In the Kingdom of Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

before flourishing a stick of chalk between us and marking my bags with bold checks. When I started to protest, Mason tapped my elbow, shook his head.
    The company driver who waited for us outside of customs stood with his hands folded, calm as a monk, as though the weight of his garments didn’t bother him a bit. Red-and-white-checked head scarf secured with a black leather cord, a creamy ankle-length nightshirt that buttoned from neck to hem—he must be suffocating, I thought, and remembered how my mother had wrapped me in sheets to break fever.
    “Peace be upon you.” His took off his dark glasses, and his eyes wrinkled at the corners as he shook our hands. “I am Abdullah al-Jahni. Welcome among friends.”
    “And upon you peace.” Mason motioned me forward. “This is my wife, Mrs. Virginia McPhee.”
    Abdullah reached out, gave my hand a warm, single shake. I had imagined Arab men as either rough and brutish or courtly and cosseted, draped in the robes of a prince, but Abdullah wasneither. He seemed a few years older than Mason, his face not as handsome but somehow more interesting, as though I might study it for a long time and discover something new each second. I took in his angular profile and steeply sloped nose, his thin mustache and carefully groomed beard that followed the line of his jaw, his wide mouth full of impossibly white teeth, but it was his eyes, half-lidded and deeply set, that intrigued me. His gaze moved from me to Mason to the baggage handlers and beyond in fluid and precise observation, as though he were committing each detail to memory or guarding himself against surprise. He led us to a dun-colored Land Cruiser that might once have been green, where he instructed the airport workers on the loading of our luggage. When he stepped off the curb, he gathered his skirts like a woman, and I realized that I was staring. He opened the door so that I could climb into the backseat, Mason in front. I lifted my nose to the cracked window as we passed a series of raw buildings and rough settlements before heading southwest, deeper into the desert. What I smelled was almost nothing. I opened my mouth to taste it, and a memory came to me. Fourth of July, a church potluck and fireworks over the creek, and it was my job to sit on the ice-cream maker as my grandfather cranked, my patience helped along by the chipped knobs of salted ice that I sucked and savored like candy.
    The land humped and flattened, broken by bunches of yellowing grass plowed through with sand. The dry streambeds bristled with spring flowers, their oranges and purples and reds like the burst of fireworks. Even now, I don’t know how to describe the sudden emptiness that crowded in once we left the airport. No trees, no mountains, just the horizon ribboned with clouds that seemed to smoke right off the desert floor and into the sapphire sky. The minimal traffic—a black Jeep, a large white donkey laden with palm fronds, a few people on foot—seemed oblivious to the rules of the road: no sidewalks, no lanes, no limits. I braced myself against the seat as Abdullah veered to miss a rattletrap pickup, menpacking the bed, balanced on the bumpers, clinging to any handhold. He never slowed, just kept a steady speed to pull us out of the sand and back onto the road.
    “I thought Texas drivers were bad,” Mason said.
    “Better than an American driving a camel.” Abdullah grinned. “Truly, that is sad.”
    I noted the way the men sat the humped animals, some with one leg crooked like they were riding sidesaddle, others kneeling astride or straddling with their ankles crossed at the camel’s neck. They urged their mounts faster by lifting their arms, shaking the reins until the animals broke into a jarring canter, and I wondered how they kept their seats. Other camels roamed free like cattle on open range, their colors the colors of the desert: bone, buff, and straw. Flies rose thick off a road-killed carcass—a young camel left to rot,