CHAPTER 14
“I’m sorry about Abdullah,” Amina said softly, after they had returned to their spots on the ground. She had lost her smile and her eyes drooped. “My brother can be such a mule sometimes.” She then leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, “Don’t worry, I’ll show it to you later.”
Leila fought a smile and concentrated on her piece of bread. She wouldn’t want Abdullah thinking they were up to something. Not after that outburst. She couldn’t help but wonder where that came from. She had never met a Bedouin so inhospitable before.
Amina picked up another bowl of lentils and they finished their dinner with bits of small talk between bites. When both their bowls were empty, Leila picked up Amina’s dish.
“Can I help with washing?”
“Oh no.” Amina took the bowls from Leila’s hands. “You go rest some more.” She raised her voice. “I’ll join you shortly and bring some ointment for that sunburn.”
Without moving her head, Leila glanced at the date tree. Abdullah had vanished. Amina pressed a glass jar into her hand, and after briefly telling her how to use it on her scratches, shooed Leila away. She trudged back to the tent, stopped outside the entry, and looked up.
The sun inched its way behind the horizon, the remaining light casting a pleasant, orange glow over the camp. Small fires smoldered, warming those who sat around them. Somewhere in the camp someone plucked out a melody on an oud, while another accompanied them with a tambourine.
She took in a long breath and closed her eyes, wondering what story the music told. Though she hadn’t spent much time with them before, the Bedouin’s lives weren’t as romantic as they looked. Unemployment, little food, no rights to land…
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. A camel grunted somewhere behind her. She opened her eyes and turned. Several yards beyond Amina’s tent, three camels tied to a post lazily chewed their cud. Abdullah stood between them, his scowl still in place. His eyes anchored on her, burning with contempt as he tossed a blanket over one camel’s back. Flies buzzed around him, yet he went about his task as if they weren’t there.
Leila paused. She should go over to him. She didn’t get a chance to thank him for saving her life. But the longer she watched him, she changed her mind. His disgust told her enough: he wasn’t open to conversation.
Although she would love to know what his problem was. Did he see her as a threat? A burden? An intrusion? Probably all three. Not that she blamed him. It wasn’t normal to find someone left for dead in the Sahara.
Maybe if he’d let her explain. If she could bring him to understand her situation, or part of it, maybe he’d relax. Or maybe not. But she had to at least try. She faced him and took a step. He narrowed his eyes, patted the camel’s side, and turned his back to her. Hands curled in tight fists, he stormed off, disappearing into the cluster of trees.
Leila shook her head. So much for that. Well then, she would do her best to help his sister. Abdullah might have been the one to bring her to the camp, but Amina had been the one to open her home to her.
When Leila reached the tent, she ducked through the entry and felt her way in the darkness to her former spot on the cushions. She had no idea where to find a flashlight or candles or matches. It wouldn’t be right to rummage through someone else’s things, so she sat in the dark and rubbed Amina’s ointment onto the scratches covering her arms and legs.
Her skin tingled with a cooling sensation while she listened to the footsteps and voices of the sleepy camp outside. Her eyes grew heavy, her limbs ached to lie down. Just as her head hit the pillow, the tent flap lifted and Amina slipped inside.
“Leila?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Yep.” Leila propped herself on her elbows.
“Oh, good. Sorry I took so long.” Amina shuffled about in the darkness, then came the sound of a match being struck and a small glow appeared. She held the match up to a kerosene lamp until the flame grew, then she set it in the corner.
A warm, comforting light filled the tent, reminding Leila of the times she would build a fort in her room with a sheet. She would hide under it with a flashlight to read for hours.
“I waited until I was sure Abdullah was asleep so he won’t come barging in here.” A creak sounded as Amina lifted the lid to a trunk. Glass chinked softly as she dug through it. She pulled out empty bottles and jars, set them on the ground, then resumed her digging. After a few moments, she paused and huffed.
“I knew it,” she grumbled, her brows furrowed together. “He took it.”
“Took what?”
“The journal.” Amina shook her head, and stuck both arms back in the trunk. “Abdullah had threatened to steal it before, right after it was given to me.” She pulled out a plastic bottle, then stood and hobbled across the tent. “So, I took precautions and ripped out the pages.”
Leila couldn’t miss the way her left leg stiffened as she walked. Amina settled next to Leila on the cushions. “You see, the journal belonged to my grandmother,” she began as she unscrewed the lid. “She called for me as she lay dying. She insisted I take it for safekeeping. But I could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. Something about it frightened her.” She pulled a roll of paper from the bottle.
Leila leaned forward, eager for a glimpse. “Why would she be afraid of a journal?”
Amina hesitated, if only for a second. “When she gave it to me, she did it with a warning.” Slowly, she held out the scroll for Leila and their eyes met. “She said there’s gold buried somewhere in the mountains. The fortune that belongs to my family. But it must be kept secret. If the treasure is revealed… the world will burn.”
“The world will burn?”
“Her words.”
“And she still gave it to you?”
Amina’s lips flickered into an uncertain smile and she shrugged. Leila took the papers and, holding them as gently as possible between her fingertips, unrolled them. Now it made sense why Abdullah was so opposed to her seeing the journal. If there was a family fortune hidden somewhere, of course he wouldn’t want anyone to know about it. Several pages of thick paper had been spooled together, one edge uneven where they had been torn from a book.
Black ink marked the pages, the words flowing right to left in a sleek Arabic script. Leila placed each sheet on the blanket until she came to a page filled with hieroglyphics and sketches. Rough black lines formed the image of an arched doorway—double wooden doors from the looks of the grainy details.
Hieroglyphics surrounded the drawing, filling the rest of the white space. At first glance, the symbols held no meaning. Primitively drawn birds, snakes, feathers, eyes, and other objects had all been arranged in neat vertical rows. These pages must be some sort of field notes—sketches someone, Amina’s grandmother perhaps, made while studying an artifact or a site.
“Do you understand anything?” Amina asked, her voice sounding distant as it intruded into Leila’s thoughts.
She tapped her chin. Some of the hieroglyphs she’d never seen before. Others were more obvious. Yet she couldn’t say what any of it meant until she went through the entire document.
“Do you have something I could write with?”
Amina dug around in the trunk for a minute until her hands reemerged with a notepad and pencil, which she handed to Leila.
“I hope you’re comfortable. This might take a while.” Leila lifted her eyebrows in anticipation.
“Take your time,” Amina offered, slipping a thick book from under the cushions with Basic Immunology written in large Arabic letters down the front. She leaned back into a pillow. “You don’t have to get it all done at once. I’m glad you’re helping me at all. Do you need more light?”
Leila shook her head, still focused on the book in Amina’s hand. “Are you studying medicine?”
