.