Kidnapped by the Sheikh (7 page)

“How’s your mother?” she asked. “Is her leg better?”

“Much.” He smiled at her, willing to accept her attempt at reconciliation. “She’s like her old self. You should see her now! She runs around, ordering everyone about, even me!” He laughed.

“I can’t imagine anyone ordering you about.”

“You tried to.” He smiled. “And sometimes I miss it.”

“I’m sorry we parted on such bad terms.”

“I’m sorry as well. What I said was unforgiveable, but if you could find it in your heart to overlook my stupidity, I would be extremely grateful.”

“Please, let’s forget about it.” Sarah took his hand in hers. Some of the men drinking tea on the other plastic stools stared at her, but she ignored them.

“My mother would like to thank you, but she refuses to come to the city. Would you be willing to visit her?”

“I’d love to and it would give me the chance to congratulate the newly married couple.”

Sheikh Akbar stood and, still holding Sarah’s hand, he led her through the marketplace to where his Jeep was parked down a nearby side street.

As they drove through the city, Sarah told Akbar all about her work as a doctor at the Women’s Hospital and some of the difficult cases that she’d recently treated. In return, Akbar told her about his difficulties with some of the local tribes and how he found it hard to bring peace to an area where peace was viewed as a sign of weakness in a man. He explained that his older brother, Sheikh Omar, had been a fearless fighter and was respected as a great warrior. He, on the other hand, wanted to be known as a leader who brought harmony and reconciliation to the region.

“It’s not very harmonious to kidnap an ambassador’s wife, is it?” Sarah joked.

“It is more harmonious for the Bedouin tribes if I did that, than if I tried to kidnap another sheikh’s daughter,” he replied. “And I am very glad that I did.” He turned to look at her and smiled in a way that Sarah knew that he was thinking about their afternoon in his tent together. The area at the base of her spine began tingling at the thought of it. She lowered the window to let in some air.

“Watch out!” someone screamed through the window.

Akbar slammed hard on the brakes. In front of them was a herd of goats trying to cross the road.

“Are you okay?” Akbar asked, placing his hand on her leg.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied. The tingling sensation she was feeling increased with the touch of his fingers on her thigh.

“Excuse me while I try to sort out this mess.” Akbar got out of the Jeep and asked who was in charge of the goats.

“These are my goats,” said a burly man, who was about twice the size of the sheikh. “I’m taking them to the market, so you’ll have to wait.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to wait here all day. I have to get back to Sakara,” the sheikh replied.

“And who do you think you are? Sheikh Omar Al-Zafir?”

“No, I am his brother, Sheikh Akbar Al-Zafir.”

The minute he said those words, there was a loud commotion all around them. The hefty goat herder immediately changed his attitude and began apologising profusely while beating his goats as hard as he could to get them off the road. Several other men, including a number of shopkeepers, came up and started offering him gifts of food and tea. One man even offered him his dagger. However, the sheikh refused them all and said that he just wanted to get on his way.

Once most of the goats were safely off the road, the herder walked back to him and offered him four of them as a present.

“Thank you, but I already have a lot of goats of my own,” the sheikh said.

“Of course, I meant no disrespect, but please accept these four animals as a token of friendship from me. Please accept my apologies for my earlier insult.”

“Thank you, but you don’t need to give me the goats.”

“But I insist. They are very fine animals.”

They continued to discuss it until the sheikh finally agreed to take the gift, as he saw that he would never get away if he didn’t. However, there then followed several minutes of trying to get the goats into the back of the Jeep, which involved the herder explaining the excellent qualities of each animal to the sheikh before lifting them up, one by one, into the back of the truck. Finally, they were on their way again.

Soon they had left the confusion and chaos of the city and were driving across the empty landscape of the desert.

“Those men in the market seemed very keen to be at peace with you,” Sarah said, thinking about what the sheikh had said earlier about bringing harmony to the region.

The sheikh looked at Sarah in surprise. “Of course they want peace with me! They don’t want me attacking their villages and camps, and taking off with their camels and their women.”

“Would you do that?”

“No, I wouldn’t. That’s what I was trying to explain to you earlier. I want to leave the other tribes alone and look after my own people.”

“Then it seems like everything’s fine.The other people want peace, you want peace—so what’s the problem?” Sarah thought that the whole situation seemed to have sorted itself out. She couldn’t understand why Akbar felt so worried about it.

“The problem is this: the other tribes only want to offer me gifts because they’re scared that I’ll attack them. However, as soon as they realise that I won’t, they’ll think that I’m weak and they’ll attack me.”

“But a man who refuses to fight others is not weak.”

“Of course not, but other men don’t see it that way.”

“Then they’re the ones who are stupid and weak.” Sarah thought about the goat herder. He didn’t come across as a clever man. However, he was extremely big and would probably overcome most people in a fight. “Who were those men?” she asked. “The men who tried to give you gifts just now, they wouldn’t come and attack you, would they?”

 “They might, except for the man with the goats. That man is from the Al-Abir tribe. They were once very powerful until they tried to attack the Al-Zafirs several years ago. The vengeance of my brother, Sheikh Omar, was so great that the Al-Abir people have lived in fear of us ever since. That man wouldn’t dare to attack me.”

Sarah remembered how the man had cringed when he heard the sheikh’s name, both Akbar’s and that of his infamous brother, Omar. She could see that the goat herder was from a village, travelling into the city to sell his animals. He was clearly not a city dweller, but some of the other people were, such as the shopkeepers. Why were they so desperate to give him gifts?

“What about the other men, like the one who wanted to give you his dagger?” she asked. “Those men looked like they were from the city. They’re not Bedouin or villagers. What have they got to do with you?”

“They might be in the city now, but their heart is in the desert. They’re all from different tribes, tribes that they travel back to as often as they can. It’s only through absolute necessity and the need to look after their families that they’ve left the desert. I don’t know how you can bear to live in that city. I could never do it,” Akbar said. He stopped the Jeep and stepped out.

Sarah wondered whether something was wrong with the vehicle, or maybe there was a problem with the goats in the back of the Jeep. They’d stopped bleating quite a while back.

“Come,” Akbar called out. “Get out and look at this.”

Sarah got out and looked in the back of the Jeep. The goats were lying down, asleep. She walked to where the sheikh was standing, gazing out to the horizon. “I can’t see anything,” she said.

“Indeed. There are no people, no cars, not even any roads, just the open land of the desert. Listen and you can hear the sand singing.”

Sarah listened very hard. She could just make out a very slight whistling sound. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“That’s because you live in the city. With all that noise and confusion, how can you hear what the earth is saying?”

“It’s very beautiful.”

“But not as beautiful as you. You’re like a desert rose.”

“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one,” Sarah said, pleased by the compliment.

 “In this country, they’re very rare, but I found some once when I was a boy. I was out riding my horse and stopped at a small oasis for some water. After I finished drinking, I looked up and there they were on the other side. I ran to look at them; they were the most beautiful flowers I’d ever seen. I tried to pull out the plant so I could take it home, but it was very strong and I couldn’t uproot it, so I took out my knife and cut the flowers off. By the time I got back to my camp, they’d wilted and died.” The sheikh stepped closer towards Sarah and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, placing her hand around his waist.

“My desert rose, I never thought I’d find you again.” He pulled her up against him, so that she could feel the dagger at his side pressing hard into her body.

By the time they reached his camp, it was late afternoon.

“Welcome! Welcome!” called out Fatima as soon as Sarah stepped out of the Jeep. Sarah was amazed at the transformation in the woman. Instead of an aged cripple, there now stood in front of her an active woman, whose eyes flashed through the slits in her veil.

“You lazy, ignorant brute,” Fatima called out to a man who stood nearby, “get those goats out of the Jeep. Kill them and prepare a feast! Look how young and fat they are. They aren’t useless old animals like you.” The man scurried off as fast as he could to do as he was told.

“Come! Come!” She gestured to Sarah to come with her into her tent.

Sarah followed her in. It was no longer hot and smoky with incense. Instead, the air was fresh and cool, making it a welcome respite from the heavy desert heat outside. Once they were both seated, Fatima removed her veil and Sarah could see that the woman looked at least twenty years younger now that her face was no longer contorted with pain.

“You look much better,” Sarah said, accepting some dates, which Fatima offered her personally.

“Of course I’m better! I’m an Al-Zafir! We’re very strong people. And I’m happy that you are here again. You’re a strong person too, like me. You’d make a good Al-Zafir.” Fatima grabbed a handful of dates and crammed them into her mouth. One by one, she spat out the date kernels into a brass bowl in front of her where they pinged against the hard, shiny metal.

Sarah wondered how much Fatima knew about her, both her deception as the British ambassador’s wife and what had passed between her and Sheikh Akbar.

“I’m sorry I led you to believe that I was Lady Bolton. My real name’s Dr. Sarah Greenwich,” Sarah confessed.

“Yes, yes, I know all about it.” Fatima waved her hand dismissively, as if she were shooing away a fly or a mosquito. “Of course you aren’t that man’s wife. This is a good thing.” Fatima leaned closer towards her. Sarah could see the dark blue tattoos across the Bedouin woman’s face. “My son, Sheikh Akbar, is looking for a wife.” Fatima leaned back on her cushions so that she could observe Sarah’s response.

Sarah could feel the colour rising in her face. She bit down on her lip as she thought about Akbar calling her his desert rose. She also remembered what he’d said before about seducing her for a thousand nights. “I am sure that a man like Sheikh Akbar will have no shortage of possible women to choose from.”

“There are many women, but few are fit to be the wife of my son. However, I believe we’ve met that woman now and my son will finally be married.”

“Congratulations on finding her,” Sarah said, though she didn’t feel like celebrating. If she had known that Akbar had driven her out here just so that she could discuss his marriage plans with his mother, she would never have agreed to come. She certainly wouldn’t have done all the things that she did with him in the desert earlier that afternoon. “May I ask who his bride will be?” she asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Fatima asked in return.

“No.”

“Why, it’s you. You are to marry my son, Sheikh Akbar.”

It took Sarah a few minutes to take in the idea.

“You look surprised,” Fatima said. “Maybe you are astonished that you’ve been given this honour. It’s unusual, I know, for us to take in a stranger to marry a great man like my son. However, we need a woman like you to help our people and a woman who will bear the sheikh many fine, strong sons.”

“But what if I don’t want to marry the sheikh? We barely know each other.”

“I met my husband on the day of my wedding. There’ll be plenty of time to get to know each other after the wedding and from what I understand, you already know my son in a way which only a wife should know a man.” Fatima clicked her tongue several times to show her disapproval.

Sarah wondered how Fatima knew about what had taken place that afternoon. Was the expression on her face so obvious when she got out of the Jeep? She had done her best to smooth down her crumpled trousers and shirt, and she thought that the state of her clothes could be excused by the fact that she’d just spent several hours driving across the desert. Maybe the sheikh had told his own mother about how he’d slept with Sarah when she was last here, though he said that he would keep it private. However, there were enough other people who could have told her, such as the guards outside his tent. Sarah was sure that in a camp like this, nothing remained secret for very long.