The Black Widow

“I believe you,” she said. “A normal man would never have survived wounds as serious as yours. Surely, Allah is watching over you. He has plans for you.”

“And I,” said Saladin, “have plans for you.”

She finished the cast in silence. She was pleased with her work. So, too, was Saladin.

“Perhaps when your operation is complete, you can return to the caliphate to serve as my personal physician.”

“Your Maimonides?”

“Exactly.”

“It would be an honor,” she heard herself say.

“But we won’t be in Cairo. Like Saladin, I’ve always preferred Damascus.”

“What about Baghdad?”

“Baghdad is a city of rafida.”

It was a bigoted Sunni slur for Shia Muslims. Natalie wordlessly prepared a new IV bag.

“What’s that you’re putting in the solution?” he asked.

“Something for your pain. It will help you sleep through the heat of the afternoon.”

“I’m not in pain. And I don’t want to sleep.”

Natalie attached the bag to the IV tube and squeezed it to start the flow of fluid. Within a few seconds, Saladin’s eyes dulled. He fought to keep them open.

“Abu Ahmed is right,” he said, watching her. “You do look like a Jew.”

“And you,” said Natalie, “need to rest.”

The eyelids dropped like window blinds and Saladin slipped helplessly into unconsciousness.

43 ANBAR PROVINCE, IRAQ

HER DAYS MOVED TO THE rhythm of Saladin. She slept when he slept and woke whenever he stirred on his sickbed. She monitored his vital signs, she changed his dressings, she gave him morphine against his wishes for the pain. For a few seconds after the drug entered his blood, he would hover in a hallucinatory state where words escaped his mouth, like the air that had rushed from his damaged lung. Natalie could have prolonged his talkative mood by giving him a smaller measure of the drug; conversely, she could have ushered him to death’s door with a larger dose. But she was never alone with her patient. Two fighters stood over him always, and Abu Ahmed — he of the lobster claw and overcast disposition — was never far. He consulted with Saladin frequently, about what Natalie was not privy. When matters of state or terror were discussed, she was banished from the room.

She was not permitted to go far — the next room, the toilet, a sun-blasted court where Abu Ahmed encouraged her to take exercise in order to stay fit for her operation. She was never allowed to see the rest of the great house or told where she was, though when she listened to al-Bayan on the ancient transistor radio they gave her, the signal was without interference. All other radio was forbidden, lest she be exposed to un-Islamic ideas or, heaven forbid, music. The absence of music was harder to bear than she imagined. She longed to hear a few notes of a melody, a child sawing away at a major scale, even the thud of hip-hop from a passing car. Her rooms became a prison. The camp at Palmyra seemed a paradise in comparison. Even Raqqa was better, for at least in Raqqa she had been allowed to roam the streets. Never mind the severed heads and the men on crosses, at least there was some semblance of life. The caliphate, she thought grimly, had a way of reducing one’s expectations.

And all the while she watched an imaginary clock in her head and turned the pages of an imaginary calendar. She was scheduled to fly from Athens to Paris on Sunday evening, and to return to work at the clinic in Aubervilliers Monday morning. But first, she had to get from the caliphate to Turkey and from Turkey to Santorini. For all their talk of an important role in an upcoming operation, she wondered whether Saladin and Abu Ahmed had other plans for her. Saladin would require constant medical care for months. And who better to care for him than the woman who had saved his life?

He referred to her as Maimonides and she, having no other name for him, called him Saladin. They did not become friends or confidants, far from it, but a bond was forged between them. She played the same game she had played with Abu Ahmed, the game of guessing what he had been before the American invasion upended Iraq. He was obviously of high intelligence and a student of history. During one of their conversations, he told her that he had been to Paris many times — for what reason he did not say — and he spoke French badly but with great enthusiasm. He spoke English, too, much better than he spoke French. Perhaps, thought Natalie, he had attended an English preparatory school or military academy. She tried to imagine him without his wild hair and beard. She dressed him in a Western suit and tie, but he didn’t wear it well. Then she clothed him in olive drab, and the fit was better. When she added a thick mustache of the sort worn by Saddam loyalists, the picture was complete. Saladin, she decided, was a secret policeman or a spy. For that reason she was always fearful in his presence.