Double Date

Haidar fits his fat behind in the red plastic chair and places his shiny machine-gun next to him, comfortably easing himself into the surveillance position Abu Hassan, his superior, has assigned him. His binoculars glued to his face, he starts his night shift.

It is five past eight in the evening. Everything is silent, apart from the rustling of his wife’s dress sweeping the floor as she busies herself in their decrepit shack behind him, probably getting the tea ready before Abu Hassan’s arrival.

Suddenly, on the ground-floor of the opposite building, a bright light floods a room right next to the window Haidar is set to watch, and his eyes are dazzled by a gorgeous red headed girl walking towards a wall. For a long – yet too short – moment, the girl gazes into her reflection in a full-length mirror. She then quickly unzips her skirt – that falls to the floor –, and, writhing, uncovers a sylphlike body like those he has only seen in those forbidden magazines one of which is tucked away in the inside pocket of his worn jacket…

Now, the girl is scrutinizing her image, looking hesitant, uncertain… While Haidar, his binoculars unsteadily held against his now sweaty face, and the fingers of his left hand nervously tangling his beard, can only think of how enthralling she looks.

Then she turns her back to him. Haidar’s hand flusteredly abandons his beard, grabs hold of the soda can next to him, and avidly starts gulping down the sweet bubbly liquid when Abu Hassan’s unmistakable voice calls him to order.

Haidar straightens up, and while his eyes struggle to readjust, his gaze is drawn to a tall man running on the sidewalk, holding a bunch of yellow flowers and carrying in his other hand a paper bag.

“Got you, you nasty piece of work! You have finally showed up! ... What the hell… flowers? And a bag? You think Haidar doesn’t know what’s inside? I can see the nozzle of your weapon, you miserable idiot!”

Haidar grabs his weapon and points it in the man’s direction, ready to fire and kill him before he commits his crime, while acrimoniously thinking “As long as Haidar is alive, no harm will come to Mister Ibrahim! Got that, you moron?!”

The well-dressed man checks his watch, then starts walking back and forth. He glances at his face in the side mirror of a car parked along the driveway, then checks his watch again.

“What the hell, man?! Do you need to be beautiful to kill?“

Then his eyes are once again drawn to the red headed girl now standing in front of her mirror, in a skimpy white dress, lazily tying a belt around her tiny waist…

“…That tiny waist I could encircle with just one of my hands…!”

The well-dressed man stops pacing the sidewalk and heads towards the building entrance. There, while glancing intermittently at the screen on his cell-phone, he hastily dials a number on the intercom, and waits…

Suddenly, the red headed girl glances at the clock hanging by the mirror, catches her cell-phone that was lying on the dresser, and hurries across the room. She checks the screen on the opposite wall and then the screen on her phone. Again, then once again. A puzzled look on her face, she shrugs, shakes her head, and presses a button by the intercom screen.

The red headed girl, now standing by the open door, lifts a trembling hand to her hair and nervously brushes away a streak across her forehead. Then Haidar sees her opening the door wider as the tall man comes in.

“What’s this moron doing in that woman’s apartment?”

She takes the yellow flowers and extends her hand to greet the man. He takes it, looks at her, then lowers his head and kisses it. She sways, tilts her head, and smiles. Then turns her back to him and starts walking. He walks behind her.

Haidar’s eyes follow them onto the terrace, now enveloped in warm light. There are three chairs, around a round table. The man sits in one of them. The red headed girl goes inside for a minute then comes back holding two stemmed glasses. And a bottle. The man looks at it, with a surprised frown. Quickly enough though, he pulls himself together and says something. She smiles, then, slowly, walks back inside.

While the two men wait, Haidar watches the moron, and the moron, shaking his leg impatiently, looking confused and thoughtful, watches the bottle. So Haidar focuses his binoculars on the bottle too: “La Cueca, 2018, Merlot”... his left hand squeezes his all but forgotten soda can, and lukewarm liquid splashes out, drowning his dusty fingers in sticky mush.

Not too far away, in a deserted building, Leah tucks her short black hair behind her right ear and adjusts her earpiece in the left. She checks her face in her pocket mirror, makes sure her blue eyes do not betray her lethal excitement. She runs down the stairs and exits the building, towards her target.

The red headed girl comes back on the terrace holding something in her hand. Haidar can’t make out what it is, though it sure looks sharp! Instinctively, his hand blindly catches hold of his machine-gun. Then pauses…

The man is now taking the object out of the girl’s hand, slowly, all the while looking into her eyes. Very slowly, with their hands still around the object, his eyes shift downwards, “probably to her neck” Haidar thinks, hungrily, then painfully shifts his stare from her neck to the man’s eyes, then to her eyes filled with longing. The man slides the object out of the red headed girl’s and places it on the neck of the bottle. He starts turning some sort of screwdriver on top. A wine opener, as simple as that. Haidar had never seen one like it. But then again, he doesn’t drink alcohol and isn’t supposed to know about anything related to alcohol.

He calls out to his wife and tells her to bring water and a towel to clean up his hand while he watches the building across the street… The future of a country depends on his mission tonight!

Yet, spellbound, he can’t take his eyes off that terrace. Never had his mind, not even in his wildest dreams, dared to imagine what his eyes are witnessing… The man’s fingers are furtively approaching the girl’s, ready to prey on them, on her, while she, too, approaches her trembling hand, discretely, yet somehow wickedly. Haidar’s eyes devour her shoulders, and slide up to her jawline, as she throws her head backward, and laughs. …And her laugh isn’t discrete! “Not in the least!”

Then the red headed girl, unexpectedly, as if suddenly awaken from a dream, shakes her head stiffly and runs out of sight. Another window lights up. There, she stands in front of a mirror with a pair of scissors in her hand… and holds her hair up into a pony tail that she resolutely cuts off.

Two streets away, on the ill-lit pavement, Leah advances stealthily, checking again the location of her target. She smiles.

Out on the terrace, the light shifts. The red-headed girl’s shape comes into view… and the man looks up… and stares, wide-eyed with confusion. Haidar too. What happened to the sweet-looking girl?! This woman extends a red-nailed hand and takes the bottle from the man’s hand, brushing against his fingers… Another red-nailed hand brings the glasses closer and starts pouring the wine. And Haidar’s mesmerized eyes sparkle as they follow the course of the dark berry-coloured liquid flowing into the glasses. He snaps out of this hypnotizing scene only to have his eyes transfixed by the red headed girl’s cherry lips expectantly anticipating the glass she is lifting to her mouth. Haidar’s eyes go up to hers looking at the man absent-mindedly… as if collecting her thoughts. So he, too, turns his attention to the idiot who is drowning deep into the eyes of the woman…

…Who stands up, and moves lingeringly towards a CD player. The man stands up in turn and follows her, yet faster, and faster still he chooses a CD and pushes it into the player. They are now face to face. The man extends a hand and ruffles her new hair. Then stops. And then, with both hands, he encircles her willowy waist, lifts her up, and swirls around with her, dancing.

Leah is getting closer to her target by the minute… unaware that Haidar is – or was – supposed to stop her. While…

…Haidar’s head is turning, turning, turning.

“What the hell just happened?! What am I doing?! I am the moron!!! If Abu Hassan knew what I have been watching… Well, I don’t even want to think what he’d do to me! But where is he, anyway?”

At that moment, Haidar sees a blue light behind that other window, the one he was supposed to be watching all along.

“How long has this blue light been on? Is there someone in there? How long did I look at those two, for God’s sake?!”

Haidar stands up. He must run to the building, and put an end to this right away! But then he takes a closer look… “That blue light was only a reflection”. The flat behind the window is dark, and silent.

He turns his gaze again towards the red headed girl’s terrace… In his binoculars, she’s so close he can almost touch her. And he looks, spellbound, as the couple turns and turns and turns around, and her dress swirls, and swirls around… Haidar’s heart skips a beat. His knees buckle. His legs feel like jelly.

The couple are floating in their world, listening to a song he can’t hear. And dancing to it…

Haidar is now holding his binoculars against his face with both hands.

There is a second bottle on the table: “La Cueca, 2016, Merlot”. The red headed girl is sitting in front of her guest, close enough so that she can clink her glass against his. And her painted nails, on her other hand, are glittering against his jaw. The moron is holding his glass too, with one hand.

The man and the woman suddenly stand up, then drop to the ground, taking down a chair along with them.

On the other side of the wall, Leah hears a loud noise. She pulls out a micro spy listening device from her pocket and holds it against the wall… and listens, then smiles, bemused, as voices, a woman’s and a man’s, whisper:

- Do you always knock chairs over on a first date?

- Nothing usually happens on a first date. None of this, at least… I almost feel I want to say I love you.

- I too almost feel I want to say I love you, too.

And the girl, and the moron, are now on the floor, tearing away at each other’s clothes, kissing, caressing. Touching.

Meanwhile, Haidar stands there, panic-stricken; Abu Hassan has all but disappeared. His wife too! Still, Haidar sees the cup of tea on the low table next to him and the steam swirling above its rim. His wife can’t be too far, then.

So he turns around.

And he sees them, standing behind him, silently, their backs slightly bent forward, both of them looking in the same direction, their eyes staring at the curtain flying out of that other window.

Outside, on the sidewalk, a blue-eyed woman swiftly walks away, grinning, her mission accomplished.

At that same moment, Abu Hassan suddenly snatches the binoculars out of Haidar’s hands, wanting, in turn, to enjoy the delightful show on the terrace. He has no idea that, in the building right next to it, Mister Ibrahim lies dead, and that, soon, as a consequence of this assassination, a new civil war would drown the country in chaos.