The Ambassador's Wife Read Free

public services, brokered illicit arms deals, and starved its people. Hardly any oil money made its way to the resource-poor North, where unemployment was soaring and anger over state corruption was festering. Rot, dishonesty, and betrayal ran so deep that northern rebels could often purchase weapons directly from government forces. Water was increasingly scarce, and at least two cities could run out of it entirely within two years. More than half of the population was illiterate. The press was censored. Women had few rights. Sure, they were allowed to work, drive cars, and travel unaccompanied by men, unlike in other parts of the Middle East, but they couldn’t choose their careers or their husbands. Terrorists were allowed to operate training camps in remote areas (mostly in the North) as long as they didn’t blow up any of their fellow countrymen. Conflicts raged off and on between government forces and northern rebels. Foreign companies had to negotiate separate deals with the government and the tribes for permission to operate in certain areas, or risk finding their offices suddenly surrounded by armed men.
    The Arab ambassadors looked up in surprise at hearing a female voice, before staring back into their coffee cups, but the Minister’s head swiveled toward her attentively as she continued. “We know all of this; we have known all of this for years. But what are we going to
do
about it?” Only then did she allow herself a glance at Finn, who was smiling slightly while also managing to convey that she should stop there.
    â€œExactly,” said the Minister, smiling. “So,
gentlemen
, what shall we
do
?”
    Over coffee in the sitting room, the visiting Minister told Miranda that he had had a similar conversation ten or so years ago—about Iraq. Leading Finn to suggest—with a completely straight face—that the British start planning to liberate the country from its ruthless and immoral president. “It worked out so
well
in Iraq,” he added. Even if he wanted to, said the Omani ambassador, this president couldn’t fix things. While a totalitarian despot, he still fell short of Saddam’s absolute domination. When several ambassadors claimed that the country’s problems could not be solved with money, the head of the World Food Programme chimed in to say that they certainly couldn’t be solved
without
money. The country director of the World Bank added that many reforms just had to wait for the country to become magically secure or for its economy to turn around. But we can’t wait for that! cried others. By the end of the night, Miranda noticed that the World Bank director was asleep in his chair. She was relieved when they could finally tuck the jetlagged Minister into bed and stay up for another port with the cops.
    â€”
    W ITH THE MORNING light slanting through the bars of her dressing room window, Miranda stands in front of her closets, contemplating her wardrobe. She still cannot get over the fact that she has an entire room in which to dress herself—a room that serves no other purpose. It was particularly ridiculous when she first moved in, with the two suitcases she had been living out of for the past few years. One of the things she had loved about living in this country was that she never had to think about what to wear. She could live in a succession of long black cotton skirts with long black cotton blouses, or jeans and a T-shirt under an
abaya
. It was so simple.
    But everything changed when she moved in with Finn and was suddenly hosting dinner parties for high-ranking officials. At first, she had borrowed a few dresses from her friend Marguerite, the French ambassador’s wife—the only ambassador’s wife even close to her size, corpulence being part of the job description—before goingon a shopping expedition to Dubai, the fifth circle of Hell as far as she was concerned. Despite the profusion of clothing stores in