the earth and the grass. He crawled on to the rim. He would never go back. He lay on the grass and his breath sobbed in his throat. He looked behind him, across the chasm, and he could not see Hosni, only a mist. The wind seemed to lug at his clothes. He saw the terrace of houses. He walked through a door, a hall, a kitchen, and he looked out across a yard. Over the low wall was the canal towpath. He knew he would never go back, over the chasm. He wept.
Caleb woke. He did not know where he was, did not know who he was.
The boy stood over him, dark and silhouetted against the stars.
'You screamed.'
'Did I?'
'You made the camels restless and that woke me. Then I heard you scream.'
'I am sorry. It was a dream.'
'What was the dream?'
'Nothing – something about the past.'
'Was it so bad for you to scream?'
'It was only a dream. It was not real… How long is it before dawn?'
'Enough time to sleep again.'
'Co away.'
'I hope you sleep again and do not dream.'
'I hank you, Ghaffur.'
' I never dream,' the boy said, and drifted away into the darkness.
Caleb lay on his side and, as if he were now vulnerable, his knees were pulled up against his chest. The images, recalled from the past and reclaimed, played in his mind, but his eyes were open. He was too frightened to sleep. If he slept, he might be pushed again towards the chasm, might have to jump it again, might feel again the grass and earth and rocks breaking away as he clung to them, the emptiness below his feet. He had crossed the chasm, there was no going back, his memory lived.
Caleb lay in the sand and waited for the first light in the east.
Murky pale, the dawn came as Beth finally regained her bungalow, dead tired, hungry and thirsty. Although her headlights had caught the car she did not register it until she had to swerve to miss it. It was parked in the unmade road outside the gates that led up to the carport beside the villa. She knew the Mercedes, top of the range, and she swore. She took her time. Outside her front door, which was ajar, she unloaded the Land Rover. On the patio, she dumped her cold box, her water canisters, which were empty, her sleeping-bag, her clipboard and the filled sample sack. She felt a wreck. Sand was stuck to her face, held there by the sweat, oil streaks were on her hands and her blouse, and grime was caked under her fingernails.
She wanted to lie in a bath, gorge herself from the refrigerator, then sleep. What she did not want was a visitor. The exhaustion caught her as she pushed the door wider. For a moment she leaned against the jamb, then went inside to face him.
The deputy governor was sitting on the couch in her living room.
How long had be been there? The answer was in the ashtray on the couch's arm, filled with crushed filters… God.
'Hello,' she said, playing natural and failing. 'What a surprise.'
The response was bitter, an attack that the politeness and softness of the voice did not hide. 'Where have you been? I came yesterday in the morning, yesterday in the evening. In the morning the maid told me you had packed food and water as if for the desert, and in the evening the bungalow was still empty. In two hours' time, if you had not returned, I was going to call out the trackers, a search would have been mounted for you… I was worried. You left no note, no indication of where you had gone. While you were away there was a storm in the Sands. You can easily understand my anxiety.'
'I was on a field survey trip, it took longer,' she said, and knew the explanation was inadequate and hollow.
'There was a storm and you were alone. I am disappointed, Miss Bethany, that you declined to take the offer that I have always made to you, that I provide an escort with reliable vehicles for you to go into the Sands – exceptionally disappointed. A person such as yourself, a distinguished scholar… under my patronage and support – has no need to travel by herself, with all the attendant risks that creates.'
He was indeed, and Beth understood it, her patron and supporter.
Without that patronage and support, her visa was worthless. She would be on the next night's flight out of Riyadh.
'I'm sorry, truly sorry,' she said. 'I just didn't think, being selfish, that anyone would worry.'
She could still feel the touch of him. She had thought of him, no name, all through the night as she had bumped, sped and woven, always searching for the hard salt flats ahead, the lights' beams arrowing over the sand and guiding her. He had been with her. He had left her. He had roused feelings in her passionless, loveless life.
Yet she had not owned him. She owned everything she wanted, except him. He had gone away from her, gone away into the Sands, gone beyond reach. The deputy governor, prince of the Kingdom, owned her. She was his chattel.
'I sincerely apologize. It was selfishness. What else can I say? I thought only of myself. I very much respect, and am grateful, that you worried for me.'
Well, short of getting down on her knees and ripping off her blouse and exposing her back for a bloody good flogging, there was not much more she could do. At the convent, when in minor trouble, she had learned that the contrite approach softened anger, reduced punishment. Beth hung her head.
'You, better than any foreigner, understand the dangers of the Sands. You know them as the Bedu do. You know them as I know them.'
'I do.'
'It is basic procedure that if you go into the Sands for even half a day, you leave a map of your route.'
'It is.'
'I was fearful for you.'
The ashtray told her he had been on her couch for the whole night.
His robe was crumpled, creased, from sitting through the long hours in the quiet of her bungalow… She wondered where the man without a name was – where a little caravan of camels was. Had he already moved because the dawn had come, along with the men who had wanted to kill her, and him? She owned nothing of him. He was not of the Bedu, not of the Arabs, she did not know where he came from or what was his destination, or the purpose of his journey. He went in secrecy – others, to preserve the secret, would have killed her. Her life was saved by his trust in her… She smiled, dreamed.
'You take it lightly, Miss Bethany, my anxiety and your danger?'
'No, no… I can only apologize.'
The silken voice hardened. 'The storm, Miss Bethany? The airfield here was closed. I could not come back from Riyadh because of the storm. Nothing moved here. Because of the storm I was concerned for your welfare.'
The lie came easily 'I missed it, no problem. I saw it coming, hunkered down in shelter. There was some drifting round the wheels but I dug them out.'
When had she last lied? Beth could not remember. It was not in her nature to lie. Everything she had learned at the convent, and at home, had told her that an untruth chased a liar.
The question slithered quietly from him. 'Did you see anybody, Miss Bethany, in the Sands?'
She blustered: 'No… Who?'
'Any travellers, any traders?'
'Why do you ask?'
'I merely ask because, if we had had to search for you, Miss Bethany, I wonder if we would have met travellers or traders who had seen you and would have directed us towards where you were.'
'No.' It was the second lie. 'I did not see anybody.'
'These are difficult times… there are rumours… It is said men travel in the Sands, who are illegal and dangerous… only whispers, I do not have evidence of it.'
The lie tripped from her tongue. 'I told you, there was nobody.'
