“Oh, God,” said Kim. “I have to do that?”
“Nothing for it,” said Gabriel. “It’s the only way back.”
“Right.” Kim seated herself on the rock and slithered down its back, screeching.
Thea insisted Gabriel went ahead of her, but when she dropped underwater right beside him, her hand touched his shoulder and his caught her waist. The fleeting contact gave him a kick, just as her heels kicked her back to the surface. She wouldn’t be as easy, this time.
They swam slowly through the corridor of limestone, its smooth white walls curved and soft. Kim reached out to touch the chalky surface. “We’re in one of the earth’s creases,” she said, “deep in the groove of one of its wrinkles. It’s like being embedded in our own planet.”
Gabriel said, “Pity your tape recorder isn’t waterproof.”
An Everest-like peak, ice-free, glowed in the evening light as they made their way out of the wadi. On the roadside, women in veils splashed with color walked along the street, their mobile phones gripped to their ears. Gabriel had left the other party behind, feasting on barbecued barracuda under an awning next to a large pool in the evening sun. With difficulty, he had torn himself from her side, leaving her pulling chunks of fish from its bone with her greasy, nimble fingers.
In a small town near the Sands, he let down his tires, watched by six old men sitting in a semicircle on plastic chairs, chewing the cud, their beards as white as their dishdashas, their wise faces relaxed. Then he bought the ladies tea in paper cups, which was sweet and delicious, they said, as they worked their way through a packet of cookies, while rollicking toward the Sands. They were growing on Gabriel. Slow, they might be, but they were earthy and honest, and unreasonably fair to him in view of how badly he was conducting their not inexpensive tour.
The ragged mountain peaks had softened into rusty, rounded dunes, which moved toward them like a welcoming party until they were ahead, behind and all around them. Leaving the road, Gabriel headed into a funnel, a sandy superhighway, broad and track-marked. Bedouin holdings were spotted along the way, with animal enclosures, kids and goats, and an occasional camel.
“Heavens, look,” said Betty. “Greenery.”
“These are good times in the desert,” Gabriel explained. “The cyclone brought rain for the first time in years.” At a random spot, he turned off the valley floor and headed right up into the dunes. They were running late for one of the advertised highlights—the desert sunset, so he careered across the sand, throwing the jeep up slopes and over ridges, looking for a spot. Betty squealed, Hetty gripped the handle over her door, repeating, mantra-like, that she was fine because her eyes were shut, and Sue, beside him, put her feet on the dash and sat rigid. It always gave Gabriel a rush, this bit: being in control of people’s fear.
They drew to a halt high on a crest, just in time to see a wink of sun slink behind the horizon, which had the outline of a reclining woman. Thanks to his dallying, they had effectively missed the sunset, but the evening sky got him off the hook—its bruise-colored clouds were rimmed with a luminescent, multicolored aura. It darkened here and brightened there, so that the view kept dazzling, and the photos had to be taken again and again, while the desert, with much less ceremony, vanished into darkness.
Down on the flat, a 4x4 rushed by, its headlights beaming and sand spraying up behind it. Abid. The barracuda had cost them this magnificent sky. Pity. Gabriel would have liked Thea to see it.
“Ooh, look,” said Betty. “He turned off his headlights!”
“The Bedouin way,” Gabriel explained. “They see better in the dark, or so they say.”
At the camp, goat-hair tents, randomly spread out and each with its own roofless brick bathroom, surrounded a large communal area, lit by gas lights. Gabriel carried the ladies’ bags to their appointed tent, where they were charmed by the heavy timber beds, the dresser, table and chairs. Then he walked back to the restaurant, his eyes scanning the compound until he saw Kim coming out of a tent and stepping across to the bathroom. She didn’t appear to see him. He changed direction and did an about loop—it was pitch dark now—which brought him around to the back of their tent, just as Kim came out of the bathroom.
“This is lovely,” he heard Thea say to her. “I can lie here on the bed and see that amazing sky through the flap.”
“He’s proving quite hard to lose, your ex,” Kim said.
“My ex?”
“Gabriel.”
“Don’t you start! So he’s here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s got to the point where I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.”
“It’s a bit like being stalked,” Kim went on, “except he’s so sweet on the eye that I don’t actually mind. Unless you’re bothered?”
“I’m getting used to him.”
“And I quite like the way he turns up and then vanishes.”
Thea chuckled. “Maybe he’s the jinn.”
Their words were clear, even though their voices were low.
“That guy has a back story, I’m telling you,” said Kim. “This jinn woman is about some whole other thing. I’d put money on it.”
“Me too.”
“Be careful, though.”
“Why?”
“He can’t take his eyes off you.”
“Probably waiting for me to get sucked back into the lamp like the last one.”
They giggled again. “I’m not kidding, Thea. He’s attractive. Dangerously so.”
“And I’m married.”
“How married?”
“Very.”
Gabriel sat down, right there, in the lee of the tent. Even if one of the drivers came past on the way to the drivers’ tent, he was well concealed in the shadow, out of the moon’s sights.
“I have a terrible confession to make.” Thea’s voice was close. She was right next to him, separated only by the coarse fabric of the tent.
“Bring it on!”
“Well, my first crush was . . .”
“Was?”
“The Archangel Gabriel!”
