The Sheikh's Son (6 page)

“Maybe tonight we can be together rather than creeping around in the dark,” he said into her ear.

Sarah turned around. “You were awake!”

Akbar pulled her tightly against him and kissed her on the mouth. He then let go and walked back into the kitchen.

When Sarah arrived back home that evening, she saw that Akbar had moved his things into her bedroom. She didn’t tell him to take them back out.

For the next few days, Sarah, Akbar and Ali acted as a family. Akbar not only took Ali horse riding and played football with him, but he also took Ali to the zoo (Akbar complained bitterly about how the camels were treated), showed him how to fly a kite (until Ali’s got stuck in a tree) and even taught Ali how to light a fire in the back garden (Sarah threw a fit when she saw them). Later in the evenings, Akbar took them out to restaurants, or cooked at home and one night Sarah even made a chocolate cake, which only collapsed slightly on one side. At night, Ali, exhausted and well-fed, slept better than he had done for years, while Akbar and Sarah rediscovered the passion they shared when they first met. However, Sarah knew that the little paradise they were creating couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later, they had to talk about the future. It was Ali who mentioned it first.

They were walking back from the park one afternoon and it had just started to rain.

“I can’t wait to get to Yazan,” Ali said, pulling up his hood. “Dad says it hardly ever rains in the desert. Only a few more weeks to go.”

“What do you mean, Ali, only a few more weeks?” Sarah asked.

“We’re flying to Yazan in a couple of weeks. Didn’t Dad tell you?”

“No, he didn’t,” Sarah replied. She looked at Akbar.

“Let’s get out of this rain, and then we’ll talk about it,” he said, walking faster along the pavement.

Sarah grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to stop. “No, let’s talk about this now. You’re not taking my son to Yazan.” She had hidden Ali’s passport after the scare on the first day, but in her tiny house, it wouldn’t take long for someone to find it.

“I’m not taking him. We’re all going. And you seem to forget he’s not just your son, he’s my son, too,” Akbar called out over the noise of the rain that was now pouring down on them.

“I’m not going.” Sarah wiped a steady stream of raindrops off her nose.

“I can’t stay here. My visa runs out in a month.” Water was pouring down Akbar’s thick, black hair.

“We’ll get it extended.”

“Then what? I can’t live here. I can’t sit around doing nothing all day and I can’t become a shop keeper like Yacoub.”

“You could work at the stables. Maybe you could even set up some stables yourself?” Sarah knew it would cost a lot of money, but Akbar was well-off. A few days ago, he told her that he recently managed to breed a stock of first-class racing camels, which he sold to a group of Saudi princes for extortionate amounts of money.

“I have to go back to Yazan to look after my people and Ali has to learn how to as well. One day he’ll be their leader.”

“Please, Mum! Please say we can go!” Ali called out from under his hood.

“What about school?” Sarah asked.

“Your schools here won’t teach him what he needs to know about ruling over a Bedouin tribe,” Akbar said. He put his arm around Ali’s shoulder. “He needs to learn how to control a camel, tame a wild horse, negotiate with other leaders, how to strip a weapon, and shoot a gun.”

“You’re not taking my son and teaching him how to kill other people.” Sarah pulled Ali towards her, but her wet hand slipped on the waterproof covering of his coat and he remained tightly under Akbar’s grasp.

“I’ll teach him how not to kill people. If I don’t have an heir who knows how to keep peace in the area, the region of Sakara will fall into civil war again and hundreds of people will be killed, maybe more. Is that what you want? Do you want the blood of all those people on your hands?”

“Of course not, but can’t you wait until he’s older? At least then he can decide for himself.”

“And leave you both here? I can’t lose the son I’ve just found and I can’t live without you again.” He put his hand on her face. Rain ran down his sleeve. “And anyways, I’ve already booked our tickets.”

She brushed his hand off her. “We’re not going. We’re staying here.”

“Here? Why should Ali stay here? When I arrived, he was being bullied at school, he had no friends, he was eating food out of tins like a dog, and practically bringing himself up because you’re at work all the time. This is no way to raise a boy!”

“How dare you! I wasn’t the one who took on other wives and at least I can work here, which is more than you let me do in Yazan!”

“Stop it! Stop it!” Ali called out.

Sarah wasn’t sure whether it was just the rain or whether there were tears running down Ali’s face.

“Come on, Ali.” She grabbed his hand. “We’re going home and our home is here in London.”

She dragged Ali along, leaving Akbar standing on his own in the rain. When she looked back, Akbar had turned around and was walking in the other direction.

“Dad! Where are you going?” Ali called out, but Akbar continued walking.

“Ali, we need to get home and out of these wet clothes.”

“I want my dad!” Ali wailed.

A woman stopped and stared at them. She gave Sarah a pitying look, pulled her umbrella closer to her face and walked on.

Ali struggled to get away from his mum, but she held his hand tightly in her own and dragged him onto a nearby bus that had just stopped.

When they got home, Sarah put Ali into a hot bath and then changed out of her wet clothes. After his bath, she heard him go into his bedroom and shut the door. She knocked on it, but there was no reply.

“Ali, open the door.”

“Go away! I hate you.”

“Ali, let me come in and talk to you.”

“No. I want my dad.”

Through the door, she could hear him crying. “Ali, all parents fight. You’re just not used to having both a mum and a dad,” she tried to explain.

“You’ve sent him away. He’s not going to come back and I’ll never see my dad again.”

“He’ll be back, Ali.” But Sarah had no idea when.

All week Sarah and Ali waited for Akbar to return, but there was no sign of him. The atmosphere in the house was as bleak as the weather outside. When he wasn’t at school, Ali spend most of his time in his bedroom and when she came home from work, Sarah sat in the kitchen, watching repeats of sitcoms on TV.

She knew Akbar would have to come back sometime as all his things were in her house. She hadn’t expected him that night, but she presumed that after a few days he would show up, if only to get a change of clothes. At first she thought he was staying with his friend, Yacoub. However, Ali asked Hassan at school and Hassan said his dad hadn’t seen Akbar for over a week. Sarah guessed that he’d gone to a hotel, but it was impossible to know which one. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of hotels and guest houses all over London and Akbar could be in anyone of them.

Finally one evening, after listening to Ali crying himself to sleep again, she decided to search through Akbar’s things to see whether there was anything that could give her a clue about where he was. She knew it was a gross invasion of his privacy, but she told herself she was doing it for Ali’s sake as he so desperately missed his dad. Sarah missed him, too, much more than she cared to admit to herself. It had been wonderful being a family and Akbar had been such a caring father to Ali, not to mention an extremely sensual lover at night.

Once she was sure that Ali was asleep and wouldn’t disturb her, Sarah went into her bedroom and pulled out Akbar’s suitcase, which she’d kicked under the bed after their argument in the rain.

The case was medium-sized, made of top-quality black leather. Sarah found the zip. The case was unlocked. She tugged the zip and opened up her husband’s suitcase. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find inside. Secretly she wished to find a map with a hotel circled in red and a note saying, “I am staying here.” Instead, it was the usual things that people pack when they go on a trip: underwear, shirts, a spare pair of shoes, a couple of sweaters. However, at the bottom was something that Sarah recognised at once. It was the traditional white robe that Akbar wore when they got married, trimmed with beautiful gold embroidery. Sarah picked it up and held it to her face. She could smell the incense that they burned in their tents. She wondered why he had brought it with him to England and what had become of her own wedding gown. Her mother-in-law had spent hours sewing hers and covering it with elaborate designs and metal coins. She’d also worn a Bedouin veil of coins that jingled every time she moved her head. Rasha had demanded both of them off her for her own wedding. Perhaps, Rasha had worn them. Sarah hadn’t stayed around to find out.

She continued looking through Akbar’s case. There was no sign of any cash, not that she would have taken it, and no sign of any credit cards, but in a side pocket she did find his passport. She pulled it out with a sigh of relief. If she had his passport, he would have to come back and get it and then maybe they could work something out.

With the natural curiosity that everyone feels when they see a passport, Sarah opened it up to look at his picture. Clearly a recent photograph, she could see the flecks of grey in his neatly trimmed beard. She read the details inside. Sarah’s work at the clinic meant that she had kept up her knowledge of Arabic and it was easy to read the information in front of her. However, one thing stood out. Akbar had signed his name using English, not Arabic script, and it looked clumsy, too, like Ali’s handwriting when he first started school. She thought about other examples of Akbar’s writing, but the more she thought about it, the more she realised that she couldn’t remember a single time when she’d seen him write something.

She examined the passport again. In the corner under the signature was a sentence that made no sense. At first, Sarah thought that she’d misread it, but the Arabic was quite clear. Translated into English, it read, “Applicant illiterate.” How was it possible that Akbar couldn’t read and write?

Sarah was a straight-A student at school. She had gone to one of the best universities in the country to study medicine. How was it possible that she had married a man who could barely sign his name? She knew that many of the Bedouin people were uneducated. Their lifestyle didn’t allow much provision for Western-style schooling, especially for the women. However, Akbar was a great leader. He was known, respected, and often feared throughout the entire country. How was it possible that he couldn’t even read or write his own language? He told her that he learnt English in order to find her, which was quite understandable, and Sarah was very impressed by his newly learnt language skills. In fact, his ability to communicate almost fluently in English, albeit with a strong accent, was a testimony to his intelligence.

She thought back to all the times that she’d been with him. There was never once a situation in which he needed to read or write. The Bedouin had few possessions and no books. Theirs was a strong oral tradition. There was no need to write anything down. She remembered when, many years ago, Akbar thought that she was the British ambassador’s wife until he saw an article in a newspaper about her kidnapping that stated she was a doctor. However, she hadn’t actually seen him read it. Anyone could have read the newspaper to him and told him what it said.

A thought suddenly struck her. If Akbar really was illiterate, it would explain why he refused to write a letter giving his permission for her to work as a doctor at the Women’s Hospital. He’d been willing for her to go out to work and look for a job, but he wouldn’t actually write the all-important letter of consent, which was compulsory for every married working woman in Yazan. If only he’d told her. She could have written it for him and shown him how to sign it. Perhaps she could have taught him how to read and write.

Slowly, she put the passport back into his suitcase, tidied up his things and pushed the case back under the bed. For a long time, she sat on her bedroom floor and thought about how it was that she, the smartest girl in her school, had ended up married to an illiterate warlord.

“Dad’s back!” Ali shouted upstairs.

Sarah was in the bath. She’d heard the doorbell, but had left Ali to answer it. This early on a Saturday morning, she presumed it was the postman, milkman, or some other delivery man.

Before she knew it, Akbar had swung open the bathroom door and walked in. She reached out for a towel to cover herself up.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asked. “Get out! I’m in the bath.”

“Which one would you like me to do first? Get out or tell you where I’ve been?”

“Both. I mean, get out. Then tell me.”

Akbar looked at her barely concealed nakedness. “You are the most beautiful woman. Your body is the finest thing I’ve ever had the pleasure to see.” And he walked out.

Dumbfounded, Sarah rubbed a towel over her body and threw on her dressing gown.

When she came downstairs, she saw Ali excitedly running around, telling his dad everything he’d done recently, which mainly consisted of playing computer games, either on his own or with his new friends.