The Exile Kiss (12 page)

He got to his feet and angrily threw the china coffee cup to the ground, where it shattered into scattered frag-ments. I saw Hassanein wince. "I've mentioned nothing to you about that," he said.
"Look elsewhere for your murderer, O Shaykh," said bin Musaid fiercely. "Look to your guest here, the infidel from the city. Maybe only he and Allah know the truth." He turned and strode off across the camp, disappearing into his own black tent.
I waited for Hassanein to speak. Several minutes passed, and he just sat outside his tent with a sour expres-sion, as if he'd just tasted something rotten. Then, when my patience was about ended, he let out his breath in a heavy sigh. "We've learned nothing," he said sadly. "Nothing at all. We must begin again."
He got slowly to his feet, and I joined him. We crossed to where Hilal and bin Turki were digging in the ground. "A little deeper yet, O excellent ones," said Has-sanein. "But when you've dug the grave, don't lay the poor girl in it."
"We should bury her soon," said bin Turki, looking up and shading his eyes with his hand. "The noble Qur'an—"
Hassanein nodded. "She'll be laid to rest before sun-set, as the Wise Mention of God prescribes. But do not lower her into the ground until I tell you."
"Yes, O Shaykh," said Hilal. He glanced at bin Turki, who just shrugged. None of us had any idea what Has-sanein had in mind.
"In the Hadhramaut, which is the shaykhdom in the heel of the boot of Arabia," said Hassanein, "a murderer is sometimes made to undergo a trial by fire. Of course, that's all superstition, and the value of such an ordeal is only as great as the belief in its power."
I saw that he was leading me out of the camp, toward the herd of camels. Young boys had scrambled up into the
ghaf
trees that grew in the narrow valleys between the dunes. They'd cut loose the tops of the trees, and the camels were grazing contentedly on the vegetation.
Hassanein continued with his story of justice in the Hadhramaut. "The ceremony always takes place in the morning, after the dawn prayers. The master of ordeals assembles the accused killer, the witnesses, the victim's family, and anyone else who has an interest in the matter. The master uses a knife blade which has been heated in a fire. When he. decides that the knife is sufficiently hot, he makes the accused man open his mouth and stick out his tongue. The master wraps his own hand in his
keffiya,
and grasps the accused man's tongue. With his other hand, he takes hold of the fiery knife and strikes the man's tongue, first with one flat side and then the other."
"What's the point of that?" I asked.
Hassanein went to his favorite camel and patted her neck. "If the man is innocent, he'll be able to spit right then and there. The master usually gives him a couple of hours' grace, though. Then the accused man's tongue is examined. If it looks badly burned, then he's judged guilty. He'll be executed immediately, unless the victim's family accepts a reasonable blood-price. If there's no sign of burns, or only minor discoloration, the man is declared innocent and given his freedom."
I wondered what the shaykh was up to. He'd couched the camel and had begun saddling her. "And that's not the custom among the Bani Salim?"
Hassanein laughed. "We're not superstitious like the wild men of the Hadhramaut."
I thought the Bani Salim were plenty superstitious, but I didn't think it was wise to say anything. "Are you going on a journey?" I asked.
"No," said Hassanein. He threw two palm-fiber pads on the camel's back behind the hump, and then laid the wooden frame of his saddle over them. He tied the frame securely in place over the beast's withers, in front of the hump. Next he put a thick palm-fiber pad over the wooden frame, fitting it behind the hump and tying it with a string. This pad rose up high in the rear, and made a kind of uncomfortable backrest. Next, Hassanein draped a blanket over the pad, and then a heavy sheepskin over the blanket. He used stout woolen cords to hold every-thing firmly in place.
"Good," he said, stepping back and examining his handiwork. He grasped the camel's head rope, got her to stand up, and led her back into the middle of the camp.
"Do you know who the murderer is?" I asked.
"Not yet, but soon," he said. "I once listened to a man in Salala talk about how criminals are caught and pun-ished in other countries." He shook his head ruefully. "I didn't think I'd ever need to try one of those methods."
"You're going to use this camel?"
He nodded. "You know, the Arabs aren't the only shrewd and clever people in the world. Sometimes I think our pride gets in the way of adopting ideas that might truly help us."
He brought the camel right up to the edge of the grave, where Hilal and bin Turki were scrambling up out of the hole. "I need the help of all three of you," said the shaykh, couching the camel again. He indicated the cloak-covered body of Noora.
"You want to put her in the saddle?" asked Hilal.
"Yes," said Hassanein. The three of us looked at each other, and then at the shaykh, but we bent and helped him lift the dead girl into place. He used some mote cords to tie her securely, so that she wouldn't fall to the ground when the camel stood up. I didn't know what he was up to, but I thought it was pretty bizarre.
"Get up, Ata Allah," Hassanein murmured. His camel's name was "God's Gift." He gave her a little more urging and she complained, but slowly she rocked to her feet. The shaykh pulled on her head rope and began lead-ing her around the broad circumference of the camp, be-yond all the tents.
Hilal, bin Turki, and I watched in astonishment as Hassanein led the camel away. "Is this some custom of the Bani Salim?" I asked. "Like a moving wake, where the relatives stay in one place and the corpse does the travel-ing?"
"No," said bin Turki, frowning, "I've never seen the shaykh behave like this. Maybe he's been driven
mad by the murder of his niece."
"Are there a lot of murders among the Bedu?" I asked.
The two young men looked at each other and shrugged. "As common as anywhere else, I guess," said bin Turki. "One tribe raids another, and men die. Blood must be avenged, and feuds begin. Sometimes the feuds last for years, decades, even generations."
"But there's rarely murder within a tribe, like this," said Hilal. "This is unnatural."
Hassanein called back over his shoulder. "Come, Shaykh Marid, walk with me!"
"I don't understand what he's doing," said Hilal.
"I think he expects to figure out who the murderer is this way," I said. "I can't imagine how." I hurried after Ata Allah and her macabre burden.
By now, many of the Bani Salim were standing outside their tents, pointing at Hassanein and the camel. "My baby! My child!" shrieked Noora's mother. The woman flung herself away from her husband's grasp and ran stumbling in the path of the camel. She shouted prayers and accusations until she collapsed in tears to the ground. Nasheeb went to her and tried to help her to her feet, but she would not be comforted. Noora's father stared down dumbly at his wife, then up at the bundled figure of his daughter. He didn't seem to know exactly what was going on.
Suleiman bin Sharif cut across the camp and inter-cepted us. "What are you doing? This is disgraceful!" he said.
"Please, O excellent one," said Hassanein, "you must trust me."
"Tell me what you're doing," bin Sharif demanded.
"I'm making sure everyone knows what happened to Noora, the light of our days."
"But there isn't anyone in the tribe who hasn't heard the news," said bin Sharif.
"Hearing the news is one thing. Seeing the truth is another."
Bin Sharif threw his hands up in disgust, and let the shaykh lead the camel on around the circle.
We came abreast of Umm Rashid's tent, and the old woman just shook her head. Her husband, who was in-deed far too old to be dallying with any woman, poked his head out of the tent and whined to be fed. Umm Rashid mouthed a prayer in Noora's direction, then went inside.
When we'd gotten three-quarters of the way around, I saw that Ibrahim bin Musaid was watching us with an expression of absolute hatred. He stood like a statue carved from sandstone, turning only his head a little as we drew nearer. He said nothing as we passed him and came again to the grave Hilal and bin Turki had carved into the desert floor.
"Is it time to bury her now, O Shaykh?" I asked.
"Watch and learn," said Hassanein.
Instead of stopping, he led Ata Allah past the grave and started a second perambulation of the camp. A loud sigh went up from the Bani Salim who were watching us, who were just as bewildered as I was.
Noora's mother stood beside our path and shouted curses at us. "Son of a dog!" she cried, hurling handfuls of sand at Hassanein. "May your house be destroyed! Why won't you let my daughter have peace?"
I felt sorry for her, but Hassanein just went on, his face empty of expression. I didn't know what his reason-ing was, but it seemed to me that he was being unneces-sarily cruel. Nasheeb still stood silently beside his wife. He seemed to be more aware now of what was happening around him.
Bin Sharif had had a while to think about what Has-sanein was doing. He'd lost some of the edge of his anger. "You're a wise man, O Shaykh," he said. "You've proved that over the years, leading the Bani Salim with a sure and equitable hand. I defer to your knowledge and experi-ence, but I still think what you are doing is an affront to the dead."
Hassanein stopped and went to bin Sharif. He put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Perhaps someday you'll be shaykh of this tribe," he said. "Then you'll un-derstand the agony of leadership. You're right, though. What I'm doing is an unkindness to my sweet niece, but it must be done.
Ham kitab,"
That meant "It is written." It didn't really explain anything, but it cut off bin Sharif s argument.
Bin Sharif looked into the shaykh's eyes, and finally his gaze turned down to the ground. As we took up our pro-gress again, I saw that the young man had begun walking back to his tent with a thoughtful expression on his face. I hadn't had much opportunity to talk with him, but I'd gotten the impression that he was an intelligent, serious young man. If Hassanein were correct and bin Sharif would someday succeed him, I guessed that the Bani Salim would remain in very capable hands.
I just stared ahead, a little unhappy about being part of this strange procession. It was another typical day in the Empty Quarter, and the hot wind blew sand into my face until I was grumbling under my breath. I'd had just about enough of all this; and despite what Friedlander Bey thought, I didn't find the Bedu way of life romantic in the least. It was hard and dirty and entirely without plea-sure, as far as I was concerned, and they were welcome to it. I prayed that Allah would let me get back to the city soon, because it had become very obvious to me that I would never make a very good nomad.
Along the last part of the loop, bin Musaid was still watching us with hooded eyes. He stood in the same place as before, his arms folded across his chest. He hadn't said a word and he hadn't moved an inch. I could almost see him trembling with the effort to keep himself under con-trol. He looked as if he were ready to explode. I didn't want to be near him when he did.
"Enough, O Shaykh?" said bin Turki as we drew abreast of the grave. Already it was beginning to fill in with fine sand blown across the desert floor.
Hassanein shook his head. "Another circle," he said. My heart sank.
"Will you explain what you're doing, O Shaykh?" I said.
Hassanein looked toward me, but his gaze was over my head, into the distance. "There were people on the back of the world," he said in a tired voice. "People as poor as we, who also led lives of wandering and hardship. When one of their tribe was killed, the elders carried the corpse around their camp five or six times. The first time, everyone in the tribe stopped hatever they were doing to watch, and they joined together in mourning the unfor-tunate victim. The second time, half the tribe watched. The third time, only a few people were still interested. By the fifth or sixth time, there was only one person who was still paying close attention to the progress of the body, and that was the killer himself."
I looked around the camp area, and I saw that almost everyone had gone back to his chores. Even though a popular young woman had died that morning, there was still hard work that had to be done, or there would be no food or water for the Bani Salim or for their animals.
We led Ata Allah slowly around the circle, with only bin Musaid and a few others observing our progress. Noora's father looked around for his wife, but she'd gone into their tent much earlier. Nasheeb leaned against a taut rope and stared at us with vacant eyes. As we drew near bin Musaid, he blocked our way. "May Allah blight your lives for this," he growled, his face dark with fury. Then he went to his tent. When we came up to the two young men this time, Hassanein gave them instructions. "You must look for the murder weapon," he told them. "A knife. Hilal, you look for it where Shaykh Marld discovered Noora's body. Bin Turki, you must search around the tent of her parents." We went by the grave and started our final circuit. As Hassanein had predicted, there was only one person watching us now: Nasheeb, his brother, Noora's father. Before we reached him, Hilal ran up to us. "I found it!" he cried. "I found the knife!" Hassanein took it and examined it briefly. He showed it to me. "See?" he said. "This is Nasheeb's mark."
"Her own father?" I was surprised. I would've bet that the killer was bin Musaid. Hassanein nodded. "I suspect he'd begun to worry that the loose talk and gossip might have some basis in truth. If Noora had been ruined, he'd never get her bride-price. He probably killed her, thinking that someone else would be blamed—my nephew Ibrahim, or old Umm Rashid—and at least he'd collect the blood money." I looked at Nasheeb, who was still standing blank-faced beside his tent. I was horrified that the man could kill his own daughter for such a foolish reason.
The Bedu system of justice is simple and direct. Shaykh Hassanein had all he needed to be convinced of the murderer's identity, yet he gave Nasheeb a chance to deny the evidence. When we stopped beside him, the rest of the Bani Salim realized that we'd found the killer, and they came out of their tents and stood nearby, to witness what would happen next.
"Nasheeb, my father's son," said Hassanein, "you've murdered your own daughter, the flesh of your
blood and the spirit of your spirit. 'Slay not your children, fearing a fall into poverty,' it says in the noble