Visiting Paris also meant a visit with Malik, who had established a base of operations here in addition to those in Marseilles, Piraeus, Rotterdam—name a city, it seemed, and her brother would mention a “deal” he was working on there. And there would be an opportunity to see Laila, nearly old enough for school now. It was easy to arrange—Ali had claimed an important meeting with someone he’d met at the embassy, but Amira knew he had no interest in spending time with Malik.

O

The fifteen-room apartment on the Avenue Foch, still smelling of fresh paint, was magnificent. Soaring, elaborately plastered ceilings, fireplaces of the rarest marble, remarkable parquet floors burnished to a golden patina, marble fire- places—these were but a few of the features that had attracted Malik when he’d begun his search for a new home. The rest—the impeccable French antiques, the English silver, Aubusson tapestries, all the opulent furnishings—Malik had added himself.

“Who decorated this place?” Amira asked as he walked her through the apartment, clearly trying to restrain his pride of ownership. “I know there’s a woman here. I see touches … those framed photographs on the piano, the antique lace in the guest bedrooms. Surely, you didn’t do all that?”

“The ‘woman’ in question is a decorator,” he replied. “And she was very well paid for those ‘touches.’”

“That’s it, then?” she teased. “Your private life consists of rendezvous with decorators?”

Before he could answer, a little girl burst into the room shouting, “Papa! Papa!” Her nanny trailed behind.

Malik scooped his daughter into his arms and held her close, his tender expression revealing the depth of his love. With her dark eyes and elfin face, Laila looked like a perfect Parisian gamine whom someone had kidnapped and dressed in the very finest clothes.

Amira sat back and watched them. Her niece spoke perfect Parisian French— with an occasional astonishing Marseillaise obscenity tossed in, at which Malik laughed uproariously. As she told her father everything she and her nanny had done, it was clear that her Arabic, what few words of it she knew, was atrocious. When she finally turned her attention to Amira, she said in rapid succession, “Did you bring me a present today? I still have the pretty dress you brought last time. Do you have any little girls I can play with? Will you come to see Papa again?”

Amira chose her answers cautiously, so as not to reveal her relationship to Malik. Though Laila knew Malik was her father—he could not bear for her not to know—she was boarded with her nanny, in a comfortable home a short distance away. It was not a satisfying situation, but Malik had hinted he might soon arrive at a solution.