The Solitary Sheikh

She said tentatively, “Was...was Prince Omar very much in love with his wife?”

The vizier smiled and lifted his hands. “Who can look into the hearts of men in such a matter?” he asked rhetorically, and Jana thought, You probably do it all the time. “He has said that he will not marry again.”

Jana stared at him. “Are you—?” she began, but Hadi al Hatim was already slipping out of the seat, and with a friendly nod moved on up the aisle.

She puzzled over his motives for a few minutes. She had almost said, “Are you warning me off?” but it was ridiculous to think that anyone could imagine she had her eye on Prince Omar! He was as cold as—but then, what was his motive for telling her? She had too much respect for the vizier’s capacities to think that he had spoken at random.

It was a minute or two before she thought to ask herself why she had asked the question. It was no business of hers if Prince Omar’s heart had died with his wife.

Prince Omar stayed in his seat at the front of the cabin throughout the flight. People came and went around him, bowing over his chair, kissing his hand, handing him papers, staying to talk. Jana got up once to go to the toilet, which was at the front of the cabin. She passed by Omar’s seat at a moment when he was sitting alone, going over some papers. He must have noticed her pass, because when she came out of the toilet, he looked up and called her name.

She obediently stopped in front of him. “Your Highness,” she murmured.

It was the first time she had seen him since their interview at the Dorchester. She had been ruffled and irritated then, but now she was cooler, and behind the coldness in his eyes she saw a bleak look that she had not seen before. Or perhaps it was just because of what Hadi al Hatim had told her about the queen’s death.

“I have only been out of England three hours and already I hear no English spoken,” he said. “Sit and speak to me.”

She thought how much more pleasant the command would have been if he had troubled to smile while issuing it, but the man looked grim enough for a hanging judge. She sat in the seat beside him, still uncertain about what was the protocol for such near contact with the monarch.

“Why should you hear English spoken?” she asked.

Looking a little surprised at the question, he said, “It is a language I have always wished to speak well.”

“You sound pretty fluent to me.”

Prince Omar shook his head. “No. Compared to my...my brothers, I have only a poor grasp of English.”

“Then your brothers must be native speakers,” Jana said with a smile.

There was no response. “One studied at a university in the United States, the other in France. In both places they had the opportunity to perfect their English.”

“While you learned Russian?” she guessed, remembering what he had told her about his time in that country.

“Yes, I learned Russian. It was my father’s thought that a small country should be able to. communicate with the leaders of powerful nations in their own language and understand their culture.”

“And I guess you can’t really blame him for not knowing what would happen to the Soviet Union.” True enough, but she supposed it wasn’t much consolation.

“I do not blame my father in any case. But it was not—”

He broke off suddenly, and blinked at her, as though wondering why he was speaking to her so personally. “Well, it is not important.”

“Where did you learn your English?” Jana asked quickly, and the impersonal question seemed to put him at ease.

“From my father’s first wife. He married a foreigner. She learned to speak Arabic after she married my father, but she said that English was a useful language and she spoke to us only in English. It was my father’s wish that we spend time with her.”

“No wonder you speak so fluently.”

His eyelids dropped in a brief negative. “When several people are speaking, I find it hard to follow. Very hard sometimes.”

He was such a closed man it was hard to accept that the purpose of this conversation was really what it seemed on the surface, but Jana said it anyway.

“If all you need is practice—” she shrugged “—I’d be quite happy to provide conversational English whenever you wish.”

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.