In the Kingdom of Men

by Kim Barnes

  I sat quiet, trying to comprehend what he was telling me, who I could trust. “What am I going to do?” I asked.

  Yash rotated his coffee cup like he was positioning a dial. “I can hardly believe I am going to suggest this,” he said, and raised his eyes. “Petition the pirate.”

  “Carlo Leoni?”

  “Do you know of another pirate?”

  “But I thought you despised him.”

  “The fact remains that he has the run of the kingdom.”

  “I can ask Linda,” I said. “Maybe she has heard something.”

  “There is a sense of desperation in the air,” he said. “It may be more dangerous than we know.” He held my eyes for a moment, then lowered his gaze. “Perhaps there is time for one more story.”

  I wanted to say no, that I didn’t have time, that I had grown impatient with stories except the one that lay in front of me, but Yash’s solemn face kept me silent.

  “The friend of my own youth was Amar,” he said. “We drank together, gambled together, visited certain women together.” He blinked, suddenly shy. “Those were our salad days.” He hesitated. “Shall we smoke?” He lit our cigarettes, then grew quiet, touched his thumb to the ashtray. “We were in the army,” he said, “and were sent to the northern border. There were fifty in our troop, marching toward our ordered position. At forty-nine hundred meters, the Himalayan cold is inescapable. Many of us were suffering altitude sickness.” He inhaled slowly, as though remembering the struggle to breathe, and I saw something shift in him, his shoulders take on weight.

  “The Chinese had emplaced one thousand soldiers on the highest ridges.” He looked at me as though to explain, said, “The elevation favors defense.” I nodded, urging him on. “When they attacked with mortar fire,” he continued, “we entrenched, believing we were safe for a time, but when I looked at Amar, I saw him huddled in the mud, blood running from his ears, the result of oxygen deprivation.” Yash paused, remembering. “The battle was hopeless, and we began to retreat. The Chinese honorably held their fire, but Amar would not rise, sure that they would murder us as we fled. When I tried to pull him up, he pointed his rifle at me.” Yash dropped his eyes. “I believed he was delirious. I brought my own rifle to bear and ordered him to march, but I was bluffing, of course. I would not kill my dearest friend.” I thought his story had ended, but he gathered his breath, lifted his cigarette. “When the shot rang out, I thought I had been hit by enemy fire, but it wasn’t my blood. Amar had placed the muzzle beneath his chin. His face was gone, but he was still alive.” Yash closed and opened his eyes. “And then, of course, I had no choice but to kill him.”

  I held still for a long moment, wondering why Yash was telling me this, why now. “There was nothing you could have done,” I said.

  “Still.” Yash touched two fingers to the crystal ashtray. “I wonder whose commander I thought I was.” He brought his eyes to mine. “Fate and folly sometimes meet. How will you know the difference?”

  “Maybe I won’t,” I said, and then more quietly, “Are you afraid that you’ll get in trouble for helping me?”

  The look on his face eased into an enduring smile. “They say it is better to die in the company of friends than to live in the company of enemies.” He lifted his cup. “We are comrades, you and I,” he said. “Let us be brave. A la sature!”

  I reached for my own cup and met his toast. “A la sature!” I echoed, and drank the last of my coffee, felt the weight of the moment return. “Yash?” I asked. “What will all this come to?”

  His smile never faltered. “The education of Mrs. Gin,” he said, and then he grew more solemn. “Please be careful,” he said, and lowered his eyes. “If something were to happen to you, I would never forgive myself.” When I stood to go, he rose with me, reached into his pocket, and held out his hand, dropped a fistful of riyals into my palm. “It is all I have,” he said. “I wish it were more.”

  I closed my fingers around the coins. “I’ll be home before dark,” I promised, then surprised us both by giving him a quick hug. He held to me for a moment, then straightened, cleared his throat. “Perhaps my mother’s masala lamb for dinner,” he said, then sat back down and pretended concentration on stirring his tea.

  I gathered my scarf, packed my bag with my camera, a canteen of water, a pack of cigarettes, my notepad, my pen, Yash’s riyals—I believed that I was prepared for anything. I stepped out into the heat, battling the impulse to jump in the Volkswagen and gun it right through the gate, like Ruthie had said. I looked back to see Yash standing in the doorway. He raised his hand, and I waved back, but he didn’t move, and I could see him there, peering after me, until I turned the corner and was out of sight.

  At the bus stop, I ignored the few wives who looked my way, their faces full of pity over the news of Ruthie’s death. I had no idea whether they had knowledge of Mason’s absence at all. Wasn’t every wife’s husband gone?

  I considered my few options. The bus didn’t go to Carlo’s shack on the beach, and even if it did, the driver would never drop me there alone. I looked to the taxi stand, where Yousef regarded me from beneath the brim of his hat, and wondered whether he would risk my passage.

  I stepped over quickly, handed him a cigarette and a few riyals. “Carlo Leoni,” I said under my voice.

  Yousef looked at the cigarette, then tucked it behind his ear. “Dhahran,” he said loudly, and I looked around, saw the wives openly staring.

  “Dhahran,” I said, following his lead, and he opened my door.

  The taxi smelled like stale smoke and a perfume I could almost name. Even through my pants, the seat branded my legs, and I hiked up my knees. Yousef steered us toward the gate, where he stopped and exchanged easy words with Habib. I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around my bag, and drew it close until we were out on the road, then let my shoulders relax and lifted my face to the hot wind. When Yousef peered into the rearview, I pulled out another cigarette for good measure and handed it to him over his shoulder.

  “Ashkurik,” he said. His gaze came up to meet my eyes, and he grinned. “No one loves tobacco more than a Bedouin.”

  I blinked, trying to hide my surprise. “You speak English,” I said.

  “Little bit,” he said, and snugged the cigarette behind his other ear.

  I settled back against the seat and wondered at all that Yousef might have heard as he ferried the men, wives, and single girls back and forth across the desert. I looked out at the cars speeding by, the jalopies, donkeys, and camels crowding the shoulder.

  “Do you know where my husband is?” I asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Abdullah?” I said.

  “My cousin,” Yousef said.

  “Will you take me to him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Do you mean you don’t know where he is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I slumped back, looked out at the road stretching before me. Even if I found Carlo, located Abdullah, where did I think that might lead me? Even al-Khobar seemed impossible, distant as the moon. If Mason was hiding, he could be anywhere, nowhere I could go. I felt the panic edge back in, and what good was that? “You only think you know what you’re doing,” my grandfather often said to me, and maybe he was right. It wasn’t that I felt brave or righteous in my quest—it felt like the only choice I could make, the only action I could take. I wasn’t afraid for myself, maybe because I believed that the worst that could happen would be that I would be deported, flown out. The one thing I knew for certain was that I would never leave without knowing where Mason was, without at least trying to find him, without discovering the answers to my questions. I remembered Lucky in the theater and wished that I had clung to him until he told me everything that he knew—the not-knowing, for me, was worse than death.

  When Yousef reached the familiar turnoff, he stopped, got out, and let air from the tires, then steered us onto the packed sand, and we wove our long way to the sh
ore, stopping just outside Carlo’s door.

  “Will you wait?” I asked, and when Yousef nodded, I offered him another cigarette, but he held up his hand, pointed to the two behind his ears.

  I swung out and crossed the hot sand. From inside the shack, I heard Carlo singing the same aria I’d heard that day in the car. I knocked, called, “It’s me. Gin.”

  The voice went silent, and I heard the sound of whispers and shuffling before Carlo came to the door barely buttoned and missing his scarf, his hair loose, the broad dome of his forehead shiny with sweat.

  “Bella!” he said. “You are a surprise.” He glanced behind him, then back at me, and I heard a voice from inside.

  “Come on in, Gin.” Linda sat on the cot in nothing but one of Carlo’s blousy shirts, her beehive undone, platinum hair falling across her shoulders. Her nurse’s uniform lay neatly folded across a fruit box, topped with her starched white cap. She crossed her bare legs and lit a cigarette. “Get her a Pepsi, Carlo. She’s thirsty.” She patted the space on the cot next to her and motioned for me to sit. “How are you, sweetheart?” she asked. “I’ve been worried.” She took my hand in hers, and her eyes filled with tears. “We’re going to miss her, aren’t we?”

  I nodded and took the warm bottle that Carlo offered, tipped a swig, felt it bubble against the back of my tongue, my nose stinging until my eyes watered.

  “Thank you,” I said. Carlo focused on me for a moment before looking away, and that was when I understood that he knew.

  “What are you doing all the way out here?” Linda asked. “Sun and Flare?”

  “I’m looking for Mason,” I said.

  Linda glanced at Carlo, who busied himself with the buttons of his shirt, and her face grew more serious. “Why?” she asked.

  “He’s missing,” I said. It sounded so ridiculous that I almost disbelieved it myself. What do you mean, missing? “He was supposed to be home last night, but Security says he never boarded the launch.” I turned the bottle in my hands and began to tell them everything—about Lucky and Bodeen, Alireza and the ledger, Mason’s suspicion of Ross Fullerton and Yash’s warning about the company. Linda listened without interrupting, as though absorbing the information required for diagnosis, then moved her sharp gaze to Carlo.

  “Did you know about any of this?” she asked.

  Carlo fixed his eyes on a small wall mirror, tying his hair. “It is only as she says. That is all that I know.”

  “That is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth,” Linda said.

  Carlo chuffed a single word I couldn’t understand, then began tucking his shirt, flush with exasperation. “The Arabs, the Americans, they are no different. They skim, they cheat, they give with one hand and take with the other.” He slapped his bare feet against the floor, puffing bigger with each breath. “The company”—he threw his fingers into the air—“la famiglia, is ruled by scoundrels who call themselves heroes and heroes who prove themselves scoundrels. How it is that anyone is ever surprised is beyond me.” He looked at me hard, but when he saw the stricken look on my face, he made himself small again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said more quietly, and looked at Linda as though for permission.

  “Just tell us,” Linda said, and wrapped one arm around my shoulder as though we were in this together. Carlo paused, judging our fortitude, took a few steps to his right and then his left, trying to find his mark.

  “I had been sent to take photographs of the drilling platform’s progress.” He lit a cigarette, shook his head. “The company sees every new piece of machinery, every inch the drill drops, as worthy of record. They mean to write their own history.” He scratched a thumb behind one ear, and I saw something in his manner that I couldn’t quite read—a mix of hesitance and agitation.

  “The wind had been rising for hours, and I feared it might strand me.” He stopped his pacing and rested his eyes on Linda. “I was thinking of you,” he said. I saw the way he shifted his gaze to the light of the window, taken by the memory already imbued with the beauty and horror of myth. “I stood at the railing, and something in the water caught my eye. I looked down, followed the cables’ trajectory into the sea. I thought at first that it was a tarp or a dhow’s lost jib.” He lifted his cigarette, held it just shy of his mouth, as though he had lapsed into some fugue, forgotten what he was about. “And then I saw that it was a woman, her face turning to the sun and then back to the sea. What I remember most is the school of little fishes that darted and hid in the lee of her body.” He held his breath for a moment, then lifted his shoulders as though there were no help for it. “And then she was gone, torn loose by the waves.” He averted his eyes. “I told no one. What business is it of mine? Trouble would surely follow.” He blinked hard. “A few days later, a pearling dhow found her washed ashore.” When he stopped in his pacing and rested his eyes on mine, I tightened my grip on Linda’s hand. “Dear bella,” he said, “it was the body of Abdullah’s sister.”

  More than sadness or grief or even disbelief, it was a choking anger that filled my chest. “Alireza,” I said.

  “But it isn’t Alireza the authorities are looking for.” Carlo resumed his pacing shuffle—more a harried clerk than a pirate. “Four Arabs have come forward to claim that they witnessed her in the company of an American man.”

  “That would be suicide,” Linda said, and Carlo grimly nodded. I watched his lips, the rush of blood filling my ears.

  “It’s Mason,” I said before he could utter the words. “He’s the one they are looking for.”

  “That can’t be true,” Linda said. “Who would ever believe such nonsense?”

  Carlo dropped his eyes to mine, his face heavy with regret. “Whether it is true that Alireza murdered his wife out of spite or opportunity,” he said, “we may never know, but it is no secret that your husband was a threat to him. Doing away with his wife and casting blame on Mason would kill two birds with one stone. The four witnesses?” He shrugged. “They could be poor men lying to feed their families or simply to save their own skins.”

  “Mason must be hiding somewhere,” Linda said, her face hot with insistence. “He’s not in the hospital. I know that.”

  When Carlo didn’t answer but resumed his erratic pacing, Linda stood, grabbed his arm.

  “Look at me,” she said. “You tell this girl what you know right now, or I’m walking out of here.”

  “It does no good to offer false hope,” he said, but when Linda didn’t budge, he nodded to me. “Your husband was on the platform,” he said, “and then he wasn’t. It happened before the girl was found. It made no sense, the sea was too rough, but I saw it myself. A private boat came for him.” He blew a long breath. “When I saw it was Lucky Doucet at the helm, I had no doubt that trouble would follow.”

  I sat for a long minute, saying nothing because Carlo had been right in his trepidation: what I felt was the shock of hope. When I saw the look of pity that passed between Linda and Carlo, I pushed myself up and gathered my bag. Linda took my arm.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m going to find Abdullah,” I said. “We can get that ledger and take it to the emir. He’s got to help me find Mason.”

  Linda began to gather her uniform. “I’m going with her,” she said. But Carlo caught her arm.

  “No,” he said.

  Linda wrested her arm away. “What is the matter with you?”

  “You must listen to me,” he said, an edge of desperation sharpening his words. “There is too much that you don’t understand.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Carlo.” Linda sat down and tugged on one nylon, clipped it to her garter.

  Carlo’s shoulders sagged, and he looked at her with resignation. “Abdullah has already joined the search,” he said, then dropped his eyes away. “It may very well be that he doesn’t mean to save her husband but to kill him.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, as though his words were a simple lie. “They’re frie
nds.”

  “The truth is,” Carlo said gently, “that Abdullah will have no choice. He will be honor-bound to avenge his sister’s loss of virtue or risk alienation at the hands of his tribe, which for a Bedouin means death.”

  I stared at him, felt Linda find my hand, hold on.

  “Maybe you should just stay here,” Linda said, “until we can figure this out.”

  “No,” I said, and pulled away. “There’s not enough time.”

  “Carlo,” she said, “for God’s sake, go with her.”

  “She is safer without me,” he said. “They will be looking for any excuse to detain her.”

  “Who?” she asked. “Do you mean the militia?”

  “The company,” he answered. “Alireza. They all have reason to want her gone.”

  Linda slowly moved her eyes from his to mine before wrapping me in her arms. I sagged against her until I felt myself beginning to tremble. Carlo took my hands in his.

  “Vai con Dio, bella,” he said. “Remember that you are young and beautiful. You need never be alone.”

  His words hung in the air between us. He meant to comfort me, I think, or maybe it was his way of telling me what he believed: that the end of the story had already been written. I held his eyes for a heartbeat before pulling the door tight behind me. Somehow, I knew it would be the last time I saw him, that the image of Linda languorous in her pirate’s shirt would be the final memory I would have of her. But I didn’t let myself think of this then. How could I? I could wail my madness to the desert, or I could keep my wits and my will about me. It wasn’t stoic resolve that I felt but a numbness that allowed me to think of nothing but what came next: I would get into the taxi, go back to Abqaiq, tell Yash all that I had discovered, find Abdullah, the emir, and then, and then …