Free The Distance Between Us by Masha Hamilton Page B

something I could do.” His face is bland.
    “But how? Who are you?”
    He straightens. He lays his hands on the table, each movement deliberate. She likes his long fingers. “Psychology professor,” he says, failing to meet her gaze. “I’m on sabbatical from Moscow State University, doing research at Hebrew University.” The way he speaks, so stiffly, conjures up an image of those words typed on a page. She can picture him practicing reciting them.
    “Research on what?”
    “Extremism,” he says.
    She smiles. “Sounds like a perfect cover.”
    He takes a lingering drink of coffee. “Did you ever call to find out what happened to that child?” he asks.
    “What child?”
    “The little girl in the hospital.” His gaze is appraising, if not judgmental.
    “You know—?” Caddie breaks off. “It was a story,” she says. “It was about medical shortages, not one child.”
    “So it’s only the story you cared about.”
    She looks away, stung by the sudden intrusion. Is it only the story? It seems to her now that that was precisely the question in the girl’s eyes. She thinks of the girl’s limp body vanishing into the sheets; she hears again that moan emerging as if from a cavern. It mixes with a memory of another moan. From Marcus? No, he’d been silent. Sven? Or maybe me.
    She is, she realizes, stirring her coffee endlessly, her spoon making round after round in her cup. She stops herself, meets his stare. “What were you doing at the hospital that day?”
    “Waiting for the director,” he says.
    “What for?”
    “He is a political leader. I need him for my study.”
    She shakes her head and smiles. “Okay, let’s say for a moment that you are doing a study. How did you find out so much about me? And why bother?”
    “All I found out was what you were there for and where your office is located. I can do far better with basic observational skills if I have more time. And more interest,” he adds pointedly. He nods toward the man behind the bar. “Take, for instance, Farid Silwadi, the owner of this place. His first love is music, but he can’t pursue it full-time because of family responsibilities. His father is dead. He is the oldest son and issupporting his sister-in-law and her young child while his brother, their father, is in jail. He would love to sell this restaurant, but he can’t, not anytime soon.”
    Caddie is intrigued in spite of herself, but she doesn’t want him to see that. “So?” She shrugs. “One lazy afternoon, he told you his life story.”
    “Not until after I guessed the basic outline. See the sheet music lying on the bar? In the back he has an oud . If you come here directly before the dinner hour, you can hear him practicing. He’s not bad. He wants to join a group that performs at parties for the faithful returning from the hajj.”
    “And the family details?”
    “Again, simple logistics. He wears no ring, yet he works like a slave. Too hard for a man unattached. So it has to be that his father is dead and he has some other weight upon him besides a wife or children of his own. A woman alone is always the responsibility of her husband’s family—her father-in-law if he is living, the oldest brother if he is not. That’s how I figured it out, and then I confirmed it. I imagine Silwadi will sell this place a week after his brother gets out of jail.”
    She grins. “Not bad.”
    He immodestly nods. “It’s a matter of focus, of combining observable moments. No trick to it.”
    They sip their coffee silently.
    “Now your turn. Tell me something,” he says. “Tell me about the look I saw on your face the other day in the hospital.”
    She crosses her wrists on her lap. “Don’t know what you mean.”
    He looks into his coffee cup. “How about this one?” he says after a moment. “What made you become a reporter?”
    “What made you become a psychology professor?” she asks. “If that’s what you really are?”
    “It’s such an awful story, yours