Desert Man

by Barbara Faith

  Kumar stared at her. He turned and looked toward the stairs. Where was Josie? In the name of Allah, where was she?

  “I’ve got to take off,” the pilot yelled. “If I don’t do it now I won’t be able to make it.”

  Kumar felt the heat of the flames and knew the pilot was right.

  He looked back at the door, hoping...hoping against hope he would see her. But there was no one. He turned to the pilot. “Go!” he shouted, and sprinted for the stairs.

  * * *

  She tried with all her strength to get the board off Sarida Barakat’s legs. She tugged and lifted until she saw black spots in front of her eyes. She cursed and pushed and cried. She screamed for Saoud, for Bonner, for Petersen. Nobody heard her, nobody came.

  She knelt beside Sarida. She felt her pulse and knew it was weaker. “God,” she said under her breath. “Somebody. Help me. Help me.”

  The terrible shooting went on, but the explosions had stopped and so had the battering at the door. She smelled smoke and knew she had to get out before the walls caved in and the roof fell.

  But she couldn’t leave Sarida, she had to do something. Had to. Had to.

  She got to her feet again and tried to lift the beam. “Move, damn you,” she said under her breath. “Move.”

  * * *

  Kumar climbed over fallen beams and piles of debris. Half blinded by smoke, he ran into an office, saw the tilted crest of the United States and knew it was Bonner’s. He ran out and down the hall. Saw an open door and started in.

  Josie! Her dress was torn, her face was dirty. She had a bump on her forehead and cuts on her arms. She was struggling with a beam, trying to lift it, muttering words he hadn’t known American women used.

  “Josie!” he cried.

  She turned. Her eyes went wide with shock. “Sarida,” she said. “She’s hurt. Help me...” And with a strangled cry she slumped to the floor.

  Chapter 10

  It seemed as if she had been sleeping for a week. Now and again she was roused by a woman robed in white, who spooned hot tea or soup into her mouth. And once she opened her eyes and saw Kumar beside her bed.

  “Sarida,” she managed to say. “Miss Barakat?”

  “Her legs are broken, but she’s going to be all right.” He closed his hand over hers. “So are you, Josie. You’ve had a concussion and some cuts, but the worst is over. All you need to do now is rest.” He stroked her forehead. “Sleep now, my laeela,“ he said. “Sleep now.”

  When she awoke the next time her head, though it ached, felt clearer. There were scratches on her left arm and a small bandage on her right wrist. Other than that she seemed to be all right. But she didn’t know where she was. This certainly wasn’t like any hospital room she had ever seen.

  Pale apricot curtains moved in the breeze that came in from the open French doors. There were satin sheets on her bed, a bowl of gardenias on one of the bedside tables and a bouquet of pink roses on the dresser. A velvet chaise had been placed in front of the French doors near a table and two chairs.

  She raised herself up on the white satin pillows and saw that she was wearing a pink lace nightgown. What in the world...?

  She threw back the satin coverlet and swung her legs off the bed, but before she could rise the door opened and the robed woman she had seen before entered.

  “No, no.” The woman hurried into the room. “You are too weak. You must not get up alone.” She helped Josie back into bed. “I am Fatima. When you want me, you have only to ring this.” She indicated a silver bell on the nightstand.

  “Where am I?”

  “In the palace, madame. When you were hurt, Prince Kumar brought you here.”

  “The palace? And Miss Barakat? Is she here, too?”

  “No, madame, she is in the hospital.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “It is four days now.”

  Four days? Josie put a hand to her head as though trying to clear it. The last thing she remembered was trying to lift the beam off Sarida’s legs. There had been noise and smoke, and she’d been terribly afraid that she couldn’t save Sarida. Then, like a dream, she had seen Kumar. That was the last she remembered.

  “I’ll tell Prince Kumar you are better,” Fatima said. “When you have bathed, I will bring your breakfast.”

  “I can manage alone.”

  “No, madame, you cannot. If you were to fall and hurt yourself again the prince would...” The woman stopped and with a chuckle said, “At the very least he would have me boiled in oil. Therefore, because I know you would not want that to happen, you will allow me to be of assistance, yes?”

  And so it was that when Fatima had run a bath she helped Josie up and into a room that looked more like a tropical garden than a bathroom. Recessed behind the pink marble tub was a forest of plants and flowers; baby orchids of every hue, Madagascar jasmine, frangipani blossoms, ferns. On the ledge of the tub she saw the scent she used alongside a display of French bath oil and soap, soft pink washcloths and towels. A dressing table stood at one side of the room. The ceiling was mirrored.

  She let Fatima help her down the marble steps into the tub, but when the woman picked up a washcloth and a bar of soap, Josie said, “No. I can bathe myself.”

  “You are sure, madame?“

  “Quite sure.” With a wave of her fingers, Josie motioned the other woman away. When she was alone she lay back in the warm water and looked up at the mirrored ceiling. This was a long, long way from Bakersfield, the California town where she’d grown up.

  The scented water rose around her. She closed her eyes, remembering.

  Her father had owned a gas station in Bakersfield, her mother had been a nurse. When Josie entered Santa Cruz on a partial scholarship, her parents helped as much as they could. And she’d helped herself with part-time jobs at the campus bookstore and a pancake house. The bookstore had given her a ten-percent discount on her books; the pancake house had kept her in pancakes and waffles.

  Her grades were good and in her senior year she had applied to and been accepted at Stanford Medical; her lifelong dream was coming true, she was going to be a doctor.

  But her dream had been smashed by a drunken driver on the curving mountain road above Big Sur. Her father had been killed in the accident, her mother so badly injured they hadn’t expected her to live.

  But Ellen McCall had lived, for a year, and by that time there’d been nothing left of the Stanford fund both she and her parents had saved for.

  With her dreams of medical school behind her, Josie had entered nurse’s training. If she’d had moments of regret, she never spoke of them. She loved nursing and with International Health she’d traveled to places she had never expected to see. Hopefully she had left each medical facility a little better than it had been before she’d come.

  But of all the countries she had seen, of all the places she had lived, none had been as exotic as Abdu Resaba. And though she still resented the way Kumar had forced her to come, she was glad now that he had. The hospital was shaping up. As soon as she was able she would visit the outlying clinics. If, and it was a big if, after what had happened at the American consulate, she was allowed to stay on.

  It all came back to her then, the attack, the bombing, the fire, her own desperate efforts to free Sarida. And the certain frightening knowledge that she would not have left the other woman to perish in the fire. If Kumar hadn’t found her... But Kumar had found her. She was in the palace of a prince, which at the moment seemed a pretty good place to be.

  When Josie finished bathing she washed and dried her hair and slipped into the thick terry-cloth robe that had been placed on a chair next to the tub. There were toiletries on the dressing table; lotions and creams, combs and hairbrushes, bath powder and scented lotions, all obviously new.

  She had finished arranging her hair and was perfuming her skin when Fatima came in with a green silk caftan over her arm, a pair of silk bikini panties and a thin wisp of a bra.

  “The
re are other clothes in the closet,” the woman said when Josie had dressed. “Come, let me show you.”

  She led Josie back into the bedroom and opened the mirrored doors at the opposite end of the room.

  There were robes and caftans of every fabric and color; pale greens, delicate pinks, lavender, burnt orange, ivory, light blue, dark blue. And neatly arranged on racks on the floor dozens of pairs of satin slippers in matching hues.

  “And here,” Fatima said before Josie could recover, “are your underthings.”

  She went to the dresser and began to open drawers that displayed all manner of swim wear and underwear; satin panties, lacy bras, provocative teddies and nightgowns.

  Josie looked at the frivolously expensive display, not quite sure whether to be angry or amused. “These aren’t mine,” she said at last. “My clothes are at my residence.”

  “But these are also yours, madame. Prince Kumar had them flown in from Paris.”

  Flown in from Paris? What was going on here? She couldn’t accept such gifts. Besides, she had her own things back at the house he had provided for her.

  Josie looked at Fatima and shook her head, but before she could say anything, Fatima said, “Prince Kumar has asked me to serve dinner in your room this evening. He also asked if he could join you.”

  “Tell him that, yes, he may join me,” Josie said with a frown, determined to tell him the minute she saw him that she couldn’t possibly accept the clothes. And that tomorrow she would move back to her own place.

  * * *

  When Kumar came at sunset, he found her sitting in one of the lounge chairs beside the pool. “I knocked,” he said. “But you didn’t hear.”

  “It’s beautiful out here in the garden.”

  “Yes, it is.” But Kumar wasn’t looking at the garden, he was looking at her. Indicating a chair, he asked, “May I?”

  “Of course.” Josie hesitated, for though he had overstepped in bringing her here and in buying clothes that she could not accept, he had saved both her life and Sarida’s. He had been kind and concerned and she was grateful for all that he had done for her. Nevertheless...

  “It was kind of you to bring me here,” she said. “But I’m all right now. I’ll leave tomorrow and go back to my place.”

  His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “That’s out of the question. You need at least another week of recuperation.”

  “Kumar...” Frustrated, Josie shook her head. “Look,” she said, “I know you’re trying to help, but you shouldn’t have brought me here. You shouldn’t have bought me all those clothes, if they really are for me.”

  He smiled. “Of course, they’re for you.”

  “I can’t accept them, Kumar.”

  “Nonsense. You have to wear something.”

  “I have my own clothes back at the residence you provided.”

  “But you’re not there,” he said reasonably. “You’re here. While you are, you’ll wear the clothes I have provided.” He paused. “They’re not to your liking?”

  “Of course, they are. They’re beautiful, but—”

  “Then, they are yours. As for your returning to the other house, I’m afraid that’s impossible—at least for a while. Dr. Nazib has said that while your wounds are not serious, you need time to recuperate.”

  “I could go to the consulate.” She hesitated. “Surely it’s being repaired and there is still a part of it that’s livable.”

  “The consulate has been destroyed,” Kumar said. “Mr. Bonner and Mr. Petersen, along with Mrs. Petersen, have left Abdu Resaba.”

  “They’ve left?” Josie stared at him. Her eyes went wide with shock. “Where...where are they?”

  “They returned to the States the day after the consulate was attacked. I’m sorry, Josie, but at the moment there is no United States consulate in Abdu Resaba.”

  No consulate? But if there was no consulate then she was in Abdu Resaba without the protection of her country. “You...” She wet her lips. “You arranged for them to leave?”

  “They were airlifted by helicopter directly to the airport. Mr. Bonner suffered a minor wound and was treated there.”

  “Ed Petersen was all right?”

  Kumar nodded. “Neither he nor his wife were injured.”

  “And they left right away, directly from the airport?”

  “With Mrs. Petersen loudly voicing her disapproval of my country.” His voice grew mock serious. “I debated about whether or not to let her leave, for though she wouldn’t have brought much of a price on the slave market, six months in a harem under the supervision of a stern taskmaster would have done much to improve her disposition.”

  In spite of her growing concern over her own fate, Josie grinned. She had a sudden vision of Edith Petersen, dressed in flowing veils, surely flowered, being turned this way and that as an auctioneer rattled off her dubious charms. When the vision faded, so did the grin. If the others had gone, then she would soon be leaving too. In a strange way, she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  “When am I to leave?” she said.

  “You’re not.”

  “I...I beg your pardon.”

  Kumar leaned forward. “The airport has been closed. I could have you flown out in my private plane, but it would be risky because you’d be flying over enemy territory.”

  He hesitated then, wondering how much he should tell her. “We’re almost in a state of war, Josie. The riots have stopped, but there is the smell of danger in the air. The army is on alert and the air force is on standby. We know that Sharif Kadiri is behind all of this, and we believe he’s gone to Azrou Jadida to gather forces for an attack.”

  “An attack?” Hand to her throat, Josie stared at him.

  “Yesterday, I received word from my father. He is rallying the Bedouins to fight with us. If we have them, we will win. Meantime, believe me when I say that you are safer here than you would be if you tried to leave the country.”

  “There isn’t any other way I can leave?” she asked. “I mean other than by air?”

  Not quite meeting her gaze, Kumar said, “No, I’m sorry. It’s impossible.” And he did not tell her that there was a way across the desert to Saudi Arabia.

  The day she had walked away from him in California and told him how she felt about Middle Eastern men he had decided that one day he would have her exactly where he wanted her, in his country, on his turf. “You’re like Aiden,” she’d said. Aiden, the man who had beaten and abused her friend. Without knowing him, she had grouped him with such a man. She had insulted him and all the decent men of his race and blood. And because she had, he had made up his mind that some day he would have her exactly where he wanted her.

  “You’ll be quite comfortable here in the palace,” he said. “Fatima will be at your beck and call.” He smiled and took her hand in his. “And so will I.”

  “No,” Josie said with a shake of her head. “If I must stay in Abdu Resaba, then I will live in the house you have provided for me.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  She stood and looked down at him. “Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t be safe there.” He, too, rose, and facing her said, “You’re an American citizen, Josie. And because you are, Sharif Kadiri would love to get his hands on you. It’s up to me to make sure he doesn’t.”

  “Kadiri? But why?”

  “To hold you for ransom or...” He hesitated. “To auction you off to the highest bidder.”

  “You’re...you’re joking,” she said.

  “Am I?”

  She stared at him. His face was impassive, serious, strangely cold.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be in danger, or that if civil war broke out she would be trapped here in Abdu Resaba.

  “Please don’t look so worried,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. She felt the warmth of his breath against her skin. And knew somehow that the thought
of a civil war was far less dangerous than being here in the palace with Prince Kumar Ben Ari.

  * * *

  They had dinner on the patio overlooking the pool. Fatima served champagne with the hearts-of-palm salad, white wine with the fish, red with the couscous, and dark Arabian coffee with the baklava.

  When the other woman put the plate of baklava between them, Josie looked at it suspiciously. The last time she’d had the sweet dessert Kumar had fed it to her, bit by luscious bit. She didn’t want that to happen again and so she said, “I’ve had enough. I really couldn’t eat another bite.”

  “Then we will wait a while, yes?” He got up, and crossing to Josie’s chair, took her hand and led her to one of the chaises. “You’ll be more comfortable here,” he said. “We will have our coffee and dessert, and you will relax.”

  Relax? Not likely. Not with a full moon rising over the royal palms and the scent of jasmine and orange blossom drifting on the evening air.

  He motioned to Fatima, who had been waiting at one side, and said, “When you have cleared the dishes you may go. I will serve the coffee and dessert.”

  He took the chaise next to Josie’s. In a little while Fatima left, and they were alone in the moonlight.

  “Have you ever been in the desert?” he said into the silence.

  Josie shook her head. “I don’t like hot weather.”

  “You get used to it.” He handed her a cup of strong Arabian coffee. “There’s a magic about the desert,” he said. “Once you have been there it becomes a part of you, bone and blood of you, and when you are away there is place in your soul that longs to return.”

  He took his coffee, and after he had added a teaspoon of sugar, leaned back in the chaise and looked up at the sky. “The temperature cools at night and there are so many stars it seems that the heavens are filled with celestial light. On a night like this, with a moon like this, the sand turns the color of gold. A breeze comes in off the desert and it smells...” He shook his head, searching for the words to describe the place he loved most in the world. “It smells of desert heat, of sun and sand, of meat roasting over hot coals, camel dung and leather. On such a night you forget the heat of the day.”