Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar

Author:Hisham Matar
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780679643982
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-23T07:00:00+00:00

We returned to the hotel.

“A man came asking for you,” the hotel receptionist said when we collected our key. “No, madame, he didn’t leave a name. He waited for a few minutes, then left.”

I was sure it was Hass, but a little hope lingered. I could not wait for Mona to finish washing her face. I dialed his number.

“Thank God,” he said when he heard my voice. “I couldn’t find you anywhere. The hotel had no idea where you were; they said you had missed breakfast. I went to the police station; they said you hadn’t been there.”

“Here’s Mona,” I told him when I saw her come out of the bathroom. “It’s Hass.”

She wrapped a hand over the receiver so tightly that the blood left her knuckles.

“Was it him who came earlier?” she whispered.

I nodded.

“Hass, was that you who came to the hotel?” she said without saying hello. “I just felt like a walk. Listen, I have been thinking,” she said, facing her lap. “I want to see the journalist.… What do you mean, why? Because he was there before anyone else—” she said and stopped as if interrupted.

She looked at me then turned slightly away. I watched her rib cage swell and recede.

“Listen, what are you afraid of? … Then call the fucking journalist,” she said and hung up, keeping her hand on the receiver.

She collected her sunglasses, address book and cigarettes, throwing them carelessly into her bag.

“Come on,” she said. “We’re going back to the station.”

At the hotel lobby I stopped and ran back to the room. I shoved the plastic bag that contained Father’s things into my suitcase, deep beneath the clothes.

Out on the street, walking beside her, I worried about what she would do next. It was an odd feeling: I feared for her but could not say from what.

Inspector Martin Durand did not make us wait. He led us back to the same sparsely furnished room.

“Have you distributed his photograph to the border crossings?” Mona asked.

“We are doing all we can,” Martin Durand said.

“Whoever abducted him is trying to take him abroad.”

“The border police have been notified.”

“Not good enough; you must give them this photograph.”

“I know this must be awful for you. I can’t imagine. But you must know that we are doing all we can.”

I could see that he found Mona’s conviction that Father’s abductors would want to take him out of Switzerland suspicious.

“There is a good chance,” I said, “he was taken by our country. I mean by the people who now run our country.”

“Not ‘a good chance’: hundred percent,” Mona snapped.

Martin Durand looked at her, then at me.

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