The Weeping Desert Read online

The feast over, the men filed passed the sheikh to shake his hand, and then to shake hands with John. John murmured a polite greeting to each man, and wondered when it was all going to end. “Salaam alaikum, salaam alaikum,” he nodded.

  Now it seemed as if they were in a hurry to be rid of him, as if he were suddenly an embarrassment. Two guards appeared at his side and escorted him rapidly out of the room, down the main flight of stairs and out into the courtyard at the entrance of the palace. There waiting, apparently for him, was a sleek, navy, air-conditioned Plymouth, glossily expensive, its engine purring, the driver immobile at the wheel.

  From the dark shadows of the arches came a slim white figure, long sleeves fluttering, wafting the perfume of jasmine.

  “Khadija?”

  “You must go, my husband,” said Khadija in a low voice. “Go quickly, before my father has a change of heart.” The girl stood mutely at his side, waiting for any anger to explode. She was used, it seemed, to explosions from her menfolk.

  “What are you talking about?” John demanded. “Your husband? You don’t mean all that…?” He waved his hand towards the suite of rooms they had just left. He was staggered, then appalled, his thoughts in wild confusion.

  “It was the only way to save your life,” Khadija explained desperately. “We were betrayed by Is-if. When my father discovered that you had seen my face, that you had spoken with me, that you had spent some hours in my summer kiosk, he would have slain you without another thought. But I pleaded with him. I told him that your life was the most precious gift he could give to me; that I, Khadija, his favourite daughter, would ask no other favour but this one; that if he refused, he would never hear me sing again, or dance, or even speak, and the sun would go out of his life.”

  Khadija’s voice trembled. “He did not wish to lose me but, you understand, he had to save face before his people. You had broken the law of the royal harem. They expect the old law to be kept. My father cannot show any weakness. There are many who would wish to rule in his place.”

  John understood only too well. “So I had to be married to you, just because I had seen your face!”

  “I am sorry if it is so distasteful,” she bowed her head.

  He heard a small sob from the white figure beside him. Khadija caught his hand and pressed it briefly to her forehead.

  “Farewell, my husband,” she whispered.

  Then she had gone, slipping away like a ghost, back into the shadows, lost among all the other stirring shadows in the courtyard.

  “Walhid el Said,” said a guard, opening the door of the Plymouth.

  “Walhid el Said?” repeated John hopefully. “Are you sure?”

  “Walhid el Said,” confirmed the guard, nodding, with the suspicion of a grin.

  John got into the air-conditioned comfort of the big car, and checked that the door was not locked on the other side. He was going to throw himself out as soon as the car was clear of the palace; sooner, if there was the slightest indication he was being driven off into the desert and dumped.

  The driver turned on the car radio, and pop music from Cairo blared into John’s ears. Then he lit a cigarette, one hand lightly on the wheel.

  “Walhid el Said,” he said reassuringly to John. “OK?”

  “OK,” said John wearily. He lay back, exhausted, and put his fate into the hands of Allah. Married. Well, perhaps in their eyes they might consider him married to Khadija, but in his eyes he was most definitely still single. And the sooner he got back to England and sanity, the better.

  The streets of Oman Said were deserted. The tradesmen slept on the flat roofs of their shops on string beds or mattresses; the homeless huddled in an odd doorway or corner, or simply stretched out on the sidewalk. A few mangy dogs scavenged among the shanty-town hovels, sniffing at the kerosene tins and cardboard boxes that were stacked like a crazy pack of cards into pathetic homes.

  At first John was not aware of the change in the sky. He lay back with his eyes closed in an attempt to still the throbbing on his temple and the stiff tension in the back of his neck.

  A brief clatter of donkey hooves woke John. The car swiftly passed an old Arab, swathed from head to foot, urging his beast along the road, anxious to reach the oasis destination before the sun came up. The sky was getting lighter; it was nearly morning.

  John looked at his watch. It was 5:30 a.m. He nearly leapt out of his seat. He had a plane to catch.

  “Hurry, man! Can’t you go any faster?”

  “OK,” said the driver laconically, and casually put his foot down on the accelerator so that the car shot up to seventy like a greyhound let out of its box. Dust rose from the track. A soft-plodding camel looked at the car with haughty disdain, curling its lip, its burden of fodder swaying perilously.

  The Plymouth drew up outside the mess, with a shriek of brakes that would have woken anyone sleeping within a half-mile radius.

  “Thanks,” said John, leaping out.

  Brett Stevenson was waiting on the verandah. He hurried down the steps. He was unshaven and looked like a man who had not slept.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve half the camp out looking for you.”

  “It’s a long story,” said John, brushing passed him. “And I’ve got my packing to finish.”

  John pulled a suitcase out of a cupboard and began throwing in clothes. He went into the bathroom to collect his shaving gear. The face in the mirror alarmed him. His skin looked grey under the tan, and there were unhealthy smudges under his eyes.

  He heard Brett on the telephone in the other room. He was making several calls.

  “I’ve called off the search,” said Brett heavily, from the doorway. “And I’ve called Sheila at the hospital. She was nearly out of her mind with worry.”

  “I don’t see that there was any need,” said John stiffly.

  “You’re an unfeeling ass,” said Brett. “Of course the girl was worried. You know how many kidnappings there have been reported in the papers lately. Then they bargain the life of the hostage against the return of a few political prisoners. They usually pick on a diplomat, but I guess out here, one European’s as good as another.”

  “How did Sheila find out I wasn’t here?”

  “She phoned up. She’d forgotten to ask you to get some shopping for her. We all thought it was a joke at first,” said Brett. “We reckoned you’d left the party to see Sheila back to the hospital and were making a kinda prolonged farewell of it.” He chuckled. “It could take me a couple of hours to say good-bye to a girl as pretty as Sheila.”

  “Cut it out,” John snapped.

  “Then Sheila phoned up wanting you to get this make-up for her in London. I know it’s none of my business if you’re up to something in your private life. There are quite a few bored wives out here only too keen to keep a lonely bachelor happy. But if this is your side-line, then you’re not being fair to Sheila.”

  John threw in some shoes and his overcoat on the top. He would be needing them when he got to London.

  “As you said, sir,” said John. “It’s none of your business.” Brett sucked a cigarette out of a squashed packet and lit it. The first lungful of smoke caught him and he started to cough.

  “But you are still an employee of the oil company, and while you are here, I’m responsible for your actions,” Brett went on. “When I see one of my engineers coming home in the early hours of the morning in a car with a sheikh’s number plate, then I want to know where he’s been and why.”

  “I see. Big business espionage of course,” said John, slamming down the lid of his case. “You’re worried in case I’m selling the location of our new drilling sites to a rival sheikhdom, or stirring up a revenue dispute between Sheikh Abd-ul Hamid and the company, with a ten per cent cut for me?”

  “It’s not funny—some people will do anything for money,” said Brett.

  “Is-if,” said John angrily. “That damned Is-if!”

  “What did you say?”

 
“Nothing.”

  “You sound like a thoroughly rattled man,” said Brett shrewdly. “Well, whether you’re selling out the company or not, we could both do with some coffee. I suppose your houseboy is sleeping off an excess of cokes somewhere, and I’d better make it myself.”

  John took a shower and decided on a quick run over his chin with his Japanese battery-driven shaver. He put on a lightweight suit, and it seemed strange to be knotting a tie again after so many months of not wearing one.

  He was conscious of a door banging somewhere. He looked at his watch. He’d got twenty-five minutes in which to get to the airport. Brett came in with two mugs of coffee.

  “There’s a shammal blowing up,” he said.

  John went to the window. Dust was blowing in small eddies in the compound, and litter was suddenly lifted into a crazy dance and flung against the wire fencing. Across the desert a haze of sand clouded the horizon.

  “That gas flare’s going wild,” said Brett over his shoulder.

  “Has it ever been snuffed out in a sandstorm?” John asked.

  “There’s always a first time for everything.”

  “I hope it’s not going to blow hard. I’ve got to get away,” said John, lugging his cases out onto the verandah. The wind whipped his tie into the air and billowed into his jacket.

  “These birds can take off in most things,” said Brett, helping to load the jeep. “What’s all the hurry for, anyway? You could probably get a seat on the mid-week flight.”

  “I’ve been counting the hours to this leave and nothing is going to stop me,” said John. “Come on, let’ go, before it gets too thick to drive in.”

  The jeep lurched and rattled along the track. They passed John’s houseboy, his head down against the wind, scarf wound round his face. The boy looked up, recognised John, grinned and shouted something, but his words were lost in the howl of the shammal. John smiled and waved back. He’d meant to give the boy something but it was too late now.

  “I’ll tip him for you,” said Brett, reading his mind. “You can owe me.”

  John opened his wallet. “I’ve only English money.”

  “I’ll give him a couple of your natty suits,” Brett grinned, eyeing the cut of John’s trousers.

  It was light now, the sun rising pleasantly in a sky screened by dust and sand. They kept the windows wound up, but sand blowing fiercely across the road still got into the jeep. A fine film settled everywhere, whitening their eyelashes and brows and sticking to their lips.

  “They’ll never take off in this,” said John.

  “It’s blowing across, moving inland,” said Brett, peering through the windscreen. “The plane has only got to get above it.”

  The jeep swung off the road onto the strip of levelled desert used as the airport car park. The Shuqrat fire engines stood in a row, ready for the take-off, the uniformed fire chief trying to rub the film of dust off some equipment with his sleeve.

  The huge silver jet was being loaded with luggage, and small figures were crossing the tarmac in the swirling sand to board her.

  “I’ll get your luggage through customs,” said Brett, forging ahead. “You’d better go and present your passport and ticket. They’ll probably act very officiously because you nearly missed the flight.”

  The formalities were always a precarious business. The immigration officer scratched his ear, then his right nostril, then the back of his leg, and looked at John several times, comparing the photograph in his passport from all angles, before stamping the page with maddening slowness and handing it back.

  John hurried into the departure lounge. The screened-off section, furnished with wooden benches and rickety tables, had cheerful signs in English and Arabic.

  “Your luggage is going on. They didn’t find any gold or hashish,” said Brett drily. “Quite disappointed, they were.”

  There were people waiting to see John off. It was another of the regular social activities of the community, seeing people off at the airport and meeting them again on their return. John shook hands with his friends and parried comments about his disappearance from the sailing club party the previous night.

  “You take care that Lebanese matron up at the hospital doesn’t catch you,” said Don Parker. “She’s got a nose like a bloodhound.”

  “You seem determined to ruin Sheila’s reputation,” John reproved him. “That’s unfair to her, however flattering to me.”

  “Anyone can see she’s got eyes for no one else.”

  “Shsh, here she comes.”

  “John! John!” Sheila elbowed her way through the spectators to where John was standing. “I thought I’d missed you. The flight’s late, isn’t it? The shammal, I suppose.”

  Sheila looked a little harrassed, despite her cool white buttoned hospital frock and neat starched cap. Her hair was tied back into a loose coil at the nape of her neck, but still little wisps escaped, and she managed to look more like a model dressed as a nurse than a hard-working and dedicated professional.

  “Hello,” said John.

  “Hello! Is that all you can say? Hello—when you disappear for half the night and nobody knows where you are? Whatever happened to you? I was frantic with worry.”

  “I don’t understand all this fuss,” said John. “I’m perfectly all right. Look, I’ve got to go now, Sheila. I think that was the last announcement.”

  “Nonsense,” said Sheila. “It was just a crackle on the loudspeaker.” She took his arm. “I must talk to you.”

  “There’s no time to talk, Sheila. Can’t it wait?”

  “No, it can’t. You’re not going off like that, without a word of explanation. Three thousand miles is an awful long way, and I won’t be able to ring you up.”

  John felt a surge of annoyance. He did not like the way she sounded as if she were entitled to an explanation. He ignored the dangerous flash in her eyes. Perhaps she had been worried, but that didn’t mean he had to chronicle all his movements for her satisfaction. This was a trait he disliked in women. They always wanted to know everything. Well, Sheila would be a sight more worried if she knew the truth.

  “Be seeing you,” he said abruptly, moving towards the exit.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” she flared. She dodged neatly round a couple and blocked his way; a slim, defiant figure, glaring up at him.

  “Perhaps you think it’s none of my business,” she said. “And perhaps you are right. But you’re my friend, and I don’t like to see a friend making a fool of himself. And if I can stop you, I will!”

  A sudden gust of wind blew across the runway and the huge plane seemed to quiver. Litter was hurled against the wire fencing, and clung like survivors to the diamond mesh. Sheila shielded her eyes from the flying sand.

  “You sound exactly like a woman,” said John, irritated.

  Sheila laughed sarcastically. “Careful now. You nearly paid me a compliment. Any moment now, you’ll overdo it and actually say something nice to me.”

  “You seem determined to pick a quarrel,” said John between his teeth. “But I won’t fight you. So don’t try to provoke me. Good-bye, Sheila, I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “I don’t really want to quarrel with you,” said Sheila, shaking her head helplessly. “It’s just that anything is better than this awful nothingness. I can’t stand it. You’re so nice and pleasant to me, but the moment there seems to be anything more between us, you retreat faster than a hunted gazelle and throw up a mental barrier that I can’t see through or climb over.”

  John shifted his shoulders inside his suit. He was already beginning to feel sticky in the extra clothes, and wished fervently that he were six miles up and out of hearing of Sheila’s tongue.

  “I know I don’t mean anything to you,” she went on in a low voice. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try and stop you. If you’re going native, then I shall do everything in my power to dissuade you.”

  “Going native?” John repeated, astonished. “Is that what you think?
”

  Sheila nodded. “I found Arab robes stuffed in the back of your jeep, the night you were late for your own party. You reeked of scent. I can even smell something now—incense, that’s what it is. Oh John, I know it does happen. There’s that old chap in Oman Said wandering round in an Arab headdress, half mad with the sun, and more Arab than English now.”

  John knew the old man: Arnold Fisher, a relic of the old Colonial Service. He’d been out in the Middle East for more than seventeen years, long before oil was found in Shuqrat. He had been a roving British Commissioner, and knew the small sheikhdoms along the desert coast of the Persian Gulf better than any man alive. He had adopted Arab clothes and Arab customs, and even given himself an Arab name. He was a harmless eccentric with a deep love of the Middle East and their people, but the European community seemed to regard him as some sort of defector.

  But John could respect the old man’s wish to live out his old age in a high-walled, windowless Arab house which was more home to him than any retirement to Tunbridge Wells. There was even more sense in the loose robe and headscarf in this weather. The sand seeped everywhere. It even got into pockets.

  “Is that what you are so worried about?” John asked, more gently. “I don’t quite see myself as Lawrence of Arabia.”

  “But the robe?”

  “Will it make you feel any better if I tell you it is nothing like that? You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  The last call to passengers asking them to embark came over the loudspeaker, first in Arabic and then in English, though it was difficult to distinguish one language from the other. But any announcement at this time could only mean one thing, and the last passengers began to filter through the exit onto the tarmac.

  “Will you drive back with Sheila?” he asked Don Parker. “Brett will send a boy to pick up your car when the shammal’s over.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure, mate,” Don grinned.

  John gripped Sheila’s arm briefly. It was an inadequate gesture, he knew, in the circumstances.

  He hurried through the exit, anxious to be away to freedom, to England, to an uncomplicated bachelor life. The swirling sand flew up to meet him.