ALEXANDRA SELLERS - The Solitary Sheikh

She was prepared for a rebuff, but instead he fixed her with a look of surprise. “Will you have time?”

They had agreed that, as well as teaching the princesses to read English in formal lessons, she would supervise them at certain other times, so that they would learn spoken English as a part of their daily lives. But it still didn’t amount to a full working schedule. “I suppose it depends on when you’re free. We would have to organize it for times when the princesses are at other lessons or something.”

“Yes,” Prince Omar said slowly. “Yes, this is an idea I shall consider. Thank you.”

“Didn’t you have such an arrangement with previous English teachers?” Jana asked in surprise.

“No.”

He was looking stiff and kingly all of a sudden, but she had seen behind that facade, however briefly, and she wouldn’t let it put her off so easily “Do you mean they refused?”

“The subject was never mentioned.” He paused. “Only with you.”

In the curious way that sometimes happens, the words rang with significance. The silence was broken only by the droning of the plane’s engines as they looked at each other. Jana’s heart pounded in her ears. “I see,” she said at last, for something to say.

Just then Ashraf Durran came up to the prince, and a minute later Jana was back in her own seat, trying to figure out what, if anything, had just happened between her and Prince Omar.

At the airport in Barakat al Barakat, the party was met at the aircraft by limousines. Everyone stood around calling and shouting for a few moments, organizing the stowing of a mountain of baggage, and as Jana stood waiting by the car she had been directed to, she noticed that Prince Omar slipped away from the group and went striding across the tarmac alone. She watched him for a moment, until he arrived at a helicopter parked some distance away and began to check it over in a very professional manner.

As the convoy of cars pulled away, she heard the beating of metal wings, and watched out the window as the helicopter slid by above their heads and headed out over the desert.

The palace looked as though a genie had just responded to her wish for a magic castle. Arches, minarets, terraces, domes—all in white, blue and terra cotta—seemed to cascade down the sides of the rocky rise on which it sat, brooding over the city. The late sun was throwing a golden mantle over the whole horizon, and the desert glowed.

Behind, palace and city were encircled by the magnificent snow-peaked mountains that, in the distance, curled around the broad desert plain from north to east.

Jana rubbed her eyes and looked again. It hardly seemed possible that this would be her home for the next year—or more. She had spent ten years in the shadow of the Canadian Rockies, but this scenery was harsher and far more rugged. Not so picture-postcard scenic, but every bit as stunning to the senses.

She saw a helicopter landing pad as they swept up the curving drive to stop at the palace, but no sign of the black helicopter. Ashraf Durran came over and asked her to identify her bags, and a few minutes later, as they followed the servant leading them to her room, she took the opportunity to say as casually as she could, “Prince Omar did not return to the palace?”

“Ah, no. He had.. other business to attend to. He will be away a matter of a few days, perhaps.”

So he had not troubled to stay and introduce the new English teacher to his daughters. It was ridiculous to feel disappointed, and of course she didn’t. But she found herself wondering where he had gone.

Her “room” turned out to be a beautiful apartment with a wide terrace looking east out over the desert. On her left, far away, the mountain range curved protectively around the desert; on the right she had a glimpse of the city and of a long, rushing, sparkling river.

The rooms were full of what seemed to Jana magnificent pieces of Oriental art: carpets and bronze jugs and miniature paintings and beautifully carved furniture and openwork shutters. Ashraf Durran introduced her to the woman waiting there.

“This is your personal servant, Salimah. She speaks English. Salimah, this is Miss Stewart.”

“Hi,” said Jana, as Salimah bowed and murmured more formal greetings.

“Salimah will help you unpack. Is there anything else I can do for you at the moment?”

“I would like to meet the princesses,” Jana said. She would not meet the other tutors for several weeks. The princesses normally had a long summer holiday while the tutors returned to their homes.

He lifted one hand and smiled. “Salimah also will arrange that. If you wish, she will show you around the palace. But first, perhaps, you would like a cup of tea or coffee or other refreshments. I leave you in good hands, Miss Stewart.”

With that, he bowed and was gone, his air an indescribable mixture of formality, humility, and arrogant nobility that left her breathless.

When the door closed behind him, Salimah smiled. “Shall I help you unpack?” she asked, leading a resistless Jana through a broad doorway into the bedroom, where a huge double four-poster bed was draped with beautiful greens and blues, and a magnificent wardrobe was covered in the tiniest mosaic work Jana had ever seen.

An hour later, having unpacked, showered and drunk a deliciously cool fruit drink, Jana told Salimah, “I would like to meet Masha and Kamala now.”

Salimah bowed. “Yes, Miss. I will take you to their nurse.”

She led Jana through such a series of halls and rooms that Jana thought she would never find her way unguided. She noticed the curious fact that, like the stately homes of so many of her parents’ friends, there were discoloured rectangles on the walls. Several of the glass-fronted cabinets that mostly held antiques and treasures were empty, too, or had empty spaces where something had once lain.

In Britain the cause was always the same—death duties that forced the sale of family heirlooms. She wondered what had put Prince Omar under financial pressure.

“But where are the princesses’. rooms?” she asked, as they turned yet another corner.

“They are beside their nurse’s room, of course.”

Beside the nurse’s, but a mile from the English teacher’s. Jana raised her eyebrows over the arrangement, but Salimah was not the person to argue the matter with.

Umm Hamzah, the old woman who, Salimah explained, had been the personal servant of the princesses’ mother and was now their “nurse,” was a short, stocky, dark-skinned woman with thick, grizzled grey hair hanging in a braid down her back, a wide unsmiling face, and dark suspicious eyes. She had about half her teeth remaining, and her wrinkled face had seen the burning sun of many, many summers.

She greeted Jana in Arabic, and then explained through Salimah why it was not possible just at this moment for her to meet the princesses. Later it would certainly be more convenient.

Jana nodded. “Where are the princesses now?”

“I think they are having a bath, Miss,” said Salimah uncomfortably.

Jana smiled at Umm Hamzah and asked exactly when she should return.

“Someone will bring the princesses to your room later, Miss,” Salimah translated.

But no one brought the princesses to her room later. Jana was served a delicious dinner in her apartment, watched the sun’s rays fade and the sky darken, watched the lights of the city come on, watched the fat, heavy moon rise and sparkle on the dark river, and went to bed with a book.

For two more days it was not “convenient” for Jana to meet the princesses. Salimah grew more abashed and embarrassed with each-explanation, and the old nurse less voluble, as if victory in this senseless battle made her less and less polite.