City of Jasmine (22 page)

He turned, his eyes glittering oddly in the lamplight. “Thank you for that. Now, if you’re finished eviscerating my character, put out the lamp. I’d like to go to sleep.”

“Oh, don’t take it like that,” I said, pleading only a little. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was trying to make friends again.”

He stood up and went to where the lamp hung and took it down. “I said, put out the lamp.” Then with great care he hurled it outside the tent. I heard it strike a rock, shattering into pieces and leaving us in blackness. Without another word he threw himself down onto his pallet and lay there, simmering with rage.

I rose and went to the flap of the tent, pushing it back. High above us the moon hung like a baroque pearl, just beginning to wane, its edges blurred by the fronds of the palm trees. The moonlight softened the scene below, lending the sleeping tents a sort of glamour. “It looks like a picture from a fairy tale,” I said, almost to myself. “Something out of
Arabian Nights.
”

Gabriel got up and gripped my shoulders, his fingers insistent. “Goddamn it, Evie, when will you grow up? Not everything is a fairy tale, you know. Sometimes life is just what it is, brutal and hard and dangerous. And it’s real, Evie. It’s real, and so am I,” he repeated, digging his fingers in harder.

And before I knew what he intended, he bent his head to mine. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t want to. He was the one who broke the kiss, pulling my hands out of his hair and pushing me away. The kiss hadn’t been gentle, but the gesture was when he shoved me back, rocking me on my heels. He pushed his hands through his hair and I could see they were shaking.

“I’ll apologise for that in the morning,” he said, his voice rough.

“Don’t bother,” I told him lightly. “After all, we are still married. Still, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll sleep on my side of the tent tonight.”

I crawled into my pallet, wrapping my arms hard around my body to stop the trembling. He stepped through the flap and into the desert air, blocking the soft moonlight with his silhouette. I could smell the scent of his cigarettes, acrid and sharp after the soft seduction of the
nargileh,
and he must have smoked several, one after the other, waiting for me to fall asleep. I heard him move towards the tent, and I closed my eyes tightly. I didn’t fool him; I was sure of it. But it was the excuse we both needed not to look at each other. “As long as I live, I will never understand men,” I murmured to myself.

* * *

The next day, a messenger arrived and spent some time closeted with the men before Sheikh Hamid and Gabriel emerged from the tent, grim-faced and resolute.

“What is it?” I asked.

Hamid busied himself giving orders while Gabriel brought me up to speed. “There has been an attack. One of Hamid’s scouts found an injured traveller in the desert and he’s sent a pair of warriors back with the scout to fetch him. Hamid wants to question him about what he’s seen.”

Just then, a faint commotion stirred at the edge of the village. The warriors had returned, each of them carrying someone pillion. The first dismounted and I caught a glimpse of the slender youth mounted behind him.

“Rashid!” I hurried forward, wholly delighted to see him and just as mystified.

He sprang from the camel to make a graceful gesture of welcome. “Greetings,
sitt.
”

“Rashid, what on earth are you doing out here?”

“I told you I would return to my tribe,” he told me with a broad grin. “Sheikh
Hamid is my uncle by marriage.”

“Uncle by marriage?” At that moment Sheikha
Aysha stepped forward and greeted Rashid warmly, offering him water. He drank deeply and as he did, Aysha nodded towards me.

“My nephew,
sitt,
the son of my sister.”

He finished drinking, wiping his mouth across his sleeve. “You like the desert,
sitt?
”

“It’s magnificent,” I told him truthfully. “Were you the scout who found the injured traveller?”

He puffed his slim chest out. “Yes,
sitt.
I am the best scout in the eastern desert. I have information for my uncle, and I bring him this pitiful man,” he said with a nod to the second camel.

A group of Bedu had come forward to lift the unconscious man from the camel, but even before they turned him over, I knew him.

“Herr Doktor!” I cried.

He did not hear me. He was still senseless, a dead weight in the arms of his rescuers, but they coped manfully, lifting him with all the gentleness they could muster. His pink complexion was blotched red and white from too much exposure to the sun, and his clothes were filthy, but none of that mattered compared to the horror I felt when they shifted and his arm fell free...the sleeve drenched in blood.

* * *

They put up a small tent for him and I stayed outside while Faiz, the healer, attended him. Faiz was as unlikely a healer as any I could imagine. He was enormous—tall and with a belly so round he looked like Sheikh Hamid’s favourite
naga.
His hands were the size of two of mine together, but with the delicate touch of a child. His face was adorned with blue tattoos that might have given him a menacing air were it not for the broad smile that always wreathed his face.

I went to the little German and held his hand.

“He won’t know you’re there,” Gabriel said flatly. “He’s quite unconscious.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “He ought to have someone here who cares whether he lives or dies.”

Gabriel shrugged. Faiz turned to Gabriel, asking a series of questions in Arabic.

Gabriel answered him quietly, then reached into his robes and took out his medical kit. Faiz peered into it thoughtfully before pointing to something in the kit and giving Gabriel instructions. He spoke calmly and Gabriel asked a question or two before they seemed to settle something between them. To my astonishment, Faiz stepped aside and folded his arms over his belly, smiling benignly.

“What’s he doing?” I demanded of Gabriel. “Surely he won’t just let the old fellow die.”

Just then, the German’s eyes fluttered open. He looked around, his eyes rolling a moment until they focused on my face.

“Hello, Herr Doktor.”

“Frau Starke,” he said faintly. “I am glad to see you.”

But his smile did not reach his eyes, and he moved his injured arm fitfully.

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” I told him.

Herr Doktor gave me a sad smile. “I do not blame you. It was not gallant to leave my friends in such a place.”

“Then why did you?” Gabriel demanded.

I flapped a hand at him. “Hush. There’s no call to be rude when the poor man is wounded.” I turned back to Schickfuss. “Who did this to you?”

He nodded his head, his white hair standing on end. “Daoud. Not such a nice fellow, I think,” he said with a gallant attempt at a joke. “He shot me.” He made a vague gesture towards his wounded arm, and I peeled back the filthy remnants of his shirt to find a neat hole on one side and a mess of blood and splintered bone and torn muscle on the other.

“Heavens, it’s a good thing he’s got rotten aim,” I said with an attempt at lightness. “If that bullet had hit you anywhere important you might be in real trouble instead of just a spot of inconvenience.”

He gave me another of his sad smiles. “This is a consolation? I think it is better not to be shot at all, Frau Starke.” He attempted to laugh at his little joke, but he was ghastly pale and the wound did look unpleasant. From the pile of soiled rags on the ground it was clear he’d bled rather a lot, and when he put his hand in mine, it shook.

Gabriel moved forward, his medical kit in his hands. He opened it and inside was a tidy array of miniature surgical tools.

Swiftly, he prepared a hypodermic syringe. It was a lethal-looking thing, and I had no idea what it was filled with. Neither did Herr Doktor, but when he turned his rheumy old eyes on Gabriel, he merely smiled.

Gabriel paused. “Shall I go on or don’t you trust me?”

The old man managed a laugh. “It is rather late for that,
mein herr.
Do what you must. God will take care of the rest.”

“God doesn’t bloody care,” Gabriel said softly, but he went ahead, sliding the needle into the shoulder and slowly depressing the plunger as Herr Doktor let out a soft exhalation. Then, with perfect nonchalance, Gabriel took out a bottle of antiseptic and swabbed out the wound, then fished a scalpel from his kit. He did not even hesitate before plunging it into the wound, and within a moment, it emerged with a bullet perched neatly on the tip. He flicked it to the corner of the tent then proceeded to stitch up the old fellow, while Faiz watched in approval.

There was something ghoulish about Gabriel’s unnatural calm, and I was still put out that Faiz hadn’t lifted a finger to help. Gabriel gave Herr Doktor enough morphine to knock out an elephant, and proceeded to wash his hands while chatting calmly with Faiz. I made certain Schickfuss was resting comfortably before I turned on my heel and left. I went into the tent and helped myself to a healthy swallow of Gabriel’s whisky. I washed my face and hands and combed my hair before I ventured out again.

Sheikh Hamid was just outside the tent, chatting with Rashid. He dismissed him as I emerged, and the boy trotted off, smiling at me over his shoulder.

“He likes you,” Hamid told me with a grin. “But you must believe he would never bring dishonour to the wife of Djibril. He knows better.”

“And I know better than to bat my lashes at a fifteen-year-old boy,” I retorted.

Hamid laughed. “He is twenty, little sister.”

“You’re joking.”

“And he has two wives already. And three children with another on the way.”

I shook my head to clear it. “It all seems so different out here,” I murmured.

I don’t know if he caught the words or the wistful tone, but his eyes were warm with sympathy.

“I understand, little sister. I felt the same when I went to England. All of it seemed impossible to me, so many people in so small a space! How does a man breathe?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “But it is good enough for Englishmen, I suppose.”

I faced him, careful not to touch him. “I wanted to thank you for your hospitality, Hamid. You and your family have been very kind to take us in.”

The smile deepened. “This is the Bedouin way, to care for the traveller. But even if it were not, what else could I do for my brother Djibril and his honoured wife?”

I tipped my head. “I’m curious, Sheikh, why do you call him your brother?”

“He is my milk brother. My mother nursed him when he was born in Damascus. We are connected, as truly as if our blood were linked.”

I was still standing openmouthed when he walked away.

The sun was just setting when I went to the little tent where they had put Herr Doktor. Outside, Gabriel was dumping the load of bloody bandages into the fire. His hair was tumbled and his jaw was darkened by the shadow of his beard, but his eyes were brilliant and he was whistling a bit of Palestrina. He was happy, I realised with a start, and this handsome, enigmatic man, cool in a crisis and in command of any situation,
this
was the man I had married. I wondered if perhaps, even for a moment, I could break through the wall he had put up against me.

He looked up from the fire. “Doesn’t do to leave bloody things lying around,” he told me. “Attracts jackals.”

I moved to stand next to him, but he edged away, sitting with his robes folded carefully beneath him. “Why wouldn’t Faiz help him?”

Gabriel seemed to choose his words carefully. “The war has been finished less than a year, Evie. And Faiz and Schickfuss were on different sides. If Faiz had tended him and Herr Doktor died, there would have been repercussions, grim ones. Europeans in these lands love nothing better than having a good excuse to ride roughshod over the natives and the French are itching for any justification to take over.”

“He helped you,” I pointed out.

“Not the same thing at all. England was allied to these men in the war.”

“And you’re a friend to them still. Hamid told me the story of how he came to call you ‘brother.’ You’ve been keeping a few secrets,” I told him. “You made fun of me, but it
is
like something out of
Arabian Nights,
the pale, starving baby suckled by the desert princess.”

He rolled his eyes. “For your information, I was fat as a tick. My mother simply wanted a wet nurse because she was too vain to spoil her figure with nursing. I warned you about fairy tales,” he said, frowning. “Leave it alone, Evie. You won’t find what you’re looking for so just stop searching.”

I went to sit next to him, careful to keep a little distance. “What are you really doing out here, Gabriel?”

He shrugged and said nothing, stirring the burning rags into the fire with the toe of his boot.

“I don’t know why you won’t tell me, but I think you’re here for a purpose—something more than just petty crime. Won’t you tell me what it is?”

He turned, his eyes bright in the firelight. “Don’t you ever get tired of asking questions?”

“No, I am tired of not getting answers.”

“Perhaps your questions just aren’t very interesting,” he said in the same blandly bored tone I had come to hate.

“Then I’ll try a different tack. Did you send Rashid to Damascus to look after me?” I held my breath, wondering for an impossible moment if he might have given way to some softer emotion where I was concerned.

He leaned close, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted. His voice was a soft, deliberate caress.

“Actually, I sent him to spy on you. I followed you a few times myself, but I couldn’t always be there. Rashid was my eyes and ears.”

He sat back with a malicious smile.

“And just when I was beginning to think you might not be a complete bastard,” I said sweetly.

He laughed, a genuine laugh this time, and something in him uncoiled. He eased back and I edged closer to him, watching the flames for a long time. It was peaceful, companionable even.

“Unnerving, isn’t it?” he asked.

“What?”

“How easy it is. Like the old days.”