Out of It A Novel by Selma Dabbagh

Author:Selma Dabbagh
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-11-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Iman’s plane had landed over an hour before, but Jibril was counting on his daughter being the last one out. Sensing the prod of Suzi’s phantom finger in his gut, he had ordered a skinny latte but it was tasteless, pointless, so he had got the chap to add a vanilla shot and then a touch of cream.

A woman with lilac combs in her hair and matching nail varnish had smiled up at him at the sound of his ringtone: toot-a-toot, toot-a-toot toot. A recognisable tune by a nubile Egyptian singer Jibril rather fancied. Charming. He raised his eyebrows at the lilac woman – a look, he believed, that combined a sense of intelligent irony with nonchalant seduction. She smiled back. Ah, maybe he had not reached the end of it all, the end of women. Perhaps there was still time. He did have Suzi, and Suzi was Suzi and there was no trying to undermine that. He was a lucky man. But to know that the door to others was closed for ever? Was, quite simply, terrifying.

It was Jibril’s fixer ringing. Telling him that Iman had been held back for questioning. Well, of course she had. What did the stupid man expect?

He ordered another coffee before returning the lilac woman’s smile, but she got up and walked off before he was able to take it any further.

It did not take long for the newspaper to upset him. He had read the Sheikh A bin B meets Sheikh B bin A to discuss bilateral relations bit, skimmed the runaway housemaids and discontented manual labourers section, sought and found some hidden nuggets of adultery charges and rogue sexual activity and (oh joy!) he even found a piece about further evidence of lesbian activity in school bathrooms. Jibril chuckled happily. Un-Islamic behaviour tickled him to the core.

He braced himself as he turned over the page to the international section, his eye automatically finding the news from home. The same images seemed to have been repeating themselves for years now, the perpetual cycle of violence and diplomatic grins, dead child, stone-throwing youths, exploded car, crying woman outside a demolished house, grinning Leadership, dead child again.

‘The worse the loss, the more we grin,’ Jibril said staring at a particularly despicable picture of the Leaders standing on a golf course in Texas.

‘They treat their dogs better than us,’ said the young man behind the counter, gazing at the sprightly Labrador at the President’s feet. ‘A dog’s life would be a blessing compared to what some of us have to live through.’ He nodded, this time to the picture of a mother crying over her dead child.

‘Where are you from?’ Jibril had been having problems reconciling the boy’s face and Arabic with his badge. ‘Hi!’ it said. ‘I am ERNESTO. Welcome to Starbright®. I am happy to serve you.’ If he had to guess, he would have said the boy was the same as he was, only brought up in Jordan. ‘Mr Ernesto?’

‘Oh no, that’s

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