The girl came over and brushed some hair off her face. For a second, Matilde was afraid that she would slap her. On the contrary, she stroked and smelled her. She indicated that she wanted Matilde to sit on the toilet cover and braided her hair into pigtails. The house and the girl, thought Matilde, were both part of the dreamlike sensation that was overwhelming her.
“Matilde!” Eliah’s voice caught them off guard, and the girl waved at her to tell her to answer his call.
Matilde found him sitting up in bed, his back against the headrest, his torso naked and his hair tousled. Even like this, she thought he was extremely beautiful.
“Where were you?” he asked her, impatiently, almost irritably.
“In the bathroom, with a girl who brought the towels.”
“Bonjour, ma petite!” said Al-Saud, and the girl ran to the bed with the clumsiness of child and jumped into his arms.
Matilde couldn’t believe her eyes. Eliah held her and spoke to her in French and the girl nodded or shook her head without making a sound. Once in a while they would look at her.
“Matilde, this is Leila, a great friend, who keeps the house in order.”
Leila disentangled herself from Eliah’s embrace and walked toward Matilde. She stroked her cheeks and held up her braids.
“You see how beautiful she is, Leila?”
The girl nodded vehemently and mimed bringing a cup to her lips.
“Yes, bring us breakfast please.” To Matilde he said in Spanish, “What would you like to drink? Coffee, tea, hot chocolate?”
“I would die for a mate, but I’d be fine with a coffee with milk, please.”
“Café au lait pour Matilde, ma petite.”
The door closed behind Leila, and Eliah reached out to Matilde. She clambered up the plinth onto the bed and crawled toward him. Her braids brushed against the bedspread and her breasts swung under her shirt. Nothing could better sum up Matilde’s paradoxical nature than the little girl’s pigtails and those woman’s breasts. Eliah remembered how anxiously he had sucked on them the night before, and his penis started to perk up. He grabbed her arm and pulled her on top of him.
“Good morning,” she said, and Eliah inhaled her fresh, sweet breath and the fragrances that wafted from her skin.
“Good morning, my love. How do you feel?”
“Happy. Completely happy.”
His smile took her breath away. She stroked his darkened cheek.
“Don’t shave today. I love how you look with stubble.”
“And I love everything about you, Treasure Chest Martínez. My tarantula.” He put his hand under her shirt and pinched her bottom. He had never seen such a mouthwatering behind; it was small but pert.
I’m so lucky to have found you, Eliah thought, but he didn’t dare to say it, because he still harbored doubts about her feelings. What am I to you, Matilde? Only your healer? Will you go to the Congo and leave me? He kissed her for a long time, slowly, savoring her mouth, playing with her tongue. They broke off the kiss and were lost in each other’s gaze.
“Are you okay?” he wanted to know, putting his hand over her vulva.
“Yes, very okay.” She didn’t mention that she felt a burning sensation when she walked; she was afraid he would refuse to make love again.
Leila came in, pushing a little table on wheels.
“How did she get that up here?”
“There’s an elevator in the service area. It’s as old as the house. It must be one of the oldest elevators in Paris. Later, when I give you the tour, I’ll show you.”
Leila served them and left. They were starving and ate with relish. Eliah rejoiced at the image of Matilde eating her second croissant and drinking all of her café au lait.
“Tell me about Leila. She’s just mute. She didn’t seem to have any problem hearing.”
“She’s not even mute. She’s just decided not to talk anymore.” He told her the story of the Huseinovics, though he didn’t mention that Diana and Leila had been raped by the Serbians; he couldn’t mention it without evoking Matilde’s confession from the night before. “A few days after they were freed from Rogatica”—he also omitted the fact that he had led the rescue team—“Leila started to behave very strangely and only communicated through gestures. We’ve consulted the best psychologists and psychiatrists in Paris. They all agree that she will decide when she wants to return to the world of adults. Perhaps she’ll prefer to be a little girl for the rest of her life.”
“Do her siblings live with you as well?”
“No. Diana and Sándor rent their own apartments in the suburbs of Paris, though they often come to visit Leila. They work for Mercure.”
“How strange that Leila prefers to live with you and not her siblings!”
“A psychiatrist told me that she sees me as the father figure that she needs to feel protected.”
“How did you meet?”
He was reluctant to tell her the truth. He wasn’t ashamed of his career—God knew that mercenaries and war professionals were as necessary as doctors and engineers, but ordinary people didn’t understand that, and he was worried about what Matilde might think.
“Her siblings work for me, that’s how I met her.”
“Yes, I know. Diana was the one that got me out of the convention room.”
I never would have let one of my men put their hands on you, he thought sincerely.
“Leila turned out to be an excellent cook and I brought her to live with me. She lived with me at my old apartment before I moved here. Now she’s in charge of the house and gives orders to my two other employees, Marie and Agneska. She doesn’t act like a little girl when it comes to that, I promise you.”
“You can tell that she loves you a lot. You treat her very well.”
“I’m very fond of her. It’s good to get home and see her.”
Matilde felt a pang of jealousy and was immediately ashamed. She pretended to play with the crumbs from her croissant to hide her face. Ezequiel always said it was easy to guess her thoughts, and she didn’t want Eliah to read her jealousy. Al-Saud moved the tray and pulled her down; he kissed her neck and managed to unbutton her shirt with one hand.
“I want to make love to you as we bathe together.”
He removed her shirt and stared at her in the light of day. He trailed his index finger from the hollow at the base of her neck down to her hairless mound of Venus, faintly marked by the smile-shaped scar. Once he had heard his father say, “My skin isn’t that dark. It’s just that next to your mother, I look darker than I am.” His skin looked black next to this snow-white stomach, dappled by little brown freckles. He spread out his fingers and spanned the whole surface, from one set of ribs to the other. He licked her belly button, felt her hands tousle his hair, perceived the trembling inside her and heard her faltering breath. Matilde’s nipples responded to the stimuli, growing hard and turning a deep red.
“Let’s go,” he ordered.
They went into the bathroom. Al-Saud made her stop in front of the mirror and stood behind her. He covered her pubis with a hand. The contrast surprised and excited them. Matilde felt him grow against the small of her back. She groaned when he massaged her breasts with his other hand.
“Touche-moi,” he begged her, and she took hold of him delicately. Eliah suffered a spasm and doubled over. “My God, Matilde!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around to kiss her. Feeling bold and wanting to imitate him, she massaged his bottom, and he moaned in her mouth.
“Enough,” he begged, “or I’ll finish before we’ve even started.”
Matilde stood still in front of the mirror, covering her breasts with her forearm and mound of Venus with a hand while she watched Eliah. He moved with agility, his erect, rigid penis barely swaying. He turned on the shower and suddenly steam filled the receptacle behind the glass partition. From the wardrobe where Leila had put the towels, he took out a box of condoms. There was one left. They got into the shower and em
braced under the hot water. Matilde sighed as her muscles loosened up.
“How did you sleep?” he wanted to know, still holding her.
“I didn’t sleep all night.” Eliah pulled back to look at her. “I couldn’t sleep,” she explained. “I was too happy. Ecstatic. My heart was beating like crazy. Maybe you don’t fully understand how much last night meant to me, Eliah. I feel as though you have restored my life to me.”
She started with timid caresses—barely touching him with her fingertips—tracing out the muscles in his back, then moving around to his chest, and then his abdominals. Eliah watched her in silence, focusing on the movements of her hands, which were a little more intense and daring each time, and her face swelled with desire. Finally, she held him and stroked his balls.
“For God’s sake!” He quivered with his head on her shoulder.
“I want to have you inside me again, Eliah, please.”
He pushed forward until Matilde’s back was pressed against the hot shower wall. He put on the condom reluctantly and took her in his arms. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he, holding her up by the bottom, maneuvered until his penis found its way in. He penetrated her slowly, waiting for Matilde to get used to the intrusion.
“Are you okay?” Matilde, in a kind of trance, barely nodded. “Tell me you like it, tell me you love it.”
“Yes…I love it. Please…Eliah.”
He pulled out and thrust in again more forcefully. Matilde moaned and writhed. Again, he pulled out and thrust back in, sucking her nipples and repeating the operation until he was sure she was ready to take his whole penis. With a push that bumped her against the wall, Al-Saud thrust fully into Matilde. Her screaming stopped him dead.
“Did I hurt you? Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.
“Yes, yes. It’s just that…I felt an electric current inside me, all the way to my belly button. Don’t stop, Eliah, please, don’t stop.”
Seconds later, Matilde’s screams enchanted him. He watched, fascinated, as pleasure consumed her before she fell limp, held up by the wall and his torso. His movements started again. Matilde sought out his lips, and the kiss was breathtaking. Eliah pulled his mouth away to express his joy, and Matilde felt as though his bellow was passing through the walls and flooding the entire house. He ended up collapsing on the floor of the stall. Matilde took the condom off and washed him, and every time she brushed his member, he shook with spasms.
She bathed him. And then he bathed her. It wasn’t enough to make love deliriously; they needed to keep on touching each other.
Al-Saud pulled on a pair of cowboy boots and stood up to find her. Matilde was in the flower, as he called the small circular room with tall closets in the shape of petals. She was looking out over the Andalusian-style patio with her head against the window, and wearing the black dress from the night before. Her wet hair was starting to dry and bounce back into ringlets. She turned her head without removing it from the glass and looked at him.
“Your house is a dream. You’re a dream. Last night and right now are a dream.”
Al-Saud strode up to her and hugged her from behind.
“This is pure reality, Matilde. You’re my woman. Do you feel like you’re mine?”
She turned around and buried her face in his polo shirt, which smelled of a different cologne, not his usual A*Men. She didn’t want to cry, not even from happiness.
“All yours, my love. And you, are you mine and no one else’s?” Matilde was thinking about Celia and the women that wanted him and would try to seduce him. For a moment she was afraid of him, afraid that he might be fickle. Eliah placed his index finger under Matilde’s chin and lightly tilted her head upward.
“What do you think? Am I yours?”
“I don’t know.”
“Last night I asked you if you trusted me and you said yes.”
Matilde hugged his torso and inhaled the new cologne again.
“Yes, you’re mine! I know it, I know it.”
“Why do you doubt it?”
“Because last night I saw you with Celia and I was insane with jealousy.”
“Last night I saw you with that Sampler, who didn’t miss an opportunity to put his hands on you. I saw you shut yourself in a room with your ex-husband. I was insane with jealousy, but I didn’t doubt you.”
“Nothing happened with Roy. We just talked.”
“I know.”
After showing her the whole house, except the base, he left her in the kitchen with Leila so he could make some calls. Matilde used another line and spoke to Juana.
“I’m fine. We’ll see each other tonight. How are you?”
“Shiloah’s coming to get me in a bit. I’m fine. I love you, girl.”
“I love you too.”
Al-Saud was getting ready to go out. He had two things to take care of. The first—buying condoms—wasn’t a problem. The second, on the other hand, would require a weapon. He went to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He headed to the dressing room, walked over to the mirror and felt along the top until he found the switch. The mirror opened away from the wall, making a sound like a tin can being opened. Behind it was a small arsenal. Pistols of every kind and brand, automatic rifles, assault rifles, including an AK-47 and a machine gun, as well as ammunition, cartridges, night-vision binoculars, a range finder, an electronic compass, a few silencers and an infrared targeter were all neatly arranged in stands made to fit the shape of the weapon or instrument. It was a fortune in weapons and accessories. He focused his attention on the guns and decided on one of his favorites, the Beretta 92, the same one someone had used to assassinate the bellboy from the George V. He put the pistol in an underarm holster, near his heart, and covered it with a leather Hogan jacket.
He found Matilde wearing an apron in the kitchen, showing Leila how to make dulce de leche.
“How do you say bicarbonate of soda in French?”
“Bicarbonate de soude. Leila, there’s some in the bathroom cupboard on the bottom floor.”
She ran to get it. Eliah closed his hands around Matilde’s waist and she smiled.
“Seeing you in an apron with a wooden spoon in your hand turns me on.”
“You turn me on whatever you’re wearing,” Matilde replied. Al-Saud threw his head back and laughed. “Are you going out?” she asked when she noticed he was wearing a jacket.
“We’re out of condoms.” He laughed again and kissed her all over, tickling her with his beard. “I wish you were always blushing, you’re so beautiful like that.”
He bought the condoms, although he had decided that he wouldn’t use them with Matilde anymore. With her, he wanted to feel everything without the restriction of latex. Though he had always used protection and every year he did the routine tests, the next day he would ask his sister to draw blood and dissipate any doubt.
In Jean-Paul’s apartment he asked for Mr. Blahetter. The hallway where he and Matilde had argued was peaceful now. The two brothers, Roy and Ezequiel, appeared. Al-Saud didn’t say a word and threw himself on the elder, punching him in the stomach and knocking him to the ground. Then he pressed a cowboy boot against his neck.
“Hey!” Ezequiel protested, upset. “What the hell are you doing?”
Al-Saud grabbed him by the sweater and yanked him closer. He spoke to him in Spanish.
“Stay out of this. This has nothing to do with you.” He moved his boot a little and Roy whimpered. “You piece of shit, you son of a bitch, if I see you within a thousand yards of my woman again, I’ll kill you.” He brandished the Beretta and squatted down to press the barrel against his temple. “Am I being clear?”
“Please!” Ezequiel intervened. “There must be some mistake. My brother doesn’t live…”
“No mistake! I’m talking about Matilde. About my woman!”
“Matilde’s not your woman,” Roy muttered. “She doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Al-Saud pulled his boot back and put the Beretta under Blahetter’s chin.
“Never say her name again, you piece of trash. Matilde is mine in every sense that a woman can be a man’s. What you took by force, she gives to me freely. As much as I want.”
He straightened up and turned around to confront Ezequiel, who backed away, intimidated by the look of hatred on the dark face of this man, who had shown up the night before with Céline and left with Matilde.
“You’re Matilde’s best friend, at least that’s what she thinks. For your own good, keep this shit away from my woman or it’ll be just as much of a betrayal.”
When he left the building on Avenue Charles Floquet, he saw the black van where Peter Ramsay or one of his other experts was keeping watch on Roy Blahetter. He drove his English sports car along the banks of the Seine until he had regained his equilibrium; he had just been through an intense experience and almost succumbed to the temptation of ending the bastard’s life.
When he got back to Avenue Elisée Reclus, he found Leila and Matilde laughing uproariously in the kitchen. Sándor and Diana were looking at them with wide eyes. Al-Saud wanted to know what was so funny. Leila picked up a chicken by its wings and put it in several poses: dancing, sitting, crossing its legs and smoking. He found it funny too.
“Leila’s like a child with a new toy,” Diana said, nodding her head to indicate Matilde. “She’s doing everything she can to win her friendship.”
I don’t think that’ll be too hard, Al-Saud thought.
Neither Sándor nor Diana dared bring up that this was the first time Al-Saud had brought a woman home. Eliah kissed Matilde on the lips and gestured to Diana to come with him. They shut themselves in the library.
“February fifth is the date of the meeting with the Israeli scientist, Moshé Bouchiki, at the Semiramis Intercontinental in Cairo.”
“I know,” she replied. “Dingo said that I’ll be accompanying him. I thought you’d take care of Bouchiki in Cairo.”
“No. I’ve been followed for the past few days. Mossad could be behind me. Better for Dingo to go. But I want you to take part in this mission. And I want you to be the one to approach the scientist. Bouchiki will be waiting for you to say to him in English, ‘Diana and Artemis are the same goddess.’”