EPILOGUE
The wave hit Rosebud in the back covering her with spray. Murat screamed: "Big one coming", but before she could turn around green seawater covered her and sent her tumbling to the beach. Her belly and breasts scraped the sand and then the water receded again. On hands and knees Rosebud looked around for her stepson and the both of them started laughing. She reached up to adjust her scarf to cover her hair again. Her wet dress and trousers emphasised her curves even more.
"That was a big one Mum."
"It sure was. It is the strong breeze that makes the sea this wild. But it was fun was it not? Let's do it again."
The both of them waded back into the deeper waters to dive into the breakers and finding a good spot to ride a wave back towards the coast.
Mum. She remembered when he had called her that the first time. She had accompanied Faisel and Murat to their English school for some school event. One of the boys had asked Murat "Is she your mum?" and he had said "Yes that is my mum." They had walked towards the classrooms and the Murat had said when he saw the look on her face: "My mother is mama in Arabic but you are my English 'mum'. Well you are are you not?" She had understood it was a nickname and a badge of honour. From that day onwards that was what her stepsons had called her, and their little siblings her biological children, had copied it.
The sheikh had planned to send his oldest sons to a British boarding school and had informed Rosebud of his plans. She could not understand why he wanted that. Some of her friends in university that had been in one had hated it. She did not want them to leave at all. She had shocked him by strongly expressing that to someone whose word was the law and who had a harem of obedient girls obeying his commands. On realising that, she had just started to cry.
To her surprise he had laughed and scooped her up in his arms and then said "Did I impregnate you with gunpowder this time my little spitfire? You either laugh, cry or are pissing mad with me."
"I just cannot understand why you want to send them there. It is horrible there and I will miss them."
He had explained that he wanted them to have a good preparation for a top university.
"But I was at Oxford and I just went to school in the village. And I speak English to them every day."
He had set her down on the couch in his library telling her not to upset herself now she was about to give birth again. He tried to explain he thought education by tutors in the palace, was in his opinion, not good for their social skills, that he wanted them in a school but in West Tripolitania he did not see it as a possibility to send them to a normal school as normal kids.
"But a boarding school is so horrible", she had cried. "I liked it in my school but would have hated to go all alone to live in a boarding school."
He had looked down at her and then asked if she thought her parents would be willing to have his boys living there. She had looked up at him all teary-eyedand had said: "They always go there for long visits."
"Well Puppet then ask them if they may stay with them and go to your school if that makes you happy." So the last three years the two Arab princes had lived the life of two English schoolboys in rural Little Puddington.
Rosebud lifted her head up so the warm sun was shining on her face. The seagulls were making a racket eager to get some of the food put out on the beach. She licked her lips. The taste of salt water on her lips, the smell of seaweed and fish in her nostrils. Voices and laughter. Happiness flooded her. She was glad to be home.
The two weeks she had stayed with her parents together with her baby daughter - coming to pick up the boys for the summer break and to see her family and show the new baby - had been an exercise in rain and grey weather. It was so good to be here again.
Murat and Rosebud looked for a big wave and then tried to let that carry them all the way to the beach. On reaching the shallows Faisel and Abdul, one of the eunuchs, were waiting for them to join some ballgame in the surf. Abdul had been castrated by the fanatics during the civil war when he was just a toddler. Instead of dying as he was supposed to, he had survived and instead of living a life of mutilation Idriss had recruited him for the honoured task of keeping the Sheikh's harem girls safe. He was just a few years older than Faisel and they were best friends.
Rosebud excused herself telling the boys she had to tend to her babygirl. She trotted up the soft sand of the beach to a tent that was erected so people could change without being seen. She stripped herself out of her wet long dress and pants and dried herself off wrapping a towel around her long braids that normally would reach her mid back. She got into a sheer set of harem pants and a blouse and wrapped a large piece of veil over her hair and back. The locket with the Sheikhs Tughra, his seal on it, heavy between her breasts.
From the tent Rosebud walked to a party tent where Noor was keeping an eye on her baby girl who was happily sleeping. Her friend smiled.
"I am glad you and little Leila are back home again Rosebud."
"Me too. You have better weather," grinned Rosebud. "No you silly I am teasing you. I missed you too."
Rosebud sat down on the towels next to her best friend and picked up her baby. The moment she opened her blouse the little mouth found her nipple and started suckling.
Noor had been her friend in the harem from the beginning when Rosebud had just been a prisoner and a slave. She had spend hours trying to teach her Arabic and never tired of explaining the rules to her. She had never wanted to leave the harem to start her own family but instead was the best auntie one could imagine for Rosebud's own children. Rosebud imagined Noor loved the Sheikh in her own way and was happy being called to his bed once a month and for the rest playing nanny for his kids. When the Sheikh wanted Rosebud in his bed Noor would sleep in the nursery to keep an eye out in case one of the children would wake up at night.
The women had always joked to each other that Rosebud would take care of making children and birthing them and Noor then could have her fill changing nappies and spooning fruit mash and cuddling them.
As a sign to honour that love and devotion Rosebud had asked the Sheikh to call her second son Nourredin after her friend Noor. Her daughter and third child she had named Leila after the deceased first wife of the Sheikh who had always treated her like a friend instead of a slave and - as Rosebud was told after her death - had even suggested to the Sheikh to make Rosebud his second wife. She knew the gesture was not lost on Leila's children.
The two women were sitting in silence enjoying each other's company. The other harem ladies were playing with her two little boys and the children of the women who had left the harem or were catching up on the news of their former sisters who were visiting today.
A lot had been changed since she had joined the harem of Sheikh Fuad. She did not sleep in the broom cupboard anymore but neither in the villa of queen Leila. She had refused that and kept that as the house for the three children that Leila had given the Sheikh. The Sheikh had installed her in the never used apartment of the favourite telling her she had been that for months. The big rooms had a view towards the sea and a cloistered balcony covering the whole length of outer wall of the harem building on which she could sit and look out over the sea without being seen. It had a sitting room and a bedroom with a large bed in case the Sheikh would want to visit his woman in her own bed. It also had a small room for a baby but the Sheikh had ordered that the quarters next door be converted into a nursery telling Rosebud who still had to give birth that she needed space for more than one baby.
Since the days the Sheikh had made her his queen-consort some of the harem ladies had left to marry and start their own families. Others had decided they wanted to study and have a career. Little Imani the Somali girl who had been circumcised ,that severely that normal intercourse let alone a baby was hardly possible, had asked the Sheikh for permission to go and study to become a doctor so she could help women like her and warn against the mutilation. The Sheikh had given her a large trust fund so she had money to not only become that doctor but also start a charity. Imani was about to get her degree now. Rosebud knew she had been given as a gift to the Sheikh on a foreign trip, who had taken her in as he had seen that as the only way he could get the damaged girl away to safety. She was glad Imani had found happiness in her life. She could see some of the young mothers asking the doctor-to-be for advice.
Other women had chosen to stay in the harem as that was where they were happy. Some like Noor because they loved their lord and master. Rosebud expected that girls like Jameela just loved the good life and a good fuck once and awhile.
And as no new girls had joined, like the Sheikh had promised Rosebud when he married her, now instead of 30 women just 17 lived in the harem.
The ones who had left because they wanted to have a chance on their own family had found suitable husbands queuing up for them. Not only had the Sheikh granted them all a good dowry but they were considered very special. They might not be virgins anymore but everyone knew they were trained in the ancient harem arts and many a man dreamt of having such a special girl in his bed.
The fact that the royal harem girls were such sought after wives and the fact that the Sheikh had once started this harem as a way to cement the tribes into one country had inspired Fuad in starting a palace school copied from the one that had been in the palace of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Sixteen year old girls from all over the country were invited to come and live in a school on the palace grounds and there trained in all the palace etiquette, music, dance, languages and the harem secrets of how to please a man. Unlike the Turkish harem school, this school send the girls home the moment their training was completer. After a year, having learned a lot and witnessed a lot of royal events they were sent home still a virgin with a dowry suitable to marry a good catch and like the harem girls, goodwill ambassadors to their tribes.
Today however almost everyone who had lived in the harem was back and enjoying the beach party. Proud mums now completely covered up and carrying babies and toddlers instead of looking like the sex goddesses that had eyed Rosebud when the English woman had been dragged into the harem.
"I am going to have a chat," said Noor. "But before I forget our Lord called on your phone and said he was back from the desert and about to pick up Mary Kate. Her plane arrived at last."
Rosebud watched Noor walk to her former harem friends. Yes the former president, Azziza and Selma the cook - the three Moirai or goddesses of destiny as her husband jokingly would call the three old ladies- had come up with the idea of organising an American style beach party when the eldest sons would be back from England for the holidays and the Sheikh had given the idea his blessing. However a tropical storm over the Atlantic had kept the plane Mary Kate was supposed to take grounded till today. She had called the Sheikh's office and said they should start without them and she would try to get there as soon as possible.
Mary Kate had declined a new term as a president claiming she was too old. Fuad however had said to Rosebud he had the feeling the weight of power and maybe the lack of the real possibility to change things had been heavy on her. The old lady and her Arab son, as she always called him lovingly, had forged a strong connection during her presidency and after her retirement she had spent many happy weeks visiting. Azziza, Selma and her were all elderly women and they liked to do experiments in the kitchen so sometimes the Sheikh and his ladies would find something completely foreign like Chili Con Carne had ended up on their plates.
