The Exile Kiss (9 page)

Noora looked at me blankly. "Who are they?" she asked.
I smiled at her. "Never mind."
She took the empty plate and bowl from me and went out of the tent. Friedlander Bey entered almost immedi-ately. He sat down beside me on the sand and clasped my hand. "How are you feeling, my darling?" he asked.
I was glad to see him. "It is as Allah pleases, O Shaykh," I said.
He nodded. "But look, your face is badly burned by the sun and the wind. And your hands and arms, from carrying me!" He shook his head. "I came to see you every day, even when you were unconscious. I saw the pain you suffered."
I let out a deep breath. "It was necessary, my grandfa-ther."
Again he nodded. "I suppose I'm trying to express my gratitude. It's always—"
I raised my free hand. "Please, O Shaykh, don't make us both uncomfortable. Don't thank me. I did what I could to save our lives. Anyone would have done the same."
"Yet you pushed yourself beyond endurance, and you damaged your body and mind for my sake. I gave you those cursed implants, and I made you my weapon. Now you've repaid me with boundless courage. I feel shame."
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. If this went on much longer, it would be as unendurable as the walk in the desert had been. "I don't wish to talk about that anymore," I said. "We don't have time to indulge our emo-tions. The only hope we have of living through this trouble and returning to the city, and then restoring our-selves to our proper place, is to keep our minds focused clearly on a plan of action."
Papa rubbed his cheek, where his gray stubble was turning into a patchy beard. I watched him chew his lip as he thought. Evidently, he arrived at a decision, because from then on he was the old Friedlander Bey we all knew and feared back in the Budayeen. "We are in no danger from the Bani Salim," he said.
"Good," I said, "I didn't know where they stood."
"They've accepted responsibility for our well-being until we get to Mughshin. We'll be treated as honored guests and receive every courtesy. We must be careful not to abuse their hospitality, because they'll give us their food even if it means they themselves must go hungry. I don't want that to happen."
"Neither do I, O Shaykh."
"Now, I've never heard of Mughshin before, and I suppose it's just a community of huts and tents around a large well, somewhere to the south. We were wrong in thinking the sergeant in Najran arranged to have us dropped in the center of the Empty Quarter. The chop-per traveled much farther than we thought, and we were thrown out in the northeastern part of the Sands." I frowned. "That's what the Bedu call this huge desert," Papa explained, "simply the Sands. They've never heard of the Rub al-Khali."
"Where we were didn't make any difference to- us," I said. "If the Bani Salim hadn't found us, we'd have died long ago."
"We should have walked in the opposite direction, to the east. We're closer to Oman than we are to the western edge."
"We couldn't have made it to Oman, either. But we're still going to travel south with the Bani Salim?"
"Yes, my nephew. We can trust them. That counts for more in our situation than time or distance."
I drew up my knees experimentally, just to see if they still worked. They did, and I was happy about it, although they felt very weak after two weeks of enforced rest. "Have you planned our future after we reach Mughshin?"
He looked up, over my head, as if gazing into the distance toward the Budayeen and our enemies. "I do not know where Mughshin is, and even the shaykh, Has-sanein, cannot show me. There are no maps or books among the Bani Salim. Several of the Bedu have assured me that beyond Mughshin, it is not a difficult journey across the mountains to a coastal town called Salala." Papa smiled briefly. "They speak of Salala as if it were the most wonderful place on earth, with every kind of luxury and pleasure."
"Mountains," I said unhappily.
"Yes, but not great mountains. Also, Hassanein prom-ised to find us trustworthy guides in Mughshin to take us onward."
"And then?"
Papa shrugged. "Once we reach the coast, then we travel by ship to a city with a suborbital shuttle field. We must be extremely careful when we return home, because there will be spies—"
Noora returned, this time carrying some folded gar-ments. "These are for you, Shaykh Marid," she said. "Would you like to put on clean clothes, and take a walk with me?"
I wasn't in a hurry to put my aching muscles to work, but I couldn't refuse. Papa stood up and went outside the tent. Noora followed him and dropped the flaps in the front and the back, so I could dress in privacy.
I stood up slowly, ready to quit for the day in case I experienced any severe stabs of pain. I shook out the clean garments. First, there was a threadbare loincloth that I wrapped around myself. I wasn't exactly sure how the Bani Salim men wore them, and I wasn't about to find out. Over that I pulled a long, white smock, which the Bedu called a
thobe.
The poor men of the city wore some-thing very similar, and I knew that Friedlander Bey often dressed in one, betraying his origins. On top of the
thobe
I wore a long, white shirt that was open all the way down the front, with wide, long sleeves. For my head there was a clean cotton
keffiya,
but my
akal
had been lost some-where; I wound the head cloth around and tucked it in as these southern Bedu wore it. Then I drew on my now-tattered and travel-stained blue robe, which the Bayt Tahiti had so admired. There were no sandals with the rest of the clothes; I figured I could go barefoot.
It felt good again to be up and dressed and ready for action. When I stepped outside the tent, I was a little self-conscious because my outfit made me look like a wealthy shaykh from the decadent, feeble world beyond the Rub al-Khali. I was aware that the eyes of everyone in the camp were on me.
Waiting for me were Friedlander Bey, Noora, and her uncle Hassanein. The shaykh of the Bani Salim greeted me with a broad smile. "Here," he said, "I have your belongings. I took these for safekeeping. I feared that a few of our younger men might have been tempted to borrow them." He handed me my sandals, my ceremonial dagger, and my rack of moddies and daddies. I was ex-tremely glad to get all these things back.
"Please, O Shaykh," I said to Hassanein, "I would be most honored if you would accept this gift. It can only begin to repay the great debt we owe." I presented him with the gorgeous jeweled dagger.
He took it in his hands and stared at it. He did not speak for a few moments. "By the life of my eyes," he said
at last, "this is not for me! This is for some noble prince, or a king."
"My friend," said Papa, "you are as noble as any prince in the land. Accept it. This dagger has a long his-tory,
and it will do you honor."
Hassanein did not stammer out effusive thanks. He just nodded to me and tied the woven belt around his
waist. In the Bedu manner, he wore the dagger directly in front, over his stomach. He said nothing more about it,
but I could see that the gift had greatly pleased him.
We walked slowly among the black goat-hair tents. I could see the faces of the men turn to follow us. Even the
"women peeked at us as we passed, while they tended to the day's work. Not far away, the young boys herded the
camels and goats toward the low, scrubby salt-bushes. This wasn't the best food for the animals, but in this
deso-late place it would have to do. I understood immediately what Hassanein had meant about moving on. There
was little sustenance here for the animals.
The camp consisted of a dozen tents. The terrain around Bir Balagh was the same as that Papa and I had
traveled through. There were no shade trees here, no date palms, no real oasis at all. All that recommended this
low, flat stretch in a hollow between two chains of dunes was a single wide hole in the ground—the well.
Whenever a traveler came upon one of these wells, he sometimes had to spend hours digging it out, because it
didn't take the shifting sands long to fill it in.
I realized how helpless Papa and I would've been, even if we'd stumbled across such a muddy hole. The water was often ten feet or more below the surface, and there were no buckets or ropes. Each wandering Bedu band carried its own rope for the purpose of drawing out the life-giving water. Even if Allah had granted us the good fortune to find one of these brackish trickles, we might easily have died of thirst only ten vertical feet from the water.
That thought made me shudder, and I murmured a prayer of thanks. Then the four of us continued our walk. In one of the nearby tents, a few men were relaxing and drinking coffee from small cups little bigger than thim-bles. This was the normal occupation of Bedu males in the camp. One of the men saw me and said something, throwing his coffee cup to the ground. A commotion arose among his friends, and he leaped to his feet and rushed toward me, yelling and gesturing madly.
"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 furi-ous 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

1 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 com-plicated than I'd thought. It wasn't just a matter of unre-quited 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 uncon-scious most of that time. He still hinted at all kinds of unseemly behavior.

This morning, though, there wasn't time for more ac-cusations. 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 unani-mous 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 al-ready 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 non-chalance, 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 Tabiti 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 jour-ney 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 expe-rience, 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 cheer-ful 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 remem-bered 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 be-ing 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 flow-ing 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-look-ing 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 rained 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 Has-sanein," said Friedlander Bey. "My grandson wants to ex-perience 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 hun-gry 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 wel-comed 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 airy 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 un-der 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!"
"Mm
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 sar-castic 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.