Indira Jackson - Rayan - Son of the Desert

Yet all that he could do was to fight against these feelings. He hurt himself intentionally in these moments by recalling that he no longer was the son of a king, but an outcast, a homeless, a traitor even.

He should be glad that the world thought he was dead. He had witnessed how traitors were branded before they were exiled.

Those men, in the lowest position of the hierarchy, were fair game to everyone.

Therefore he decided he had to be more content and, even though it was a difficult thing to do, he just had to get off his high horse.

2014 – Just outside of Dubai – On to adventure

When the caravan finally took off, Hatem asked himself for the 100th time if he was doing the right thing: he told himself that he could refer to the necklace that the woman was wearing. Anyway, wasn’t he just doing His Excellency a great favour? In the end he would insure that the woman reached her target in a good condition.

He found the leader of the caravan immediately after their conversation the afternoon before and spoke to him. Initially the man categorically refused to take a woman, who was all alone, with him– let alone a foreigner, who did not understand the language! His responsibility was with the whole group, he just could not afford to have someone that did not understand his orders in case of an emergency. Consequently Hatem quickly got himself involved with the adventure by closing his shop and arranging preparations for both of them.

As Carina had hoped, he firmly believed in destiny and that the ways of Allah were strictly defined. He could not believe that their acquaintance was coincidence. Could he really be a tool of Allah? He did not go so far as blaspheming … And anyhow, what could be the worst that could happen? It was most likely that the Sheikh’s group would be long gone by the time they arrived.

After all they had 24 hours head-start and their caravan consisted of 300 camels, they would be much slower in comparison to the horses.

They met one hour before dawn in order to line up the long row of camels together with the other riders.

At least the woman seemed to know how to ride: it was obvious that this was not her first camel ride, a most reassuring sign! It took quite a while until everyone had found their place and lined up – and then they were off!

They were already outside the city and therefore it took them only minutes to find themselves within the open desert.

Whenever Rayan had some free time, he loved watching the soldiers on their exercises, especially the combat and weapon training.

He watched attentively in order to memorize as much as possible. Secretly, when he was unobserved, he mirrored what he had seen. As he had been trained by his father and the other warriors since he was very little, in all kinds of fighting techniques and weaponry, it was easy for him to learn the major part of the exercises just from watching. Then later he repeated them until the movements grew natural to him.

When it came to the weapons themselves, he had to manage with substitutes like sticks or stones. It was forbidden for native people to touch the weapons or to officially participate in the education.

From time to time the soldiers would make sarcastic comments, saying "look there is our little spy again, most likely he works for the sheikhs“ and "are you paying enough attention to see how it works?“ – "would you like to participate?“. There was one of them that even said to his comrades: "just wait a couple of weeks, then HE will show you how to do it right.“ And all of them were laughing loudly because they thought that was the most funny remark of them all.

In reality Rayan had quickly found out that the majority of the men did the training out of boredom or just because they had to. There was rarely any good fighters amongst them.

Most of them he would have overcome in spite of his young age or maybe just because of it, as in comparison to them he was burning with eagerness.

It was a completely different story with the training of the Special Forces though. They were deadly serious. They did not allow spectators and he had to be careful not to get caught.

Special Forces like that were the result of the First Gulf War between Iran and Iraq. They were put in place after some rioting in several remote areas, so they were able to have specifically trained troops in place right where needed in case of emergency.

One day when Rayan was getting away from one of the lieutenants he met Clara.

He had already seen her from a distance, especially on Sundays when she was on her way to the base’s church.

She was a tall, gawky girl, much too tall for her own liking. With 1,85 m she towered over all the other young women and, more awkward still, over most of the boys as well.

Additionally to being so tall she was thin. She was wearing her shining brown-reddish hair at shoulder length that she mostly braided backwards with a silver clip, which intensified her austere impression.

Rayan knew that she was the daughter of the base’s general and because he did not find her very attractive, he preferred to stay away from her.

However, that changed entirely that day: he had just slipped into the next building, a storage room, to escape from the angry lieutenant at his heels, when all of a sudden she was standing right in front of him. It was as if she had appeared out of thin air.

"You are Yasin“, she stated matter-of-factly and looked him over with her mocking pale blue eyes.

"Yes“, he replied and wanted to turn around to get away. "I am Clara and I have watched you.“ "So what?“, he asked grumpily. He did not like the fact that of all people the daughter of the general showed an interest in him.

He was used to girls watching him and if he liked them as well, he was never reluctant to a flirt. However, from this young lady he wanted to abscond as fast as possible.

In that moment she said: "You study the soldiers on their training and like that you learn. I watched you repeating the exercises. Which by the way are very impressive …“

Rayan was alarmed. He felt caught. This could cause him a lot of trouble. And trouble as well as attention were the last two things that he needed. "Don’t worry, I am not going to squeal on you. I am not allowed to participate in anything around here either. It’s a man’s world! Pah! I am 17 years old and waste away my life on this base, which is in the middle of nowhere… Listen! I want to propose a deal to you: you teach me some of your tricks and I help you to improve your English.“

At first he hesitated but Clara made it clear to him - not really in a charming way - that he had no choice.

And just like that a deep friendship grew out of a little blackmail.

It was strange for Rayan to have a female friend. Most likely because of his young age, all he had been interested in so far was sex when it came to relationships with women.

From childhood onwards, the girls from his tribe grew up separately. They did not participate in the boys’ exercises and their education was also separate. Did they even have classes? If he was honest, he had never cared about it.

Furthermore he had left Zarifa at the age of 13 and therefore had not really had the chance to become interested in the girls from his tribe or their habits.

Clara was so different. Most of all she was emancipated.

God forbid that he should say she was not able to do an exercise because she was a woman. If he did she would get very angry, which he realised made her look really pretty.

However, above all he liked that Clara Tanner was highly intelligent. Through the position of her father she had access to a lot of papers and books, which he devoured with her.