Dan Fesperman - Layover in Dubai

His father had bought the birds at a dear price from a desert trader. He gave one to Sharaf, who was supposed to keep the bird with him morning, noon, and night, in order to properly feed and train it. Sharaf’s tutors were delighted. Sharaf wasn’t. Going to sleep with a bird of prey in your bedroom was downright creepy. It preened and fretted, and its little leather hood made it look like it was awaiting execution.

When the time came for the royal hunt, Sharaf accompanied his father and their four birds. They rode in the back of a Range Rover, one of three vehicles in a royal procession packed with two dozen men and boys. They drove for hours, deep into the desert. That evening Sharaf watched in fascination as Sheikh Rashid’s men set up the encampment-an oval of tents with a surrounding screen of palm fronds, to keep out the wind, the snakes, and the scorpions. They put a fire ring in the middle, along with a giant kettle.

Sharaf slept in a tent with two of Sheikh Rashid’s younger sons and their friends. They were welcoming enough, but were several years older, and he would have felt lost if not for Daoud, who was his own age and also an outlier of sorts. Daoud’s father was the hunting party’s Bedouin tracker and guide.

In the morning, after prayers and breakfast, everyone stood at the ready, birds on their arms. Sharaf remembered his father looking particularly proud, although he had already heard some of the other men making fun of the names his father had given their birds. Sharaf had expected nonstop action, but the hunt evolved slowly as the sun climbed above the dunes. It was a painstaking process of stalking and waiting while Daoud’s father searched the sand for fresh footprints of the elusive houbara.

After a fruitless few hours, Sharaf’s father, thinking he knew better, released all four of their birds anyway to go search for prey on their own. Sharaf was surprised to feel a tug of sorrow as he watched his own bird disappear over the horizon. Half an hour later, Daoud’s father found a promising set of tracks, and sent the rest of the birds off in the opposite direction from the Sharaf falcons. Even then, success wasn’t guaranteed. In all, the hunters released more than forty birds, and by day’s end nine hadn’t returned, including one of Sheikh Rashid’s. It was apparently common for some of the falcons to lose their way over the vastness of the desert.

But no one fared as poorly as the Sharafs, who lost all four birds. For the moment at least, tact prevailed, and no one else remarked on it. His father brooded nonetheless, especially as some of the falcons returned with a dozen houbara for the cook fire. To make sure Sheikh Rashid’s guests had plenty to eat, the cook had also bargained with a passing herdsman for a pair of goats. The meal was outstanding after the long and tiring day, and Sharaf began to hope that the evening might pass without further humiliation.

Then the coffee was brewed, the smoking pipes came out, and tongues began to loosen. The fireside circle enjoyed much hearty laughter, and increasingly the levity came at his father’s expense. Sharaf wasn’t sure what was more horrifying-having his father be the butt of everyone’s jokes or watching the man’s anger build to a combustible level behind a stoical mask of gathering scorn. Among the boys, only Daoud managed to subdue his laughter, a display of solidarity that won Sharaf’s loyalty forever.

Events reached a climax when one of the men unwisely asked, “What will you hunt with tomorrow, Mahmoud Sharaf, your son? Will you fling him into the sky on a string?”

His father stood amid the fresh gale of laughter. Sharaf braced for the worst.

“Actually, I will not hunt at all tomorrow. My plan is to leave this party altogether at first light, as soon as prayers are over. Even if it means I have to walk every step of the way, with no coffee and no breakfast.”

The declaration was a colossal insult to the hospitality of their royal host. Some of the men gasped. The rest were silent, and many looked away. No one dared glance at Sheikh Rashid, but everyone was waiting for his reaction.

The sheikh did not lash out. He did not even rise from his seat. He instead handled the situation as only as a natural leader of many peoples and tribes could have managed. Sharaf couldn’t recall Rashid’s exact words, only that he began by making an offhand remark that made light of the entire proceeding. It signaled that he was not offended, and that he was willing to dismiss the intemperate outburst as a harmless release of steam.

This still left hanging the question of what his father would do the following morning. Would he stand around, birdless and humiliated? Or would he stalk away in a huff, as threatened? Sheikh Rashid solved that problem, too.

“You know,” he said, “my driver came out here tonight, as I always require, to bring me the daily news from the city.” Indeed, everyone straggling back from the hunt had noticed his vintage car parked by the tents.

“Well, as it happens, I am told that prices in the souk have begun to rise quite a bit in our absence. It has made me feel very guilty on behalf of the two merchants in our party. For that reason, I am begging them both to accept an offer of transportation in my car back to the city in the morning, so that they may safely attend to their business interests without missing out on the bountiful opportunity of the moment.”

It not only gave Sharaf’s father a graceful way out, it softened the landing by including a second man among the departures, a noted tea merchant. Sharaf remembered that Daoud nodded to him from across the campfire, as if to say, yes, this is how a great man should operate, not in vengeance but in reconciliation.

From the floor in the back of the Camry, Sam Keller spoke up after a long silence. His voice came up through the driver’s seat like that of a hidden radio, which only added to the sense that the fellow had been reading Sharaf’s mind:

“How did you get to know Daoud?”

Sharaf, momentarily startled, said nothing at first. He saw by the dashboard clock that nearly half an hour had passed.

“From an old hunting party,” he said at last. “Our encampment was not very far from where the body was found. It was long ago.”

A pause, several beats.

“A hunting party?” Keller prompted.

“With falcons. It is a complicated story.”

Sharaf’s cheeks burned with embarrassment at the mere thought of telling it to Keller. He had felt similarly embarrassed during the long ride back to town in Sheikh Rashid’s car. The lone benefit of the hunting trip was that he saw Daoud several more times that year, when the boy accompanied his father to town to sell firewood.

They remained friends, and when Sharaf became a policeman he stayed in touch by relaying advance warnings of any coming decrees or edicts that might affect life in the hinterlands. Daoud reciprocated with news of interest to a detective, just as he had done that morning. If the body had been the victim of some tribal dispute or Bedouin feud, Sharaf doubted Daoud ever would have called. But a foreign victim had clearly been the result of some bad business in the city.

Traffic was picking up. As they neared the huge ten-lane beltway on the outskirts of the city, the desert highway widened to four lanes, then six. It was then that Sharaf came up with the solution to their predicament.

“I have decided your destination,” he announced. “You will stay at my house. Under the circumstances, it is the only practical choice. But I must ask you to remain out of sight until we have reached it.”

“Your house?” Keller’s tone was uncertain.

“I can assure your complete comfort there. I have a family. And it will only be temporary. Perhaps only a single night.”