She hesitated over jewellery. Marie-Anatole Sadoul owned and ran the Travers company that produced high-class bling, among other things. Nothing in Tamara’s jewel box was expensive enough to compete with whatever Tab’s maman might have on. Tamara decided to be contrarian, and wear something she had made herself. She picked out a pendant of an ancient Tuareg arrowhead. In places the Sahara was littered with such relics, so it was not precious, but it was interesting and different. It was carved of stone and carefully shaped, with serrated edges. Tamara had simply drilled a hole in its wide base and threaded it with a narrow piece of rawhide that she slung around her neck. The stone was dark grey and toned nicely with her dress.
Karim’s eyes widened appreciatively when he saw how smart she looked, though he did not comment. Tamara sat opposite him at what was evidently the proprietor’s table and accepted a cup of bitter coffee. They talked about the battle at the refugee camp eleven days earlier. Karim said: ‘We’re pleased that President Green did not believe the Sudanese lies about us invading their territory.’
‘The president had an eyewitness report.’
Karim raised his eyebrows. ‘From you?’
‘I got a personal phone call from her thanking me.’
‘Well done! Have you met her?’
‘I worked on her congressional election campaign, years ago.’
‘Very impressive.’ His congratulations were tinged with something else, and she realized she needed to be careful. Karim was a big shot because he knew the General, and he would not like to feel that Tamara might be an even bigger shot because she knew the American president. She decided to play it down a bit. ‘She does this all the time, calls ordinary people, a driver, a cop, a reporter on a local paper, and thanks them for doing a good job.’
‘She gets good publicity from it!’
‘Exactly.’ Tamara felt she had reduced herself back to normal size, and she was ready to ask her difficult question. ‘By the way, one of our drones is missing – did you know?’
Karim hated to admit ignorance. He would always pretend he already knew. The only time he would claim unawareness was when he wanted to hide the fact that he really did know something. So she reckoned that if he now said: ‘Yes, I heard about that,’ he probably knew nothing; whereas if he said: ‘I had no idea,’ it meant he knew all about it.
He hesitated for a significant fraction of a second, then he said: ‘Really? A drone missing? I had no idea.’
So you knew, she thought. Well, well. Pushing for confirmation, she said: ‘We thought maybe the General had it.’
‘Certainly not!’ Karim tried to look indignant. ‘Why, what would we do with it?’
‘I don’t know. He might think it’s just nice to have one, like –’ she pointed to the large complicated diving watch on Karim’s left wrist – ‘like your watch.’ If Karim was being honest, he would laugh now and say: ‘Yes, of course, a drone is nice to have in your pocket, even if you never use it.’
But he did not. Solemnly he said: ‘The General would never wish to have such a powerful weapon without the approval of our American allies.’
This sanctimonious bullshit verified Tamara’s instinct. She had the information she needed, so she changed the subject. ‘Are the armies observing the demilitarized zone along the border with Sudan?’ she asked.
‘So far, yes.’
As they chatted about Sudan, Tamara pondered Karim’s question: What would the General do with an American drone? He might just keep it as a superfluous trophy, never to be used, just as Karim, living in the landlocked desert country of Chad, was never going to need a watch that was water resistant to a depth of 100 metres. But the General was a sly schemer, as he had proved with his ambush, and he might well have a more sinister purpose.
Tamara had all the intelligence she had been hoping to get from Karim today. She took her leave and returned to her car. She would report this conversation later. First she had to be assessed by Tab’s parents.
She told herself not to be oversensitive. This was not an exam, it was a social lunch. All the same, she felt apprehensive.
At the Lamy she went first to the Ladies’ to freshen up. She combed her hair and retouched her make-up. The arrowhead pendant looked good in the mirror.
She had a message on her phone giving her the room number. As she got into the elevator, Tab stepped in right behind her. She kissed him on both cheeks then wiped her lipstick off his face. He was dressed formally, in a suit and a spotted tie, with a white handkerchief peeking out of his breast pocket. ‘Let me guess,’ she said, speaking French. ‘Your mother likes her men to dress up.’
He smiled. ‘The men like it too. And you look perfect.’
They reached the room door, which was open, and went in.
Tamara had never been in a presidential suite. They passed through a small lobby into a spacious sitting room. A door to one side gave a glimpse of a dining room where a waiter was putting napkins on a table. On the opposite side of the room was a double door that presumably led to the bedroom.
Tab’s parents were sitting on a pink-upholstered couch. His father stood up and his mother remained sitting. Both wore glasses that had not appeared in the photo Tamara had seen. Malik’s looks were craggy and dark, but he was well dressed in a navy-blue cotton blazer with off-white trousers and a striped tie, a Frenchman doing the English style but with more flair. Anne was pale and slim, a beautiful older woman in a cream-coloured linen dress with a mandarin collar and flared sleeves. They looked like what they were: an affluent couple with good taste.
Tab performed the introductions, continuing in French. Tamara said a prepared sentence: ‘I’m so glad to meet the parents of this wonderful man.’ In response, Anne smiled, but coolly. Any mother should be pleased by such a remark about her son, but she was unimpressed.
They all sat down. On the coffee table was an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne and four glasses. The waiter came in and poured, and Tamara noticed that the champagne was vintage Travers. She said to Anne: ‘Do you always drink your own champagne?’
‘Often, yes, to check on how it’s surviving,’ Anne replied. ‘Normally, we taste in the cellars, and the same is true for buyers and wine writers who come from all over the world to our winery in Reims. But our customers have a different experience. Before they drink the wine it travels perhaps thousands of miles, and then it may be kept for years in unsuitable conditions.’
Tab interrupted her. ‘When I was a student in California I used to work at a restaurant where the wine was kept in a cupboard next to the oven. If someone ordered champagne we had to put the bottle in the freezer for fifteen minutes.’ He laughed.
His mother did not see the funny side. ‘So, you see, champagne needs one quality that will never show at a cellar tasting: fortitude. We must make a wine that can survive ill-treatment, and still taste good despite conditions that are less than ideal.’
Tamara had not expected a lecture. On the other hand, she found it interesting. And she had learned that Tab’s mother was remorselessly serious.
Anne tasted the champagne and said: ‘Not too disappointing.’
Tamara thought it was delicious.
As they chatted, Tamara checked out Anne’s jewellery. The flared sleeves of her dress revealed a pretty Travers watch on her left wrist and three gold bangles on her right. Tamara was not planning to talk about jewellery, but Anne commented on her pendant. ‘I haven’t seen anything quite like that before.’
‘It’s home-made,’ Tamara said, and she explained what a Tuareg arrowhead was.
‘How original,’ Anne said.
Tamara had met American matrons who could say something like How original when they really meant How dreadful.
Tab asked his father about the business side of his trip. ‘All the important meetings will take place here in the capital,’ Malik said. ‘The men who run this country are all here – I don’t suppose I need to tell you that. But I will have to fly to Doba and look at oil wells.’ He turned to his wife to explain. ‘The oil fields are all in the far south-west of the country.’
Tab said: ‘But what will you actually do, in Doba and N’Djamena?’