Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar Page A

station. Inspector Martin Durand would not come out to see us. A woman with a thick neck and eyes so clear that the white in them was as colorless as chalk stood in a uniform behind the counter and told us to come back another time.
    “I’m not leaving until he comes out and speaks to me,” Mona said.
    “Madame, Monsieur Durand is not here.”
    “We will wait,” Mona said and sat down in one of the chairs against the wall.
    After ten minutes or so the inspector came out and told her, his face growing red with the words, “Please know we are doing all we can. We will call you, I promise, as soon as we have news.” No matter what Mona said after that he would repeat the same words, with less emotion yet more finality, adding, “I am sorry,” in the beginning, and sometimes at the end, and other times, oddly, in the middle. Mona by now looked defeated. It was then that I lost my temper.
    “Can’t you see this is dangerous?” I kept repeating in a voice that caught me off guard.
    The inspector stared at me from behind the counter.
    Mona took hold of one of my arms and led me out onto the street. The veins in her neck bulged with every breath. I watched her cry. She pressed a pale hand against her forehead. Her eyes peered wildly, and her mouth opened until the hand on her brow came down to cover it. She looked at me furiously, as if I were responsible, as if I were suddenly a stranger to her. But I must have misread all of this, because then she placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t cry, my darling.” We began to walk slowly down the street. She held her shoulders tightly together, as if the rest of her body might break loose and collapse to the ground. The dark maroon bag that usually rested against her side was now elbowed back, its soft leather beating against her ribs. Then, without a word or looking to see if I was still there, sheturned in to a café. She sat down at a small square table beside a column, leaving her handbag on the table. With a trembling hand she pulled out a cigarette. The waiter came over and stood motionless beside us. Mona did not react. I asked him to bring her a cup of coffee. She lifted her eyes, asking, “What?” then looked at the waiter and said, “Yes, coffee, please.” The man turned to me, and I heard myself say, “The same,” although I had never had coffee before. A long minute or two passed. Then she remembered something. She searched in her bag, pulled out the address book and took it to the telephone in the corner of the café.
    “Who are you going to call?” I asked.
    She did not look at me. All I could hear from her conversation was the occasional
s
.
    Who was she talking to: Hass, Taleb, Hydar, or some other friend or associate Father had introduced her to? She hung up and returned to the table.
    “We must leave. Immediately. Apparently we, too, are in danger. Might be needed to convince him to talk.”
    Now the fear I had felt standing in front of Béatrice Benameur’s building began to make sense. Of course—why would those who stole Father not want the rest of us? Before I could ask who had told her this, she was on her way back to the telephone. She dialed a number, waved to the waiter, asked him a question, then impatiently handed him the receiver.
    “Charlie’s on his way,” she said, taking her seat and lighting another cigarette.
    “Who’s Charlie?”
    “Hass.”
    She waved to the waiter again. “You gave him the address?”
    “Yes, madame.”
    “Good,” she said, handing him some money. “Please bring the change straightaway.”
    A few minutes later Hass walked into the café.
    “We need to get on the first flight out,” she told him.
    His eyes became alive with a sort of purposeful intelligence. I was sure this was how he looked whenever Father entrusted him with an important task.
    Mona stood up, but he waved her down. He ordered a coffee.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    Without saying a word, he went to the