Lost Riders

by Elizabeth Laird

  ‘Don’t go to the kitchen till they call you,’ Iqbal warned. ‘Haji shouts at you if you do. There’s a hose for the camel troughs. You can drink there. I’ll show you.’

  He led the way towards the far side of the uzba. A long hose snaked across the sand, the end of it lying by a trough.

  ‘No one’s looking,’ Iqbal said. ‘I’ll turn it on. Drink from the end.’

  A minute later, water gushed out of the hose. It was warm, but at least it was wet. Rashid held it close to his mouth and drank greedily.

  Salman came out of the kitchen with a tray in his hand. Iqbal turned the tap off and ran towards him. Salman put the tray down on the kitchen step.

  ‘Puppo!’ he called. ‘Yasser!’

  Rashid dropped the end of the hose and ran to the step. There were three bowls on the tray. Iqbal was already squatting down with one of them in his hand. Puppo had come running too. Rashid picked up the third bowl eagerly. There was very little food in it, even less than the smallest meals that Ma had produced in the worst of times. A handful of cooked rice barely covered the bottom of the bowl, and a small splash of lentils covered the top. He ate quickly, then waited for Salman to come out of the kitchen so that he could ask for more.

  ‘Salman, I’m still hungry,’ he said daringly, after a while.

  Salman came to the kitchen door.

  ‘No more food,’ he said. ‘You eat too much, you get heavy. Camel jockey only good when he small.’

  ‘But I’m hungry,’ Rashid said again.

  Looking up at Salman, he saw a conflict in the older boy’s face. Pity and friendliness vied with a need to assert his authority. Pity won. Salman disappeared for a moment into the kitchen and came back with a large chapatti. He broke it into three and gave one piece to each boy.

  ‘No tell masoul,’ he said, nervously looking around. ‘Only bread this time because Yasser new boy. First day special treatment, all right?’

  Iqbal and Puppo nodded gratefully. They tore pieces off the chapatti and ran them round the bowl to scoop up every lingering smear of lentils. Rashid copied them. He couldn’t make Salman out. Was he a boy, like the others, a camel jockey, or was he a grown-up, like the masoul?

  ‘Are you scared of riding camels, Salman?’ he asked, handing back his bowl regretfully.

  ‘Me? I no ride camel any more,’ Salman said, leaning against the door post. ‘I too big. Too heavy. I was camel jockey like you. Five, six years. Long time. Win a lot of races.’

  Rashid wanted him to say more, but he didn’t know what questions to ask.

  ‘You’re not Pakistani, are you?’ he said at last.

  ‘No. Sudan. Very big country.’

  ‘Aren’t you going home?’ asked Rashid. ‘What about your ma and pio?’

  A peculiar look crossed Salman’s face.

  ‘I no remember ma and pio. When I come this uzba, only a little boy. Two, three years old. Smaller than Puppo. No one come for me. No one look for me. How I can go home? Where is home? You shut up, Yasser, OK? Too big mouth. I give you more bread, you only give me cheeky.’

  Iqbal had been sucking the last rice grain from his teeth.

  ‘I’m going to be a soldier when I grow up,’ he said, holding his hand out with two fingers straight to make a gun. ‘I’m going to be an army officer in Pakistan. With a uniform.’ He squinted along his gun barrel at Salman. ‘You’re going to be a masoul, aren’t you, Salman?’ He was trying to cheer Salman up, Rashid could tell.

  ‘Yes,’ said Salman, calming down. ‘Very good masoul one day. Good job. Make plenty money like Haji. You be clever, Yasser, one day you be like me. No more camel jockey. Train to be masoul.’

  Rashid wanted to say, No, never. I’m going home. Uncle Bilal will come for me. He’ll find Shari and take us both home. Ma won’t let me stay when she knows where I am. I won’t be like you. I won’t forget my ma. I’ll never be like you.

  But he said nothing, and when Iqbal and Puppo got up to return to the shelter, he followed them in silence.

  6

  ‘Up, up! Get up!’

  Urgent voices broke into Rashid’s dream. He had been at home, curled up on the string bed with Zabidah beside him, only Zabidah had stopped being herself and had become a proud lady with long fingernails, who was threatening to bite off his arm. A small hand was tugging at his shoulder.

  ‘Yasser! Get up!’

  He half woke, and sat up. He was in a small place, a dark place, with no light except for a beam from the moon lying in a white stripe outside the door. A sharp rap on the thin boards of the shed brought him fully awake and suddenly he knew where he was.

  ‘Are you going to sleep all day? Get on out of there!’ came Haji Faroukh’s voice.

  Rashid stumbled out of the shed. The air was cold and the sand, which had burned his feet yesterday, chilled them now. Iqbal and Puppo were already up, running after Haji Faroukh towards the camel pen. Haji Faroukh looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Put on your sweater,’ he barked at Rashid. ‘Do you expect me to nurse you if you get sick?’

  Rashid had slept in his clothes. It had still been hot last night, when he’d lain down beside Iqbal and Puppo and closed his eyes, and his exhausted sleep had been so deep that he hadn’t felt the cold seep into the shed. Now it shocked him. He fumbled among the tangle of blankets and clothes at the far end of the mattress until he found the sweater Salman had given him last night. Mujib’s sweater. The dead boy must have been the last one to wear it.

  There was no time to think of that now. The moonlight was so bright that it was easy to see the others. They were at the store, loading up with saddles and bridle ropes. He joined them, and stood shivering and yawning, not knowing what to do.

  Salman was there, his curly hair tousled into thick knots.

  ‘Here, you take this,’ he said to Rashid, his voice dazed with sleep.

  Rashid was about to step forward to take the bundle, but just in time saw the moonlight glint on something small and shiny moving near his bare foot. Salman saw it too.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t move!’

  He jumped forward and stamped on the thing with his sandalled foot, punching it into the ground.

  ‘What is it?’ said Rashid.

  ‘Scorpion. You know what is scorpion?’

  Rashid shuddered. He knew about scorpions. He had seen a few at home. A boy in the next house had trodden on one in the middle of the night last winter, and his screams had woken the whole village.

  Iqbal and Puppo were already carrying their gear to the camel pen.

  ‘Stop dawdling there, Yasser,’ Haji Faroukh called out. ‘Hurry up!’

  Rashid wanted to run back to the shed and find his sandals but he didn’t dare make Haji Faroukh wait. His toes curled nervously as he trotted to the camel pen.

  Iqbal was already saddling a camel. Rashid could see how expert he was, pulling the straps tight and testing them with a tug of his forefinger. Even Puppo was helping, picking up the ends of the straps and handing them to Salman, who was working on the second camel.

  ‘Watch out for Nanga,’ Haji Faroukh was saying to Salman. ‘Her right forehock looked weak yesterday. Bring her back if she seems to go lame.’

  Salman rubbed his head, as if he was trying to make himself wake up.

  ‘Five times round the circuit for each camel and no running today. You can ride Khamri first, then Hamlul. Got that?’

  ‘Yes, Haji.’

  ‘Watch Yasser. If he gets cramps, he can walk for a bit.’

  Iqbal had made one of the camels kneel and had already mounted it. Even Puppo had forced the second one down, with an imperious tug on its rope, and was scrambling unaided into its saddle. Haji Faroukh lifted Rashid on to the camel Salman had saddled, and waited while he attended to the fourth one.

  ‘Off you go,’ he said at last. ‘Take care. Don’t make a mistake, Salman. Abu Nazir will be back tomorrow, with Amal. This is your chance. I’m giving you responsibility. I’m relying on yo
u.’

  ‘Yes, Haji.’

  Even in the dim light, Rashid could see the seriousness in Salman’s face as he spoke.

  Haji Faroukh slapped Salman’s camel on the rump and it lurched off, grunting noisily. The others fell in behind it. Rashid waited nervously for his own camel to move. The cold was penetrating, in spite of the sweater, making him shiver, and he was afraid of losing control, losing his balance, toppling sideways and crashing to the ground, ending up helpless under the camel’s heavy feet.

  Rashid heard the slap of Haji Faroukh’s palm on his camel’s side and gasped as it jolted into motion. He swayed alarmingly, clutching at the saddle’s edge with all his strength, shuddering with fear now as much as with cold.

  Then he heard a thin, high, babyish voice ahead chanting a meaningless string of words. Puppo was singing to comfort himself.

  If he can do this, so can I, Rashid told himself, concentrating on finding the camel’s rhythm and moving with it.

  They were already outside the uzba and were following car tracks across the desert sand. In the moonlight, Rashid could vaguely see ghostly shapes moving ahead. He peered into the darkness and made out another string of camels, with the hunched shapes of little boys perched on top of them. They were coming from what seemed to be another uzba several hundred metres from his own.

  Maybe Shari’s there, he thought, his interest sharpening. I bet he can’t ride a camel like me. I bet he screamed his head off if they tried to make him.

  He liked the idea of Shari making a fuss. He’d be proud if he could see it.

  Rashid could see yet another line of camels now, coming from a different direction. They were all moving towards the same point - a gap in a palm-frond fence, like the one that encircled his own uzba. Rashid half hoped that Salman would make the camels hurry so that they could catch up with the others, but Salman, nervous with responsibility, was moving carefully and slowly, turning all the time to check on the three children following him.

  Inside the fence, Rashid could make out a wide bare stretch of sand. There was a kind of soft track with metal rails on each side running into the distance. The other two strings of camels were on it too, far ahead now, walking silently into the dimness.

  Rashid’s camel suddenly stumbled and for a sickening moment he was afraid he was falling. Salman had seen.

  ‘What you are doing, Yasser?’ he shouted back nervously.

  ‘Nothing. He tripped,’ Rashid called in reply.

  ‘Watch it,’ Salman said, trying to sound threatening. ‘You let camel fall, you get . . .’

  ‘Beat, I know,’ Rashid muttered under his breath, before Salman had finished speaking.

  More than two hours passed before the first faint promise of dawn appeared in the east. The flush spread slowly across the great dome of the sky, putting out the stars and turning the desert first pearly grey, then pink, until the fiery rim of the sun glared out like an angry eye.

  Rashid had sunk into a wretched, dreaming state, his mind rocking emptily with the movement of the camel. He was so tired that he might almost have fallen asleep if the cold and the fear of falling hadn’t kept him awake.

  As the sun lifted clear of the horizon, the call to prayer sounded faintly from a mosque some way away, just as it had in Pakistan. With it came such a powerful sense of home that he almost gasped, seeing in his mind’s eye the courtyard, and the rough boards of the door leading into the lane, and the white puff-balls of cotton lying out to dry in the sun. But before he could catch hold of it firmly, the vision died away as the cry from the distant mosque fell silent.

  The first rays of the sun hit him and he shuddered in gratitude. The warmth pulled him properly awake. He could see now that five or six small strings of camels were walking round a fenced track that formed an enormous circle across the desert, the far side of which was so distant that it almost disappeared from view. The other groups of camels were too far away for him to make out if Shari was there. He screwed his eyes up and looked as hard as he could, but he couldn’t see anything clearly.

  They had been round the course several times and were nearly at the end again. Salman was leading them away from it, back across the open ground towards the uzba.

  Rashid brightened. Perhaps there’d be breakfast now. Perhaps they’d be able to play football again. But Haji Faroukh was waiting for them at the camel pen. He lifted Puppo down to the ground, while Iqbal and Salman slid effortlessly off their saddles without needing any help. Rashid tried to copy them, swinging both legs over to one side and dropping to the ground, but instead of landing lightly on his feet, his legs gave way under him and he fell heavily. Pain shot through his thighs and shins.

  ‘It hurts!’ he blurted out. ‘I can’t stand up!’

  He was afraid in case he’d be punished for complaining, but Haji Faroukh didn’t look angry. He crouched down beside Rashid and began to massage his calves.

  ‘Cramp,’ he said. ‘It’ll go off in a minute. It’s because you’re not used to riding yet.’

  His sympathy made Rashid want to cry, but he gulped back the tears.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Haji Faroukh, noticing. ‘No more riding today. You can walk the next round. Try standing up. That’s it. Now get off to the store and fetch a muzzle.’

  Rashid took a tentative step. All his muscles protested, but he found he could just about walk after all. He hobbled to the store and came back with the muzzle in his hand.

  The four camels the boys had been exercising had been unsaddled, but Rashid saw with a sinking heart that four others were being prepared. Three were already saddled, and Haji Faroukh was fitting the muzzle on to the fourth. Surely they weren’t going to take another lot out on the tracks again?

  But the other three boys were already mounting. Looking up at Iqbal, Rashid saw nothing but weariness and boredom in his face. It was as if he had pulled away into some hidden place inside himself. Puppo, too, was quiet now. He was sitting on his camel with one arm raised, rubbing the soft sleeve of his sweater against his cheek.

  Haji Faroukh put the end of the muzzled camel’s bridle rope into Rashid’s hands.

  ‘Walk behind the others,’ he said. ‘Keep her on a short rein. Don’t let her stray, whatever you do. She’ll try to wander off before you get to the race track. Don’t let her, or she’ll scratch herself on the scrub and spoil her hide. Just keep up with the others and do what Salman tells you.’

  Rashid stared up at him, unable to believe that the miles and miles of weary, silent plodding were about to start again. His insides ached with hunger. His heart smarted with the injustice of it all.

  ‘Please, Haji,’ he said. ‘Can I fetch my shoes?’

  But Haji Faroukh hadn’t heard. He was saying something to Salman, pointing to the hind legs of Iqbal’s camel. Salman was nodding gravely, taking in the masoul’s warnings and instructions.

  ‘Giddup! Go on!’ Haji Faroukh called out at last, slapping Salman’s camel on the rump, and the little cavalcade set off, with Rashid walking miserably in the rear, his camel’s head, high above his own, nodding as it walked.

  The first half mile was agony. The cramps in Rashid’s legs came and went, and even when they’d eased, every muscle protested with stiffness. The pain went off at last, and he could walk more easily. Luckily, the camel seemed to have no wish to stray. It trod quietly along behind Puppo’s, lifting its great padded feet and setting them down again rhythmically in the soft sand.

  An hour passed. Rashid had fallen back into a weary daze, mesmerized by the swaying rump of Puppo’s camel in front of his eyes as the four of them inched slowly round the vast race track.

  The sun, which had come as a friend at first, defeating the chill of the night, was still bearably low in the sky. The air was fresh, and the sand cool under his bare feet.

  But perhaps we’ll be doing this all day long, Rashid thought. We’ll be out here when it gets really hot, and I haven’t got my sandals on and my feet will burn.

  He felt ove
rwhelmed. He wanted to throw himself down, beat his fists on the sand and scream and yell like Shari used to do when he was upset. He could feel his temper rising. Rebellion stirred in him.

  ‘Salman!’ he yelled.

  The three other boys had been riding on and on in a stupefied silence, but their heads whipped round.

  ‘What?’ Salman twisted round in his saddle. ‘What happen?’

  Rashid didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I want my sandals,’ he brought out at last.

  Salman’s jaw dropped.

  ‘You are crazy boy, Yasser, or what? How you can get your sandals? You see where we are?’

  He flung out his arm to indicate the empty landscape, the vast race course and the huddle of uzbas in the distance.

  ‘My feet’ll start burning,’ Rashid said sulkily, afraid of looking stupid.

  Salman frowned at him for a long moment, then he nodded, seeming to understand.

  ‘You feeling bad, Yasser, first time out. But we go back now. Look. Halfway round track already. One hour, two hour more, then home. Nice breakfast, all right? Sand not getting hot yet. You doing OK.’

  But Puppo was laughing.

  ‘Yasser wants his sandals,’ he was saying. ‘He’s a crazy boy!’

  Rashid flushed angrily. He hated being laughed at.

  ‘I’m not Yasser, anyway,’ he yelled back. ‘I’m Rashid, all right? Rashid!’

  Puppo was still crowing, but to Rashid’s relief, Iqbal was nodding.

  ‘You’re Rashid like I’m Javid,’ he said. ‘But you have to be Yasser here. Yasser, Iqbal, they’re our silly names. But we know our real ones.’

  ‘I haven’t got a silly name,’ said Puppo. ‘I’m Puppo.’

  It was Iqbal’s turn to laugh.

  ‘Puppo’s a baby name. You’ve got a real name too. Don’t you know your own name?’

  ‘It’s Puppo!’ Puppo said, suddenly anxious. ‘I haven’t got a silly name. I’m Puppo!’

  ‘You’re just a stupid baby,’ Iqbal began scornfully, but Salman had turned again in his saddle.

  ‘Stop all that!’ he roared, trying to sound fierce. ‘This name, that name, not important. We are not here to enjoy. We are exercising camel. Big job. You start talk, play, you get accident.’