Secret of the Sands

by Sara Sheridan

  Chapter Fifteen

  Six weeks into their captivity and having moved camp twice, Jessop comes to understand that the curse of being a doctor is the knowledge what a man can survive and what he can’t. His is a profession that does not countenance much in the way of hope. He wonders if it is for this reason that Jones has survived more easily than he, for Jones has been able to believe that the treatment they have received in the camp will kill them, that it will end soon. Jessop, however, understands that the emir has a particular talent. He is extremely good at keeping men alive. Just. The heat has exacerbated their decline, and when he thinks of it logically he knows that it really hasn’t been that long. For heaven’s sake, the Palinurus will only recently have abandoned the rendezvous point at Aden. But every day of this has been hell – the heat and the terror of never knowing when they may be hauled from the tent and made to march for miles overnight or, worse, perhaps be beheaded. Jessop is sure he read somewhere that it is beheading that is most likely.

  The men have quickly become two ragged piles of skin and bones – the doctor is a good two stones down on what he considers his fighting weight of two hundred pounds, at which he left Bombay all those months before. He has little fight left now. For a while he hoped the abrasions caused by their initial struggle against the ropes might cause blood poisoning or that the sign that the emir had branded agonisingly on the white men’s buttocks might become infected to the same effect but neither of these possibilities has transpired to release either him or Jones from their captivity, and he has become resigned simply to waiting, endlessly, and hoping despite himself for food and water. If the meagre rations stopped, at least there would be an end to the whole damn business. In this weakened state, a couple of days of privation would certainly do it.

  However, when their stony-eyed jailer arrives and pours some warm, brackish liquid from a goatskin down Jessop’s face, he cannot help but lick at it in desperation. The survival instinct, he notes, is stronger than his logical response to the situation and thirst turns any man, even a scientific kind of chap, into a panic-stricken, babbling, begging fool. The doctor has come to realise that a man will sit in his own excrement, wracked by hunger pains, baking in his own skin, and still he will survive despite himself.

  ‘Me too,’ Jones begs and receives a dark dribble of lukewarm liquid.

  Jones, it has turned out, has no dignity and less goodness. Jessop does not blame him, and it is hardly a surprise. Jessop suspects that when Jones is occasionally taken away by one of the guards that he is gratifying the man sexually for extra food. Firstly, he never mentions what happens when he leaves the tent, which is odd. And then the lieu-tenant’s weight has not dropped as dramatically as the doctor’s own. Jessop is not sure what he would do given that opportunity – Jones’ blonde hair is clearly of more interest to those so inclined. In any case, he does not like to think about it preferring, when he is not wishing fervently for death, instead to fantasise about either crisp, green apples and a stroll he took shortly before his departure through the winding lanes of his father’s estate or, occasionally, the madman’s dream of escaping the tent, stealing a camel and somehow outrunning and outfoxing the emir’s well-fed warriors on their own territory, to make it back to the coast and safety. Both these dreams seem equally outlandish and unlikely but they occupy him nonetheless. Out on the jabel there are falaj – stone-lined irrigation systems to carry the water. They were built by the Persians more than a thousand years ago. Jessop dreams of bathing in one. Why won’t the man simply let him die?

  Most evenings there is thin soup of some kind or other – the watered-down, half-rancid remnants of meals served days ago at the emir’s table. The moisture in this mush is as important as the nourishment though Jessop has noticed he is sweating less and as a consequence he cannot cool down. He knows he is in the advanced stages of acute dehydration and thinks it would be good to write to his professor at King’s about the phenomenon. The old man would be interested, no doubt, for the human body is always endlessly fascinating to him and he values practical experimentation above all else. Both of the men have lost the ability to grow their beard and the thin, straggly wisps on their chins are matted against the skin. If you think about it too much, it becomes devilishly itchy.

  Jessop is jolted out of this reverie by the voice of his companion.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ Jones says his first coherent words in several weeks that have not been formed to beg for food or water. ‘I’ve no idea how we are ever going to get out of here, old man.’

  Jessop laughs more in shock than in amusement. He had assumed that Jones, like him, was wishing for death but that clearly has not been the case.

  ‘Really,’ Jones continues, as if it is only just occurring to him, ‘at most we could run if we could get through these ropes. But then how would we survive? There’s sand everywhere. Sand and baking sun. This whole damn country is just an oven.’

  ‘We’re not going to survive,’ the doctor says wearily. ‘At least, I hope not for much longer. A little more privation and we’ll be there, my friend, and that is my considered, medical opinion.’

  Apparently, this has not occurred to the lieutenant. Perhaps, Jessop wonders, he thinks this is a tale in some story book and we have to get out because, as white men, we are the heroes. It occurs to him that Jones did not have much of a grasp on reality even before their fortunes changed, and now he does not comprehend that he is filthy, ragged and hovering on the cusp of death.

  ‘But they will send someone when they realise we’re missing, won’t they? I mean, we’re British subjects.’

  The lieutenant manages to sound almost outraged. It’s actually quite admirable and Jessop can’t bring himself to point out that Haines is well-meaning but not always effect ive and that it will take an extraordinarily effective man to cross the burning sands and come to find them. All this to be done quickly – for in current circumstances, the doctor does not give himself or his companion much more than a few weeks of life. A man given no food can last three months, of course, there’s always that – and they are at least receiving some rations. But still, he considers, with the heat, another two months seems an impossibility unless things improve.

  In any case, it is not, as far as the doctor can see, in Captain Haines’ nature to marshal his men into a search party or to undertake what would surely be an arduous negotiation with the Bedu. If the emir were for turning he would surely have done so by now. Their best hope is that he has sued for ransom, though there has been no mention of that, and truly the fellow would have a cheek, given they’d paid for his hospitality already. Jessop feels outraged. He didn’t kill the damn girl on purpose. In fact, he cured all the others. There is no accounting for it; the emir is grieving, he is not reasonable. He may never return to reason and that’s the truth. It is too exhausting to think about.

  ‘How long do you suppose we have been here?’ Jones cuts in on the doctor’s rambling thoughts. ‘How long do you think it will take them to rally the troops and come for us? It’s really not on. Seems to me that we’ve been tied up for far too long, anyway.’

  It’s a good question. Jessop tries to work out how long it might have been but the trouble is that one scorching day merges into another. It’s impossible to measure time.

  It’s weeks, he thinks, not months. He’s sure of it though he is aware that in these conditions he is easily confused. For all he knows they could have been here a year, perhaps, or longer. The imprisonment in the tent is punctuated very occasionally by a sandstorm or a few days of exhausting marching to another oasis where the tent is set up again and the two men are bound again to a stake. Once, they were lucky and the ropes were long enough to allow them to sleep on their stomachs. Sleeping on the stomach, Jessop has come to understand, diminishes the pain of extreme hunger. Today his bonds are far too tight, however, to manage it. They’ve been bound like this, he thinks, for ages and ages, though how long that actually is escapes him.

  ‘They�
��ve certainly held us for several weeks,’ is the best he can do.

  ‘Well, I hope the rescue party make it soon,’ the lieutenant says testily, as if his carriage is late for the opera or the vicar and his sister have, inexplicably, not turned up to take tea. ‘Really I do.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  After some weeks, Zena learns that she is all but invisible to everyone in her master’s household. The servants come and go, each with a prescribed list of duties that they undertake like clockwork. She need not clean nor cook nor even wash herself – everything simply seems to happen without any effort on her part. A tray of food arrives twice a day. Jugs of scented water are delivered so she can be washed. There are clean clothes and a doe-eyed, tongue-tied negro girl combs and dresses Zena’s hair. She is a sidi slave who speaks neither Arabic nor her own Abyssinian tongue nor, indeed, any language at all it seems for, she never says a word to anyone, and will not indulge even in sign language, for Zena has tried. It seems to her that the slaves clean the furniture, make the bed, refill the lamps, sweep the floor, leave fresh water and jellies for the master’s delight and care for her in the same way that they look after everything else – there is for them, no distinction between their master’s inanimate objects and the girl who is confined to his room day after day. It is all very businesslike.

  This must be what it feels like to be a pet, Zena thinks, and then she realises that in her experience, even a pet is shown some affection.

  Meanwhile, each morning the master rises shortly after sunrise, prays and leaves. In the evenings he returns to the room with one of three or four slave boys, who are his favourites, and occasionally two of them at the same time. Zena spends almost all day at her seat by the window where she finds she can pass the hours simply watching the activities on the street. There are white jubbahed hawkers and earnest, serious-faced slaves going about their business, intriguing, covered litters carried by muscle-bound black bearers and keen-eyed messengers, stick thin from running errands and always keen to be on their way. Down the hill she catches glimpses of the azure sea, all the way across the bay and out to the Strait of Hormuz. At night, the stars are fascinating, though none of the shapes they make in the sky are familiar or at least appear in the location she expects them, as seen from the fragrant, lush vantage point of her grandmother’s compound where she used to sit and listen to the crickets in the darkness and trace shapes between the specks of bright fire above. In Muscat, Zena loves the sunsets and after the blazing sky settles into darkness she enjoys watching the bustle of so many far-off people moving indoors, eating with their family and feasting with friends as the city closes its shutters and lights its lamps.

  When the master arrives back at his room it is always very late. Zena lights the naft in anticipation though when he swings briskly through the door he only dismisses her casually as soon as his slave boy arrives – just as he did the first night she met him. Lying in the hallway on the cool earthen tiles that line the floor, she hears a lewd cry or two from behind the thick, cedarwood door and falls asleep after midnight, staring at the low moon and waking only as the muezzin’s calls start when the first red line of dawn appears on the horizon. Prayer is better than sleep, they echo around the bay from minarets all over the city, summoning the men to the fajir and lending a rhythm to Zena’s day even if she does not pray when they call. As the music fades, the door to the room opens and the master’s boys step over her on their way back to their own quarters. Then she waits patiently, hovering outside for perhaps half an hour or more, listening to the household wake up – the sound of far-off doors opening and closing, a child’s voice and a woman’s laugh – before the master himself leaves and she can take her place, like some kind of ornamental doll, a place holder, on the cushions by the window.

  The rhythm of the days numbs her and after the initial relief that she is fed and cared for, it does not take long until Zena is bored to distraction. In such a situation even a small change in routine can come as a shock so she finds herself taken back when one evening the master returns alone and in a fury. He slams the door and, flinging himself onto the cushions like a child in ill-humour, he pokes a smooth finger into the brass-bound box of rose jelly that is replenished daily. Then he takes a deep breath and sighs heavily. It is a dramatic sigh. The master is trying to communicate.

  Zena hesitates. Her huge, black eyes flick towards the doorway. The slave boy will be here any minute. The master takes another deep breath and heaves it out again. This is quite the most interesting thing that has happened in the last fortnight. Zena decides to make a move. She crosses the room gracefully, her hips swaying beneath her blue jilbab. She presses her hands together in supplication, lowers her eyes modestly and bows down to the ground, prostrate at the master’s feet.

  The master raises another rose jelly to his mouth, dropping a trail of powdered sugar across the velvet cushions. He stares openly at Zena’s long, curled hair splaying across the carpet towards him. He thinks it is like the surf on the shore, reaching towards him on the sands. He is tempted to kick but manages to restrain himself.

  ‘What they sent you for, I don’t know,’ he says.

  Zena looks up and smiles. She is no fool and there is no measure in letting him treat her like one. ‘Oh, master, I think they have sent me hoping that I can tempt you. That is what you said yourself, is it not, the first day I arrived?’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ he laughs. ‘You are right. That is exactly it.’ He makes a dismissive noise and waves his hand to demonstrate how ridiculous this notion is. ‘My father thinks because I like Aran and Sam and they are black like you . . . Galla. Pshaw! He is a fool! How dare he?’

  Zena feels embarrassed. What can she say? That they have spent a fortune on her? That in the past many men have found her attractive? That three years ago her grandmother had an offer of two horses and a white peacock for her hand in marriage, if the Arab trader who made it could be assured that she was a virgin? That an imam promised a chest of gold but the old lady did not want to let her go with him for she believed Zena too young. The old lady protected her, she realises now, too much. ‘We will find a grand, Ethiopian prince for you, my love,’ she promised, ‘when the time is right. And you will bear a king for our own country.’

  The master does not care about any of that. There is a moment’s hesitation and then what Zena finds she can say is this. ‘Shall I dance for you? I used to dance at my grand-mother’s house.’

  The master regards her. He stares into the distance, distracted by his fury at the situation that has brought her here. Then he gestures with his hand. ‘Dance then,’ he says curtly.

  There is no music, not even a drum, but that doesn’t matter. Zena simply imagines Yari playing for her as he has a hundred times before. She imagines that Baba is still alive and she is dancing for the old lady’s guests after a magnificent feast. She raises her arms and starts to gyrate, easily finding a rhythm of her own and, lithe as a dyk dyk in the bush, she dances back to Abyssinia in her mind. Her hair falls in a curtain and she tosses it aside to the rhythm, she stamps her feet and sinuously moves her hips, she flutters her eyelashes and flashes her eyes. She is as smooth as a fast-flowing river and she dances, whirling like a dervish, tossing her hips like a girl for hire at the bazaar. She moves frantically as if all her days of inactivity can be kicked away in the rhythm. She dances until she is not even aware of the master anymore, and when the music in her head stops, her skin is flushed with delight and she is panting as she falls on the vivid cushions beside him with a wide smile.

  He claps. He laughs.

  ‘If ever I was to . . .’ he starts, moved by the display momentarily before he catches hold of himself and suspends the sentence, hanging in the air. ‘You are very beautiful,’ he finishes. ‘For a woman.’

  ‘Do you think,’ Zena asks him, ‘that they will take me away if you don’t want to . . .?’

  The master shrugs his shoulders. ‘I don’t know what they are going to do. All my slaves are em
ployed elsewhere tonight so that I will come back to you here and we will be alone. I almost slept downstairs. They want me to marry, but if I do they fear I will disgrace the family. When there are no children a wife can insist on a divorce.’

  There is an earnestness in his tone, a crack of emotion too. Zena feels sorry for him.

  ‘I can sleep here tonight,’ she says, ‘if you would like it. No one will know what has or has not happened.’

  The master looks at her as if she is insane and for a moment she thinks she has gone too far. Then he reaches out and pulls her towards him. Zena has never been kissed before. The master’s mouth is soft and tastes of sweet rose-water and she finds, to her surprise, that she kisses him back easily. Kissing, she thinks, is like dancing – much better when you lose yourself in it and don’t think too much. The sensation is pleasant. She sighs as she breathes in. His skin smells of the smoke of his shisha pipe – aromatic and musky. There is a gentleness in his movements that is surprising and the brush of his small beard on her skin makes her cheek tingle. Zena falls back on the cushions and the master runs a lazy hand down the line of her body.

  ‘It is no use,’ he says sadly. ‘You are too . . . soft.’

  Zena puts her arms around him. She is unsure what more he could want. At least the kiss has broken the monotony. There is a frisson to this seduction business, she thinks – a pleasure. At last something has at least happened. The master, however, looks forlorn. Zena knows to comfort him.

  ‘No one will know,’ she promises. ‘No one will know. Come on, let me put you to bed and I will sleep next to you. Give me your hand.’

  The next morning when the slaves arrive to wash her and clean the room, they bring a new jilbab made of white gossamer so fine it could be a cobweb. It is cut to reveal an enticing glimpse of her dark cleavage and edged with gold and silver ribbon. With it there is a box containing three thick, gold bracelets and an ankle chain with tiny bells along its length. Two sheer, red scarves for dancing are laid beside the cushions in easy reach. When the silent sidi comes she dresses Zena’s hair and threads a clinking strip of pretty amber beads through the coils. Then she scents the trailing wisps with orange blossom. Afterwards, there is a hot plate of roasted chicken and a sweet, milky pudding with slices of sugared lemon and a swirl of rose syrup.