In the Kingdom of Men

by Kim Barnes

  “I don’t think it’s about more with Mason,” I said. “At least not more money or things. He just wants to make a difference.”

  Ruthie drew up one side of her face. “An idealist,” she said. “Gee, we haven’t had idealism around here since 1952. Really, it’s kind of sweet.”

  I raised my head to the sound of voices, saw Mason and Lucky reappear, followed by a man riding a large white donkey. Ruthie sat up quickly and pulled down her blouse. The Bedouin waited until Mason encouraged him forward before dismounting and greeting us.

  “This here is Sahid,” Mason said. “Says he’s traveling alone, hoping to find work at Ras Tanura. He’s got a hell of a long way to go.”

  When Mason passed Sahid the canteen, he swallowed and grimaced and swallowed again, then gratefully accepted the cigarette that Lucky offered.

  I showed Sahid my camera. “Okay?” I asked. He smiled as I focused, his teeth stained with coffee, his nose a broken line. How old was he? I wondered. Forty? Sixty? When he looked at Ruthie, she pulled the blanket’s corner to cover her bare legs. He gestured, said something that made Lucky burst out laughing.

  “Hey, babe!” Lucky said. “He wants to know if he can marry you. He’s willing to barter the donkey.”

  “You’re the ass.” Ruthie rolled the blanket to her waist, grabbed the can of peaches, and pitched it at Lucky. He used his pocketknife to jack open the tin and spear the peaches one by one. Sahid took each slice in his fingers, paying no mind to the flies that hovered at his mouth. The men conversed for a minute longer, Sahid’s face growing more serious as he swept one hand along the horizon before saying his good-byes and leading his donkey north, stopping once to bend and tunnel his finger in the sand, revealing a sprout of green grass, which the animal cropped in one bite. Sahid looked back at us, seemed to consider, then bore west as though he were suddenly sure of his direction.

  “We’d best head back,” Mason said, moving to help gather what food remained.

  “So says Sahid.” Lucky visored his eyes against the sun cutting the jabals. “Thinks there’s djinn in this place.”

  Mason weighed the water bag in his hand, then scouted the dunes, and I saw the dark edge of worry crease his brow. Lucky slapped the dust from his pants.

  “Okay, gals,” he said. “All aboard.”

  If the heat had seemed stifling before, it now seemed unbearable. Sweat chafing beneath my arms, the taste of cheese and hot lemonade souring in my throat, I closed my eyes, breathed the hot wind as Lucky geared us between the towering mounds of sand.

  Mason pointed across the dashboard. “That way,” he said.

  “Better get your bearings, son,” Lucky said. “We’re headed right.”

  “We don’t want it to get dark on us,” Mason said.

  Lucky flicked his cigarette out the window, growled a laugh. “You worry like an old lady,” he said. He skirted a garden of black rock, took a pull off his flask.

  “Let the girls have some,” Ruthie said. She reached forward, then passed the flask to me, but I shook my head.

  “What about water?” I asked.

  “We got plenty,” Lucky said.

  “We got what’s left in the bag,” Mason said. Lucky looked at him and then away.

  We topped a razor-backed dune, a pennant of sand blowing from its peak, and rode the slip face like a wave, only to stall again. Each time the car sank to its hubs, we got out to dig and push until we were grimed and exhausted. Ruthie dropped her face into her hands.

  “Let us rest for a while, will you?”

  Lucky clicked off the ignition, and the sounds of the desert settled around us. The call of strange birds was followed by a high catlike keening, and I remembered the story Mason had told me of a Bedouin at the gate, begging for help because some wild animal had dragged his child from their tent. By the time the trackers found what remained of the boy, they had only a leg bone to bury.

  “Still got a few good hours of daylight,” Lucky said. “Worse that can happen is we sleep right here. I got to piss.” He opened his door and moved behind the car, toeing the depth of the sand into which we’d settled, then stuck his head back in the window. “Come on, McPhee. Let’s crawl up and get sighted,” he said. “Pistol is beneath the seat, ladies. Just make sure you’re not pointing it at a white man.” We watched them scamper up the slope, then stand straight against the deepening sky.

  Ruthie leaned against my shoulder. “I just want to go home.”

  “Maybe they’ll send someone to find us,” I said, then remembered we hadn’t told Habib where we were going.

  A shout came down from the dune, and I peered into the distance until I made out the form of a camel, a man looming high on its back, rifle slung across his shoulder, dagger tucked at his waist. The camel knelt at the Arab’s command. I thought at first it was Sahid, but I could tell by his upright carriage that this man was younger. He offered Mason and Lucky his own goatskin bag before gesturing toward the Volkswagen, and I heard their voices rising in laughter.

  Ruthie ducked to see out my window. “What’s he saying?”

  “I don’t know, but it seems okay.”

  The men trekked back to the car, Mason in the lead. He pulled open my door. “Sahid sent help,” he said, and pointed to the camel. “You two ride. We’ll walk.”

  I grabbed my purse, hung the camera around my neck. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Mason lifted his eyebrows. “Guess we’re going to meet Abdullah’s family.”

  The man pulled back his ghutra, and I felt my heart jump with recognition.

  “So you have come for my mother’s fried locust,” Abdullah said. When I saw the flash of his wide smile, I laughed aloud, resisting the impulse to hug him like a long-lost friend.

  While Ruthie gathered her shoes, Abdullah led me to where the she-camel rested, placidly chewing her cud. She gazed at us from beneath her long lashes, then turned away, indifferent.

  “It is not like a horse,” Abdullah said, “that a boy might ride without reins.”

  “I can do it,” I said, and clambered on.

  Abdullah looped the rope in his hand, stepped close. “I am truly sorry,” he said quietly. “It is a weak father who uses a horse to punish his child.”

  I straightened myself atop the camel, embarrassed that I had been found out. “It wasn’t my father,” I said. “It was my grandfather.”

  “Allah is merciful,” he said. “There will be another horse for you.”

  Ruthie approached and climbed on. “I hate these things,” she said, and the camel laid back its head as though on cue and gave a long, excruciating bellow. With Abdullah’s command, it began to rock forward, then back, bellyaching all the while. Ruthie clutched at my waist and squealed, Abdullah encouraging her to hold on, and we began the slow, jarring plod through the dunes, Mason and Lucky following in our tracks, sand filling their worthless shoes. I focused on the rope leading to Abdullah’s hand, felt as though I were being towed like a skiff across the water.

  Ruthie brought her chin to my shoulder. “I think Abdullah’s got a crush on you,” she said.

  “Don’t say that,” I shushed. “He’s just a friend.”

  Ruthie snorted. “Remember what Marilyn Monroe said? ‘If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.’ ”

  I turned as far as I could to glare at her, but she had fixed her eyes on that place where the dunes vectored. I followed her gaze, saw a large rectangular tent appear, pegged out across a salty flat, black except for a single runner of white that wrapped it like a ribbon. Low and narrow, open along the front, it leaned into its poles with sturdy resolve against the prevailing wind. Long-eared goats grouped and broke before us as the camel groaned to her knees, mewling for her calf.

  Two women emerged, covered head to wrist in black scarves, a striking contrast to the colorful patterns of their ankle-length dresses. Soft black masks with square holes framed their eyes like miniature windows. One hung back, cradling a young t
oddler wearing nothing but bits of strung stone, and I wondered whether Abdullah had lied to me about a wife. At his instruction, she handed the child to the older woman and set to work at the camel’s flank, filling an enameled bowl with milk. I hesitated but drank when she held it out, licking the froth from my lips, as rich and salty as smoked cheese.

  “This is my mother, Fatima,” Abdullah said, “and my sister, Nadia.” The relief I felt surprised me—not his wife after all. He rested his hand on the baby’s head. “My niece,” he said, his voice resonant with affection, and she grinned up at him, paddling her feet with delight. I wondered where the father was, how many family members shared the small tent, how many mouths Abdullah had to feed.

  Fatima directed us to the door, where Ruthie and I left our shoes and entered the area divided into sections by striped draperies: women, children, and the kitchen on the left, men and guests on the right, an open gathering place in the middle lined with goat-hair rugs and pillows. Abdullah hung his long sword and rifle on the center pole before arranging the coffee urn and building a small fire to roast the beans, and I remembered what Yash had told me: the highest compliment you could pay a Bedouin was that he made coffee from morning till night.

  Inside the room kept private by a flapped blanket, the air smelled of wet wool, dung smoke, and the particular musk of women. Fatima urged us to sit and checked that we were hidden from the men before she and Nadia shed their veils. Nadia was younger than I’d expected, only a girl, her hair and eyebrows jetblack. She smiled, revealing a flash of white teeth, and I grinned back, noting with pleasure her resemblance to Abdullah.

  Fatima, possessed of a stately authority, sat ramrod straight. Black hair reddened with henna that rouged her temples, kohl-lined eyes, a faded blue script of tattoos along her forehead and chin, fingernails stained with dye—she looked both elegant and sinister as she watched us arrange ourselves among the cushions, assessing our every move as though she were calculating our worth.

  Ruthie bumped my shoulder. “Remember to tuck your legs so that the soles of your feet don’t offend them. Arabs are touchy that way.” I folded my knees modestly under Fatima’s appraising gaze as Nadia offered us a bowl of sticky dates, which we ate like candy, licking our fingers. When Ruthie opened her purse, Nadia leaned forward, curious. What was a purse, and what did it carry? Ruthie pulled out a pack of cigarettes, passed them around, then popped open her Zippo, eliciting a whoop of delight from Nadia. When we had smoked them down to the filters, Fatima and Nadia began to talk among themselves, pointing to our blouses and slacks, sometimes moving close to rub the cloth between their fingers. Nadia rose with the sleeping child in her arms and knelt at my side. Could she touch my hair? I pulled off my kerchief and tried to finger out the tangles, but she stopped me, laid the little girl in my lap, and reached for a wooden comb. Gently, never a snag or a pull, she worked the strands from top to bottom, her rhythmic concentration like a lullaby, thin bangles of gold tinkling at her wrists, a small circle of ink like a single black coin tattooed into her palm. I cradled the soft blanket, studied the baby’s round face, ears pierced with lapis, dark lashes and rosebud lips. When she woke, her eyes—brown irises set in deep blue coronas—studied me with such intensity that I shivered and handed her back to Nadia, my chest aching.

  When the dates came around again, I shook my head, and the women looked disappointed. “Good, good,” I said, and rubbed my stomach. The sand beneath me had molded to my body, and I settled myself a little deeper into its hold. A pleasant silence filled the room as Fatima began working the loom, her wooden shuttle polished by decades of spinning and weaving, and I felt myself drift, lulled by the low voices, the shush of thread against thread, the long-ago memory of rainy afternoons, my grandmother cutting old clothes into squares, pinning, and stitching remnants of shirts and flour sacks into Flying Geese; my outgrown nightgowns and the least faded swatches of my calico dress snipped and puzzled into Nine Patch and Snowball. I’d fall into my nap and wake to find a limp stack of scraps blocked and basted. By first frost, I’d have a new quilt at my chin, soft and familiar.

  I raised my eyes when I heard Nadia speaking directly to Fatima, who shook her head decisively. Nadia patted her mother’s arm, imploring until Fatima sighed, dropped her weaving to her lap, and took the baby. Nadia rose and pulled on her head scarf, then made motions like she was swimming and reached for my hand. I looked at Ruthie, who shrugged.

  “We must be near the shore north of Ras Tanura,” she said. “We’re lucky we didn’t end up in Kuwait.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “You kids go ahead. Us old ladies will take a nap.”

  I thought I should ask Mason, or at least tell him, but I let Nadia lead me to a gap in the tent’s back wall, and then we were moving out of the shadows, the sun a waning glow, the sand warming my feet. Nadia’s fingers seemed small in mine, but her strength kept me upright as we both staggered, laughing and breathless. When we topped over the dune, I stopped. It was as though the world had fallen away, the sand flowing into the sea.

  Nadia tugged at my hand before letting go and running toward the water. A few yards from the shallow lap of waves, she took off her scarf and pulled her hair free of its braids. She touched one finger to her lips—this would be our secret—then dropped her dress and folded it neatly at her feet, giggling and motioning for me to do the same.

  How could my modesty be greater than hers, this girl who walked through her life cloaked and veiled? I fumbled at the buttons of my blouse, embarrassed. Since my mother’s death, no one but Mason had seen me naked, not even when my son was born and the doctor had groped beneath my hospital gown without once looking at my face as though he, too, were ashamed.

  Nadia soothed my distress with girlish laughter, lifting the camera from my neck, helping me to bundle my clothes, averting her eyes to allow me what privacy she could. This time, when she took my hand and began pulling me forward, I hesitated. “I’m afraid,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

  She encouraged me, holding my arm, reassuring. I could hardly feel the warm water at my ankles. When we were in to our knees, Nadia stopped to cup handfuls and pour them over my shoulders. I trailed her until we were up to our waists. When the water rocked me off my heels, she leaned into the sea, let her feet kick up. “Ta’alay ma’ee!” she said, and I knew she meant that I should follow her.

  I bent my knees, submerged to my neck, and made a few bobs to test the buoyancy of my body, felt Nadia take my hands and lead me deeper until I could no longer touch bottom. When I panicked, she calmed me and ferried me after her as she floated on her back, legs fluttering. I lifted my chin and sputtered, resisting the urge to jerk free, thrash my way back to shore. The moment I quit fighting, I felt my body rise, as though my resistance had some weight of its own. Like my own skin, that water, and after a time I couldn’t tell where it ended and I began. Only Nadia’s hands kept me tethered, or I might have floated away. When I felt her body shift, I closed my eyes and let myself go, surprised to feel the loose bed come up beneath my feet. The sea was at our chins, our hair spreading out around us like the fine roots of mangrove. She was happy, I could tell, so happy to be teaching me to do this impossible thing.

  “Ashkurik,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She smiled, held my eyes for a moment before pushing away. This time, she swam in earnest, long strokes that took her out to open sea. I wanted to call her back, tell her she was going too far, but what did I know of her world?

  I waded to land, wrung my hair before pulling on my clothes, then sat in the sand and watched for any sign of her, sure that a rising swell was the round of her shoulder, a ripple the dark fan of her hair. In the fading light, the phosphorescent glow of brine shrimp played across the waves like sheet lightning, and I let out a breath when Nadia finally emerged, her breasts round with milk. She dressed and motioned me to follow, and it was then that I lifted my camera to capture her moving ahead of me, cresting the dune, her black silhouette against the sky, her unveiled
face turned toward me like an orphan moon.

  When we reentered the tent, we found Ruthie and Fatima in careful silence. Nadia took the child, who gripped her mother’s hair as Nadia pressed her close. She laid her hand on my arm.

  “Sadiqati,” she said.

  “My friend,” I said, and a smile broke across Nadia’s face. When I unclasped the small pearl from my neck and held it out to her, she looked from me to Fatima, and they exchanged anxious whispers.

  “Now you’ve done it.” Ruthie yawned as she gathered her purse and scarf. “If they can’t give an equal gift in return, it will be a dishonor.”

  I stumbled over my words, trying to make them understand. “Please,” I said, “for the baby.”

  When Fatima finally voiced her approval, I gently laid the gold chain around the child’s neck, then gripped Nadia’s hand. I gathered my camera and followed Ruthie outside, where the men waited. I looked at Abdullah and smiled my happiness, and he smiled back before bringing the camel around.

  Ruthie and I remounted, the camel’s buck and heave more familiar now, like the persnickety habits of a mule. Abdullah handed me a stick and showed me how to tap its neck to guide it in lieu of reins. When his fingers grazed mine, he looked away quickly and busied himself with the rope. Ruthie pinched my waist. “Told you,” she muttered.

  By the time we reached the Volkswagen, the rising wind had blown troughs around the tires, and it tipped precariously. With the help of ropes and the camel, Abdullah and Mason broke the axles free, and Lucky steered the little car to a cracked salt flat.

  “Allah kareem,” Abdullah said. “God is kind.” He kissed Mason’s cheeks, held his shoulders in an affectionate embrace until Lucky honked the horn, and we piled in. This time, I welcomed the snug closeness of bodies, warmth against the desert’s descending chill. The discomforts of the day were nothing compared to the delight I had felt in Nadia’s company, an accidental adventure that, more than anything, I wanted to make happen again.