“I never make promises I may not be able to keep,” he said, and then he was gone.
She felt tears close to the surface, but she forced them back. “I will never be a whiner or a weeper,” she promised herself. Despite her bursting heart, sleep came down on her like a dark avalanche.
She woke to the sound of guns, but the shells were bursting near the harbour, where the attack had been beaten off. The Dervish were venting their spite. Her bedroom curtains were wide open, and sunlight streamed in.
Nazeera was fussing ostentatiously around the room. “It is after eight, Jamal. The twins have been gone two hours,” she said, as Rebecca raised her head sleepily from the pillow. “I have filled two buckets of hot water, and laid out your blue skirt.”
Rebecca was still half asleep as she slipped out from under the sheet. Nazeera stared at her in astonishment, and she tried to brazen it out: “Oh, Nazeera, you look as though you were frightened by a jinnee. How many times have you seen me naked?” She ran to the bathroom and poured one of the steaming buckets of water into the galvanized hip bath.
Nazeera gazed after her, then pursed her lips. She pulled back the bedclothes and started with alarm. There was a patch of dried blood on the under sheet Nazeera knew at once that this was not menstrual issue: al-Jamal had seen her moon only twelve days before and it was too soon for it to rise again. This blood was bright and pure and virginal.
Oh, my baby, my little girl, you have made the crossing, and now you stand on a strange and dangerous new shore. She bent closer to the bed to scry the omen. The stain was no larger than her spread hand, but it was shaped like a bird in flight.
A vulture? That was an evil omen, the bird of death and suffering. No. She thrust away the thought. A gentle dove? A falcon, cruel and beautiful? A wise old owl? Only the future will tell us, she decided, and gathered up the sheet. She would wash it with her own hands, in secret. No other must be allowed to see this marking. Then she stopped, for she sensed that al-Jamal was watching her through the open bathroom door.
She dropped the bundled sheet on the floor and went through to her. She knelt beside the bath and picked up the loofah. There was no soap they had finished the last bar a week ago. Rebecca held her hair on top of her neck, and leant forward. Nazeera began the familiar ritual of scrubbing her back.
After a while she whispered her question: “Which one was it, Jamal?”
“I don’t understand what you are asking.” Rebecca would not look at her face.
“Who climbed the tamarind tree last night?” But Rebecca pretended she had water in her eyes, and covered them with both hands.
“It could not have been Abadan Riji, the pretty soldier. He has another woman,” Nazeera said.
Rebecca lowered her hands and stared at her. “You are a liar,” she said softly, but with deadly ferocity. “That is a cruel and hurtful lie.”
“So it was the soldier. I wish it had been the other, who might bring you happiness. The soldier never will.”
“I love him, Nazeera. Please understand that.”
“So does she. Her name is Bakhita.”
“No!” Rebecca covered her ears. “I don’t want to hear this.”
Nazeera was silent. She took Rebecca’s arm and ran the loofah over it. When she came to her fingers she separated them and washed them one at a time.
“Bakhita is an Arabic name,” Rebecca blurted at last, but Nazeera remained silent. “Answer me!” Rebecca insisted.
“You did not want to hear.”
“You are torturing me. Is she an Arab? Is she very beautiful? Does he love her?”
“She is of my people and my God,” Nazeera answered. “I have never seen her, but men say she is very beautiful, and rich and clever. As to whether he loves her or not, that I do not know. Can a man like Abadan Riji ever love a woman in the same way that she loves him?”
“He is an Englishman and she is Arab.” Rebecca whispered. “How can she love him?”
“He is a man and she is a woman before all else. That is how she can love him.”
“Nazeera, an hour ago I was happy. Now happiness has flown away.”
“Perhaps it is best that you are unhappy for today rather than unhappy for the rest of your life,” Nazeera said sadly. “That is why I have told you these things.”
Two hours after the beginning of curfew the four men left the city. Penrod and Yakub wore turbans and Ansar jib has for they would be riding north through the Dervish lines. Ryder and Bacheet wore simple galabiyyas, like common tribesmen, for they would return to the city.
Despite their outfits they were unchallenged as they crossed the canal behind Ryder Courtney’s compound. The guard had been warned to let them pass. They were all heavily laden with weapons and woven sisal bags as they struck out into the desert. None spoke and they moved warily, keeping well separated but in sight of each other.
Bacheet led the way. He never slackened his pace even when the sand was ankle deep. They walked for two hours before they climbed a bank of shale that was frosty pale in the glimmer of the moon. One of the wadis that was carved out of the far side was filled with a dark amorphous mass of thorny scrub. There Bacheet paused and lowered his burden to the ground. He spoke a few quiet words to Ryder Courtney. Ryder handed him a leather bag of Maria Theresa dollars, and Bacheet -went forward alone. The other three squatted to wait. In the distance they heard Bacheet utter the lonely haunted cry of a courser, the nocturnal plover of the desert. The call was answered from the wadi.
“So al-Mahtoum is here. He is a good man. I can rely on him,” Ryder said, with satisfaction.
“Let us go to join them.” Penrod Ballantyne stood up impatiently.
“Sit down,” Ryder ordered. “Bacheet will come to fetch us. Al-Mahtoum will not allow a stranger to see his face. He lives a dangerous existence. When he has handed over the camels to Bacheet he will disappear back into the desert like a fox.”
An hour later the courser cried again, and Ryder stood up. “Now,” he said, and led Penrod and Yakub forward. There were four camels couched among the scrub. Bacheet squatted beside them but al-Mahtoum was gone. Penrod and Yakub went to each of them to check their tack and their loads. There were dhurra loaves and dried dates in the food bags and one of the animals was loaded with camel fodder. The waterskins were less than a quarter filled.
Penrod remarked on this.
“Al-Mahtoum expects you to fill them at the river crossing. No sense in carrying more than you need. You should reach the Nile at Gutrahn before midnight tomorrow. Don’t try to cross sooner. The Dervish are thick as tsetse flies this side of Gutrahn.”
Penrod replied tartly: “Yakub and I have travelled this road before, but thank you for your excellent advice.” He went from one beast to the next, slapping their humps. They were plumped up with fat. Next he checked their limbs, running his hands down shoulder and haunch to the fetlock. “Sound,” he said. “They are in good condition.”
“They don’t come any sounder,” Ryder said bitterly. “These are gimal, the finest racing camels. They are worth fifty pounds each stolen from me by your warlord Chinese Gordon.”
“I will treat them like my own children,” Penrod promised.
“I am sure you will,” Ryder said, ‘although those who call you the Camel Killer, and they are legion, might have difficulty believing you.”
Penrod and Yakub mounted up, and Penrod gave Ryder an ironic salute with the goad. “I shall give your respects to the ladies at the Long Bar in the Gheziera Club.” He knew that Ryder was not a member. It was another little burr in the rough texture of their relationship.
Yet Ryder was not particularly pleased to see him go. Penrod
Ballantyne was never dull. He and Bacheet watched the little caravan meld with the night.
Bacheet grunted and spat. It was apparent that he did not share his master’s feelings. “The two of them ride together because they are both rogues and lechers, almost as quick with knife and gun as they are with their meat prods.”
Ryder laughed. “You should rejoice that Yakub has gone. Perhaps you will now be able to enjoy a little more
