by Trish Morey
The last thing she expected in return for her thanks was a smile. His features were in profile as his eyes remained on the road, scanning the wide sandy route ahead, but she definitely saw his lips turn up, his cheek creasing along a rarely seen line.
‘What? You’re actually thanking me, princess, while all the time I was out there I was merely having fun with my friends? What was it you called us—a band of merry men out on some boys’ own adventure?’
She slumped back in her seat, mortified. God, had she really said that? It was a miracle he’d bothered trying to save Hana at all, ungrateful as she had been for his part in her rescue. ‘You have to forgive me.’ She searched for even more words to apologise, searched for the right words, and in the end could only come up with a poor excuse. ‘I was angry with you at the time.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, sounding as though it was anything but, looking over at her then with eyes so devoid of life that she wondered what he was thinking that could have put that look there. ‘I know all about anger.’
His words made her shiver, weighted down with some kind of pain. She didn’t ask what he meant as the camp came into view. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Once before she’d been on the receiving end of his anger and she knew enough not to want to go back there ever again.
She remembered that day now as she watched the desert slide past her window, when he had blown apart her world with the force of his anger and cast her out of his life for ever.
At least, it had been meant to be for ever. Yet here they were, forced together again by circumstances, by the existence of their son Chakir.
Sometimes the anger was still there. It was only too clear, simmering away under the surface, only too willing to bubble up and break free. But at other times it was another emotion, just as heated and potent, that seemed to drive his actions.
And she wondered how she could ever have had a relationship with him for all those months, all those nights, without realising the mystery within the man, those different parts of him, or asking all the questions she had now about who he truly was.
The vehicle neared the camp site, a traditional Bedouin camp complete with opulent tents for their guests, and that raised still more questions in her mind. He’d made the decision to bring Chakir to the desert and, lo, all this had been laid on in honour of their visitors.
‘How did you organise all this?’
‘You mean the picnic?’
‘No. I mean us, here, in the middle of a desert where you haven’t lived for years apparently. And one day you decide we will all go to the desert and the next there is an entire encampment set up and waiting for us. How is that even possible?’
He shrugged. ‘Cash speaks loudly out here where they have little chance to earn it.’
‘But so quickly? One moment you decide to go to the desert and the next there is this waiting for you?’
‘Not really. I was planning to come anyway after taking you home, so I’d already made a few calls and chased up some contacts. Finding Ahab alive made it easy. When I told him there were more coming with me, he knew where to find the tents I needed. He suggested staying with his tribe—one of the last to resist urbanisation and live as traditionally as possible—instead of camping alone as I’d originally intended.’
‘I like it,’ she said, thinking of the new friends they had already made and the adventures they had enjoyed, despite the traumas of today. ‘The tribespeople are so welcoming, to all of us.’
‘It’s the Bedouin way,’ he said with an unexpected note of pride. Unexpected, because he had not thought of himself as Bedouin for years, his lifestyle so removed from that culture. ‘Visitors are honoured guests. I had not thought there were any tribes still living in such a simple manner. So much of the world has moved on.’
Hadn’t he himself moved on?
‘But your people lived this way.’
A pause. And, even though he was sitting behind the wheel of a car driving along a desert road, still it felt like the sand had shifted under his feet like that first step into quicksand when the world tilted and went wrong. ‘Mostly.’
‘And this is how you grew up—herding goats, sitting around camp fires listening to stories at night, watching the stars and your father teaching you to swim?’
He felt the weight of the years bearing down on him, the oppressive weight of dusty memories. ‘A million years ago,’ he said, through a throat clogged with the sands of time.
‘So where is your tribe now?’ she asked as they drove into the camp at the head of the snaking convoy. ‘Where is your family? I asked Ahab and he said you would tell me.’
He braked the car to a halt, and sat there while the passengers in the back seat roused and blinked into wakefulness, looking as bewildered as he felt, but knowing the time had come.
All afternoon he’d felt it. All afternoon his duty had called to him. And what better way to explain it to her, if she was so damned curious and when words seemed so thin on the barren ground?
He undid his seatbelt, put one hand to his door handle and looked at her. ‘I’m going to visit them after we’ve unpacked. Maybe you should join me. Maybe then you might understand.’
Should she? There was a power of unspoken meaning in his invitation, along with a measure of challenge in his eyes. But what did it mean? For a while she’d wondered the worst, that he had been hiding some dreadful truth from her about his family. Equally, she had wondered if they had disowned him after he had turned to a life of gambling in the casinos of the world.
But now he talked of visiting them …
Had they now agreed to see him, knowing he was back? Had they heard word via Ahab of their grandson?
‘And Chakir?’
‘No. Not the boy. It’s too soon.’
Relief washed through her. They had not yet told Chakir that Bahir was his father, not even sure he would understand, and for the moment that was how she wanted it to stay. Maybe she was being over-cautious, but she wanted to wait at least until she knew that Bahir wanted to be a permanent part of his son’s life. She did not want to have to explain where his father had gone, if he suddenly changed his mind and opted out of Chakir’s life.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, taking her reticence for reluctance. ‘It was probably a bad idea.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll come.’
It was a bad idea, he realised as they headed away from the camp and towards a range of craggy blue hills in the distance along little more than a stony track. An exceptionally bad idea to have her along.
But at least she’d stopped asking questions. She was sitting silent alongside him as the vehicle lurched its way forward. Soon enough she would have all the answers she needed and more. Not that it might make any difference, but at least she would be closer to understanding why he had said what he had that day.
And, if she understood, maybe one day she could forgive him. But then he remembered her stricken face and the unshed tears in her eyes—the hurt and desolation—and he would not be surprised if she never forgave him for so completely destroying what they once had.
But she would know the truth of his family.
They scaled one of the ridges rising from the valley and the pounding in his blood grew louder, more urgent, sending heat pulsing around his body until his skin felt almost blistering, sweat broke out on his forehead, marked his armpits and stuck his back to the seat.
One more ridge. It had been years since he had been here and he’d been little more than a child. Just that one time and so long ago, and still he remembered the jagged line of mountain against the sky, still he knew exactly where he was going.
But it was more than memory directing him, for it was almost as if he could feel their hands on the wheel, their collective wisdom guiding the vehicle along the stony track.
Guiding him home.
Home. If that wasn’t a strange concept already for a Bedouin, where no fixed address was a way of life and the entire desert was your back
yard. So your family and your tribe were your home. How much stranger for him, where his family was gathered in a place of the dead.
And yet still they called to him.
What would he tell them?
What could he possibly say that they would want to hear?
The four-wheel drive ground up the stony incline, the heat in his veins building with it, the weight in his gut lurching with every kick of the steering wheel in his hands.
Just shy of the crest, he stopped and pulled the handbrake on.
‘Why are we stopping here?’ she asked uncertainly, looking around, searching for answers. ‘What is this place?’
Looking around would tell her nothing, he knew. There was nothing to see but sand, rocky ground and the occasional saltbush, but now they were here he could not find the words to tell her. Soon, he knew she would work it out for herself. But now that they were there, he could not do this with her along. Not yet. First he needed time to make his peace and to collect himself again. ‘Wait here,’ he instructed, without explaining, leaving the engine on and the air-conditioning running. ‘I won’t be long.’
Before waiting for her answer, he climbed out into the hot, dry air, pushing the door firmly closed with both hands, his gaze on the track to where it disappeared over the rise, already anticipating the scene that awaited him.
Then with a deep breath he pushed purposefully away from the car and, with a weight in his heart so heavy it was a wonder it didn’t fall through his chest, he set off up the track.
He stopped when he reached the crest and looked down into the shallow valley where once a few low black tents had clustered around a tiny oasis, around which a dozen kids had chased each other, laughing and full of life.
Once so full of life.
Where now there was nothing but an eerie wind that coaxed the desert sand into a mournful dance around a few ragged lines of flat white stones set into the rocky earth.
His family.
The wind circled him as he walked closer, imprisoning him, celebrating his capture as it whipped around the stones, presenting him like a prize.
He stood at the base of one of the twenty-six simple stones, now worn ragged with the ravages of the elements, overcome by the enormity of what had happened here.
Overcome with the guilt that there should have been one more flat white stone.
He fell to his knees on the sandy ground and put one hand to the stone, warm under his touch like the living once had been.
‘Father,’ he said as the first of his tears soaked into the thirsty ground. ‘I’m back. I’ve come home.’
How long was not long in the desert? Bahir had been gone the best part of thirty minutes and still there was no sign of him. A gnawing worry in Marina’s gut refused to be ignored any longer.
Why had he not returned? What was taking him so long?
He’d walked up that track and then stood there, looking down at something, and everything about his stance had suggested he was a man defeated.
And then he’d disappeared behind the ridge and she had been left wondering. But from the ridge top she might be able to see.
She leaned over the driver’s side and turned off the ignition, slipping from the car into air so dry the moisture was as good as sucked from her lungs. A breeze found her then, playing a haunting tune as it toyed with the ends of her hair, plucking at the hem of her light abaya as she headed up the track.
A sad place, she thought, shivering with the premonition, for even though it was as starkly beautiful as any other places she had seen in Jaqbar, there was emptiness mixed with sorrow on the wind, turning the desert desolate.
Then she reached the crest of the hill and saw him a little way away, kneeling on the sand, and for a moment she felt relief that she had found him—until she noticed the flat white stones poking from the earth all around him, and the sad wind moaned its mournful song as her heart squeezed tight. ‘Oh no, Bahir,’ she whispered, knowing it was as bad as it could possibly be, and still wishing it not to be true. ‘Please not that.’
Scant minutes later, she knelt by his side before one of the simple stones, not looking at him, giving him time to register her presence. Only after she was certain he had was she willing to ask, ‘Who are they?’
‘My family,’ he said, his voice sounding strained and choked. ‘Let me introduce you to them. He pointed at a stone alongside. ‘There is my mother.’ He pointed to the next. ‘My father.’ He listed them as he went. ‘My cousins, my uncles, my aunt, her mother. They are all here.’
‘And who is this one?’
‘This one—this is my baby brother, Jemila. He was three. The same age as Chakir is now.’ His voice broke on their child’s name. She looked at his face for the first time and saw the tracks of his tears down his cheeks and her heart broke.
‘Oh, Bahir.’
‘There are twenty-six in all,’ he said matter-of-factly without returning her gaze. ‘An entire tribe. All except for one.’
‘All except you.’
‘I was at school in England,’ he said blankly. ‘The pride of the family. The chosen one. The one upon whom all the hopes and dreams of the tribe resided.’ He shook his head. ‘I was twelve years old when I learned a traveller had been found ill in the desert and brought to the camp to be revived. But he died, and one by one, they all fell sick—the old, the young, the strong. The disease made no exception. It wasn’t until two weeks after they had been buried that they finally tracked me down to let me know.’
‘Bahir,’ she uttered softly, not knowing what she could possibly say that might comfort him, instead simply wrapping an arm around his shoulders just to let him know she was there, surprised he felt cold under her hand when the day was so warm. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He lifted his face to the heavens then, his features tight and etched with grief. ‘I was supposed to be here. It was term break and I had always come home for holidays. Except this time I had an invitation to go home with a classmate. I had never had a Christmas before and I saw the excitement of the other boarders, all looking forward to going home to parties and to presents, and I knew my parents would insist I came home. So I told them that I was held back by the masters, to catch up on my studies. I told her I could not come home.’
He sagged, dropping his head almost to the ground. ‘I lied to my father and my mother. I should have been here with them. I should be here now, buried under one of these stones. I should have been here with them.’
Finally she understood the full horror of his past; finally she realised the agony and the pain that had shaped him and made him the man he was, the man racked with survivor guilt. She squeezed his shoulders, trying to lend him her warmth and chase away the chill of the past that possessed him. ‘They would have wanted you to survive. They would not blame you. Nobody would blame you.’
‘I don’t need anyone else to blame me. Don’t you think I have blame enough? I lied to my family. I was not here when I should have been, and for my sins I would have to live with that for ever.’
‘Bahir, you must not blame yourself.’
‘Who else is to blame? Who else is left to blame?’ He dragged in air, and she could hear the agony that consumed him and bent him double.
‘I swore that day, the day they brought me to this place, that I would sooner never have a child than risk leaving him with nobody and nothing. Nothing but guilt.’
Beside him she ached with the pain that seemed to ooze from his pores. ‘You never wanted a child because you never wanted him to suffer as you did. As you still do.’
He shook his head violently from side to side. ‘No!’ he roared, putting his hands to his forehead before rising, anguished, to his feet, staggering away from the simple graveyard towards a cluster of palms where the sunlight filtered through the leaves and where a tiny spring kept alive a thin border of grass. She followed at a distance, feeling helpless and heartsick, not knowing what to say or do, knowing only that her own heart was breaking as she watched him
fall to his knees, dip his hands into the pool and splash water on his face. He rocked back on his heels, his eyes empty, focused on nothing but the past.
‘They’re the ones who suffered. Not me. I lived through it all. I went home with my friend and laughed and played games and had no idea what was happening out here in the desert.
‘And then, in one fell swoop, I had nothing. I had nobody. I should have been with them!’ he cried. ‘I wish I had been here!’
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, his face screwed up tight, and she saw the tears squeezing from his eyes as his grief overwhelmed him.
There was not one thing on earth she could say, not one thing she could do, other than to kneel down alongside, hold him, press her mouth to his salty tears and kiss them away.
He sagged against her. He let her hold his head in her hands. He let her kiss his tortured face and stroke her hands through his hair as she nestled his head against her chest. He let her comfort him as the sobs racked his body and his anguished cries rang out across the desert, as the warm breeze wrapped itself around them and held them in its whispering embrace.
Until the wind shifted subtly to a caress and comfort turned to need, and he was kissing her too, his mouth seeking hers. It was done tentatively at first—so hesitant, unsure and so very pained—and then hungrily, like a man starved and falling upon his first meal in days. It was all she could do to keep up with the demands of his urgent mouth and his hot, seeking hands.
She made no move to stop him. She would not stop him. He had lost so very much and all she had to offer him was the comfort of her body in the life-affirming act of sex.
He set her down softly on the grass, his kisses filled with a hungry desperation that wrenched at her soul and made her want to weep for him, to weep for the boy he had been, the boy who felt he had betrayed his family, the boy who had lost everything without the hint of a goodbye. So she put her heart into her kiss, wanting to make up for his sorrow, wanting to take away his pain for ever. Wanting to lend him hope.