The Fierce and Tender Sheikh Read online

  “Come out!” he ordered, without raising his voice.

  He turned his head as the slim figure straightened from behind the door.

  The boy looked starved. The bare arms under the baggy T-shirt sleeves were painfully thin, and the long neck and hollow cheeks only intensified the impression that he needed a square meal. But there was no mistaking the resemblance, once he had seen it.

  “What’s your name?” Sharif asked softly, in Bagestani Arabic.

  The boy looked at him, breathing hard, a wounded animal only waiting for the return of his strength to flee. At the question, his eyes went blank.

  “I have a reason for asking,” Sharif prodded in an urgent voice.

  In the same pithy language he had used with the trucker, the boy advised him on the precise placement of his reason and his question. The advice was colourful and inventive.

  “Tell me your father’s name.”

  For one unguarded moment, the boy’s face became a mask of grief. Then his eyes went blank again, and he shrugged in a to hell with you kind of way and limped painfully to pick up an orange. Sharif lifted his foot to free whatever the toy was, and for a moment the boy gave off a deep animal wariness, as if this might be a prelude to violence. He didn’t rank Sharif an inch higher than he did the trucker.

  One eyebrow raised in dry comment on the boy’s suspicions, Sharif bent and picked up the object. The boy stowed the rest of the things in his pockets under the loose T-shirt, then stood a few feet from Sharif.

  “It’s mine. Give it to me.”

  Sharif took the cigar from his mouth. “Didn’t you steal it?”

  “What do you care? I stole it, you didn’t. It’s mine. If you keep it, you’re a thief, too, no better than me. Give it to me.”

  The boy was favouring his foot so carefully Sharif guessed the dance with the trucker had broken a bone. The important thing was to get him to a doctor. He would worry about the other later.

  He tossed the object to the boy and jerked his head. “Get in the car.”

  But the boy snatched it from the air, whirled and, not limping nearly so heavily now, made for the embankment.

  “Don’t be a fool!” Sharif snapped. “You’re hurt! Let me take you to a doctor!”

  His mouth stretched in a mocking smile, the boy flicked a backward glance. And with sunlight and shadow just so, his cheekbones and eyes again revealed that shape the Cup Companion knew so well.

  “What’s your name? Who is your family?”

  But the boy slithered down the slope and was running almost before he landed on the desert floor. A moment later, deft as an Aboriginal hunter, he had disappeared into the landscape.

  Two

  “Is it you, my son? Did God bring you luck?”

  Farida lay on the bed beside her baby, her sweat-damped dark hair loosely knotted in a scarf, trying to comfort the whimpering infant with a sugar-soaked knot of cloth. As Hani entered, the young mother looked up, wiping a hand over her wet face with a sigh. The room was at cooking temperature, though the only natural light came from a small barred window that was too high to see out.

  The boy approached and began to draw things out from under his T-shirt. Chocolate bars, a bracelet, a child’s teething ring, oranges appeared in quick succession on the bed in front of Farida. The tired young mother smiled and reached out to turn the items over, one by one.

  “How do you do it?” she asked, shaking her head in admiration.

  The boy only shrugged and set down a few more items—some useful in themselves, some that would be traded. It was a foolish question: Hani managed things no one else dreamed of.

  He was a born forager. Perhaps it was the elfin quickness, or simply long experience and luck, but Hani kept his family supplied while others went without. It had been a happy day for Farida when the boy had attached himself to her, for although he was young and slight, he had spent years in the camps, and he was tough, with the intelligence of a much older man. His speed and cunning often protected them where a grown man would have used brawn.

  Probably he used his fluent English to fool the people in the shops. No one in the camp knew of his talent—and how useful that was! Hani always knew what was going on in the camp, simply by eavesdropping around the administrative office. It was he who had first heard the news of the Sultan’s emissary.

  The boy brought one last item out of a pocket and dropped it on the bed. A black leather wallet.

  Farida’s mouth formed an O as she saw it: Hani didn’t often pick pockets. The wallet was obviously expensive, made of fine, soft leather. Farida reached for it, and her fingers found the cash inside with a little sigh. Quickly she counted it, and smiled. Oh, how easy such an amount would make their lives, for days, weeks!

  She passed the money to Hani, who reached for the plastic yogurt container, stuffed with a rusty pot scratcher, a bar of green soap and a sponge, that sat on the little stand between a dishwashing bowl and a bucket of water. He lifted out the inner pot and tucked the money inside the larger pot, then carefully restored the inner container and set the pot down again. Their bank.

  “Barakullah! What is this?” Farida hissed. She stared down at the gold seal and the delicate calligraphy of the business card she had found in the wallet. “‘His Excellency Sharif Azad al Dauleh…’” As she understood, her mouth fell open in an almost comical expression of mingled astonishment and dismay. “You have robbed a Bagestani diplomat?” she cried in a hoarse whisper, for the walls were not thick. “How? Where was he? How did you get close to him?”

  Hani scooped a dipperful of water from the bucket to rinse the blue teething ring over the bowl, then splashed his face and neck with small, bony hands. He handed the rubber ring to the baby.

  “On the road. His car was behind the truck I hitched a ride on. He might have killed me, but his reflexes were very fast.”

  Farida stared. “Were you hurt?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Farida got to her feet and began to pace the tiny area of free space in the centre of the cramped room as she listened to the boy’s recital. Over her shoulder the baby chewed the teething ring and watched Hani, wide-eyed and curious.

  “My son, he saved your life, and he saved you from a beating, and you stole his wallet?” she said, when he had finished.

  Hani only looked at her.

  “Oh, Hani, but think!—it must be him! Sultan Ashraf’s envoy!”

  For days the detention centre had been buzzing with the rumour that a high official from Bagestan was expected at the camp. His reason for coming wasn’t known, but hopes were very high among the Bagestanis in the camp that it had something to do with repatriating them, now that the new Sultan was safe on the throne. And even the ragtag representatives of the half-dozen other strife-torn nations here were half convinced it meant their own salvation.

  “He was travelling alone, not even a driver. Diplomats on missions to refugee camps don’t come without assistants and the media,” the boy said with cynical wisdom.

  “Perhaps his entourage is coming later. Why else would such a man be in a place like this? Ya Allah! The Sultan’s own Cup Companion! If only he doesn’t realize you are the thief, Hani! Do you think he will recognize you if he sees you again?”

  An abrupt knocking sounded against the door.

  The young mother jerked spasmodically, clutching the wallet, and the baby opened her mouth, let the new teething ring fall, and began to wail again.

  “What shall we do?” Farida hissed.

  “Give it to me,” Hani said and, stretching out one thin arm, plucked the wallet from Farida’s trembling hand. In a moment it had disappeared again under the baggy T-shirt.

  “Hani!” Farida whispered, but another knock sounded, and there was no time to argue. Her eyes black with anxiety, Farida opened the door.

  It was one of the “guards,” men from the refugee community who were badged and assigned the task of liaison between the staff a
nd inhabitants of the community. What the camp authorities didn’t understand, or didn’t want to, was that on those badges a ruthless camp mafia was founded and nourished.

  He frowned at Hani.

  “You went into town today,” he growled in the camp patois. His eyes went past Farida to the bed, where the pathetic rewards of the foraging expedition still lay. “Let me see!”

  Hani leapt for him, grabbing his arm, in a bid to protect the hard-won treasures. But the guard was big and ruthless, and merely threw the boy to one side, so that he fell against the sink. For a moment he clung there, half kneeling, nursing his injured ankle.

  He cursed the guard with the fierce contempt of the powerless. “A baby soother!” he said. “Do you want to suck on it? Maybe your rotten teeth will grow again!”

  Then he was up again, jumping onto the brute’s back as he bent over the bed. His small fist pummelled the man’s ear. A big, powerful hand grabbed the thin wrist and brutally twisted, so that the boy cried out and submitted. He was tossed down like a sack of waste.

  The guard’s eye had fallen on the telltale sparkle of the bracelet. He snatched it up, scooping two chocolate bars at the same time.

  “My share,” he said, grinning. He held up the bracelet to admire. “Someone will like this.” His voice held a gloating note, and the boy’s wide mouth twisted with helpless fury.

  “May God make you too limp to enjoy her!”

  “What else?” said the man, ignoring the insult, his eyes hot with anger, but hotter still with greed. He held out his hand toward the boy on the floor, palm up, the fingers moving invitingly. Hani and Farida gazed at him, willing themselves not to glance at the yogurt pot.

  “Give.”

  A step outside the door broke the tension.

  “Farida, where are you? Have you heard? The Sultan’s envoy has arrived at last! A Cup Companion himself! They say he is searching for someone!” a voice cried from the doorway. “He is visiting every room. Come out and see!”

  Her eyes liquid with terror, Farida stared at Hani. But it was impossible to get rid of the wallet now.

  “Good morning, Rashid, morning Mrs. Rashid,” the camp director said cheerfully. “What’s the story here, Alison?”

  His assistant wiped her damp forehead, replaced her hat and consulted the sheaf of documents on her clipboard. “Rashid al Hamza Muntazer, his wife, seven children. Joharis. We don’t have their exact ages, but the nurse has estimated them as all under twelve.”

  Sharif Azad al Dauleh, Cup Companion to the Sultan of Bagestan, touched his fist to his heart in respectful greeting to the family. The brief conversation that followed differed little from thousands of others he had heard over the past weeks. Please tell them the children should be in school, that my wife is very depressed. I am a construction engineer. I want to work. Please ask them how long we will be kept here.

  The group moved on, the anguish ringing in his ears. As at every camp, it was the same tale of nightmare and waste, endlessly repeated. Each one a variation of hell on earth.

  They had covered over half of the detention centre now, and Sharif had almost despaired of finding the boy. His instinct told him that a child as wily as that would have some hiding place, and having stolen Sharif’s wallet—a fact which Sharif had discovered without surprise when he returned to the car—he had every reason to hide to avoid a meeting.

  But it was imperative that he find the boy again.

  At the next door, a Bagestani woman held a baby, another child clutching her skirt.

  “This is Mrs. Sabzi,” the assistant read aloud. “She has three children—a son, Hani, a daughter, Jamila, and the baby.”

  Sharif brought a fist to his breast and bowed.

  “Excellency.” Farida returned the salute, then stood rocking the baby and looking anxiously at him. Her eyes wide with fascination, the baby reached one hand to the Cup Companion, letting go of her teething ring.

  The blue rubber teething ring that he had last seen under his own foot on the highway.

  Sharif smiled. Got you! he told the boy mentally, putting out a finger to the baby, who clutched it and fixed him with a heart-rending look.

  “You have a son, Mrs. Sabzi?” he asked.

  Alarm darkened her eyes, and she licked her lips. “I—yes, my son, Hani.”

  Sharif smiled. “May I meet him?”

  “Excellency, you are very kind! It is good of you, but you are an important man and my son…” She shrugged to show how unimportant her son was.

  Sharif inclined his head. “If he is here, I would like to meet him.”

  “Alas, he is not well, Excellency! I have told him to stay in bed, though he was very eager to meet you. We are Sabzi people, Excellency, from the islands,” she said brightly, in an obvious effort to turn the conversation.

  “Is your son here now?”

  “Yes—no!” the woman began, and then her eyes moved, and her small gasp made Sharif look towards the door of her room. There was the boy, gazing straight at him with an accuse-and-be-damned look. He limped towards his mother and she put an arm around his shoulder, drawing him against her.

  “Here is Hani, Excellency!” she said, her voice going up an octave, though she tried to appear calm. “You see he is not so ill that he will stay in bed when a Cup Companion of the Sultan visits!”

  She looked anxiously between Sharif and the boy as if expecting him to denounce the boy, and almost wept in relief when instead he said, “You say you are from the Gulf Islands?”

  “Yes, Excellency. Our home was the island of Solomon’s Foot. They destroyed our house and drove us out of the island. My husband was arrested. Fifteen months, Excellency, and I have heard no news of him!”

  “The Sultan’s people are working to reunite all political prisoners with their families. I hope you will soon hear news of your husband, Mrs. Sabzi.”

  “But here we are so far away! Many, many thousand miles, they say. How will my husband find us? Please tell the Sultan that we want to come home.”

  Unless she was a miracle of preservation, she was not old enough to be the boy’s mother. Sharif’s gaze raked her face for a resemblance to the boy. Family connections were often constructs in the camps, partly because of Western ignorance of the importance of certain relationships in other cultures, partly because distant relationships increased in importance when many family members had been lost. So great-uncles became fathers, and second cousins became brothers and sisters, to satisfy the requirements of an alien authority.

  But he could see no trace of family resemblance at all.

  “Your husband, Mrs. Sabzi…” he began.

  “I think you have dropped something, Excellency,” the boy interrupted.

  The mother choked with alarm.

  Sharif glanced down to see his wallet lying against his foot. The boy bent to retrieve it, straightened and, with a level, challenging look, offered it to him.

  The director blinked. “Is that your wallet?” he cried in English. “How did it get there?”

  “It must have fallen from my pocket,” Sharif replied.

  “I doubt it very much,” said the director dryly. “You’d better check to see what’s missing.”

  “Shokran,” Sharif said to the boy. Thank you. He took the wallet, his fingers brushing the boy’s with a jolting awareness of his painful thinness. Why didn’t this woman who called herself his mother take better care of her adopted son? And what were the camp authorities about, to allow a child to starve like this?

  Sharif flipped the wallet open. The cash was gone. He understood the boy’s deliberate, self-destructive challenge, but instead of anger he felt a deep sorrow.

  “Everything accounted for,” he said quietly, pocketing the wallet.

  “Excellency, you are a good man!” the mother exploded in a rush of relief, lifted her arm from the boy’s shoulders, seized his hand and kissed it. “We are simple people, and life is so empty here. Our house must be rebuilt, but we are ready for hard work.
Only tell us that we may go home!” The boy, meanwhile, looked stunned. His eyes were black with confusion and mistrust as he gazed at Sharif. Kindness completely unsettled him, and that, too, flooded Sharif’s heart with sadness.

  Three

  Hani sat on a rock and gazed out over the barren plain in the profound darkness, his stomach aching with a hunger that was not for food. A light breeze was blowing from the mountains. The air was dry, with the desert dust and the astringent perfume of a plant whose name he didn’t know combining to create the familiar scent of desolation. Stars glittered in the black, new moon sky overhead, their alien configurations reminding him how far away from home he was. Along the distant highway now and then long fingers of light dragged a lone car through the darkness. The town lay fragmented on the distant horizon, a broken wineglass catching the starlight.

  Everything else was night. Behind him, the camp had a ghostly glow, throwing barbed wire shadows on the desert floor, but the rock where he sat hidden shrouded the thin figure.

  For the first time in a long time, Hani was thinking about the past. The stranger’s voice had stirred memories in him. Those strange memories he didn’t understand—of a handsome man, a smiling woman…other children. In those memories he had a different name.

  Your name is Hani. Forget that other name. You must forget.

  He had been obedient to the command. Mostly he had forgotten. In the dim and distant memory that was all that remained—or was it a dream?—life was a haze of gentle shade, cool fountains, and flowers.

  She had played in a beautiful courtyard by a reflecting pool, amid the luscious scent of roses carried from flower beds that surrounded it on all sides. In that pool the house was perfectly reflected, its beautiful fluted dome, its tiled pillars, the arched balconies. When the sun grew hot, there were fountains. Water droplets were carried on the breeze to fall against her face and hair.

  Now, in this water-starved world, he could still remember the feeling of delight.

  And then one day the fountain was silent. He remembered that, and her brother—was it her brother?—his face stretched and pale. There are only two of us now, he had said, holding her tight. I’ll look after you.