“My son, he saved your life, and he saved you from a beating, and you stole his wallet?” she said, when he had finished.
Hani only looked at her.
“Oh, Hani, but think!—it must be him! Sultan Ashraf’s envoy!”
For days the detention centre had been buzzing with the rumour that a high official from Bagestan was expected at the camp. His reason for coming wasn’t known, but hopes were very high among the Bagestanis in the camp that it had something to do with repatriating them, now that the new Sultan was safe on the throne. And even the ragtag representatives of the half-dozen other strife-torn nations here were half convinced it meant their own salvation.
“He was travelling alone, not even a driver. Diplomats on missions to refugee camps don’t come without assistants and the media,” the boy said with cynical wisdom.
“Perhaps his entourage is coming later. Why else would such a man be in a place like this? Ya Allah! The Sultan’s own Cup Companion! If only he doesn’t realize you are the thief, Hani! Do you think he will recognize you if he sees you again?”
An abrupt knocking sounded against the door.
The young mother jerked spasmodically, clutching the wallet, and the baby opened her mouth, let the new teething ring fall, and began to wail again.
“What shall we do?” Farida hissed.
“Give it to me,” Hani said and, stretching out one thin arm, plucked the wallet from Farida’s trembling hand. In a moment it had disappeared again under the baggy T-shirt.
“Hani!” Farida whispered, but another knock sounded, and there was no time to argue. Her eyes black with anxiety, Farida opened the door.
It was one of the “guards,” men from the refugee community who were badged and assigned the task of liaison between the staff and inhabitants of the community. What the camp authorities didn’t understand, or didn’t want to, was that on those badges a ruthless camp mafia was founded and nourished.
He frowned at Hani.
“You went into town today,” he growled in the camp patois. His eyes went past Farida to the bed, where the pathetic rewards of the foraging expedition still lay. “Let me see!”
Hani leapt for him, grabbing his arm, in a bid to protect the hard-won treasures. But the guard was big and ruthless, and merely threw the boy to one side, so that he fell against the sink. For a moment he clung there, half kneeling, nursing his injured ankle.
He cursed the guard with the fierce contempt of the powerless. “A baby soother!” he said. “Do you want to suck on it? Maybe your rotten teeth will grow again!”
Then he was up again, jumping onto the brute’s back as he bent over the bed. His small fist pummelled the man’s ear. A big, powerful hand grabbed the thin wrist and brutally twisted, so that the boy cried out and submitted. He was tossed down like a sack of waste.
The guard’s eye had fallen on the telltale sparkle of the bracelet. He snatched it up, scooping two chocolate bars at the same time.
“My share,” he said, grinning. He held up the bracelet to admire. “Someone will like this.” His voice held a gloating note, and the boy’s wide mouth twisted with helpless fury.
“May God make you too limp to enjoy her!”
“What else?” said the man, ignoring the insult, his eyes hot with anger, but hotter still with greed. He held out his hand toward the boy on the floor, palm up, the fingers moving invitingly. Hani and Farida gazed at him, willing themselves not to glance at the yogurt pot.
“Give.”
A step outside the door broke the tension.
“Farida, where are you? Have you heard? The Sultan’s envoy has arrived at last! A Cup Companion himself! They say he is searching for someone!” a voice cried from the doorway. “He is visiting every room. Come out and see!”
Her eyes liquid with terror, Farida stared at Hani. But it was impossible to get rid of the wallet now.
“Good morning, Rashid, morning Mrs. Rashid,” the camp director said cheerfully. “What’s the story here, Alison?”
His assistant wiped her damp forehead, replaced her hat and consulted the sheaf of documents on her clipboard. “Rashid al Hamza Muntazer, his wife, seven children. Joharis. We don’t have their exact ages, but the nurse has estimated them as all under twelve.”
Sharif Azad al Dauleh, Cup Companion to the Sultan of Bagestan, touched his fist to his heart in respectful greeting to the family. The brief conversation that followed differed little from thousands of others he had heard over the past weeks. Please tell them the children should be in school, that my wife is very depressed. I am a construction engineer. I want to work. Please ask them how long we will be kept here.
The group moved on, the anguish ringing in his ears. As at every camp, it was the same tale of nightmare and waste, endlessly repeated. Each one a variation of hell on earth.
They had covered over half of the detention centre now, and Sharif had almost despaired of finding the boy. His instinct told him that a child as wily as that would have some hiding place, and having stolen Sharif’s wallet—a fact which Sharif had discovered without surprise when he returned to the car—he had every reason to hide to avoid a meeting.
But it was imperative that he find the boy again.
At the next door, a Bagestani woman held a baby, another child clutching her skirt.
“This is Mrs. Sabzi,” the assistant read aloud. “She has three children—a son, Hani, a daughter, Jamila, and the baby.”
Sharif brought a fist to his breast and bowed.
“Excellency.” Farida returned the salute, then stood rocking the baby and looking anxiously at him. Her eyes wide with fascination, the baby reached one hand to the Cup Companion, letting go of her teething ring.
The blue rubber teething ring that he had last seen under his own foot on the highway.
Sharif smiled. Got you! he told the boy mentally, putting out a finger to the baby, who clutched it and fixed him with a heart-rending look.
“You have a son, Mrs. Sabzi?” he asked.
Alarm darkened her eyes, and she licked her lips. “I—yes, my son, Hani.”
Sharif smiled. “May I meet him?”
“Excellency, you are very kind! It is good of you, but you are an important man and my son…” She shrugged to show how unimportant her son was.
Sharif inclined his head. “If he is here, I would like to meet him.”
“Alas, he is not well, Excellency! I have told him to stay in bed, though he was very eager to meet you. We are Sabzi people, Excellency, from the islands,” she said brightly, in an obvious effort to turn the conversation.
“Is your son here now?”
“Yes—no!” the woman began, and then her eyes moved, and her small gasp made Sharif look towards the door of her room. There was the boy, gazing straight at him with an accuse-and-be-damned look. He limped towards his mother and she put an arm around his shoulder, drawing him against her.
“Here is Hani, Excellency!” she said, her voice going up an octave, though she tried to appear calm. “You see he is not so ill that he will stay in bed when a Cup Companion of the Sultan visits!”
She looked anxiously between Sharif and the boy as if expecting him to denounce the boy, and almost wept in relief when instead he said, “You say you are from the Gulf Islands?”
“Yes, Excellency. Our home was the island of Solomon’s