Desert Doctor, Secret Sheikh

by Meredith Webber

  Jen looked around again but the haze didn’t seem any worse than it had minutes earlier. She was thinking of asking what was the worst that could happen if the storm did come when they rounded the last corner of the camp and saw the vehicle ahead of them.

  ‘Oh, Kam, it’s our same guide,’ she said, grabbing her companion’s arm to share her delight. ‘I’ve been so worried he might be in trouble and been beaten or had his hands cut off or something.’

  ‘Hands cut off?’ Kam echoed, stopping to turn back and look at her.

  ‘Something Aisha said,’ Jen explained, aware her smile was growing broader by the second. ‘Please, tell him how glad we are to see him and ask if he and his family are all well, so we know there’ve been no repercussions.’

  Kam spoke to the man who bowed and smiled at Jenny then the conversation must have shifted to the possibly approaching storm for both men were looking upwards and pointing to the sky.

  She climbed into the back seat of the vehicle while the men spoke, and settled the small bag she’d brought with her on her lap. Women all around the camp had heard about the baby’s birth and had brought small presents for it, including a tiny pair of embroidered slippers.

  She’d asked Marij why people would send gifts to the baby of tribesmen who had forced the refugees from their home, and Marij had smiled.

  ‘The baby is a new life, innocent,’ she said. ‘The baby is not to blame for what has happened.’

  And even thinking about the conversation made Jen’s eyes water and her nose go snuffly. What was wrong with her that she was becoming sentimental over such small incidents?

  Was it the baby?

  She pressed her hand against her own belly, remembering it swollen and hard as a melon, eight months pregnant when the accident had taken not only David but their unborn son.

  Maudlin—that’s how she was getting, and she had to get over it.

  Fast!

  Kam and the driver had climbed into the front seats and to distract her mind from maudlin she tapped Kam on the shoulder.

  ‘Was he in trouble with the chief?’ she asked.

  Kam shook his head.

  ‘The chief thinks we made our way over the mountains on our own, possibly with Hamid guiding us.’

  The chief didn’t exactly think that, Kam knew, but didn’t say so. The chief, according to their guide, was very suspicious and because he would know a foreign woman wouldn’t find her way across the mountains, his suspicions undoubtedly rested on Kam.

  However, suspicions, imagined or otherwise, were the least of everyone’s problems right now. Their guide agreed that a sandstorm was on the way, and even as they drove Kam could feel the wind picking up, blowing sand against the car, dust settling on the windscreen.

  By the time they reached the women’s tent in the village, the wind was whistling and the sand keening as it swept across the desert’s surface. Soon it would scream, Kam knew. Soon anyone outside would be lost and disoriented, unable to move until the storm subsided.

  Which could take days…

  They stopped outside the women’s tent and Jenny got out. She hurried in, the sand and wind blustering about her, plucking at her skirt as though unseen hands were grabbing it.

  ‘You have come.’

  The chief was with his wife, Jenny’s medical bag beside him, the women of the tent far back against the walls, which were all wound down and no doubt pegged because, although they ballooned in and out, they held fast.

  ‘I said I’d come and I will come again. I have kept my word so I expect you to keep yours, and let me go when I have done my job. There may be no need for me to see her every day, but until her wound is healed I will keep coming.’

  The chief nodded but, understanding more now about oaths and agreements, Jen knew this meant little. Until he shook hands there’d be no agreement he had to honour, and he probably wouldn’t shake hands with a woman anyway. Jen would have to leave those negotiations to Kam.

  But she did have something in the way of peace offerings. She knelt beside the woman who held her sleeping baby in her arms and began to undo the string on the small bag she’d carried.

  ‘No!’ the chief ordered, snatching the bag from her hands.

  ‘Hey, it’s OK. You should know I wouldn’t harm your wife or your baby—or anyone’s wife or baby, for that matter. The women from the camp have sent gifts for the baby. I was going to show them to your wife.’

  The chief, who’d by now had time to examine the contents of Jenny’s bag, had the grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘They are kind and the gifts are thoughtful,’ he admitted, then spoke to his wife, spreading out the gifts in front of her.

  She touched each in turn, smiling and looking from them to the baby, then packed them back into the bag and set it beside her.

  ‘How is your wife feeling?’ Jen asked, trying to pretend everything was all right, although the chief’s sudden, angry reaction earlier had frightened her.

  ‘She is in pain but the tablets help, also the ice. This will take some time?’

  ‘Like all wounds,’ Jenny explained, ‘it will take time to heal, both inside and outside.’

  The man nodded then repeated Jenny’s words to his wife.

  ‘May I examine her?’ Jen said. ‘I need to check the wound to see there’s no infection and to take her blood pressure, temperature and pulse to make sure everything is mending as it should.’

  The man translated for his wife, then called a woman forward. It was the woman Jen had assumed was the midwife.

  ‘I need to talk to her about women’s medical matters,’ Jen told the chief. ‘Perhaps you would prefer it if my colleague translated these.’

  The man looked from Jenny to his wife, then back to Jenny.

  ‘He will remain outside the tent and I will wait with him. I could do the translation, you understand, but it would not be right for me to speak to a woman of my tribe of such matters.’

  He spoke again to his wife, kissed her forehead then left the tent, leaving his little bride looking insecure and nervous again.

  ‘Are you there, Kam?’ Jen asked, and when he answered, she began, explaining first that she was going to examine the woman, beginning with the regular observations.

  ‘Will you tell her this is normal and there’s no need to be afraid? She’s nervous and unsettled without her husband here, and I don’t want to upset her more.’

  Kam spoke, then the chief chimed in, and Jen hoped he was repeating the reassurances.

  Smiling encouragingly at her patient, Jenny began the tests, pleased to see no elevated temperature, no raised pulse or irregularities in her blood pressure.

  ‘All good,’ she reported to Kam, then, with the help of the other woman, she unwrapped her patient and examined first her breasts for signs of soreness or milk fever.

  ‘Will you ask the midwife if the baby is feeding from the breast and if the woman’s milk has come in yet? It may be a bit early, but it’s best to know so we can watch for any trouble.’

  Kam and Jenny’s helper conversed for quite a time, then Kam reported all was well and that they could be confident the midwife knew her job, having helped more than two hundred babies into the world and watched over the mothers and their infants for forty days and nights after the birth.

  ‘It is a time the women spend with other women,’ Kam explained. ‘The chief being with his wife is an exception and he is only there to reassure her, leaving her to the women most of the time.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Jen said, smiling at the new mother, who now looked slightly more confident.

  Carefully, Jen undid the dressings on the wound, asking for more light so she could examine it more closely, seeking any signs of redness or weeping from infection. It looked clean and she asked Kam to check the woman was taking her antibiotics as well as painkillers.

  ‘Of course she is,’ the chief replied. ‘I see to it she does. I do not want her sick.’

  ‘The wound looks good,’ Jen r
eported, and saw the midwife’s smile as Kam repeated it. Then the woman spoke, words tripping off her tongue, while Jen applied new antiseptic to the wound and dressed it with clean dressings.

  ‘She’s asking if she can learn to do the operation. She said it looked easy and many women in the tribe have died because a doctor couldn’t come and do it when a baby becomes stuck.’

  Jen squatted back on her heels, straining to hear Kam’s voice as the wind was now whipping against the tent walls and echoing around the camp with an eerie, wailing sound.

  ‘I know a number of midwives back at home whom I would be happy to have do it, but there’s the anaesthetic as well. Are there many tribal people in these parts on both sides of the border? Would it be possible to set up a course for the midwives to learn enough to do a Caesarean?’

  ‘Boy, are you getting into delicate ground!’ Kam said. ‘You, a doctor, suggesting a nurse might be able to do doctor stuff as well as any doctor.’

  ‘Or better,’ Jenny told him. ‘There’s no reason why not. After all, we train paramedics to do emergency trauma work, so why not train midwives to do Caesars?’

  ‘Why not indeed?’ Kam said, and Jenny smiled as she heard him translating their conversation to the midwife. At least, that’s what she thought he was doing.

  Finished with her examination of the mother, she asked if she could look at the baby. Once the request was translated, the young mother displayed him proudly, unwrapping his swaddling garments so Jen could see him.

  ‘He’s beautiful,’ she said, awed as ever by the miniature perfection of new life, saddened as ever by her own loss.

  The girl-woman glowed with pride and happiness and held the infant to her breast where he nuzzled for a moment then began to feed.

  Jen wanted to ask about the customs here, about feeding times and habits, but she knew the chief might find the conversation awkward if it was carried on in front of him so she assured him that all was well and packed her bag, ready to leave.

  Kam met her outside the doorway of the tent, a worried frown warning her there was something very wrong.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t you see?’

  She was still within the porch-like area at the entrance to the tent, outside the inner wall but still sheltered, but now she did look outside at the thick dust cloud swirling beyond the outer wall.

  ‘The storm?’

  ‘The storm!’ Kam confirmed. ‘We can’t go back tonight.’ He didn’t add that storms like this could last for days, because he didn’t want Jen worrying. ‘The chief has suggested we eat dinner with him then sleep again in the cave dwelling. He has had his men put some provisions in there and rugs across the entrance. They will keep out some of the dust, but in a storm like this it gets everywhere. You breathe it and eat it and sleep with it in your bed, no matter how hard you try to keep it out.’

  He watched Jenny’s face as she took this in, then drew her closer to adjust her scarf around her head so it also covered her face.

  ‘Come,’ he said, taking her hand in his. ‘We’re going to run. Stay close behind me.’

  They ran, Kam regretting he hadn’t taken the scarf the chief had offered him. Wound around his face, it would have prevented the stinging sand from burning his skin, but he feared that if he wore it he might be more recognisable than he was in a baseball cap.

  A foolish fear, perhaps, but one he wasn’t going to put to the test.

  Once at the chief’s meeting tent, he slipped off his shoes and helped Jenny off with her sandals, before leading her inside. Their guide was there and other men, already seated on rugs on the ground, helping themselves to food from a huge pot in the middle of the rug.

  ‘You will eat,’ the chief told them, and Kam served a dish of stew for Jenny, gave it to her with some bread, then helped himself as well. He was uneasy, the storm an unexpected complication. How long might they have to remain in this place?

  Would Arun, hearing of the storm, accept that radio transmissions would be difficult and not come riding to his rescue?

  Kam ate, but barely tasted his meal, and when he saw that Jenny had finished hers, he excused himself to the chief and took Jen’s arm to help her to her feet.

  ‘You didn’t want to stay and chat?’ she teased, when they were putting their sandals back on in the entry-way and gathering strength to once again venture out into the swirling, dancing, deadly sand.

  ‘I wanted to get you safely in the cave,’ he told her, then his body leapt as the implications of the statement brought excitement to it.

  Too bad! His body was used enough to celibacy to get over its excitement, though being stuck in a cave with Jenny Stapleton while a sandstorm whirled outside, possibly for days, would sorely tempt it.

  Once again he adjusted Jenny’s scarf, wishing he’d asked one of the women to find a shawl for her so he could better protect the tender skin on her face from the onslaught of the sand.

  But something was better than nothing and when he was convinced he’d covered as much of her face as he safely could, he took her hand, told her to stay behind him and ventured out.

  Jenny realised as soon as they stepped out of the lee of the tent that the storm had become much worse. She put a hand to her face to shield her eyes and followed close behind Kam.

  The air was filled with red, gritty dust, whirling and eddying angrily all around them. She saw vague shapes she guessed were tents or houses and prayed Kam knew where they were going.

  The ducked along alleyways, staying close to walls in the lee of the wind, but already sand drifts were building up against fences and walls in the way she imagined snow would build up against the walls of houses during a snowstorm.

  ‘We’re here,’ Kam said, and held a rug a little to one side so she could duck inside the cave.

  It was dark, but someone had left a lit lamp on a table at the back, beyond the mats where they’d slept for a short time the previous night.

  Jen walked towards the light, feeling sand inside all her clothes, wishing she could take them off and shake them but shy in front of Kam.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, when she approached the table. There, set out for them, or maybe just for her, was a hairbrush, soap and a jar of what looked like face cream and smelt of roses, a clean robe she could wear to bed, and a selection of shawls and scarves.

  At the other end of the table was a small spirit stove, a kettle, cups, flat bread wrapped in cloth and some canned goods, but most surprising of all were the teabags, a whole packet of them.

  ‘There’s water in those drums in the corner, a basin to wash in, a privy behind the curtain, and we’re all set up to play house,’ Kam said, coming to stand behind her and examine the supplies for himself.

  ‘Play house,’ Jen echoed, and turned towards him, unwinding her scarf from her face as she did so. ‘Did you play house as a child?’

  He half smiled and rubbed his hand across his chin, and she saw where wind and sand had burnt his skin.

  ‘I don’t remember being a child.’

  It was such a bleak statement Jen gasped then turned to take him in her arms, to hold him to her body as if that might in some way make amends.

  They were too close!

  Kam’s lips found hers, sand and grit forgotten as they gave in to the attraction that had simmered between them since they’d first met.

  Jen remembered her brave words of the night before, about not being able to handle an affair, but they’d been spoken before Kam had washed her feet.

  Now she knew that kisses between them were never going to be enough!

  Not only knew but was longing for whatever followed, with a desire so strong it was like a pain, both in her chest, and abdomen, and right down to the apex of her thighs, a pain that throbbed in time to the beating of her heart, a pain that could only be alleviated in one way…

  CHAPTER NINE

  KAM broke the embrace.

  ‘We’ll not rush into this,’ he said, tilting her face so he
could look into her eyes. ‘You’re sure?’

  Jen nodded because a bald yes might have sounded too clinical somehow, and this, as far as she was concerned, was about love. Not that Kam would ever know it, but if her voice had trembled when she said yes he might wonder.

  ‘So let’s get the sand out of our clothes and off our bodies. Are you shy of me, Jenny? If so, I’ll pour a basin of water for you and set it in the corner of the cave so you can wash in privacy, or I could help you undress and shake the sand from your clothes, and wash your back…’

  He was giving her a choice. It was too much. Jen shook her head then nodded, and saw Kam smile.

  ‘Let’s start with the scarf, shall we?’ he said gently, and he unwound the scarf he’d wrapped around her head. Then he slipped the band from the bottom of her plait and set it on the table, picking up the brush as he unwound her hair.

  ‘If you only knew how often I’ve dreamt of doing this,’ he whispered, beginning to brush her hair with long, firm strokes. ‘It has tempted and tantalised me, that plait.’

  Jen tingled from his ministrations but knew she had to get her emotions in some degree of order.

  ‘It can’t have been too often,’ she reminded him. ‘We’ve only known each other a couple of days.’

  He smiled and kept on brushing.

  ‘I daydream as well,’ he said.

  Eventually Kam was satisfied he’d rid her hair of most of the sand it had collected and he let her gather it and knot it on her head, then, his fingers shaking slightly, he undid the first button on her shirt, his eyes on her face to read her reaction, determined not to rush her if she showed the slightest hint of apprehension.

  Her eyes met his and held them, so he continued to undo buttons, although he could feel her body trembling beneath the light cotton of her shirt, a trembling that increased as his fingers brushed against the swell of her breast. His own body was behaving badly, but he ignored it and kept going, eventually peeling the shirt off and taking it towards the door to give it a hard shake, then setting it on a ledge that ran along the side of the cave that had been dug out over centuries of summer visits from the tribes.