Call of the Trumpet (28 page)

A
LL NIGHT THE WIND HOWLED AND WHINED.
Eddies of sand blew in beneath the tent walls, coating everything with a fine layer of dust. Turfa had curled at Cecile’s side, but she barely noticed the dog. She lay on her back, her hands lightly touching the jut of her hip bones, and stared into the darkness. Strangely, she felt calm. Her thoughts were still, and the ache in her heart had numbed. She did not question.

Once again he had called Aza to him, but Cecile did not creep to the partition to spy on them. She knew what she would see. Smiling into the darkness, she slept.

The
Shamal
had dropped during the night. Come dawn it was only a dry, hot breeze. The camp was struck, loaded, and on the move once more.

Hagar noted the change in Cecile almost at once but said nothing. The time for words was past. She merely wondered what had happened yesterday when the two had rode off into the desert together. In the evening when Jali had visited, he had told her he’d seen them return, covered with sand, their horses lathered with sweat. The conclusion Hagar’s mind wanted to draw was obvious, for which reason she rejected it. Between El Faris and Al Dhiba nothing was obvious. She sighed.

In a little over a week they would reach the coast. Many of El Faris’s people would leave him then, to linger near the desert until the coming of winter, and he would go on to Oman, a journey of three more weeks.

Hagar wondered what she herself would do. It was no longer clear in her mind. She wanted to see what was going to happen between El Faris and the she-wolf he had so aptly named. She smiled.

Al Dhiba was noble, brave, and, like the wolf, cunning. Perhaps more than she knew. She would, indeed, protect what was hers. She would claim it when she realized it was hers, and woe be to a rival! For, unlike other animals, the she-wolf mated exclusively. She would brook no competition. Hagar almost pitied Aza, “little dear one.”

Furthermore, she did not think she would have to travel all the way to Oman to see what would transpire. The tension was nearly palpable. It must break soon.

Early in the afternoon the
Shamal
returned. Word was passed through the caravan that they would continue on forced march all that day and the next. There was a good well ahead, and there they would camp for at least two nights. Both water and supplies were running low. The men would hunt while the women foraged in the desert for its sparse fruits.

Cecile was glad of the news. She bore the extended travel stoically, welcoming the fatigue it brought. When they camped for the night, she did not even bother to search for Aza, but lay her sleeping quilt at Hagar’s side. The old woman did not protest. Normal life had been suspended.

At the end of the second day, they came to the well. It was protected, the dunes soaring around them, bringing some relief from the raging
Shamal.
Camp was pitched, the animals watered, and routine resumed.

It had been difficult raising their tent in the wind. Tiny Aza was out of breath, her features glistening with moisture by the time they had finished. Cecile was filled with restless energy.

They sat together in their quarters. While Aza prepared the fire, Cecile spread their quilts. The younger girl smiled at her. “Thank you, Al Dhiba,” she said. “With two of us, the work is light, is it not? We are spoiled, I think.” She giggled and gestured around her. “Look at all our husband has given us. Tonight with the last of our stores, I shall cook him a special dinner.”

Cecile said nothing, merely nodded. She rose. “There is something I’ve forgotten,” she said in response to Aza’s questioning gaze. “I must get it from Hagar’s tent.”

The old woman looked up in surprise when Cecile entered. She arched her brows but remained silent.

Cecile smiled. “I have come for the rest of my things,” she said simply.

Hagar nodded toward the
qash.
“Go ahead,” she replied evenly. “The things I have given you are yours to keep. It is right you take them … now.”

Cecile knelt and swiftly made a bundle of the
towb, makruna,
and jacket. At Hagar’s bidding, she included the sliver of mirror and the coral necklace.

“Go now,” Hagar directed, “and properly enter your husband’s tent.”

Biting her lip, Cecile held back the too-quick reply. She was all action now, not thought. She took her things and left.

Aza watched Cecile carefully fold the items away in her box. She was pleased when Al Dhiba then brought forth a brand-new
towb
and
makruna.
She laughed happily when the copper jewelry followed, and clapped her tiny hands. “Oh,” she sighed. “You will look so beautiful. Our husband will be so glad!”

Cecile merely looked at her. She picked up a water skin and solemnly left the tent.

Aza was puzzled when Cecile returned, sat in the middle of the carpet, and disrobed. Puzzlement turned to shock when Cecile took a soft, clean cloth, wet it, and proceeded to wash.

Aza’s heart constricted, though she bravely endeavored to hide her emotion. A Badawin woman only bathed this way when she had lain with her husband. Is that what had passed between El Faris and Al Dhiba when they had ridden into the desert together?

It was ignoble, she knew, but jealousy stabbed at her heart. Is this why her husband had slept with, but not taken, her since their wedding night? Had he longed for Al Dhiba? If he had, why had he not simply called Al Dhiba to his bed? It was the Badawin way.

No matter how hard she tried, Aza could decide on no explanation for the apparent turn of events. El Faris and Al Dhiba had made love together, or they had not. Either way, she consoled herself, they would soon reach the coast and Al Dhiba would leave them. This she was sure of, for there had been no word to the contrary from either Al Dhiba or their husband. Soon, yes, Al Dhiba would be gone.

Yet Aza was not comforted. Especially when she viewed the results of Al Dhiba’s ablutions.

Clean at last, Cecile dressed in the new
towb.
Her flesh tingled as the soft material slid down over her body. She cinched her waist with the red belt and sat down to attend to her hair.

It was clean but for the sand that clung to it. She untied her braids and brushed until her hair shone and crackled beneath her fingers. Then she deftly refashioned the plaits and wound the new
makruna
around her head. She fastened the earrings through her ears and slipped the bracelets over her hands. Badawin style, she pushed two above each elbow and let the rest clink at her wrists just below the fall of the wide, full sleeves.

“You are very beautiful,” Aza offered generously, and sighed. She took a long, shivering breath, held it briefly, and said, “I would be honored if you … if you would take our husband’s dinner to him this night.”

Aza was not quite sure what she felt when Al Dhiba declined. Many things. Which she was left to ponder alone when the other turned and strode from the tent.

Dawn of the following day the hunters rode into the desert with laden-packed camels, as well as horses, for they would have to ride far to find game. It was a small band only, led by El Faris. The women spread out across the dunes, searching for their own contributions to the dwindling stores.

Aza and Cecile set out together, though the younger girl was now oddly uneasy in the other’s presence. Aza glanced at Al Dhiba and remembered what had occurred the previous night.

Nothing actually, or so it had appeared on the surface. Al Dhiba had returned shortly after she had left, apparently to obtain more goat-hair thread from Hagar. Then she had sat at her loom and calmly proceeded to weave for the rest of the afternoon.

Yet there was tension in the air. Aza had felt it. By the time their husband had come to the tent at dusk, it was almost unendurable.

She had expected something to happen then, but it had not. He had looked in on them, and had noted Al Dhiba’s appearance, she could tell. Aza had seen the barely perceptible widening of his eyes, the look of approval. But he had said nothing, acknowledging Al Dhiba’s beauty with the scarcest of nods.

Aza had feared Al Dhiba would be offended. But she had not appeared to be. Serene, she had resumed her weaving.

When night fell and they had crawled into their quilts, Aza had lain trembling. Would he call for Al Dhiba now? she wondered. Was that the reason for the unabated tension? Was it what all three of them had seemed to have been waiting for?

But no, he had not called. To either of them. Aza did not know what was happening, and she was frightened.

Now, in an effort to ease her discomfort, she approached Cecile and shyly touched her hand. “Come,” she said. “This way, I will show you how to hunt for that which grows beneath the sand.”

Cecile nodded, having wrapped the end of the
makruna
across her nose and mouth. The wind whipped her skirt, and sand swirled about her ankles as she followed Aza to the base of a nearby dune.

Only a pitiful, straggling growth marked the treasure hidden beneath the ground. Aza dug in the sand and triumphantly extracted a bulb. “This is at-tita,” she explained. “From it we will make a dish called
mutita
.”

The explanations and discoveries continued. Cecile was amazed at how much could be found on the desert when one looked. Besides the
at-tita
they gathered
tel,
the dark red fruit of a thorny shrub which would be boiled into thick syrup, and they collected the sweet fragrant juice of the
rimt
shrub.

The steadily blowing
Shamal
forced them inside finally, to shake the sand from their clothes and breathe a little easier for a time. For the remainder of the day, they made bread,
hamida,
and reconstituted
leben
from the store of
igt.
They also made a fresh supply of date paste and a thin gruel consisting of ground wheat, water, and salt. The
tel
syrup would be poured on top.

“And by tomorrow afternoon,” Aza said, “if the hunters have been lucky, we will have fresh meat.”

Cecile looked up. “They return tomorrow? Are you certain?”

“This is what our husband said. He does not wish to be gone from camp too long. They will try to return by midday on the morrow, before the hours when the
Shamal
blows its fiercest.”

Cecile nodded slowly, absently, the idea only half-formed. She wasn’t even sure where it had come from, or what would happen if she carried through with it. The reality of it seemed far off yet. She knew only that it was something she must do. The urge was as unremitting, as hotly insistent as the unending desert wind.