The Weeping Desert (21 page)

The jeep’s engine came to life at the first touch, and John blessed its reliability. He drove as quickly as he dared through the river of rain flooding the road. Fans of spray flew up as the wheels ploughed through the muddy grey water. John hoped the jeep was high enough out of the water to save the engine from being choked. He passed several cars at the roadside trying to start lifeless engines.

The town was a shambles. It was flooded to about a foot deep, more in some narrow alley-ways where the rushing water had built up. The older men stood looking at their sodden shops with resignation, but youths and children were paddling about in the water as Khadija had danced in the garden, full of delight and laughter.

Clusters of cows huddled together like small islands, water up to their knees. The nimble goats had scrambled up to higher levels, bleating. Debris swirled past; the road crumbled into sudden holes and ruts; a lorry rushed headlong, splattering John’s windscreen with mud.

The rain was easing off. It dwindled to a few huge drops then suddenly there was a great burst of heat as the sun slid out from behind the cloud. Immediately the whole place was steaming, the vapour rising as if from a great vat of cooking. John was already wet through, but now the sweat began to pour off him. He had only got a few minutes in which to reach the sheikh’s old palace before the
shammal
hit Oman Said.

He heard the shop signs beginning their familiar swinging and clattering.

Loosened shutters began banging. People hurried off
the streets. Others wound their headscarves round their faces.

Suddenly the
shammal
hit the town with tremendous force. The wind tore through the narrow streets, turning rivers into tidal waves. Walls collapsed as the poor quality cement absorbed water like a sponge. Flags shredded and disappeared. Cans and stones were hurled through the air with demonic fury.

John stopped the jeep. It was impossible to drive any further. The flying dust and sand was blinding and choking him. He set off on foot, head down. He knew the way to the old palace through the
souk
,
but one look at the steaming rabbit-warren of humanity—shopkeepers trying to salvage goods, children looting, sodden rushes falling from great gaping holes, mud and rubbish churning into yellow sludge—and he decided it would be hopeless to try and fight a way through.

He had some idea of the location of the Gate of the Dead. Tin cans, cardboard boxes and ragged washing torn loose and sent flying and scattering, raced past him towards the endless miles of desert. Two women hurried ahead of him, their wet black gowns and cloaks plastered with grey dust, their sandalled feet thick with mud. As they disappeared into a hovel, John felt the full force of the wind tearing at his shirt, determined to rip it from his back.

Now he could see the tower vaguely in the swirling sand. It was still standing, but it was definitely leaning away from the sea. A crowd had gathered, foolishly, to watch.

The Gate of the Dead still held firm despite the battering wind, but the rain had loosened part of the old wall and John clambered up over the stones. The damage in the beautiful courtyards of the palace was a sad sight. Dead birds and flowers floated on the muddy water. Urns were overturned, the fountains choked with debris, and smashed light bulbs and electric wires swung dangerously.

“Khadija! Khadija,” John called as he waded through the water towards the summer kiosk. The guards seemed to have vanished, perhaps to stop people getting in from the
souk
.

The tower creaked ominously and it seemed to John, straining his eyes, that it shifted fractionally.

“Khadija! Where are you, Khadija?” There was desperation in his voice.

Then he saw her, in the main courtyard, sheltering upon some steps with a group of black-gowned, wailing women. She was drenched to the skin, the thin stuff of the silk trouser suit clinging to her slim figure, her hair dripping and bedraggled.

John did not know whether to be angry or relieved.

“Get out! Get out!” he shouted. “You’ll be killed if you stay there. That tower’s going to collapse any minute!”

Khadija looked round at the sound of his voice, and her face lit up with joy. She flung herself into the water and began wading towards him, her arms outstretched.

They clung together for a few moments, relief and desperation and love for each other too strong for words, their closeness saying all that was needed.

“You’ve got to get out of here quickly,” urged John.

“It’s my women,” said Khadija, hopelessly. “They won’t move. They were too frightened to go through the
souk
,
and now the guards have barricaded the main entrance against looters.”

“There’s the Gate of the Dead.”

“They won’t go through that!” Khadija explained. “They believe that only the dead go through it. Is-if is different, because she thinks that she is already partly dead because of her affliction.”

“They soon will be dead if they don’t move,” said John urgently. “Tell them that part of the wall is down and they can climb over.”

“I will tell them.”

Khadija hurried back to the terrified women and told them in Arabic of the new way to get out. She made them join hands so that the young ones could help the older women wade through the slippery water. She led the group through the courtyards, encouraging them to keep on and not to stop and wail.

John admired the way she was keeping a cool head.

But she had been prepared to stay, sheltering with them, comforting them; it was a horrifying thought.

He went first over the broken gap in the wall, and between them they pushed and pulled, urging the sobbing women to climb over and jump down. Some were heavy, mountainous old women and difficult to help in their voluminous wet clothing. Outside, too, they were not sheltered from the force of the
shammal
,
and John suddenly felt extraordinarily weary. It seemed unbelievable that this was still the same day; so much had happened. He was coming to the end of his stamina. He was so weary, even his bones ached.

Khadija, in her flapping trousers, could cope with the climb down on her own, but nevertheless held out her arms for his help. John groaned as Khadija’s small, sweet body pressed wetly against him. She was like a small, bedraggled animal.

“I don’t care whose baby you’re having,” he whispered. “I just want to look after you and care for you.”

Khadija stirred in his arms. “What baby?” she asked, surprised. “What are you saying?”

“No more games, no more tricks, please,” he pleaded wearily. “I know you’re going to have a baby. I know I’m not the father, and I don’t care who is. I’m going to marry you just the same, and look after you and the baby.”

Khadija looked up at him, her eyes full of sympathy. “Oh, my poor darling: Is that why you were so angry at the hospital? You thought I was going to have a baby?”

“Sheila told me.”

Khadija kept looking at John steadfastly. “Then this nurse Sheila should not jump so quickly to conclusions. The anguish of her heart has clouded the good judgement of her training.”

“What do you mean?” He shouted against the wind. He could hardly hear what Khadija was saying.

“Years ago when it was customary for a sheikh to have many wives and many concubines, it was the great fear of all the women that their master might tire of them, and they might be cast out or sent to work in the kitchens. If they suspected that he was becoming bored with their charms, they would secretly drink a brew of herbs and spices and then for a few months it would appear as if they were with child. The sheikh would be delighted because it proved again his virility, and the court physician was always old and easy to fool.”

“Do you mean”—John was astounded—“do you mean you took some dreadful concoction to make yourself appear pregnant?” Khadija nodded, her hair streaming across her face. “But why?”

“Is-if brought it to me. She knew where to obtain the recipe. It was a last resort to save me from marriage with Ahmed Karim. We knew that he would not marry me if he thought I was with child from you.”

“You might have poisoned yourself! You foolish girl. Oh, Khadija, to think I left you; I nearly lost you.”

John’s relief and joy were unbounded. He crushed the slight figure close to him.

“But you did not leave me,” said Khadija softly. “You came back for me, even though you believed I was with another man’s child. This is more precious to me than any poet’s words of love.”

There was a gasp from the crowd, and Khadija and John turned to look together. A crack had appeared in the wall of the northern face of the tower. The
shammal
,
which had begun to blow itself out, found one last furious gust to hurl against the weakened masonry. High above the swirling dust and sand, the tower appeared to sway.

The ornate cupola at the apex of the roof hung for an instant almost unsupported, its gold-leaf faded and weathered. Richly painted tiles loosened from it and fell, clattering. Suddenly, it toppled. The cupola plunged to the ground, followed by huge blocks of stone as the whole tower collapsed amid clouds of dust. Gilded fretwork flew into the air like matchsticks, and the marble pillars in the courtyard tumbled under the great weight of debris, rumbling and groaning in anguish.

Khadija hid her face against John.

“My mother’s room,” she wept.

John let her cry for the memory of the loyal Frenchwoman who had spent so many lonely hours in that room watching a sea that never changed.

He touched her dark hair gently. “Your mother’s prison,” he said.

He turned her away from the old palace and from her wailing women, their henna’d hands fluttering to Allah. They walked in the shadow of the pale terracotta walls, a flight of sea birds wheeling out of the rain-washed sky to chase the tail of the
shammal
as it raced madly across the empty desert to nowhere.

John cleared off the grinning urchins who were scrambling all over his jeep. They ran away, laughing and splashing each other. Then he cleared the mud off the windscreen and the front seat, and helped Khadija up. Their fingers locked, the pressure firm and real.

“Home, now,” said John.

“Home,” said Khadija.

To a new life, a new world for Khadija. She had gained what she had fought for: freedom—the freedom to live and love the man of her choice.

As he drove towards Walhid el Said, John noticed a bulky file tucked into the shelf beside the dashboard. It was the file of legal formalities for annulment and divorce which his mother had painstakingly obtained from her solicitor. He heaved the file out of the window; he would not be needing it after all.

The file fell open as it hit the swirling water, and an errant breeze scattered the foolscap sheets across the road. A speckly black and white goat stepped daintily over the stones, bleating, nodding its little pointed beard. It began to nibble at a closely typed sheet.

Well, it made a change from paper bags.

About the Author

Alexandra Thomas always knew that she wanted to write.
 
She left school at sixteen and became a cub reporter on a south London newspaper.
 
She got all the worst jobs but her chief reporter, Victor Davies, taught her how to write. She worked her way up and eventually became chief reporter, the first woman chief reporter, the youngest and the only one who was pregnant.

After two years spent in Doha, Qatar, with her growing family, writing about deserts and sheikhs, she returned to Surrey, England, winning a prestigious national woman’s magazine competition.

She is currently writing two books, one set in Venice and the other set in Bali, both places which she loves.

Her home is full of books and photos of cats as she has been rescuing homeless cats for years. She has just become president of the local operatic society.

Look for these titles by Alexandra Thomas

Now Available:

The Takamaka Tree

The Weeping Desert

Coming Soon:

Moon City

The island paradise would be perfect, if only she could remember her name…

The Takamaka Tree

© 2012 Alexandra Thomas

A mysterious woman…

Washing ashore on a tropical beach, she awakes to find herself with no memory of how she came to be there. Helpless and hurting, she is grateful that she is not alone.

A curious man…

Daniel, a scientist studying local bird migrations, discovers the mystery woman, and suspects that she may have been a passenger on a recently missing yacht. Now if he can only figure out who she is…

An island paradise…

Among the sand, sun, and verdant Takamaka trees, they both work to unravel the mystery of her arrival on the island…all while falling in love.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Takamaka Tree:

Her mouth was full of sand. Her first conscious thought was the unpleasant sensation of fine grit caking her tongue and teeth.