“All right. I’ll meet you at your place later.”
“There’s something you could do for me, if you wouldn’t mind getting there a little early.”
“What?”
“Cook the lunch. No! No! Just kidding. I want you to help me with a little conspiracy.”
“Go on,” she said.
“Today is Rahmi’s birthday, and his brother, Mustafa, is in town, but Rahmi doesn’t know.” If this works out, Ellis thought, I’ll never lie to you again. “I want Mustafa to turn up at Rahmi’s lunch party as a surprise. But I need an accomplice.”
“I’m game,” she said. She rolled off him and sat upright, crossing her legs. Her breasts were like apples, smooth and round and hard. The ends of her hair teased her nipples. “What do I have to do?”
“The problem is simple. I have to tell Mustafa where to go, but Rahmi hasn’t yet made up his mind where he wants to eat. So I have to get the message to Mustafa at the last minute. And Rahmi will probably be beside me when I make the call.”
“And the solution?”
“I’ll call you. I’ll talk nonsense. Ignore everything except the address. Call Mustafa, give him the address and tell him how to get there.” All this had sounded okay when Ellis dreamed it up, but now it seemed wildly implausible.
However, Jane did not seem suspicious. “It sounds simple enough,” she said.
“Good,” Ellis said briskly, concealing his relief.
“And after you call, how soon will you be home?”
“Less than an hour. I want to wait and see the surprise, but I’ll get out of having lunch there.”
Jane looked thoughtful. “They invited you but not me.”
Ellis shrugged. “I presume it’s a masculine celebration.” He reached for the notepad on the bedside table and wrote Mustafa and the phone number.
Jane got off the bed and crossed the room to the shower closet. She opened the door and turned on the tap. Her mood had changed. She was not smiling. Ellis said: “What are you mad about?”
“I’m not mad,” she said. “Sometimes I dislike the way your friends treat me.”
“But you know how the Turks are about girls.”
“Exactly—girls. They don’t mind respectable women, but I’m a girl.”
Ellis sighed. “It’s not like you to get needled by the prehistoric attitudes of a few chauvinists. What are you really trying to tell me?”
She considered for a moment, standing naked beside the shower, and she was so lovely that Ellis wanted to make love again. She said: “I suppose I’m saying that I don’t like my status. I’m committed to you. Everyone knows that—I don’t sleep with anyone else, don’t even go out with other men—but you’re not committed to me. We don’t live together, I don’t know where you go or what you do a lot of the time, we’ve never met one another’s parents . . . and people know all this, so they treat me like a tart.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.”
“You always say that.” She stepped into the shower and banged the door. Ellis took his razor from the drawer where he kept his overnight kit and began to shave at the kitchen sink. They had had this argument before, at much greater length, and he knew what was at the bottom of it: Jane wanted them to live together.
He wanted it too, of course; he wanted to marry her and live with her for the rest of his life. But he had to wait until this assignment was over; and he could not tell her that, so he said such things as I’m not ready and All I need is time, and these vague evasions infuriated her. It seemed to her that a year was a long time to love a man without getting any kind of commitment from him. She was right, of course. But if all went well today he could make everything right.
He finished shaving, wrapped his razor in a towel and put it in his drawer. Jane got out of the shower and he took her place. We’re not talking, he thought; this is silly.
While he was in the shower she made coffee. He dressed quickly in faded denim jeans and a black T-shirt and sat opposite her at the little mahogany table. She poured his coffee and said: “I want to have a serious talk with you.”
“Okay,” he said quickly, “let’s do it at lunchtime.”
“Why not now?”
“I don’t have time.”
“Is Rahmi’s birthday more important than our relationship?”
“Of course not.” Ellis heard irritation in his tone, and a warning voice told him. Be gentle—you could lose her. “But I promised, and it’s important that I keep my promises; whereas it doesn’t seem very important whether we have this conversation now or later.”
Jane’s face took on a set, stubborn look that he knew: she wore it when she had made a decision and someone tried to deflect her from her path. “It’s important to me that we talk now.”
For a moment he was tempted to tell her the whole truth right away. But this was not the way he had planned it. He was short of time, his mind was on something else, and he was not prepared. It would be much better later, when they were both relaxed, and he would be able to tell her that his job in Paris was done. So he said: “I think you’re being silly, and I won’t be bullied. Please let’s talk later. I have to go now.” He stood up.
As he walked to the door she said: “Jean-Pierre has asked me to go to Afghanistan with him.”
This was so completely unexpected that Ellis had to think for a moment before he could take it in. “Are you serious?” he said incredulously.
“I’m serious.”
Ellis knew Jean-Pierre was in love with Jane. So were half a dozen other men: that kind of thing was inevitable with such a woman. None of the men were serious rivals, though; at least, he had thought not, until this moment. He began to recover his composure. He said: “Why would you want to visit a war zone with a wimp?”
“It’s not a joking matter!” she said fiercely. “I’m talking about my life.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t go to Afghanistan.”
“Why not?”
“Because you love me.”
“That doesn’t put me at your disposal.”
At least she had not said No, I don’t. He looked at his watch. This was ridiculous: in a few hours’ time he was going to tell her everything she wanted to hear. “I’m not willing to do this,” he said. “We’re talking about our future, and it’s a discussion that can’t be rushed.”
“I won’t wait forever,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to wait forever. I’m asking you to wait a few hours.” He touched her cheek. “Let’s not fight about a few hours.”
She stood up and kissed his mouth hard.
He said: “You won’t go to Afghanistan, will you?”
“I don’t know,” she said levelly.
He tried a grin. “At least, not before lunch.”
She smiled back and nodded. “Not before lunch.”
He looked at her for a moment longer; then he went out.
The broad boulevards of the Champs-Élysées were thronged with tourists and Parisians out for a morning stroll, milling about like sheep in a fold under the warm spring sun, and all the pavement cafés were full. Ellis stood near the appointed place, carrying a backpack he had bought in a cheap luggage store. He looked like an American on a hitchhiking tour of Europe.
He wished Jane had not chosen this morning for a confrontation: she would be brooding now, and would be in a jagged mood by the time he arrived.
Well, he would just have to smooth her ruffled feathers for a while.
He put Jane out of his mind and concentrated on the task ahead of him.