4
“But you promised!” came the voice of princess Mala. “You promised to take me with you to America on your next trip, Uncle Bilaal!”
Sheikh Bilaal Al-Khiyani touched his left shoulder as he turned and looked down the long sandstone hallway leading from his day chambers to the west atrium of the Royal Palace. His fourteen-year-old niece was running full tilt towards him, her feeble attempt at a hijab coming undone as the warm desert breeze flowed through her dark brown hair. She looked like her mother, Bilaal thought. And like his own mother. Would his own daughter have looked like that, been blessed with the same deep green eyes that ran in the Khiyani family? Or would she have inherited the sand-colored eyes of his own beautiful wife? Only Allah and the angels know, the Sheikh thought as he smiled at his niece. Because that is where my queen and my unborn child live for eternity—in Allah’s blessed heaven.
Life is for the living, the Sheikh reminded himself as he smiled at his niece and brushed away the often-considered thought that it was perhaps his curse that all the women he cared about had their lives cut short. Of course, the Sheikh was not a man given to thoughts of curses. If anything, he would have liked it all to be a conspiracy. And what a grand conspiracy it would be: his mother gutted by cancer of the blood; his sister and her husband killed in a helicopter crash over the Saudi desert; and his wife . . . ya Allah, his wife . . .
“Slow down, my little princess,” Bilaal said in his deep voice, and Mala stopped in her tracks, almost falling over as she spread her arms out wide and grabbed the legs of two adjacent wooden chairs to brace herself. The old chairs barely moved, the heavy Burma teakwood as strong as the day it was hand-molded into royal furniture. Ironic that the body of a tree long dead is here, but the people for whom this palace was built exist only as painted portraits and fading memories, the Sheikh thought.
“Disneyland,” Mala said obstinately, stamping her feet and crossing her arms over her chest. “All my friends have been and they laugh at me. They say I am not really a princess. They say if I am really of royal blood, then I would be able to go anywhere I want. Especially Disneyland.”
Bilaal sighed. It had been three years since his sister and her husband had left this world, and he was still only just figuring out this whole parenting thing. He’d avoided the responsibility for almost an entire year, entrusting the young Mala to nannies and maids, tutors and trainers. Slowly he’d come around, admitting to himself that he’d been shying away because of fear more than anything: fear that it would open up wounds that had never fully healed, scars that still hurt when touched, memories that still tormented him when awoken. Memories of his wife, their lost child, the life that could have been, the life that should have been!
Life is for the living, he told himself again as he watched his niece fume and fret, acting like a child when he knew she could be mature and dignified when the occasion called for it. She was full of life, it occurred to him as he watched her. She is one of the living, and that is what life is about. His mother had said that to him often in her last days. Life is for the living. Live for the living, Bilaal, not for the dead.
But Bilaal was indeed living for the dead, and that was what had kept him alive in a strange way. That was what had taken his fascination with the world of intrigue and espionage to the next level, where he’d gotten serious about his training, impressed the no-nonsense head of the Khiyani Intelligence Bureau, convinced their international allies that a man of Bilaal’s stature could indeed be an asset in the war they were all fighting.
“First of all, you are too old for Disneyland. Secondly, who is telling all your friends that you are a glamorous princess with fabulous wealth?” Bilaal said after faking a stern look. “A woman is defined by more than her bloodline and inheritance. You know that, do you not?”
Mala pouted and looked at her bare feet. “Yes,” she said glumly as she looked up into his eyes. Then she twisted her mouth and raised an eyebrow. “But to answer your questions: First, no one is too old for Disneyland. And secondly, it was not I who told my friends I was a princess. They already knew. Someone else must have told them.”
Bilaal frowned as he looked at his niece. The little scamp was many things, but she was not a liar. Bilaal felt a chill run through him, but he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was being paranoid. The little one was in no danger. Her parents died in an accident, and what happened with his own wife and child . . . well, that was different. Besides, her Swiss boarding school was secluded and secure, and just the price tag ensured that only the wealthiest of the wealthy sent their children there. Yes, Bilaal had asked that her family background be kept confidential as far as possible, but it was a small Swiss town, and after a full year certainly it would have been apparent that the ten large bodyguards he’d stationed in a chalet just beyond the walls of the school campus were not actually Arab businessmen who wanted a change from the endless sand dunes and boundless heat of the desert.
The Sheikh paused for a moment as an attendant approached with a silver tray and placed it on the low table before him. On it lay the Sheikh’s afternoon tea, the sweet brew that he could not live without. There was a tall glass of cold milk alongside, a bowl of plump almonds, and another silver bowl with what looked like worms made out of green plastic and pink glitter.
Bilaal raised a royal eyebrow as he watched his niece grab one of the fake worms by its tail and proceed to eat it. He glanced up at the attendant, who was trying her best not to smile. Everyone in Khiyani knew of the Sheikh’s aversion to sugar. Of course, not everyone knew of his addiction to this jaggery-sweetened tea. Sometimes it was good to be a professional secret-keeper.
The king and his niece ate and drank in silence as the warm breeze carried the scent of palm oil and camel musk across from the sprawling balcony and through the airy day-chambers. The minarets of Khiyani rose tall and splendid just beyond the palace walls, and from the towers of the city’s mosque would come the evening prayer call. The Sheikh had stopped praying for almost a year not so long ago. But now he prayed whenever he was in Khiyani, often going to the public mosque and joining his people. It was for show, he told himself. To set a good example for Mala, who would eventually take over as Sheikha.
Yes, the Sheikh thought as he reached behind the silk cushions on that old teakwood chair and pulled out a Mickey Mouse hat and tossed it casually on the table, right near the gummy worms as the girl shrieked in delight. Mala will eventually be Sheikha, because I will never dishonor the memory of what I have lost by having a child of my own. No, I will never allow myself to have a child of my own.