Desert Man

by Barbara Faith

“I thought I had lost you the night the camp was attacked,” he said. “The night Ben Fatah carried you away. I’ve never known such terror, Josie, for if I had lost you...” He stopped, unable for a moment to go on. “I knew then what I had known all along but had not been willing to face. I knew that I loved you, that I would kill for you.” He put his arms around her and held her close. “I would die for you, Josie. I can’t live my life without you.”

  He cupped her chin so that she would look at him. “I know we’re very different. I know there will be problems, things about my country that you’ll never understand. But the thought of losing you...” He shook his head. “I won’t lose you,” he said in a voice shaking with emotion. “I love you. I can’t let you go.”

  “Kumar...” All kinds of conflicting emotions, like the glass of a kaleidoscope, twirled round and round, skittered through her mind. We’re too different... Impossible... I couldn’t live in his world. Would he live in mine? But if I love him... Dear God, of course I love him. If I do, then how can I leave him? And for what? Another job in another country? Another man. Oh, no! No, there could never be anyone but Kumar for me.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me you love me.”

  “I love you,” she said. “Of course I do.”

  “Then marry me, Josie. Stay with me. Live with me.”

  “Darling...” She took a breath to steady herself. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “There are so many things separating us. Different ideas. Different worlds.” Her voice gentled. “I’d have to give up my world to live in yours, Kumar. I’m not sure I can do that.”

  She leaned her head against his chest, holding him as he held her. “This time with you in the desert has been...” She searched for the words to tell him what this had meant to her and about the joy that being with him had brought. But all she could say was, “This has been the happiest time of my life, but I’m afraid...I’m so afraid it won’t last. Because we’re different. Because—”

  “Because of the way you feel about Middle Eastern men. Arabs like me.” His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened with anger. “Because you still class all of us in with Jenny’s ex-husband and Ben Fatah.”

  “Oh, no, Kumar, no. Not since I first came to your country, not since I met men like Saoud and Youssef and so many others.” She kissed him. “And you, Kumar,” she whispered against his lips. “And you.” She leaned close into him and with her face against his shoulder said, “I’m ashamed of my prejudice. I ask your forgiveness for the way I felt, for the things I said before.”

  He held her away from him. “Do you love me, Josie?”

  “Yes, I love you.”

  “But still you doubt.” He tightened his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t want to marry me.” The words were bitterly spoken. Harsh. “You don’t want to live in Abdu Resaba with me.”

  “I need time,” she whispered.

  He let her go and turned away from her. In the last rays of the sun, with the wind blowing the dark robe around his ankles and his skin turned the deep, rich color of bronze, he was all desert man. A Bedouin, by birth and by his love for this vast and wonderful land.

  She touched his hand. “I’ll give you my answer when you return,” she said.

  He put his arm around her and they stood with their arms around each other as the last rays of the setting sun cast patterns of shade across the rolling dunes and darkness came to the desert. Only then did they go back down the dune to the camp.

  * * *

  The tribes of Amin Elmusa and Abdur Khan began to gather outside the tent city of Youssef Abedi. There were more than three thousand of them and still more came every day to join those already here, dark-skinned men in djellabas and ghutras, a powerful fighting force that, together with Youssef’s one thousand warriors, would soon march on Bir Chagga.

  There were the thousands of camels the men would ride, plus additional camels to carry the supplies needed for the four-day trip across the desert, as well as their rifles and rounds of ammunition.

  It was, Josie thought, as if a giant city had suddenly sprung up in the middle of the desert. Even from their tent she could hear the rumble of the thousands of men’s voices and the grumbling snorts of their beasts. At night she could smell the food they prepared and see the glow of their campfires.

  They were a strong fighting force and together, with Kumar leading them, they would defend Abdu Resaba against the aggressor.

  Josie saw little of Kumar. He spent the last few days before the journey with the men who would ride with him, for they were his brothers—fellow Bedouins who would, if necessary, fight to the death beside him. He sat by their campfires at night and shared their food. They spoke of their homes and of the women they had left behind, as he would leave his woman.

  His woman. He prayed to Allah that one day it would be true, that Josie would love him as he loved her. But could she give up the life she knew for the life he was destined to lead here in Abdu Resaba? It would be a life of ease and of luxury, and for as long as his father still ruled he and Josie would be free to travel, to see and to share together some of the beautiful places of the world. If she wanted to continue her work at the hospital he would offer no objection.

  But when his father stepped down or died and Kumar became the ruler of Abdu Resaba, things would be different. He would have many duties to attend to, so they would not be able to travel as they had before. And certainly it would not be fitting for the wife of Sheikh Kumar Ben Ari, the titular head of the country, to work in a hospital or any other place.

  Would Josie be able to accomodate herself to such a life? Could she give up the world she had known, to become a part of his world?

  She can if she loves me, he told himself. If she loves me enough.

  * * *

  On the night before he was to leave with his men for Bir Chagga, Kumar returned early to their tent. Josie had just finished bathing and when he came in he found her wearing the simple white robe she sometimes slept in. She was sitting on a low hassock, brushing her hair.

  “Mesa al khair,” he said when he entered. For indeed it was an evening of goodness whenever he returned to find her waiting for him. He crossed to her, took the brush from her hand and began to brush her hair.

  “You leave tomorrow,” she said.

  “Before dawn.” He lifted a handful of her hair and let it drift through his fingers. She leaned back against him and closed her eyes and when she did he put down the brush and cupped her breasts.

  “We’ll make love tonight,” he said.

  “Oh, yes.”

  He caressed her, hesitated, and with a note of surprise in his voice asked, “Is it my imagination, or are your breasts larger than they were?”

  The breath caught in her throat. Larger? If they were did that mean...? They had been in the desert for over two months, lovers for all of that time. She could have gotten pregnant that first night. She probably had. Dear Lord! Fighting for control, not wanting him to know, she shook her head and said, “No, no, I don’t think so.”

  He picked up the brush again and stroked her hair. With his other hand he stroked her breast. Stroking, stroking until her eyes drifted closed again.

  There was a closeness in his touch, an intimacy that only lovers know. She didn’t want to move or speak. She wanted to capture this moment so she could hold it in the palm of her hand and take out the memory of it when he was gone from her.

  He was leaving to go into the heat of battle, into a danger she could only imagine. She was afraid for him; she didn’t want him to go. But he would go and there was nothing she could do to keep him here. She could only pray to her God and to his Allah to keep him safe.

  She turned and took the brush from his hand. “Come,” she said in a voice that trembled from all she was feeling. And taking his hand she led him to their bed.

  In the golden glow of the lantern light she took off her robe and stood naked before him. He put his arms around her and held her close, letting passion wait, con
tent for now with this moment of closeness.

  “I love you,” he whispered against the fall of her hair.

  “As I love you.” She clung to him, as though by the force of her love, by holding him in her arms this way, she could keep him safe from the danger that lay ahead.

  “Don’t tremble so,” he said, sensing her fear. “I promise that I will come back.” He cupped her face between his hands. “Believe,” he said. “Believe.”

  He picked her up and carried her to their bed. Quickly, then, he pulled the robe over his head and eased his briefs down over his hips.

  He lay down beside her and gathered her into his arms.

  “My love,” he said. He kissed her mouth, gently at first, then with growing passion. He parted her lips with his tongue, and when her tongue met his, he sighed with pleasure.

  They kissed like that for a long time, and though their naked bodies pressed one to the other, they made themselves wait for that ultimate moment when once again their bodies would be joined.

  He touched her breasts with gentle hands. Slowly, oh, so slowly, he came closer and closer to the aching peaks. He took each tip in his fingers to squeeze and tease. He ran his fingernails lightly over them and she moaned into his mouth.

  “Now I must taste them,” he whispered, and bent his head to kiss first one, then the other, and turning Josie onto her side he lay with his head on her arm so that he could lap and kiss and tease at will.

  This was his woman, his Josie who threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him close to her breasts. Josie who whispered his name and said, “Oh, yes. That’s good. That’s so good.”

  He reached to touch her between her legs, and they parted for him. He fondled her gently, caressing the warm moistness of her, circling around that most tender part, touching until her whispers grew heated and she said, “No more. No more or I will...”

  “Will what, my love?”

  “You know. You know.” She tugged at his shoulders. “Come over me,” she said. “I want to feel your body on mine. I want to feel you inside me.”

  He caressed once more that special place, then eased himself over her. “Now, dearest?” he asked.

  “Yes.” A tremulous sigh. “Oh, yes.”

  Her legs parted. He felt her softness with that hard and pulsating part of himself, and with a low cry he thrust into her, gasping with the sheer joy of being part of her again. Her warmth took him in, held him, and when he began to move against her, her body rose to meet his.

  She loved this. She loved him. When they were together this way there were no yesterdays, no tomorrows, no doubts. There was only the here and now, and the heaven of being in his arms again.

  She kissed his mouth. She encircled him with her arms and with her legs.

  Their cadence quickened. He thrust harder, deeper. He rubbed his body against hers as if he couldn’t get enough of her. He took her lower lip to suckle, then plunged his tongue into her mouth as that other part of him plunged again and again into her body.

  This is a madness, he thought in that part of his mind that still functioned, a fever in the blood that only she can cure. He cried her name, “Josie! Josie!” and moved against her with the terrible desperation of all the love he felt for her.

  “Ride with me!” he demanded. “Stay with me. Tell me...tell me...”

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, gone a little mad herself in the wildness of this lovemaking. Then she started over the edge and tried to muffle her cry against his shoulder.

  He grasped her chin. “Look at me! Look at me!”

  His love-filled eyes were midnight black and flecked with gold in the light of the lantern. “Josie...Josie.”

  And when he thrust again she spiraled up and up and her body burst with an ecstasy that was a little like dying.

  He covered her mouth with his. He gave her his cry and collapsed over her, his body shaking with all that he was feeling.

  When it began to subside they held each other quietly and kissed each other gently. And slept at last in the shelter of each other’s arms.

  He left before dawn the next day.

  Chapter 17

  Two weeks went by.

  Three.

  Four.

  There was no news from Bir Chagga. Time and again the women of the camp turned their gazes toward the west, waiting, hoping for a sign of riders.

  But there was no sign.

  They milked their goats and tended their fields, and spoke in hushed voices—as if a loud sound might shatter the calm acceptance of a fear so terrible they could not speak of it.

  When Josie wasn’t with them and helping with the chores, she spent her time with little Rafi. His mother was dead, his father was at war. There was only an aging aunt to care for him. His shoulder bandaged, his arm in a sling, he spoke often of how it would be when he went to the big hospital in the city.

  “It’s not that I will be afraid,” he told Josie. “But you will be with me, yes?”

  “Of course, I will.”

  “And when my shoulder is better we’ll go in the airplane with Sheikh Ben Ari?”

  “Yes, Rafi.”

  Yes, because she would not let herself believe that Kumar would not come back.

  Each night at sunset she climbed to that place on the rise of the dune where they had gone the night before he left. She looked out to the west, her hand shading her eyes, searching for a cloud of dust that meant the men from the camp were returning.

  But day after day there was no sign of them.

  Often as she stood looking out at the dunes, she rested her hand on her belly, drawing comfort from the child growing there. For she knew now that she was pregnant. And there was gladness in her heart that a part of Kumar was growing inside her.

  Every evening as she stood at the top of the dune, she searched her heart for the answer she would give when he returned. I’ll know when I see him, she told herself. I’ll know if I can give up the life I’ve always known, to live the life he must live here in Abdu Resaba.

  If he were not the son of the ruler, if he were free to travel as he wished, to live in the West for a part of the year, it would be easier. But one day Kumar’s father would step down and he would become the head of his country. When that happened, if she married him, she would be bound, as these other women were bound, to stay by his side and to observe all of the customs of his country.

  Abdu Resaba was his home. Could it ever be hers?

  She loved Kumar with all her heart. But she didn’t know if she could ever be the woman he wanted her to be.

  * * *

  Five weeks passed.

  Six.

  The women in the camp changed their white robes for black. They rarely spoke in voices above a whisper. Their faces were solemn, their expressions resigned.

  Josie refused to wear black. She refused to be resigned. She played with the children, laughed when they laughed and spoke to the other women in a normal voice.

  She wouldn’t give up hope. Kumar had promised that he would return and he would. She had to believe he would.

  And every evening at sunset when she climbed the dune and stood looking out over the desert, she prayed to her god and to his. She said, “Keep him safe. Bring him back to me.”

  One evening when Josie looked toward the west it seemed to her that she could see a speck of dust on the horizon. Her heart quickened, for as she watched the dust became a cloud, then a rider.

  With a glad cry she ran down the other side of the dune, slipping, sliding, stumbling in her haste. Then she was running across the sand toward the figure she saw emerging from the cloud of dust.

  “Kumar!” she called out, even though she knew he was too far away to hear. “Kumar!” Because she knew it was him. It had to be him.

  The white robe billowed out behind the racing camel. The beast came closer, its hooves kicking up the sand as its rider spurred it on.

  Josie ran on, her arms outstretched, because now she could see his face. It was Kumar.
He’d come back just as he’d said he would.

  He reached her. He called out to her as he pulled on the reins and whacked the animal’s knees. When it kneeled, he threw himself out of the saddle and ran to meet her.

  She cried his name and then she was in his arms, clinging to him, weeping against his shoulder, touching his face, whispering his name over and over again.

  His kissed her and his mouth was hungry on hers. “This is the moment I’ve dreamed of,” he said, when he held her away from him.

  “Are you all right?” She clutched his shoulders as if to assure herself he was really here. “Is it over?”

  “It’s over. Sharif Kadiri is dead. Azrou Jadida surrendered two weeks ago.” His expression grew solemn, his eyes were sad. “We lost a lot of good men, Josie. But yes, it’s over.”

  “Saoud?” she asked anxiously. “Youssef?”

  “They’re a half day’s ride behind me. I couldn’t wait, I had to get to you as soon as I could.” He touched her face. “Has it been bad for you?” he asked. “Are you all right.”

  She thought, then, that she should tell him about the child she was carrying. His child. But she hesitated. What would he say? Would he be happy that together they had created a new life?

  “Josie?” He looked concerned. “Is anything wrong? Are you all right?”

  She took his hand and laid it on her stomach. With a smile she said, “I’m as all right as a woman who’s pregnant can be.”

  His face went still. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m a nurse, Kumar. A nurse who was so in love she forgot all about birth control. Of course I’m sure.”

  He closed his hands on her shoulders. “You won’t leave me,” he said in a voice that shook with all he was feeling.

  “Of course I won’t leave you.”

  “You’ll marry me.”

  “Just as soon as I can.”

  With a glad cry he pulled her back into his arms. Josie, his life, his love. Soon she would be his wife, the mother of his child.

  He cupped her face between his hands and asked, “What of the differences you were so concerned about?”

  “We’ll work them out. If we love each other...”