The Sheikh's Last Gamble

by Trish Morey

  She took her son’s hand. ‘Chakir had a fright when he was two. We thought we’d wait until he was ready before having any more lessons.’

  Bahir knelt down and regarded the boy eye-to-eye, a frown marring his patrician brow. ‘Is that so?’ He looked back at the expanse of inviting pool behind him. ‘Tell you what, how about I give you a lesson right now? I bet before you know it, you’ll be racing me.’

  His eyes opened wide and Marina could see excitement blended with the fear. ‘You’d give me a lesson?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘but only if you think you’re ready.’

  Chakir looked uncertainly at his mother. ‘Maybe in the shallow pool,’ she suggested, trying to encourage.

  ‘But Mama,’ he said, puffing out his chest, ‘you can’t swim there. Not really. Everyone knows that.’ She wanted to smile at how brave her boy was being.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Bahir said, already leading the boy to the shallow end of the lap pool. ‘I’ll take good care of him.’

  Marina watched on nervously. How would he know how to take good care of a child? He knew nothing of children. But then, as she watched him getting Chakir to kick holding onto the edge of the pool, and showing him how he could relax and float on his back to gain confidence in the water, reluctantly she was forced to acknowledge that he was taking good care of him. When he managed to get him to put his face under the water by himself, she knew it. By the end of the lesson her son even managed to take a few tentative and haphazard freestyle strokes as Bahir supported his body in the water.

  As she watched father and son working together, she felt besieged by guilt that she had kept them apart all these years. But there was something more beyond that feeling of guilt, something fragile that bloomed inside her. Something precious that she did not want to put form to, just to feel it was enough.

  ‘Did you see me, Mama?’ Chakir said proudly after the lesson was over, running up to his mother, surrounded in plush towel, clutching it at his chin, his teeth chattering in excitement. ‘I was swimming!’

  ‘I saw you, Chakir,’ she said, embracing him in her arms. ‘I’m so proud of you!’

  ‘And I’m having another lesson tomorrow before we leave.’

  She shook her head. ‘Are you sure he said that? I don’t know if there will be time.’

  ‘I’ll make time,’ Bahir said, catching up with the boy. Once again he was there before her in his swimming trunks and nothing else and this time he was dripping wet. She swallowed, trying not to notice the chest hairs plastered against his skin, forming whorls and patterns. She tried and failed not to notice as they coalesced into a single dark line that trailed southwards to circle his navel before venturing still lower towards those fitted black trunks.

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ he added. She looked up, her face burning, knowing it was all kinds of trouble trying to think clearly while confronted with such a perfect masculine specimen, especially when your eye was level with his navel.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, standing up as Chakir ran off to tell his sister Catriona was collecting up their things. ‘That was good of you.’

  He shrugged. ‘The boy should know how to swim.’

  ‘But how on earth did you know where to start? You’ve had nothing to do with children.’

  ‘My father taught me.’ And then, before she could pursue that revelation, he asked, ‘What happened to him? Why was he so afraid?’

  She clutched her arms as she watched her son now showing Hana how to swim, his arms making windmills in the air, and she wondered that Bahir had been able to make such a difference in one short lesson.

  ‘He was just starting to gain some confidence when a boy—the local bully—jumped into the pool while Chakir had his face under the water. I think he only meant to scare him, but Chakir moved and he landed on his back and pushed him right under. He could have drowned.’

  She shivered, remembering that day, remembering the panic as his instructor had pulled her lifeless child from the water and she had watched him pump his chest until he had coughed and spluttered and spewed out half the pool.

  She sensed him stiffen beside her and turned to see his eyes bleak and cold. ‘And then I never would have got to meet my son.’

  ‘No,’ she said, realising she’d just racked up one more black mark against her name—but what was one more in her already long list of transgressions? ‘I guess not. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go and help Catriona with the children. Apparently we have an early start in the morning.’

  He watched her go, watching the way her ponytail swayed from side to side with every step, drawing attention to and accentuating the feminine motion of her hips under the sarong she’d wrapped around herself like a suit of armour. It would take more than that for him to not be able to imagine her naked beneath. He watched her go, hating himself for needing to watch.

  She must be a sorceress, he wagered, if he could at times hate her with every fibre of his being yet at the same time lust for her so desperately that to throw her to the ground and bury himself deep inside her would not be quick enough.

  She had to be.

  They did start early, but not too early that Chakir could not have another swimming lesson before their departure. He was full of it as the four-wheel drive headed out of the city and into the wide desert lands, boasting that he would soon be fast enough to beat Bahir.

  The motion of the vehicle along the desert highway soon had the two children sleeping in the back seat, Catriona snoozing alongside.

  ‘You handle it well,’ Marina said as the car powered through a wide, flat valley, a range of red mountains rising from the rock-strewn desert floor on either side.

  ‘Handle what well?’ he asked.

  ‘Chakir and his ambitions to beat you.’

  He shrugged a shoulder, his wide brown hands slung seemingly casually over the steering wheel, his eyes alert and constantly scanning the desert ahead for hazards. ‘It is good to be ambitious.’

  ‘I’m surprised, that’s all. That you take it so good-naturedly.’

  ‘He is a child with a child’s sense that nothing is impossible and that everything is attainable, even the stars. I have no doubt I was much the same. Once.’

  His words piqued her interest. ‘Only once? You don’t think that any more?’

  ‘Let’s just say I learned the hard way that there are some things the universe will not give you, no matter how much you wish for them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He smiled then, if you could call it a smile. ‘And you worry that our son asks too many questions.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, falling silent, but not only because of his gentle rebuke. It was the use of the term ‘our son’ that had stilled her tongue.

  Not ‘the boy’ or ‘my son’ but ‘our son.’

  And she surprised herself by liking the sound of it on his tongue, a sound that lit a candle of hope inside her that this did not have to end badly—that they did not have to resort to a heated custody battle, but could forge some kind of truce for the sake of their son.

  ‘He likes you,’ she said, musing out loud. ‘Especially after the swimming lessons. I think you’ve made a conquest.’

  ‘Good. I like him too.’ He took his eyes from the road again to look at her, and this time they were filled almost with respect. ‘You have done a good job with him. He is a fine boy.’

  The flickering flame inside her burned a little brighter. It wouldn’t last, she knew enough to know that. Sooner or later she would do or say something that would remind him of the sins she had committed against him and the walls of hostility would rise up between them once again. But right now it was nice not to be at war.

  They stopped for a picnic lunch at a tiny oasis, little more than a well and a few hardy palms shading a crumbling mud-brick shelter.

  ‘It’s hot,’ declared Chakir on climbing from the air-conditioned vehicle into the stifling desert air, then proceeding almost immediately to chase
his sister around the well until their picnic was ready, as if totally oblivious to the heat.

  ‘Did someone live here once?’ he asked when he had finally collapsed down onto the picnic rug, gasping but ready to eat. He pointed towards the crumbling hut. ‘In that building?’

  ‘No,’ Bahir answered. ‘At least, not all the time. It’s a shelter, for shepherds and other travellers passing through. Somewhere protected from the elements when herding sheep and goats on the coldest of nights, and somewhere to take shelter when the dust storms blow in and turn the sky black in the middle of the day.’

  Chakir’s eyes opened wide. ‘Have you ever seen a dust storm?’

  ‘Yes. When I was a boy. The sand blotted out the sun and it was so dark I could not see my hand in front of my face.’

  ‘Were you here for a holiday too?’

  ‘No. I grew up here. Or, not far from here.’

  Chakir looked around. ‘How could anyone live here, in the desert?’

  His father smiled. ‘When we get to the camp, I will show you.’

  ‘Will you show me too?’ Hana asked, breathless and fascinated and clearly determined not to miss out. ‘Please.’

  Marina watched the shutters come down in Bahir’s eyes. ‘I’d like very much to hear too,’ she said, adding her support to the chorus. ‘We both would, wouldn’t we, Hana?’

  This time Bahir had no choice but to nod. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why do you do that?’ Marina asked later as they loaded the last of the picnic things in the back of the car. ‘Why do you answer Chakir’s questions in such detail and yet barely grunt when Hana asks something?’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You know you do! I know Chakir is the reason we’re here, but there is no need to treat Hana as if she doesn’t exist.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m talking about the way you try to ignore her.’

  ‘I told you not to bring the girl.’

  ‘And I told you it was all of us or none.’

  ‘Well, you got what you wanted, then. She’s here, isn’t she?’

  ‘So don’t treat her as if she isn’t. She’s Chakir’s sister, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘So maybe I don’t.’ He climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  She hated him in that moment, hated him with every fibre of her being. Not that he would care. He didn’t want anything from her, apart from her son. And now she half-regretted coming. The warm satisfaction of seeing father and son together was waning, for instead of filling a space in her family and providing a father figure for Chakir, the way he was acting could soon drive a wedge between her two children.

  It was so unfair, so unjust. Hana had suffered enough in her short life. She deserved happiness too.

  And, because she felt like she should make up for his indifference, she caught the girl as she ran puffing up to the car after her brother and swept her up in her arms, spinning her around. Hana squealed and wriggled but she held firm. ‘I love you, Hana Banana,’ she said, using her pet name for her. ‘Never forget that, okay?’

  The toddler stopped her wriggling for a moment to hold her jaw in her small hands to kiss her. Her blue-black eyes looked solemnly down at her. ‘I love you too, Mummy.’ Then she giggled and squirmed to be free.

  Very touching, he thought, unable to avoid watching the performance in his side mirror, knowing it was all for his benefit, knowing it was all so false.

  For what did she know of love really? She was as fickle and changeable as the desert wind, changing direction and blowing from one man to the next with just as little reason.

  No, she knew nothing of love.

  The girl proved it.

  A herd of ibex scattered as the car topped a rise, the horned goats scampering and leaping at speed in all directions, thrilling Chakir and Hana. Below them lay the camp site, a collection of large tents set around another, more welcoming-looking oasis.

  ‘Wow! Is that where you live?’ Chakir asked from the back seat.

  ‘No,’ Bahir answered. ‘We moved around a lot when I was a boy, but this is not far away from one of the places we camped.’ He would not go to that place, now just an empty patch of desert. But a patch of desert that held too many memories and where the mournful wind carried the cries of too many lost souls.

  ‘Are your family there?’ Marina asked, a sudden tightness to her voice. When he turned his head he saw she was clutching a pendant at her throat, her eyes filled with fear. Was she worried they would recognise the family resemblance and let the cat out of the bag before she was ready for Chakir to find out the truth about his father? Or was she worried they might try to kidnap Chakir and keep him here for ever?

  Whatever, she had no cause for concern. The only people in the camp were those his old friend Ahab had organised to help with their visit, brought in from one of the remaining tribes that still managed to live a simple Bedouin lifestyle despite the call of the modern world.

  The simple Bedouin lifestyle, he reminded himself, that he had turned his back on.

  ‘No. They’re—not here.’ He watched the tension around her expressive eyes ease as she relaxed back against her seat, and he drank in her profile: her dark, lash-framed eyes, her lush sinner’s mouth. He wondered why she had to be so beautiful that at times he almost ached to look at her.

  He turned away, unable to answer his own question. Not sure he even wanted to try.

  The camp grew busier as they neared and their approach was noticed—not ‘New York’ frenetically busier, or ‘Monte Carlo’ flourishingly dramatically busier, but Bedouin busier, where every movement was purposeful and halfway to poetic. Robed figures swayed rhythmically across the sands, gathering at a point where their vehicle stopped, an impossibly old-looking man at their helm.

  Ahab, he realised with surprise as he pulled the vehicle to a halt. He was not arrow-straight as he had always been, but stooped and frail, his face creased with age, his hair bleached whiter than the sands. And it gave him cause to wonder anew about just how long he had been gone. Years he had been away, years that had melded into one long absence, years that knew no numbers.

  ‘Ahab,’ he said, alighting from the car to air that brought him up with a jolt, air made of the timeless scent of the desert flavoured with the scent of herbs and roasting meat. Air that made him remember so much that it was a moment before he could embrace his old friend’s bony frame. ‘It is good to see you.’

  ‘You have come, Bahir,’ the old man said, tears squeezing from his eyes. ‘You have come home at last.’

  Something heavy shifted inside him, like the slide of a weighted box across the deck of a ship in a rolling sea. Uncomfortable. Disarming. He waited, half-anticipating whatever it was to slide back the other direction and right itself, but it stuck fast. When he blinked and told himself to ignore it, Marina and Catriona had the children out of the car and Ahab was smiling down at them through watery eyes.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said, after Bahir had introduced the small party, his gaze lingering on Chakir for just a moment longer than it needed to, just a moment that told Bahir that the old man had recognised in an instant what he had so pointlessly tried to deny. ‘There is a feast being prepared in honour of your visit, but first I will show you to your tents and then we will sit and have tea.’

  Hana and Chakir squealed with delight when shown the interior of the tent they were to occupy. Their low beds were covered with cushions in every bright colour imaginable. The floor was lined with rugs on which sat a toy camp site, complete with tents, camels and tiny people.

  Marina was tempted to squeal herself when she saw the room partitioned off for her, lined with silk wall-hangings and the finest, softest carpets with bronze lamps atop carved timber side tables. And the bed? It was every little girl’s fantasy but a grown-up version—decorated with sumptuous fabrics in rich jewel colours, bold and beautiful, and surrounded by filmy curtains. A bed fit for a harem. And such a big
bed for one.

  She thought wistfully about what it would be like to wake up in such a bed in a Bedouin tent in the middle of the desert, in the arms of a Bedouin lover after a night of earth-shattering love-making and with the promise of more to come.

  That would make much better use of such a bed.

  Her two children burst into the room, wanting to check out her room. Chakir whooped when he saw her bed and launched himself across the room to dive onto it between a gap in the curtains, with Hana in gleeful hot pursuit, her short legs struggling fruitlessly to make the final leap.

  She laughed and picked up the squealing girl and jumped onto the bed alongside Chakir, tickling the two of them until tears streamed from their eyes and they begged her to stop. Then she curled her arms around each of her children and they lay there panting, in the big wide curtained bed.

  No, she thought as she kissed each of her children on the head, their hair tickling her nose. Such a big bed was not such a waste. Not at all.

  They had time to be shown around the camp before the hour designated for their formal welcome, and Hana and Chakir ran gaily from one tent to the next, a clutch of children accompanying them, accepting them in their midst.

  But it was the animals that fascinated them the most: the camels and horses the tribe used now for sport rather than transport, and a herd of local goats, black-haired and horned, their new kids bounding in delight. Hana was so entranced with the newborns, it was almost impossible to drag her away.

  Soon after, Ahab formally welcomed them at the tea ceremony, the handing over of each cup to their guests an offer of friendship and welcome. Ahab bestowed a special honour on the children, solemnly placing a necklace bearing a pendant of a stylised eye over each child’s head.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered to Bahir.

  ‘A token,’ he said through a tight throat, unable to bring himself to believe. ‘To ward off the evil eye and keep them safe.’ He knew better. Nothing could keep a child safe if the fates chose to take it.