Ryshia Kennie - Desire In The Desert - Sheikh's Rule

To their left, an older man in a desert-sand-colored aselham, also called a djellaba, and the traditional, Berber, long-sleeved robe, led a donkey through a narrow alleyway that wound amid the squat houses and looked to go upward into the foothills and beyond.

It was pushing close to eleven o’clock and the hours before daylight stretched in front of them. The path became more narrow and steep. They navigated another set of primitive stairs as they moved higher, the darkness seeming to deepen and her breath catching as if it had become difficult to breathe. They stopped in front of one house. It was a sandstone-colored building, squat like the rest they’d passed in the last few minutes.

“Here,” Yuften said as he stepped through the arched doorway. He motioned with a flick of his right hand that they should follow. Inside, the room was small with soft blue plastered walls and an arched ceiling that made the area feel slightly less cramped.

Three children stared at them. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, their legs stretched out and their backs pressed to the wall. Kate doubted if the oldest could have been more than six. She guessed that they had been commanded to sit there, for it seemed too formal for a child. She also guessed that only the excitement of strangers visiting had them up this late.

A woman stood quietly just to the right of the doorway. Her hair was covered by a pink, embroidered veil that matched the gray and pink of her traditional robe. A strand of dark hair escaped the veil and her hands were clasped in front of her as she smiled, not looking at anyone but Yuften.

Yuften nodded to her, turned to Emir and said, “My wife, Saffiya.” Then he gestured with a sweep of his arm to a solid mahogany table with stubby legs that raised it only a few feet off the floor. He took a place on one side, sitting on a thick emerald-green rug that covered much of the floor. It was clear that they were to follow.

In the corner Kate could see just one chair, a rocking chair, painted orange. She wondered how that cultural anomaly had come to be or how the clash of colors seemed vibrant rather than odd. She turned her attention quickly away, for none of that had any relevance to what they needed to know now. What they needed was information that would bring them to Tara before it was too late.

“You had questions,” Yuften said, again in English.

Before they could answer, Saffiya entered the room with a silver teapot and poured them each a cup of tea.

The children giggled.

Yuften raised a hand in a flagging movement without turning around and the children were silent. On a ledge on either side of one wall, a trio of thick candles flickered, throwing shadows across the room.

“Atrar Tashfin—the man you asked about.” Yuften looked at them. “He was killed at the Marrakech airport? I can’t believe one of ours could be involved.” He shook his head. “Of course, he’d been gone a long time, but his father...” He put his teacup down. “How did it happen?”

“A gunfight with the authorities,” Emir said.

The explanation was a bit of a stretch, but they were here to get information not give it.

Yuften shook his head, a frown worrying his brow. “It’s too bad.” He looked at Emir. “Unless he was involved in your sister’s kidnapping. Then he had it coming.”

“Did you know him?” Emir asked.

Yuften shook his head. “He was here not quite yesterday. But I’d heard he’d gotten mixed up with others. Like I said earlier, thieves and murders.” He shook his head. “It’s all the same. One leads to the other.”

Kate frowned at that as Yuften continued.

“We didn’t talk long. But I have heard everything from the others he spoke to. He wanted nothing but money that we didn’t have. He stole from me and others...”

“How much?” Emir asked.

“Whatever we could give, but I doubt if he got much.” He shrugged. “No one is well off.” When he told them the amount that had been stolen from his home, he was right. It was equal to about twenty American dollars.

Their host touched Saffiya’s arm. She had sat beside him after the tea was poured. A silent exchange seemed to run between them and then Saffiya nodded and smiled. “Saffiya didn’t like him,” Yuften said with a nod to her.

He turned back to them. “He’d been away for a long time. Left for work before he was twenty and, when he returned, his parents were old and had died years before. He never came for their burials but he came now—for money.” Yuften shrugged. “He was angry, especially after he’d been here for a few days. My boy said he shoved him aside when he ran too near. A few days ago, when he did leave, he wasn’t alone. Four men arrived one day by Jeep—harassed some of our young girls—I had to step in. A few hours later I was glad to see they took him away with them.”

Kate glanced at Emir. “Five,” she murmured. That could mean there were only three left. Three men holding Tara. But, then again, it was only a guess.

Emir turned his attention to Yuften, who was now looking at his wife. Her lips were pinched.

“Saffiya thinks I should mind my own business. But...” Yuften hesitated. “You have come for information and I have promised you that.”

Saffiya shook her head, as if contradicting him, and leaned over to whisper something to him.

“She says that it could be one of our daughters, and that is true. Despite being Berber, he and the others are up to no good. There were rumors later that some of them had killed. Who or what, I don’t know. But I fear for the girl.”

“What are you saying?” Kate leaned forward, her shoulder brushing Emir’s and heat seemed to radiate between them as neither moved, neither pulled away.

“They had a woman with them. Her head and face were covered by a veil.”

He stopped and no one said anything, for a veil was not unusual.

“I didn’t get close but she didn’t seem to belong with them. Her clothes were different. She wasn’t one of us. She—” he said with a nod over his shoulder to Saffiya who, despite having stood, hovered by his side, as if to ensure that everything he said met with her approval “—has an eye for clothes. ‘City clothes’ she called them.”

It was clear that while Yuften was acting as if he was in charge of the household, Saffiya was the silent voice of command in this house. She nodded, her eyes gleaming with approval.

Kate leaned forward, her attention on their host. “How did they act toward her?”

Yuften frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.” He turned to Emir. “They left almost immediately. I didn’t have a good feeling about it, but there was nothing illegal, nothing...”

“Did the woman with them seem upset or distressed?” Kate asked.

Yuften shook his head and was about to speak when Saffiya interrupted him.

“This. Here.” Her English was fractured and unsure. “She said nothing but...” Saffiya pulled a colorful, beaded bracelet from her pocket. The bracelet was thin, the beads small, a combination of yellow, emerald-green and red, delicate and obviously old. “She dropped.” She whispered something to Yuften, who nodded.

“The woman tossed the bracelet to her.”

The expression on Emir’s face would have frightened Kate if she hadn’t come to know him in the intense hours they’d been together. His lips were tight and his dark eyes seemed to gleam with anger.

Yuften’s wife nodded as she clasped her hands and moved closer to him.

“It belonged to Tara,” Emir said, his lips tightening and his dark eyes pools of pain as he sat still for a minute. No one spoke. Finally he reached to take the bracelet. “She’s worn that bracelet since the day she received it. It was our mother’s and Tara took it after she died. It was small enough, the strand of beads, to go with any other piece of jewelry. She never took it off. I normally wouldn’t remember such a thing but Tara spoke of it often. She always said how it reminded her of Mother. It was as if in doing so she was making sure not just we, but she, never forgot.” He shook his head. “As if I ever could.”