Bin Sharif had had a while to think about what Hassanein was doing. He'd lost some of the edge of his anger. "You're a wise man, O Shaykh," he said. "You've proved that over the years, leading the Bani Salim with a sure and equitable hand. I defer to your knowledge and experience, but I still think what you are doing is an affront to the dead."
Hassanein stopped and went to bin Sharif. He put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Perhaps someday you'll be shaykh of this tribe," he said. "Then you'll understand the agony of leadership. You're right, though. What I'm doing is an unkindness to my sweet niece, but it must be done. Ham kitabr That meant "It is written." It didn't really explain anything, but it cut off bin Sharif s argument.
Bin Sharif looked into the shaykh's eyes, and finally his gaze turned down to the ground. As we took up our progress again, I saw that the young man had begun walking back to his tent with a thoughtful expression on his face. I hadn't had much opportunity to talk with him, but I'd gotten the impression that he was an intelligent, serious young man. If Hassanein were correct and bin Sharif would someday succeed him, I guessed that the Bani Salim would remain in very capable hands.
I just stared ahead, a little unhappy about being part of this strange procession. It was another typical day in the Empty Quarter, and the hot wind blew sand into my face until I was grumbling under my breath. I'd had just about enough of all this; and despite what Friedlander Bey thought, I didn't find the Bedu way of life romantic in the least. It was hard and dirty and entirely without pleasure, as far as I was concerned, and they were welcome to it. I prayed that Allah would let me get back to the city soon, because it had become very obvious to me that I would never make a very good nomad.
Along the last part of the loop, bin Musaid was still watching us with hooded eyes. He stood in the same place as before, his arms folded across his chest. He hadn't said a word and he hadn't moved an inch. I could almost see him trembling with the effort to keep himself under control. He looked as if he were ready to explode. I didn't want to be near him when he did.
"Enough, O Shaykh?" said bin Turki as we drew abreast of the grave. Already it was beginning to fill in with fine sand blown across the desert floor.
Hassanein shook his head. "Another circle," he said. My heart sank.
"Will you explain what you're doing, O Shaykh?" I said.
Hassanein looked toward me, but his gaze was over my head, into the distance. "There were people on the back of the world," he said in a tired voice. "People as poor as we, who also led lives of wandering and hardship. When one of their tribe was killed, the elders carried the corpse around their camp five or six times. The first time, everyone in the tribe stopped whatever they were doing to watch, and they joined together in mourning the unfortunate victim. The second time, half the tribe watched. The third time, only a few people were still interested. By the fifth or sixth time, there was only one person who was still paying close attention to the progress of the body, and that was the killer himself."
I looked around the camp area, and I saw that almost everyone had gone back to his chores. Even though a popular young woman had died that morning, there was still hard work that had to be done, or there would be no food or water for the Bani Salim or for their animals.
We led Ata Allah slowly around the circle, with only bin Musaid and a few others observing our progress. Noora's father looked around for his wife, but she'd gone into their tent much earlier. Nasheeb leaned against a taut rope and stared at us with vacant eyes.
As we drew near bin Musaid, he blocked our way. "May Allah blight your lives for this," he growled, his face dark with fury. Then he went to his tent.
When we came up to the two young men this time, Hassanein gave them instructions. "You must look for the murder weapon," he told them. "A knife. Hilal, you look for it where Shaykh Marid discovered Noora's body. Bin Turki, you must search around the tent of her parents." We went by the grave and started our final circuit. As Hassanein had predicted, there was only one person watching us now: Nasheeb, his brother, Noora's father.
Before we reached him, Hilal ran up to us. "I found it!" he cried. "I found the knife!"
Hassanein took it and examined it briefly. He showed it to me. "See?" he said. "This is Nasheeb's mark."
"Her own father?" I was surprised. I would've bet that the killer was bin Musaid.
Hassanein nodded. "I suspect he'd begun to worry that the loose talk and gossip might have some basis in truth. If Noora had been ruined, he'd never get her bride-price. He probably killed her, thinking that someone else would be blamed—my nephew Ibrahim, or old Umm Rashid—and at least he'd collect the blood money."
I looked at Nasheeb, who was still standing blank-faced beside his tent. I was horrified that the man could kill his own daughter for such a foolish reason.
The Bedu system of justice is simple and direct. Shaykh Hassanein had all he needed to be convinced of the murderer's identity, yet he gave Nasheeb a chance to deny the evidence. When we stopped beside him, the rest of the Bani Salim realized that we'd found the killer, and they came out of their tents and stood nearby, to witness what would happen next.
"Nasheeb, my father's son," said Hassanein, "you've murdered your own daughter, the flesh of your blood and the spirit of your spirit. 'Slay not your children, fearing a fall into poverty,' it says in the noble Qur'ân, 'we shall provide for them and for you. Lo! the slaying of them is great sin.'"
Nasheeb listened to him with his head bowed. He seemed to be only vaguely aware of what was happening. His wife had collapsed on the ground, weeping and calling on Allah, and some of the other women in the tribe were tending to her. Bin Musaid had turned away, and his shoulders shook. Bin Sharif just stared at Nasheeb in bewilderment.
"Do you deny this accusation?" asked Hassanein. "If you wish, you may swear your innocence on the great shrine of Shaykh Ismail bin Nasr. Remember that it was only a year and a year ago that Ali bin Sahib swore falsely on that holy shrine, and within a week he was dead of a snakebite." This was the same Shaykh Hassanein who'd assured me earlier that the Bani Salim weren't superstitious. I wondered how much he believed in the swearing-on-shrines stuff, and how much was purely for Nasheeb's benefit.
The murderer, Noora's own father, spoke in a voice so low that only Hassanein and I could hear. "I will swear no oath," he said. That was his admission of guilt.
Hassanein nodded. "Then let us prepare Noora for her rest unto the Day of Judgment," he said. "Tomorrow at sunrise, Nasheeb, you'll be allowed to pray for your soul. And then I will do what I must do, inshallah"
Nasheeb only closed his eyes. I've never seen such pitiful anguish on a man's face before. I thought he might faint on the spot.
We brought Noora back to the grave site. Two of the women fetched a white sheet to use as a shroud, and they wrapped the girl in it and wept and prayed over her. Hassanein and Abu Ibrahim, Noora's uncles, lowered her into the grave, and the shaykh prayed for her. Then there was nothing to do but cover her over and mark the place with a few stones.
Hassanein and I watched Hilal and bin Turki finish that work, and neither of us spoke. I don't know what the shaykh was thinking, but I was asking myself why it is that so many people seem to think that murder can be a solution to their problems. In the crowded city or here in the empty desert, can life really become so unbearable that someone else's death will make it better? Or is it that deep down inside, we never truly believe that anyone else's life is worth quite as much as our own?
As the two young men completed their sad task, Friedlander Bey joined us. "May the blessings of Allah be on her and peace," he said. "Shaykh Hassanein, your brother has fled."
Hassanein shrugged, as if he knew it would happen. "He seeks his own death in the desert, rather than from my sword." He stretched and sighed. "Yet we must track him and fetch him back, if God wills. This tragedy is not yet over."
8
Well, as much as I hated the idea, my time among the Bani Salim had changed my life. I was
almost sure of it. As I drowsed aboard Fatma, I daydreamed about what things might be like when I got back to the city. I especially liked the fantasy of bursting in on Reda Abu Adil and giving him the big kiss, the one that Sicilian crime lords knew as the mark of death. Then I reminded myself that Abu Adil was off-limits, and I turned my attention elsewhere.
Whose neck would I most like to wring? Hajjar's? That went without saying, but dusting Hajjar wouldn't give me the true satisfaction I was looking for. I'm sure Friedlander Bey would expect me to aim higher.
A fly landed on my face, and I gave it an annoyed swipe. I opened my eyes to see if anything had changed, but it hadn't. We were still slowly rocking and rolling across the sand mountains called the Uruq ash-Shaiba. These were indeed mountains, not just hills. I'd had no idea that dunes could rise so high. The sand peaks of the Uruq ash-Shaiba towered six hundred feet, and they stretched on and on toward the eastern horizon like waves of frozen sunlight.
It was sometimes very difficult for us to get the camels up the backs of those dunes. We often had to dismount and lead the animals by their head ropes. The camels complained constantly, and sometimes we even had to lighten their loads and carry the stuff ourselves. The sand on the slopes was soft, compared with the firm, packed sand on the desert floor, and even the surefooted camels had trouble struggling up to the crest of the high dunes. Then, on the leeward side, which of course was much steeper, the beasts were in danger of tumbling and seriously injuring themselves. If that happened, it might cost us our lives.
There were six of us in the chase party. I rode beside Hassanein, who was our unspoken leader. His brother, Abu Ibrahim, rode with bin Musaid, and Suleiman bin Sharif rode with Hilal. When we stopped next to rest, the shaykh squatted and drew a rough map in the sand.
"Here is the track from Bir Balagh to Khaba well to MughOshin," he said, drawing a crooked line from north to south. He drew another line parallel to it, about a foot to the right. "Here is Oman. Perhaps Nasheeb thinks he can beg the safety of the king there, but if so, he's badly mistaken. The king of Oman is weak, under the thumb of the amir of Muscat, who is a fierce defender of Islamic justice. Nasheeb would live no longer there than if he returned to the Bani Salim."
I indicated the space between the desert track and the Omani border. "What is this?" I asked.
"We've just entered this area," said Hassanein. He patted the honey-colored sand. "This is the Uruq ash-Shaiba, these high dune peaks. Beyond it, though, is something worse."
Now he ran his thumbnail in the sand along the border with Oman. "The Umm as-Samim."
That meant "Mother of poison." "What kind of a place is it?" I asked.
Hassanein looked up at me and blinked. "Umm as-Samim," he said, as if just repeating the name explained everything. "Nasheeb is my brother, and I think I know his plans. I believe he's heading there, because he'd rather choose his own way to die."
I nodded. "So you're not really anxious to catch up to him?"
"If he intends to die in the wilderness, I'll allow it. But just the same, we should be prepared to head him off if he tries to escape, instead." He turned to his brother. "Musaid, take your son and ride to the northern limits of the Umm as-Samim. Bin Sharif, you and Hilal ride to the south. This noble city man and I will follow Nasheeb to the edge of the quicksands."
So we split up, making plans to meet again with the rest of the Bani Salim at Mughshin. We didn't have a lot of extra time, because there were no wells in the Uruq ash-Shaiba. We had only the water in our goatskin bags to last us until we caught up with Nasheeb.
As the day wore on, I was left alone again with my thoughts. Hassanein was not a talkative man, and there was very little that needed discussion. I'd learned quite a lot from him. It seemed to me that in the city, I sometimes paralyzed myself, worrying over right and wrong and all the gray shades in-between. That was a kind of weakness.
Here in the Sands, decisions were clearer. It could be fatal to delay too long, debating all the sides of a course of action. I promised myself that when I got back to the city, I'd try to maintain the Bedu way of thinking. I'd reward good and punish evil. Life was too short for extenuating circumstances.
Just then, Fatma stumbled and recovered her footing. The interruption in the rhythmically swaying ride jolted me from my introspection and reminded me that I had more immediate matters to think about. Still, I couldn't help feeling that it was the will of Allah that I should have this lesson. It was as if Noora's murder had been arranged to teach me something important.
Why Noora had to die for it, I couldn't begin to understand. If I'd asked the deeply religious Friedlander Bey about it, he'd only have shrugged and said, "It's what pleases God." That was an unsatisfactory answer, but it was the only one I'd get from anyone. The discussion of such matters always devolved into late-adolescent speculation about why Allah permitted evil in the world.
Praise Allah the Unknowable!
We rode until sundown, then Shaykh Hassanein and I stopped and made camp in a small flat area between two immense dunes. I'd always heard it was wiser to travel by night and sleep during the hot afternoon, but the Bani Salim felt it was safer to reverse the conventional wisdom. After all, Fatma had enough trouble with her balance in the daytime, where she could see where she was going. In the dark, we'd be courting disaster.
I unloaded Fatma and staked her down with a long chain that let her find her own spare dinner. We needed to travel light, so our own meal wasn't much better. We each chewed two or three strips of dried goat meat while Hassanein prepared hot mint tea over a small fire.
"How much farther?" I asked, staring into the flickering fire.
He shook his head. "That's hard to say, without knowing Nasheeb's plans. If, indeed, he's attempting a crossing of the Umm as-Samim, then our task will be completed by noon tomorrow. If he tries to elude us—which he cannot do, since his life depends on finding water soon—we'll have to close in on him from three sides, and there may be a violent confrontation. I trust that my brother will do the honorable thing, after all."
There was something I didn't understand. "O Shaykh," I said, "you called the Umm as-Samim 'quicksands.' I thought they existed only in holoshows, and then usually along some unlikely jungle trail."
Hassanein gave one short, barking laugh. "I've never seen a holoshow," he said.
"Well, the quicksand usually looks like thick mud. Seems to me that if you can tread water, you ought to be able to stay above the surface in an even denser medium. You aren't sucked down immediately."
"Sucked down?" asked the shaykh. He frowned. "Many men have died in the Umm as-Samim, but none of them were sucked down. 'Fall through' is a better choice of words. The quicksands consist of a swampy lake of undrinkable water, over which is a crust of alkaline crystals washed by streams from the hills along the Omani border. In some places, the crust can bear the weight of a man. The crust is hidden from observation, however, by the desert sands that have drifted over it. From a distance, the Umm as-Samim looks like a quiet, safe floor at the edge of the desert."
"But if Nasheeb tries to travel across it—"
Hassanein shook his head. "May Allah have mercy on his soul," he said.
That reminded us that we'd delayed our sunset prayers, although only for a few minutes. We each cleared a small area of desert bottom, and performed the ritual ablutions with clean sand. We prayed, and I added a prayer asking for a blessing on Noora's soul, and guidance for all the rest of us. Then it was time to sleep. I was exhausted.
I had strange dreams all through the restless night. I can still recall one—something to do with a strong father figure giving me stern lectures about going to the mosque on Friday. In fact, the father figure wouldn't permit me to choose any old mosque; it had to be the one he attended, and he wouldn't tell me which one that was. It wasn't until I awoke that I realized he wasn't even my father, he was Jirji Shaknahyi, who had been my partner during the brief time I worked for the city's police department.
; I was deeply troubled by that dream for two reasons: now and then, I still blamed myself for Shaknahyi's death, and I wondered how he came to represent strict and harsh behavior in my dreams. He hadn't been like that at all. Why was he troubling my rest now, instead of, say, a dream Friedlander Bey?
We had another meal of dried goat meat and tea before we loaded the camels and went off in pursuit of Nasheeb. Normally, breakfast was only rice porridge and dates. "Eat what you will," said Hassanein. "This will be a day filled with happenings that will not be pleasant. Eat and drink your fill, because we will not stop again until my brother is dead."
Yipe, I thought. How can he speak so calmly about such a thing? I'd thought that I was hard, yet this desert chieftain was showing me what real strength and toughness were.
I threw the elaborate saddle over Fatma's back, and she made her obligatory, halfhearted objections. I hung half of our supplies from the saddle, and then I got the camel to her feet. This was no simple task, believe me. More than once I'd wished that the Bani Salim had turned out to be one of those desert clans who speed across the landscape on beautiful horses. Instead, I got this balky, foul-smelling beast instead. Oh well, it was as Allah pleased.
We urged our camels on toward the east, toward the Umm as-Samim. Hassanein was right: this was going to be an unpleasant day. Yet at the end of it, there'd be a resolution that would prove cathartic for the shaykh, inshallah.
Neither of us spoke. We were each wrapped in dark thoughts as we sat on our camels, rocking slowly toward our appointment with Nasheeb. A few hours passed this way, until I heard an exclamation from the shaykh. "Allahu Akbar!" he said fiercely. "There he is!"
I looked up at once. I guess I'd been dozing, because I hadn't before noticed the broad, sparkling plain ahead of us. Standing at the western edge was a man, unloading his camel as if he planned to camp there.
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