"What is this?" I asked Hassanein.
The shaykh moved to intercept the angry young man. "These are our guests," said Hassanein. "Be silent, or you will dishonor us all."
"There's the one who brings dishonor!" cried the furious Bedu. He pointed one long, bony finger at me. "He's doing it right beneath your nose! He's trying to spoil her! He's seducing her with his unholy city ways! He's no true Muslim, may his father's infidel religion be cursed! He cares nothing for her, and he'll ruin her and leave her to go back to his hareem of unclean women!"
Hassanein was having no success restraining the young man, who kept shouting and waving his fist at me. I tried to ignore him, but soon the entire tribe had gathered around us. The whole thing was rapidly getting out of hand.
Noora's face grew pale. I caught her eye, and she looked away. I was afraid she would break out into tears. "Don't tell me," I said to her, "that's bin Musaid, your secret admirer, right?"
She looked into my face helplessly. "Yes," she said softly. "And now he's decided to kill you."
I thought how much better things would've been if I'd declined Shaykh Mahali's invitation, and just gone out and gotten drunk instead.
6
I Watched the Bani Salim pack up their camp. It didn't take them long. Each person in the tribe had his particular task, and he went about it quickly and efficiently. Even the sullen Ibrahim bin Musaid, who'd been restrained and persuaded not to murder me where I stood, was busy rounding up the pack camels.
He was a dark, brooding young man about twenty years old, with a long, narrow face. Like some of the younger Bani Salim, he didn't wear a keffiya, and his head was framed by his wild, stringy hair. His upper jaw thrust forward, giving him an unfortunate foolish expression, but his black eyes glared at the world beneath knotted brows.
The situation between him and Noora was more complicated than I'd thought. It wasn't just a matter of unrequited love, which in the closed community of a Bedu tribe would be bad enough. Hassanein told me that bin Musaid was the son of one of the shaykh's two brothers, and Noora was the daughter of the other. Among the Bani Salim, a girl is betrothed at birth to her first cousin, and cannot marry anyone else unless he releases her. Bin Musaid had no intention of doing that, even though Noora had made it clear that she wanted to marry another young man named Suleiman bin Sharif.
I'd made everything worse, because bin Musaid had focused all his jealousy on me. I guess I was an easier target than bin Sharif, because I was an outsider and a civilized weakling. Bin Musaid made it abundantly clear that he resented the hours Noora had spent with me, particularly those long nights while I was recuperating. It didn't make any difference to him that I'd been unconscious most of that time. He still hinted at all kinds of unseemly behavior.
This morning, though, there wasn't time for more accusations. The camels lay couched on the ground, while the men of the Bani Salim stacked the folded tents and packs of belongings and supplies nearby. The air was filled with the loud grunting and roaring of the camels, who were aware of what was going on and were unanimous in their displeasure. Some turned their heads and snapped at their owners, who were trying to adjust the loads, and the Bedu had to be quick to dance out of the way.
When everything was divided and properly stowed, we were ready to travel. Bin Sharif, Noora's boyfriend, brought a small female camel named Fatma to me. The tribe had a few dozen camels in its herd, but only two or three were bulls. Bin Sharif explained to me that they sold or ate the rest of the bulls, because they didn't believe in giving food and water to an animal that wouldn't return milk.
I saw one of the men mounting a camel that was already on the move. He did this by climbing up one of the animal's forelegs, gripping it above the knee with his toes, and then pulling himself up over the camel's neck and into the saddle. I wasn't ready to display that kind of nonchalance, and I waited until bin Sharif couched Fatma by tapping behind her front knees with a stick, and making the same "khirr, khirr!" noise I'd heard the Bayt Tahiti use. Then I dragged myself awkwardly into the sheepskin-covered wooden saddle. Bin Sharif got the animal to her feet and handed me the head rope and a riding stick. I saw that Friedlander Bey had been helped onto another small camel.
"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful!" cried Shaykh Hassanein, leading the Bani Salim south from Bir Balagh.
"Allahu akbar! God is Most Great!" shouted his tribesmen. And then we were off on the three-day journey to Khaba, the next well.
Papa maneuvered his camel alongside me on the left, and Hilal, one of the two Bani Salim who'd found us in the desert, rode on my right. I was not enjoying the experience, and I couldn't imagine staying in that saddle for the three days to Khaba, let alone the two weeks it would take to reach Mughshin.
"How do you feel, my nephew?" asked Papa.
I groaned. "I hate this," I said.
"These saddles aren't as comfortable as those of the northern Bedu. Our muscles will hurt tonight."
"Look," said Hilal, "we don't sit in our saddles like city people. We kneel." He was, in fact, kneeling on the back of the camel. I was having enough trouble maintaining my balance, wedged into the wooden saddle and hanging on for dear life. If I'd tried to kneel like Hilal, I would've rolled off and fallen the ten feet to the ground with the camel's next lurching step. Then I would've had a broken neck to go along with my aching back.
"Maybe I'll just get off and walk," I said.
Hilal grinned and showed me his strong white teeth. "Be cheerful, my brother!" he said. "You're alive, and you're with friends!"
Actually, I've never been among such horribly cheerful people as the Bedu. They chanted and sang the whole way from Bir Balagh to Khaba. I suppose there was little else to pass the time. Now and then, one of the young men would ride up to one of his cousins; they'd have a wrestling match atop their camels, each trying to topple the other to the ground. The possibility of broken bones didn't seem to daunt them.
After about an hour and a half, my back, neck, and legs began to complain. I couldn't stretch adequately, and I realized it was only going to get worse. Then I remembered my daddies. At first, I hesitated to chip in the pain blocker again, but my argument was that it was only the abuse of drugs and daddies that was dangerous. I took out the daddy and chipped it in, promising myself that I wasn't going to leave it in any longer than necessary. From then on, the camel ride was less of a strain on my cramped muscles. It never got any less boring, though.
For the remainder of the day, I felt pretty good. As a matter of fact, I felt almost invincible. We'd survived being abandoned in the Rub al-Khali—with the help of the Bani Salim, of course—and we were on our way back to punish Reda Abu Adil and his tame imam. Once more, I'd shown Friedlander Bey that I was a man of honor and courage; I doubted that he'd ever again resort to blasting my brain's punishment center to get my cooperation. Even if at the moment all wasn't right with the world, I was confident that it soon would be.
I felt as if a strong current of dynamic force was flowing into me from some mystic source. As I sat uneasily astride Fatma, I imagined Allah inspiring our allies and creating confusion for our foes. Our goals were honest and praiseworthy, and I assumed God was on our side. Even before the abduction, I'd become more serious about my religious obligations. Now when the Bani Salim paused for prayer at each of the five prescribed times, I joined in with sincere devotion.
When we came into a valley between two parallel ridges of sand, Hassanein called a halt for the evening. The men couched the camels and unloaded them. Then the boys herded the beasts toward some low, dead-looking shrubs. "Do you see the haram, the salt-bush?" said Suleiman bin Sharif. He and Ibrahim bin Musaid had unloaded Fatma and Papa's camel.
"Yes," I said. The haram had dead-looking reddish-green leaves, and was as unhappy as any plant I'd ever seen.
"It's not dead, although it looks like dry sticks poking up out of the sand. No water has fallen in almost two years in this part of the Sands, but if it rai
ned tomorrow, the haram would flower in a week, and then it could stay alive another two years."
"The Bani Salim are like the haram," said bin Musaid, looking at me with a contemptuous expression. "We aren't like the weak city-dwellers, who can't live without their Christian ornaments." "Christian" seemed to be the worst insult he could think of.
I had a response to that, something to the effect that bin Musaid did indeed remind me of the haram, but I couldn't imagine him all covered with flowers because he'd need to bathe first. I decided not to say it aloud, because I could just picture the headlines: BUDAYEEN CLUB OWNER DIES IN SALT-BUSH MASSACRE.
The women put up the goat-hair tents for the night, and Hassanein generously offered to let Papa and me use his. "Thank you, O Shaykh," I said, "but I'm well enough now to sleep by the fire."
"Are you sure?" asked Hassanein. "It reflects badly on my hospitality for you to sleep under God's sky tonight. I'd truly be honored—"
"I accept your most kind invitation, Shaykh Hassanein," said Friedlander Bey. "My grandson wants to experience the life of the Bedu. He still entertains romantic notions of the nomadic existence, no doubt put in his mind by Omar Khayyam. A night by the fire will be good for him."
Hassanein laughed, and went to tell his wife to make room in their tent for Papa. As for me, I hoped it wouldn't get too cold that night. At least I'd have my robe to help keep me warm.
We shared a simple supper of dried goat meat, rice porridge, bread, coffee, and dates. I'd gotten plenty hungry during the day, and this food was as satisfying as any meal I could remember. Some of the enjoyment came from the company. The Bani Salim had unanimously welcomed Papa and me, and it was as if we'd been born among them.
Well, the acceptance was almost unanimous. The lone dissenter, of course, was Ibrahim bin Musaid. Noora's cousin didn't have any problem with Friedlander Bey, but he still gave me the fishy eye and muttered under his breath whenever he caught me looking at him. I was under the protection of Shaykh Hassanein, however, and therefore completely safe from his nephew. And bin Musaid was bright enough to realize that if he just waited long enough, I'd go away again.
After I finished eating, I popped out the pain daddy. Except for some soreness in my neck and back, I felt pretty good. I watched some of the men get up to make sure the boys had hobbled the camels properly for the night. There were still five or six of us at the fire, and a good-humored story-telling session began, concerning the men who had wives to prepare their meals and tents to sleep in. One man told some gossip about bin Shahira who, like many of the Bani Salim, had been named after his mother rather than his father. "Bearing his mother's name has made him crazy all his life," said the narrator. "All the years we were boys together, he complained about what a strict tyrant his mother was. So who does he marry? Old Wadood Ali's daughter. Badia the Boss we used to call her. Now he's the most henpecked man who ever rode a camel. Tonight at prayers, I think I heard him ask Allah to let the Bayt Tahiti raid us and carry her off. Just her and nothing else!"
"Min ghayr sharr," said one of the other men, who wasn't amused. That was a superstitious formula to avoid the evil bin Shahira had wished for.
No one was safe from the loose tongues of the Bani Salim, except of course the other men who sat by the campfire. Even Shaykh Hassanein came in for some sarcastic comments about how he was handling his hot-headed nephew, bin Musaid, and his beautiful niece, Noora. It was clear that bin Musaid and bin Sharif weren't the only men of the tribe who had their eyes on Noora, but because bin Musaid was her first cousin, he had an unshakable claim on her.
The talk drifted in one direction and then another. One of the older men began a recitation of some long-ago battle in which he'd distinguished himself. The younger men complained that they'd heard the story a hundred times before, but that didn't dismay the speaker. Hilal and bin Turki got up from their places and came to sit beside me.
"Do you remember us, O Shaykh?" asked Hilal, who'd ridden beside me most of the day.
"Yes, of course," I said. "You're the clever young men who found us in the desert."
Hilal and bin Turki grinned at each other. "My cousin would like to ask you a question," said Hilal.
"Sure," I said.
Bin Turki was a handsome, shy youth. Even by the firelight I could see that he was blushing furiously. "O Shaykh," he said, "when you return to your city, will you be far from China?"
I wondered what he meant. "Very far, bin Turki," I said. "Why?"
"Ten days' march?" he asked. "Twenty?"
I stopped to do some quick calculation. The camels made a steady three miles an hour, and the Bani Salim put in about twelve hours of travel per day. Call it thirty-six miles, then. Now, the distance from the city to China . . . "Hundreds of days, O my friend, across deserts and seas and great mountains."
Bin Turki just blinked at me a few times. "O Shaykh," he said in a quavering voice, "even Allah's world is not so big."
He thought I was lying to him, but he couldn't bring himself to accuse a guest of his tribe. "Indeed it is so big. The Sands are only a portion of Arabia, and all of Arabia is to the world
as . . . as one she-camel to the entire herd."
"Wallâhi!" murmured Hilal, which means "By Almighty God," and is one of the Bani Salim's strongest oaths. I rarely heard them resort to obscenity.
"What is your curiosity about China, bin Turki?" I asked. These were people who had never heard of England, Nuevo Tejas, or even the western lands of the Muslim world.
"Does not the Prophet—may the blessings of Allah be on him and peace—say, 'Seek knowledge even unto China'? I thought maybe I could return with you to your city, and then go from there to China."
Hilal laughed. "Bin Turki's hungry for knowledge," he said in a teasing voice. "He's already eaten all the knowledge there is to be had in the Sands."
"You don't have to go to China," I said. "If you're serious about learning, maybe you could travel with us after we reach Mughshin. Would you like that?"
I could see that bin Turki was trembling. "Yes, O Shaykh," he said softly.
"Is there any reason why you couldn't come with us? Do the Bani Salim need you? Might Shaykh Hassanein forbid you to go away for a few months?"
"I haven't yet discussed this with the shaykh," said bin Turki.
"The Bani Salim won't need you," said Hilal. "You never do anything useful anyway. It will be one less belly to fill with water from the wells of the Sands. Seriously, my brother, Shaykh Hassanein will let you go with his blessing."
There were a few moments of quiet while bin Turki thought over the consequences of what he wanted to do. We listened to dead limbs of the mimosa-like ghaf trees spit and crackle in the fire. Then the young man worked up his courage. "If Shaykh Hassanein gives his permission," he asked, "would I be welcome to join you?"
I smiled at the young man. "Do you know the way across the mountains from Mughshin to that coastal town?"
"To Salala?" said bin Turki. "Yes, I've been there many times. Two or three times, anyway."
"Well, then, we'd be glad of your company. Talk it over with Shaykh Hassanein and see what he has to say. It's a big, strange world out there, and you may wish you never left the Bani Salim."
"If that happens, I will come back to the Sands, inshallah."
Hilal looked from bin Turki to me, realizing that his friend might soon be leaving their community for the unimaginable life beyond the desert. "La illah ill'Allah," he said in astonishment. "There is no god but God."
Bin Musaid came to the fire and stared down at me for a few seconds. "You don't have to sleep here on the sand tonight," he said. "You're welcome to share my tent."
His sour expression belied the generosity of his offer. I wondered why he was making this overture. Maybe Hassanein had had a little talk with him. "May Allah reward you, bin Musaid," I said, "but tonight I wish to sleep under the stars."
"Good," he said. He wasn't going to try to talk me out of it. One of the others passed him a
goatskin of camel's milk, and he squatted down to drink. It's considered shameful for a Bedu to drink standing up. Don't ask me why.
Noora joined us, but she didn't even glance at bin Musaid. "My uncle wishes to know if there's anything you need," she said.
There was a time not long ago when I would have weakened and asked the shaykh for some medication. "Tell Hassanein that I feel very well," I said.
"Noora," said Hilal, "tell us about the time Abu Zayd was rescued by the Bayt Tahiti!"
"There is no story about Abu Zayd and the Bayt Tahiti," said one of the other men.
"Give Noora a minute or two and there will be," said bin Turki.
Bin Musaid grunted in disgust, got up, and stalked away into the deepening darkness.
"He better be hung like a bull camel," said Hilal, "because his wife won't get any happiness from him any other way." There was an uncomfortable silence, while we all tried hard not to look at Noora.
"Well, does anybody want to hear about Abu Zayd?" she said at last.
"Yes!" came several voices. Abu Zayd is a popular hero of Arabian folklore. His mythical tribe is responsible for everything from the Roman ruins in North Africa to the mysterious petroglyphs in the Rub al-Khali.
"All you who love the Prophet," Noora began, "say, 'May Allah be pleased with him and grant him salvation.' Now, one day Abu Zayd found himself lost in a part of the Sands he had never traveled before. There were no familiar landmarks, and he did not know that he was on the edge of the terrible gypsum flat called Abu Khawf, or Father of Fear. He led his faithful camel, Wafaa, down onto the flat, which stretched ahead of him for eight days' journey. After three days, Abu Zayd had drunk all of his water. By the end of the next day, when he'd reached the very middle of Abu Khawf, he was suffering from thirst, and even Wafaa, his camel, was beginning to stumble.
"Another day passed, and Abu Zayd was afraid for his life. He prayed to God, saying that if it was the will of Allah, he'd much prefer getting out of Abu Khawf alive. Just then, he heard a loud voice. Coming toward him, leading two camels loaded with bulging goatskin bags, was a man of the Bayt Tahiti. 'Salaam alaykum, my brother!' cried the stranger. 'I am Abduh bin Abduh, and I will give you water!'
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