‘Mama! Do not leave me. I am so frightened. Mama!’
She kicks me. It’s then I wake and look up at the face not of my mama, but of Old Goat.
He is like the devil with his scraggled beard, streaked with the henna he rubs through it to make it orange like a flame.
I am lying on the ground where always I sleep, and he kicks me again. I think it is from kicking boys that he is always limping, but he is saying that a camel stood on him when he held it at the start of the races. If only I had seen this. How I would have laughed!
I sniff the morning air. It is sharp and sour, full of the odours of the night, of piss and tears. From nearby camps there are the shouts and curses of others as they, too, wake to this new day. Not far from me, underneath a shelter made from dried palm fronds, I see Badir and Mustapha. These boys are smaller than me, and like rats.
Old Goat hisses at me. ‘Aiee, Walid, boy! Be stopping that screeching like one bint – just like a girl, you are! Maybe, instead of Walid, we will be calling you Bint.’ He cackles.
Once I had another name. But only in my dreams now am I remembering my life in my home country. In that time, back in Bangladesh, before I came to this camp to be a rakeeba, a camel rider, my mama said I was Emir Sagheer, little prince. Now I answer to Walid, which means only ‘boy’.
With quickness, I jump to my feet to stop Old Goat kicking me once more. As all of my senses return to this world, I see I have been sleeping too long. There is grey light in the sky and all must soon be rising to say prayers – to thank Allah for making the night be over and ask for blessings of the day ahead.
Mostly I awaken first, for it is my duty to fetch water and boil it to make Old Goat’s chai. He likes to have tea before his morning prayers.
There was once one other boy, Yasub, who made the chai. He was bigger than me, but he is gone now. He is dead. He told me that Old Goat has been living in this camp for many many years and that he is older than sin, so he cannot die. It is true this old man is dried up, like one wadi in the desert, yet still he lives to drink his chai and beat boys with his camel stick. But no longer does he hold the head of the camel when it is in line for racing. Breath of Dog is doing this now. He is the son of Old Goat’s cousin and he is a bad man. It is because of him Yasub is dead now.
Old Goat curses me. ‘Ah, Allah! Why are you punishing me with this lazy boy? I am wanting chai before saying my prayers, and now there is not time enough. Say your prayers quickly now, and then go to boil water so it is hot when I finish mine.’
I turn in the direction of Mecca and kneel with my forehead touching the ground. But instead of saying my prayers, I look up between my hands to the tall tower of Abudai. It is a building that stands bigger than all others in the city and my mama said to me that every morning, when the sun rises, before she is starting work for a rich sheikh in Abudai, she also would look towards this tower. She said it would help her to know that I would also be looking – that even though we couldn’t see each other we would never be far apart as long as we could both see this same thing.
But this morning its dark shape is like a shadow because I feel so much sadness. I am sad that I am not waking in my home in Bangladesh with my babu and mama, just like in my dreams. I am here, still, in this hot desert land where the sand is grey and drifting with the wind.
I am not wanting the tears to come, for never am I crying. Not since Babu told me to be like a man and never cry. And I do not. Not even when Babu is dying or when Mama is leaving me with the dalals, the slave traders, who brought me to this camp to live. I do not cry when Old Goat is screeching or when Breath of Dog is beating me. Not even when I fall from the camel and lose the tooths in my head. Never am I crying. It is just these foolish dreams that make me remember a time before I came here. Before I became a camel rider.
As I rise, I quickly touch my cheeks. My face grows hot, for it is as I feared. There is wetness.
‘Always crying for his mama in the darkness.’ Old Goat puts his face close to mine. ‘He is too much like one bint.’ He spits, and slaps my face. The blow is stinging to my cheeks.
Suddenly the redness of anger is upon me.
I leap at Old Goat and bite his arm. As he squeals like a goat with its throat being slit, I hear the early morning call to prayer.