In the Palace of the Khans Read online

  Taeela put the phone down and laughed.

  “Poor Avron,” she said. “He is so afraid of my Father, what he will say. I tell him … told him I will make it OK. Do I say ‘OK’ to my father, Nigel?”

  He blinked at the change of subject.

  “Er … I think he’d prefer ‘All right,’” he said. “What about the woman?”

  “She will be only warned,” she said. “And she will be told that it is at your asking that she isn’t more punished.”

  “Great. So what would you like to do now? I’ve brought a tape of another film my mother thought we might enjoy …”

  Unsurprisingly the rest of the morning was rather flat. Nigel’s headache came and went. His mother would have something for it. What was he going to tell her? Blame it on jet-lag? They watched The Four Feathers for a while, played three games of chess, chatted. He told her about school and the other kids, and his teachers and the gossipy rumours about them. It was an effort to keep it going. As he’d guessed, she didn’t have any real friends her own age, but she talked about her visits to Moscow, and her mother and her brothers.

  “Don’t you miss them?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “They do not belong here. They are Russians. My brothers like the hunting lodge, but when they come they are visitors. Tourists. When I go to Moscow, it is the same. In Moscow I am the tourist. My mother didn’t want another child. Always she is kind to me, but she cannot love me.”

  “I’ve been lucky. I was a mistake too, but my parents seem to love me OK.”

  “Oh, I am not a mistake. My father looked at my brothers. He saw that they were Russians. He said to my mother, give me another child, a Dirzhak, and then you can go to Moscow. I am the price of her freedom. She told me this herself.”

  He stared at her, appalled but fascinated. She had been speaking apparently lightly, but she wasn’t joking, as if the fact that her mother couldn’t love her wasn’t any more than that, a simple fact, like the direction in which a river runs or the height of a mountain.

  “You don’t mind?”

  She shrugged.

  “My father loves me, and that is enough. He is Dirzhak, and I am Dirzhak. When I am older, we will choose a man for me to marry, but when my father dies I will be Khan.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “We will make it possible. There were two Princess Khans in old times. My father has promised me.”

  She waited for a response, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. Taeela frowned at him, puzzled, concerned.

  “Are you well, Nigel?”

  “Sorry. It’s just a bit of a headache.”

  “Those stupid guards!”

  “They were just doing their job.”

  “Here, you must lie down, and Fofo will make you his medicine. Then I send for the car to take you home.”

  The medicine was bright yellow and pungent as garlic. It got up Nigel’s nose and made him sneeze till his head rang, but it must have had something effective in it, because he was almost asleep by the time he staggered up the embassy steps. His mother wasn’t happy about it but decided not to risk giving him paracetamol on top of it, so let him go straight to bed, where he slept through a series of vividly crazy dreams and woke, clear-headed and hungry, just in time for supper.

  Day 5,

  Two visits this time, one to Mr. G’s and one to Rick’s. He works at the embassy. Couldn’t have been differenter …

  There was a new guard on the courtyard entrance next morning, who went punctiliously through the security drill, never looking Nigel directly in the eye. After what had happened yesterday, Nigel felt very on edge until the lift stopped at the second floor, and there was Fohdrahko waiting for him, smiling as he murmured his formal greeting, making the whole extraordinary world of the palace seem safe and ordinary for him, as it was for Taeela.

  It stayed that way all morning, comfortable without being boring. They talked, then watched part of a Harry Potter movie. Taeela was very disappointed to learn that even without the magic Hogwarts wouldn’t have been anything like the school Nigel went to.

  “Maybe when my granddad was a kid,” he told her.

  It was slow going again, because she kept stopping the film to ask questions and explain stuff to Fohdrahko. She was fascinated by Hermione.

  “Do you think she is pretty, Nigel?”

  “I suppose so. She’s an actress. It’s her job to look hot.”

  “You suppose so! Oh, Nigel! You … you … Do you suppose I am pretty? Hot?”

  “It isn’t the most important thing, that’s all. I like you. That’s what matters. I wouldn’t mind if you were plain as a boot, which you aren’t. As a matter of fact I’m meeting a couple of girls this afternoon. I’ll make a special effort to notice if they’re pretty.”

  “Two girls? English girls? What they do … are they doing in Dirzhan?”

  “They were born here. Their mum’s Dirzhani, their dad’s English, except he’s taken Dirzhani citizenship. He loves it here. He’s the driver at the Embassy. He brought me down here first day I came, and he told me about his daughters.”

  He’d been leading her on, enjoying her pretence of outraged jealousy as much as she was, but now she didn’t take it like that. Instead she stared at him with genuine amazement.

  “You … you are the son of the Ambassador of the Queen of England and you have tea with one of your servants!”

  “Rick’s a good guy. He’s knows stuff about Dirzhan which I bet my dad doesn’t know. And I do want to meet ordinary Dirzhaki. I love coming here, and I think you’re terrific, and I really hope we can stay friends somehow. But you’re the daughter of the President Khan. There’s no way you can be ordinary. No way this can be an ordinary home.”

  Taeela pouted dramatically.

  “They will be plain as … two boots,” she said, closing the subject. “Now we will play chess.”

  They did that for a bit, Nigel giving himself five seconds a move and Taeela taking as long as she liked. He was teaching her the Queen’s Indian opening—because she liked the name of course—when the President came in, followed by the drinks and nibbles. But he didn’t stay long or say very much, and when he left they put the chess set away and watched Harry Potter until it was time for Nigel to go home.

  “Tomorrow we go to the hunting lodge,” said Taeela.

  “We’re thrilled. Mum and Dad too. We’re really looking forward to seeing it.”

  “Fofo says there will be thunderstorms. He is never wrong.”

  Later that afternoon they dropped Nigel’s mother off at some kind of diplomatic charity do on the embankment and drove on through the stifling heat, past the palace on the far bank, then up into the old town opposite a ridiculous fairy bridge with little knobbly spires down either side, like the ones you see on the roof of a cathedral. As soon as they were round the corner Rick stopped the car, took a banknote out of his wallet, turned to the bodyguard, spoke a few words in Dirzhani and gave him the note. The guard grunted and got out of the car.

  “Don’t want him waiting out in the road for us,” Rick explained. “Makes the neighbours jumpy.”

  He drove on up a typical twisting street, crowded with people and stalls, and filled with the reek of spices and herbs and the rich sweet smoke of barbecues, and halted beneath an imposing poster of the President triumphing over his snow ibex.

  “That’s where I live,” he said, gesturing at the street opposite. “Got to take you round the back, though. No room to leave the car in front.”

  A little further on he turned left into a side street and then nosed the Rover into an impossibly narrow slot that opened into a courtyard with a strange old tree in the middle, its twisting branches utterly bare until they reached a bunch of dark spiky leaves at their tips. Rick parked underneath it, left the car without bothering to lock it and led the way under a narrow arch into smaller courtyard, lined with pots of herbs and trailing flowers, filling the oven-like heat of the enclos
ed space with their scent.

  “Ain’t all mine,” said Rick. “That’s us, at the back there. That side’s a little orphanage run by a couple of Greek nuns. Lord knows how they come here. Guy other side runs half the fishing fleet. Took me out in one of his boats once. They do it at night, with lamps. Good night, right time of year, fish pretty well leap into the boat. It’s amazing.”

  By now they’d reached the far side of the courtyard. He opened a door into a high, dim corridor. Cool air streamed out into the open.

  “’Nother good thing about this Khan,” he said. “No power cuts. Old days, before he took over, barely worth having air-conditioning. Lucky to get six hours electrics in twenty-four, and then you didn’t never know when it was going to come on. Hi, guys! We’re home! Come and say hello to young Nigel.

  “Speak English good as I do,” he added. “Only they’re not used to boys. Janey rattles along her own way. She’s got a lot of the words, but she’s not got much use for the grammar.”

  They’d reached a point where the corridor opened into a wider hallway, with what was obviously the front door at the further end. Two girls came out of a door on the left, lined themselves up side by side and curtseyed to Nigel. They were wearing the same sort of clothes as Taeela, with shawls over their heads framing their very un-Dirzhani faces, both light brown, the older one a bit darker than her sister. He made a careful note of their looks, for Taeela. One was a year or so older than Nigel, and wore a bit of eye-shadow and pink lipstick. Her sister was about two years younger, with a more serious face, and no make-up.

  He’d had twenty minutes coaching from Roger before he left the embassy, so he knew what was expected of him. He clasped his crossed hands in front of his chin and spoke his only words of Dirzhani.

  “My blessings upon this house.”

  “I’m sorry about the accent,” he added in English.

  The girls stared at him, dumbly. The older one gave a get-me-out-of-this glance at someone just beyond the door at her side.

  “OK, let’s do it my way,” he said. “I’m your Dad’s friend, Nigel. Good to meet you.”

  No good. He was praying Rick didn’t start apologizing for their shyness, when the person the other side of the door came into the hall, a small, pudgy, anxiously smiling woman.

  “This is Janey,” said Rick. “Dzhanayah, if you’re talking local. And since the girls won’t, I’ll tell you that’s Lizhala there on the left and Nahdalin on the right. Lisa and Natalie to you.”

  “Happy with meeting you,” said Janey. “Come in along.”

  The room was obviously only used for this sort of thing, musty and shadowy, lit by one small window and three heavily shaded lamps. The central table was covered with dishes of elaborate little cakes and pastries and crystallized fruit.

  Nigel sat where Rick told him to and put his shoulder-bag on the floor beside him. Rick sat opposite. The girls hovered while Janey took a pair of silver tongs, picked up a tartlet from one of the dishes and put it on Nigel’s plate. She handed the tongs to Lisa who did the same and passed the tongs to Natalie, who changed her mind several times before giving him what looked like a crystallized gooseberry.

  Roger had briefed Nigel about all this. “They’re called guest gifts,” he’d said. “Once you’ve eaten under their roof their menfolk are obligated to protect you.”

  “All right, you can sit down now,” said Rick. “And for Allah’s sake loosen up a bit, will you? He ain’t going to eat you.”

  Cursing him under his breath Nigel opened his bag and took out the return gifts Roger had given him. They all came in neat little gold boxes with the British royal arms on the lid. There was a framed photograph of the Queen for Janey and two silver clips of the royal lion and unicorn for the girls, which they all seemed pleased with, but not enough to break the ice.

  Nigel did his best, but it was hard work. Janey was obviously jumpy. Rick kept making clumsy attempts to jolly the girls along. Nigel told them the sort of stuff he’d been telling Taeela about his own life, and what things had been like in Santiago, and his school, and so on, but they just stared at him, and gave brief, unwilling, whispered answers to his questions about their own lives and doings. They spoke good English, with Rick’s accent.

  He was getting desperate when he asked them about their school. No, there weren’t any boys there. Yes, the teachers were women too. Except the Imam. He taught them about Islam and the Koran. What did he think about Lisa’s make-up?

  Suddenly an expression, a slight pursing of the lips, suppressing a smile, and the ghost of a giggle.

  “He don’t know,” said Lisa. “We got to wear our dahli for him.”

  “Have you got them here? Can I see you wearing them?”

  He’d said it on the spur of the moment, just to give all three a bit of relief from the desert of time still to be got through before he could decently leave. They jumped up and scuttled out as if that was all they wanted, but they weren’t long gone. There was a sound of laughter and scuffling at the door as each tried to push the other one in first. Then they composed themselves and walked demurely in, lined themselves up and curtseyed again to Nigel, just as they had done in the hall.

  But this time the movement was easy, almost graceful, and though when they rose all he could see of their faces was the two-inch slot around their eyes, there was something different about the eyes themselves. There was a new light in them, a quickness of glance, an impression that life was fun. Boosted by Lisa’s eye-shadow the change was dramatic, but it was also obvious in Natalie. Without the veils she was clearly the plainer sister. Now you couldn’t tell.

  “How on earth do you eat?” said Nigel.

  Another giggle, and they came almost eagerly back to their chairs, and each took something off one of the dishes and slipped it neatly into their mouths through an opening in the side of their veils.

  “Must be tricky with soup,” he said.

  Another explosion of giggles, Lisa half-choking on her mouthful, while Natalie unhooked a corner of her veil and, still holding it to cover her face, with her other hand mimed sliding a spoonful of soup behind it.

  “Must take a bit of practice,” said Nigel.

  “All right, that’s enough, girls,” said Rick. “You can take ’em off now.”

  “Can I try one?” said Nigel.

  Lisa helped him into hers, wrapping it round him like a dressing-gown and fastening it with a couple of hooks at the shoulder. Fussily she adjusted the veil. He found he could see perfectly well, but that there was an interesting feeling of peeping out from a hiding-place.

  “Now you can forget about me being a boy,” he said. “I’m Nigella. Hi, Lisa. Hi, Natalie.”

  More laughter, almost hysterical now. Obsessed with the breakthrough he hadn’t noticed what was happening the other side of the table. There’d been an edginess in Rick’s voice when he’d told the girls to take the veils off, and now Janey had half risen from her chair, glowering, clearly about to explode, while Rick was making desperate calming gestures. Not bothering to fiddle with the hooks Nigel pulled the dahl off over his head and gave it back to Lisa.

  “I’m terribly sorry” he said. “I …”

  “Janey takes that side o’ things dead serious,” said Rick. “You’d been a grown man, she’d’ve been wearing one herself. You couldn’t’ve known.”

  “Is serious,” said Janey. “Please, not again.”

  “I’ll remember,” said Nigel.

  Mercifully the ice stayed broken. Janey and the girls cleared tea away and Rick got out a box of small coloured hexagonal tiles with different symbols on them, spread them out on the table and explained the rules of the game to Nigel. It looked fairly simple, but it wasn’t. Natalie was a demon at it, and was clearly going to win when the time came for him and Rick to go and collect Nigel’s mother and take her back to the embassy.

  As they crossed the inner courtyard, stifling after the air-conditioning, Nigel said, “I’m sorry about putting my foot in i
t with Janey over the dahli.”

  “Forget it,” said Rick. “We’d had a bit of a set to ’bout it, matter o’ fact. She wanted girls to wear ’em for your visit, but I put my foot down. Wasn’t that way when we married, Nigel. OK, I converted to Islam ’cause it made things easier with her family, but neither of us took it that serious back then and I still don’t, but she’s got a lot stricter recent. There’s a bit of that going around.

  “Never used to see the full veil in the old days, but there’s all sorts wearing them now, despite the Khan’s dead set against it.”

  At the bottom of the hill and Nigel got out and waited while Rick fetched the guard out of a bar. It was early evening and they were right down by the river but he was streaming with sweat in the thick and breathless heat.

  Fohdrahko had been right. He could smell the thunder in the air.

  CHAPTER 5

  Hi there. Sorry about the gap. Mr G invited us up to his hunting lodge in the mountains for a couple of days and there aren’t any internet connections there, We’d flown up in his helicopter and landed in a storm and damaged to chopper so we had to stay on a bit. I could still write the blog but I couldn’t post it till we got back to Dara Dahn.

  So this is Day 6.

  It thundered amazingly all night …

  The embassy seemed to shudder to the non-stop bellowing explosions. Rain torrented down. It was impossible to sleep, but after a while the rain let up and Nigel got out of bed and watched the storm. He’d never seen anything like it before. Even in the heaviest thunderstorms there’d always been intervals of utter dark before the next dazzling shaft, but here the fierce light flickered and pulsed continuously across the roofs of Dahn and the massed buildings of Dara and the hills beyond, all beneath a layer of bulging cloud so dense that not even the glare that fell from it could lighten its blackness. A house had caught fire down by the river in Dahn, a blob of smoky orange on the bleach-white scene. Then the rain sluiced down again, sifting out shape and distance and leaving only the glitter of refracted dazzle.