Camel Rider Read online

  PRUE MASON

  CAMEL RIDER

  Puffin Books

  To Samantha, Sharon, Jan, Joan, Veronica and Vaitsa, of the Dubai Writers’ Group, who were there when I wanted to give up; to Joyati, Surendar, Roopa and the present staff of Young Times for making writing fun; and most of all to my husband and best friend Kerry, who always believed in me and supported me, and to my second best friend, Tara, our dog.

  PUFFIN BOOKS

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  First published by Penguin Group (Australia),

  a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd, 2004

  Copyright © Prue Mason, 2004

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The epigraph is taken from A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran

  www.penguin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228316-6

  INTRODUCTION

  Abudai is a fictional city, although it’s typical of any one of the many oil-rich states in the Arabian Gulf. Before the discovery of oil in the area, the people lived in tribal groups ruled by sheikhs. They mainly lived in small settlements around central forts that were built near water, either the sea or an oasis. These people were fishermen, traders, merchants, pearl divers, date-palm farmers and goatherds. There were also the Bedu, the nomadic people who lived in small extended family groups and who moved camps on a regular basis to allow their animals to graze on the sparse vegetation of the desert lands.

  Because there weren’t any lines on a map to show borders between countries there were often fights over territory between the neighbouring tribes.

  With the extreme heat, barren land, and lack of any modern technology, life was tough. However, the people of the Arabian Gulf endured their hardships and even thanked Allah for His blessings. Their way of life had not changed for hundreds of years.

  Then, in the 1960s when oil was discovered, progress, as we call it, was rapid. The mud-brick houses were pulled down and new concrete villas were built, and the Bedu began to move into towns where life was not so hard.

  Now, where camels had roamed there are busy airports carrying thousands of people to and from cities that have been built in less than fifty years.

  To build and run these modern cities, the local people needed skilled workers from many other countries and people of many other nationalities and cultures came to live in the Gulf region. Most expatriates are from India, Pakistan and other Arabic countries; westerners make up only a small minority.

  Because of past bad experience the older generation of locals is often wary of foreigners, no matter where they come from. They still remember what it was like before the oil industry changed their lives, and they try to instil a sense of tradition in the young people. But as life becomes easier, living by the old ways seems more difficult.

  Camel racing is one part of the old way of living that has survived the change – it is a traditional sport, although using young children to ride the camels is a recent development.

  It should be noted that people of this area refer to the region as the Arabian Gulf, rather than the Persian Gulf, and that the Arabic words and phrases are spelt in a way that suggests how they would sound in that region.

  I love you, my brother, whoever you are – whether you worship in your church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of one Supreme Being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.

  Kahlil Gibran

  The Words of the Master

  PROLOGUE

  A camel grumbles and mutters as it kneels on the ground. It has been hobbled, its back feet tied together, to stop it straying far from the camp where the small tribe of Bedu have set up for the night.

  Around a fire, men sit cross-legged and talk, the dust of their journey washed from their faces and beards. A woman, dark as a shadow, slips out from underneath the draped coverings that make up their home for the evening. She is carrying a smoke-black, heavy iron pot with a long, curved pourer. She fills little cups with aromatic but bitter coffee, and hands one to each man. As they sip, some men look deep into the glowing embers of the fire, others chat about the day’s journey and what may lie ahead on the long trip through the desert to the next oasis. One looks at the sky and sees a map in the darkness, pinpricked by thousands upon thousands of bright stars. From stories that have been passed down through generations, this man, like the others, can read the map and make his way safely through the oceans of red sand.

  And the ocean is vast. For all he can see in any direction around him is the blackness of the desert, flat and stretching away to the horizon. As the stars move in a slow, wheeling circle in the darkness above, this man is aware of how small and insignificant he is amongst all this vastness.

  Yet he is not afraid because he knows exactly where he is. A point, unique to himself alone, that is directly above him becomes the highest point in the sky. He names it the ‘zenith’. Then he imagines a straight line passing through his body and plunging deep into the earth to reach the lowest point, exactly below where he is sitting. This point he calls the ‘nadir’.

  As he looks into the glowing embers of the dying fire he smiles, for he knows he is at the centre of the universe.

  PART ONE_WAR

  CHAPTER ONE_ADAM

  MIDNIGHT IN ABUDAI, DAY ONE

  I should be sleeping, but I’m all tense and nervous. Not scared-nervous. I should be, though, because Mum says she rang and told Dad what I did. He’s going to kill me when he gets back tomorrow night. But I’ll worry about that then.

  I can’t sleep. I just lie in bed and listen. All I want to hear is that heavy front door pulled shut. That’ll mean Mum’s really left and gone back to Australia without me and I’ll be in the house, alone, for a whole day, until Dad gets home. Yes!

  Well, of course, there’ll be Chandra, but she’s our maid and she’s always so busy downstairs cleaning and cooking.

  I’m tingly-excited nervous because I can hardly believe my mind-bustingly brilliant brainwave has worked so well.

  I can hear Mum moving around downstairs. She’s ready to leave, but as usual is giving Chandra last-minute orders. Mum says that Chandra is very honest and reliable, but that her English is not good so she needs to be told things slowly. Tonight Mum’s so het up she’s forgotten what she’s always telling me and she gabbles at Chandra.

  ‘Adam’s father is due back from his flight at eleven tomorrow night,’ she says quickly. ‘He’ll deal with Adam then, and no matter what that boy says he is NOT to be allowed out of the compound after what he’s done. Oh, except to pick up his new school u
niform. I meant to get it today, but with everything happening, I forgot. But he’s got to come straight back here afterwards. Now, is there anything else? Oh, that’s right, there’s a list of emergency numbers by the phone, and you know if anything happens to the dog the vet’s number is there as well.’ She finally pauses for breath.

  I hear Chandra saying, ‘yes madam, yes madam,’ but I know there’s no way she really does know what Mum is saying. For sure, though, she’ll be shaking her head in that way that means yes, but looks like no.

  Sarah, my older sister – who used to be really funny when we first came here – cracked me up when she took Chandra off, saying ‘yes madam, yes madam’, sounding just like Chandra does. But I was only seven when my dad got a job as a pilot for Abudai Airlines and we left our home in Melbourne to live here in the Middle East. Sarah was thirteen then and everybody said she was a brilliant actress. She’s given up that idea now and turned all serious and boring. She says she wants to be a journalist instead.

  It’s funny, though, how quickly we got used to different things, like the way the Indians and Sri Lankans do all that head shaking. It just seems normal now. Like living in a compound is normal.

  My mum still doesn’t think it’s normal to be living so close to other people who work for the airline. Dad says she should consider herself lucky. If she was an Arab woman, she’d be living in a compound with all Dad’s relations. But I wouldn’t mind living with Barby – that’s my grandmother. And it’d be fun to live with some of my cousins. I guess the downside would be that there’d be more people to tell you off when you did something wrong. Plus, there’s not much privacy. With all the houses being built around a garden in the middle, everyone can look through your windows and see what you’re up to. Mum says it’s like being inside a fishbowl. And then there’s all the kids running in and out. That’s the part I like, because all my friends live in the compound as well and we can take turns to hang out at each other’s places depending on whose dad, or maybe – if we’re lucky – whose mum is away on a trip.

  My dad reckons that in the future everyone in the world will be living in compounds like ours anyway, with high walls and guards at the gate. He says it will be the only way people will feel safe. I think that’d be brilliant. I love living in a compound.

  I hear Mum rattling on again. ‘Of course, if you need anything, just go across the compound to Margot madam and she’ll sort it out – I could kill that boy! But I have to go tonight to get there in time for Sarah’s …’ She doesn’t bother finishing the sentence, and I can hear her footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Is she coming up to my room?

  I begin to breathe deeply and evenly. If she comes in, she’ll think I’m asleep. Even though it’s midnight, and the car’s waiting outside to take her to the airport, I wouldn’t put it past her to drag me out of bed and give me another good telling off. She’s pretty angry with me because I’m meant to be starting at my new school next Monday. Now I can’t.

  And she hasn’t stopped going on and on about how Sarah’s been looking forward to having her little brother back in Australia. As if! She probably just wants to convert me to her latest cause. Dad says we should give her a soapbox for Christmas. I just wish she wouldn’t go on and on. Especially when she comes back here for holidays and starts going off about the way things are so superficial over here and how people are so materialistic and stuff. She’s always going on about greedy expats and everything she thinks is wrong with modern life here – how it’s all about the oil. It’s embarrassing.

  She used to be fun. When we were younger she could always think up brilliant games. And because she’s such a good actress she could take anyone off. For a big sister she was pretty cool because she even took the blame when we got into trouble, but that was before she went to boarding school and became superior and serious about stuff.

  And just because I’m nearly thirteen now, Mum and Dad say I have to go back to Australia, and go to boarding school there. They reckon it will give me roots. Like I’m a pot plant or something.

  The thing is, they don’t understand. I’m different to Sarah. I’ve got my friends. She missed her friends when she came over here, and she wanted to go back and be a boarder so she could have midnight feasts and pillow fights and all that girls’ stuff. But I know what it’s like. I know you can’t go surfing in a boarding school, so I don’t want to go.

  My door opens.

  ‘I love you, darling,’ my mum whispers. But I keep my eyes tightly closed. It could be a trap. If I let her know I’m awake, I bet she’ll go on and on again about how I should be ashamed of myself and how selfish I am and how I don’t think of anyone but myself.

  I happen to think it was the ultimate, mind-bustingly brilliant brainwave to slip my passport into dad’s flight bag before he went off on a four-day trip. It means that now I can’t leave Abudai tonight.

  I know I’ll get a good blast from my dad when he gets back tomorrow night, and he’ll probably make me get on the very next flight out of here, but it was still worth it. At least now I’ve got one more day of freedom.

  CHAPTER TWO_WALID

  PRE-DAWN IN A CAMEL CAMP ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF ABUDAI, DAY ONE

  ‘Mama! Do not leave me. I am so frightened. Mama!’

  She kicks me. It’s then I wake and look up at the face not of my mama, but of Old Goat.

  He is like the devil with his scraggled beard, streaked with the henna he rubs through it to make it orange like a flame.

  I am lying on the ground where always I sleep, and he kicks me again. I think it is from kicking boys that he is always limping, but he is saying that a camel stood on him when he held it at the start of the races. If only I had seen this. How I would have laughed!

  I sniff the morning air. It is sharp and sour, full of the odours of the night, of piss and tears. From nearby camps there are the shouts and curses of others as they, too, wake to this new day. Not far from me, underneath a shelter made from dried palm fronds, I see Badir and Mustapha. These boys are smaller than me, and like rats.

  Old Goat hisses at me. ‘Aiee, Walid, boy! Be stopping that screeching like one bint – just like a girl, you are! Maybe, instead of Walid, we will be calling you Bint.’ He cackles.

  Once I had another name. But only in my dreams now am I remembering my life in my home country. In that time, back in Bangladesh, before I came to this camp to be a rakeeba, a camel rider, my mama said I was Emir Sagheer, little prince. Now I answer to Walid, which means only ‘boy’.

  With quickness, I jump to my feet to stop Old Goat kicking me once more. As all of my senses return to this world, I see I have been sleeping too long. There is grey light in the sky and all must soon be rising to say prayers – to thank Allah for making the night be over and ask for blessings of the day ahead.

  Mostly I awaken first, for it is my duty to fetch water and boil it to make Old Goat’s chai. He likes to have tea before his morning prayers.

  There was once one other boy, Yasub, who made the chai. He was bigger than me, but he is gone now. He is dead. He told me that Old Goat has been living in this camp for many many years and that he is older than sin, so he cannot die. It is true this old man is dried up, like one wadi in the desert, yet still he lives to drink his chai and beat boys with his camel stick. But no longer does he hold the head of the camel when it is in line for racing. Breath of Dog is doing this now. He is the son of Old Goat’s cousin and he is a bad man. It is because of him Yasub is dead now.

  Old Goat curses me. ‘Ah, Allah! Why are you punishing me with this lazy boy? I am wanting chai before saying my prayers, and now there is not time enough. Say your prayers quickly now, and then go to boil water so it is hot when I finish mine.’

  I turn in the direction of Mecca and kneel with my forehead touching the ground. But instead of saying my prayers, I look up between my hands to the tall tower of Abudai. It is a building that stands bigger than all others in the city and my mama said to me that every morning, when the sun rises, b
efore she is starting work for a rich sheikh in Abudai, she also would look towards this tower. She said it would help her to know that I would also be looking – that even though we couldn’t see each other we would never be far apart as long as we could both see this same thing.

  But this morning its dark shape is like a shadow because I feel so much sadness. I am sad that I am not waking in my home in Bangladesh with my babu and mama, just like in my dreams. I am here, still, in this hot desert land where the sand is grey and drifting with the wind.

  I am not wanting the tears to come, for never am I crying. Not since Babu told me to be like a man and never cry. And I do not. Not even when Babu is dying or when Mama is leaving me with the dalals, the slave traders, who brought me to this camp to live. I do not cry when Old Goat is screeching or when Breath of Dog is beating me. Not even when I fall from the camel and lose the tooths in my head. Never am I crying. It is just these foolish dreams that make me remember a time before I came here. Before I became a camel rider.

  As I rise, I quickly touch my cheeks. My face grows hot, for it is as I feared. There is wetness.

  ‘Always crying for his mama in the darkness.’ Old Goat puts his face close to mine. ‘He is too much like one bint.’ He spits, and slaps my face. The blow is stinging to my cheeks.

  Suddenly the redness of anger is upon me.

  I leap at Old Goat and bite his arm. As he squeals like a goat with its throat being slit, I hear the early morning call to prayer.

  CHAPTER THREE_ADAM

  DAWN IN ABUDAI, DAY ONE

  Even in my dreams I hear the wailing call to pre-dawn prayers from all the nearby mosques and then the beep-beeping of my alarm clock. Then I realise I’m not dreaming any more. I’m awake. When I open my eyes, I see that it’s 4.30 in the morning. I press the button on the alarm to stop it beeping and wish there was a button I could press to stop all the Allah Akbar-ing. That’s one thing I will be pleased about, with going back to Australia. I won’t have to listen to ‘God is Great’ being blasted from every mosque five times a day.