The Scorpion’s Bite (4 page)

He sat across from her and asked in faintly accented English, “Do you mind if I join you?”

There were plenty of other tables. The café was less than half filled, mostly with men, some by themselves engrossed in the newspaper; some with friends, leaning forward, speaking with eager faces and elaborate gestures.

“I’d like to talk with you,” the man said.

A shepherd moved his flock slowly down the center of the thoroughfare, ignoring angry drivers blasting horns of automobiles.

The waiter brought the bottled water and crème caramel and set them in front of Lily. She fingered the cool bottle where small drops of water ran down the outside.

“About what?”

“We have much to discuss,” the man with the straw-colored hair said. He leaned forward, and grabbed her hand.

She snatched it away and rubbed it on the side of her dress.

“I know who you are,” he said. “You are not his sister.”

He’s talking about Gideon. Who was this man? What did he want?

The man looked around at the other tables, lowered his voice. “It could be to your advantage,” he said. “And not too much trouble.”

She felt a vague uneasiness, felt the menace underneath his soft voice.

He wants to pay me to do something underhanded? Lily didn’t answer. She threw a handful of piastres on the table, grabbed the bottle of water, and stood up.

“Don’t go yet,” he said, reaching for her arm again.

She pulled away, ran across the street back to the hotel, her heart pumping, and left the crème caramel on the table, untouched.

***

When she returned to her hotel room, the laundry sat on the freshly made bed, starched and ironed, and all colored a vivid electric yellow, with the orange scarf, the one that she had used to cover her face in the whirlwind, neatly folded on top. The laundress had boiled everything together.

And the next morning, in a new Jeep, a new hat tied under her chin with shoelaces she had fastened above the brim, and dazzling yellow jodhpurs and shirt bright as the morning sun, she drove back to Rum.

Chapter Eight

Lily, Gideon, and their new guide, Hamud bin Abdul Aziz from the Beni Sakhr, sat in the shade of the wall of an ancient ruin about forty kilometers north of Petra, eating a lunch of tomatoes and cucumbers and hard-boiled eggs. Klaus was lying in the sun half-propped up on one elbow, his eyes on Hamud, his face tilted up toward the sun.

“Mad dogs and Englishmen,” Lily told him.

“Englishmen can’t always be wrong,” Klaus said. “The sun is good for the soul.”

“We’ll go along the King’s Highway,” Gideon had said when they left Rum. “Any spot of strategic value has ancient fortifications—Roman, Crusader, Turkish.”

“Is that why we’re here?” Lily asked. “To find locations of strategic value?”

Gideon stared at her. Is it possible that he doesn’t know why we’re here any more than I do, she wondered?

“Donovan picked us to work in Trans-Jordan. Because we’re archeologists?” she asked.

Gideon still didn’t answer.

Of course he knows why we’re here. He visited Abdullah and Glubb in Amman, and left me to map the Roman theatre. He knows.

“Archaeologists can go anywhere without raising suspicion,” Gideon finally said, but that was no answer.

The King’s Highway led from Syria to Aqabah, from Edom to Arabia Petra, following the ridge east of the Dead Sea and the Arava along a line of freshwater springs. The Romans built Trajan’s road along this route.

“Armies have come through here from the days of Moses,” Gideon had remarked. “As Moses said to Sihon, king of the Amorites, ‘We will go by the King’s Highway until we have passed thy border.”

Klaus rolled his eyes again. “He didn’t simply let them pass, did he?”

“No, they had to fight. Israel smote the Amorites with the edge of the sword, and took their cities.”

Stopping at an abandoned caravanserai, they had walked among the tumbledown walls of rooms heavy with the odor of urine, of human and animal waste piled in the corners. They sheltered against the wind near an outside wall higher than the others, and spread out their sleeping bags.

When they were putting up a tarp for protection from the ruthless desert sun, Gideon discovered that two of the tent pegs were missing. He found a fig tree planted at the derelict cistern, and broke off some branches.

“Does anyone have a knife?” he asked.

No one did. Gideon picked up a flint cobble and smashed it smartly against a boulder to get a shatter of sharp flint flakes. While Lily and Klaus watched, he used the flakes to scrape the branches smooth and whittle rough points at one end. Using another cobble, he drove the points into the ground, substituting the trimmed branches for the missing tent pegs.

Lily thought of Jael, who drove a tent peg through the head of the cruel Sisera. But this time Gideon omitted the Biblical reference, and rocked back to admire his handiwork.

“When I was a child,” he said, “I wanted to be an archaeologist so that if I were lost on a desert island, I would know what to do.” He tightened the rope around the peg. “And now, you see, I know what to do.”

“This is not an island,” Klaus said. “Just a desert.”

***

Gideon ran his fingers along the ashlar masonry with its polished edges and diagonally tooled bossing. “Nabatean masonry. Reused to build this caravanserai.” He turned to Klaus. “You took a picture of this?”

“He’s seeing Nabateans again,” Klaus muttered. “If it isn’t Abraham or Moses, it’s the Nabateans.”

Klaus pointed his camera at the block of limestone, glanced at his watch, then toward the rolling hills to the east.

“They passed through here.” Gideon leaned his back against the wall, dreaming. “They brought frankincense and spices from Arabia to the sea or to Damascus. Early Christian pilgrims came through here and died by the side of the road. Crusaders fought here.”

He closed his eyes, while Klaus again looked at his watch. Gideon’s voice became pensive, lost in the past. “In the old days, before the railroad, pilgrim’s caravans on their way to Mecca would travel down this route, stopping each night at a fortified caravanserai like this.

“They would fetch a fresh supply of water from the cistern, water their animals, spend the night.” Gideon shook himself and stood up. “Just like us.”

Klaus turned back the cuff of his shirt and glanced at his watch yet again.

“You have a dentist appointment?” asked Lily.

Klaus gave her a puzzled look.

“You keep looking at your watch.”

“It’s a Schafhausen. I bought it there, you know, in Switzerland, in Schafhausen.” He looked at the east again, across the rutted track to the flint-strewn desert. A slight breeze lifted his hair and he pushed it back. “I escaped Germany through Switzerland, got down the Rhine as far as Schafhausen. Boats unload there because of the Reinfalls. It’s the largest waterfall in Europe.” He paused again, his eyes focused on a distant vision. “The Reinfalls was astonishing. The noise of the roiling water blocked out everything. I stood on the hill of Schloss Laufen and watched the power of crashing water, flying spray boiling and churning. Draining away like my life. I wept. I never expected to, but I wept.”

He moved his cuff back with his forefinger and ran it gently across the watch. “Some day, when all this is past, when the war is over, I’ll sell the watch and use the money to go back home, open a camera shop and studio. This is my fortune, all that I own. It’s worth a lot of money.”

“You have the Exakta,” Lily said, pointing to his camera.

“I bought it cheap in Jaffa from a refugee who brought it with him from Germany. He needed the money. A lot of bargains are to be had from people who brought things in.”

“Like your Schafhausen?”

“That’s different.”

How is it different, she wondered? Could he get enough for the watch to open a camera shop?

“What was your profession before you left Germany?”

“I… I owned a department store. Two of them. I know how to run a business.”

In Germany, Lily thought, Klaus was a Great Dane.

She remembered that Klaus stood behind Qasim when he was relaying the message for Gideon. “Before he died, Qasim said he had a message for Gideon. Something about the Rashidi. Do you know what it was?”

Klaus shrugged and shook his head. “How should I know? Ask Gideon.”

After lunch, Klaus disappeared again.

“I know where he goes,” Hamud said and winked, then began to laugh. “He goes to visit a woman.”

Lily and Gideon exchanged glances and smiled. “I told you so,” she said.

“He visits a Bedouin?” Lily asked.

“No, no. She calls herself the Empress of Mesopotamia. She thinks she is like al Khatan, the woman you call Gertrude Bell. But al Khatan moved among the Bedouin by bribing them with great gifts. This woman has no such wealth. She is ugly, even uglier than al Khatan, with hair the color of terra cotta and speckles all over her face and arms, as if flies had lain with her. But worst are her eyes—like cold green stone.”

“What’s a khatan?” Lily asked.

“A lady of the court,” Gideon told her. “Gertrude Bell meddled in everything. They called her the Queen of Iraq. She was formidable, overwhelming, power mad.”

“You and Glubb don’t seem to approve of her.”

“Iraq’s troubles started with Gertrude Bell. All of today’s troubles in the Middle East. At the end of the last war, she drew the borders, she decided who ruled where.”

While Hamud cleaned up from lunch, Lily and Gideon explored the area beyond the caravanserai. They walked into an enclosure with the remnants of a wall.

Behind it were the remains of a square building, the walls scarred by Bedouin campfires, the corners reeking of human and animal detritus.

“A temple of the goddess Allat, consort of Dushara, the chief Nabatean god.” Gideon told her. “In this courtyard they held public festivities. You see here,” he pointed to the stubs of engaged columns along two of the sides. “There was a gallery above.”

In the rubble of the square building, they found the vestiges of an inner shrine, surrounded by broken pieces of statuary and reliefs scattered on the ground.

Gideon pointed to the ruins of a tower behind the shrine and a stairway. “This led to the roof. In the twilight after the sun set, the priest would climb up there to make the goddess suddenly appear before the worshippers at a doorway above the temple in a sudden burst of illumination, an epiphany, lit only by fire. Then excitement and wonder would sweep through the congregation.”

He spoke in a magical whisper, recreating the ecstasy of the moment in a way that made Lily’s skin prickle.

“You’ve been reading Durkheim,” she said, and he smiled. “Did they burn frankincense on the altar? Did they sacrifice a goat or a sheep?”

Gideon threw up his hands.

“Did the ceremony take place on the night of the full moon,” she asked, “or during the dark of the moon?”

“Burned frankincense, maybe. It was their monopoly. Controlled the caravan routes from Arabia, that and the silk trade from China, bound for ports on the Mediterranean.” He continued walking around the building, his hands in his pockets. “They dug wells and guarded them, set up serai, demanding payment from everyone who came through.”

“The Saudis of the Roman world?”

“More than that. The Saudis have nothing except oil. They have no water. They have nothing but sand and rocks and oil.”

“What will they do when the oil runs out?” Lily asked. “Go back to raiding, to stealing camels from the Howeitat?”

“The Nabateans were different. They were in the desert, too. After the Romans learned the secret of the monsoons and went by sea and the Nabatean monopoly was over, they farmed the desert. Built check dams and cisterns to catch the desert rain, terraces to hold the soil, planted crops.

“So, maybe fifty or a hundred years from now camel caravans will pass through here from Saudi Arabia,” Lily said.

“Carrying what? Frankincense? On a route that leads nowhere? Besides, in the Arabian Peninsula there is little rain to catch in cisterns and check dams. Rainfall is less than a quarter of an inch a year.”

When they got back to the caravanserai, Klaus was waiting for them, rummaging through his things, putting away his camera and a small matchbox. Gideon sent him back to take pictures of the enclosure and the temple.

“Got some interesting pictures of the terrain,” Klaus said with some satisfaction, and Lily wondered about where he got the matchbox.

Chapter Nine

Lily heard a car whine its way toward the caravanserai, and turned to see Jalil emerge from Glubb’s old Buick.

He carried a rifle and handed it to Lily. “This is for you.”

Her arm dropped under its heft.

“A twenty-two millimeter Lee-Enfield training rifle,” Jalil told her. “Number two, MK four. It’s a single shot affair, only to teach you how to shoot.”

She grasped the firearm with both hands, then cradled it in her arms.

“And to teach you safety and marksmanship.” Gently, Jalil moved the barrel down. “First, you’ll learn to shoot, later to clean, strip and load. Then maybe, you’ll be issued one.” He pushed the rifle down further, and pointed the barrel at the ground. “Maybe.”

He unfolded a large paper target and scanned the walls of the caravanserai.

“Not there,” Gideon told him. “Your ancestors built these walls. Have you no respect for your past?”

“If not there, where?” Jalil wedged the top of the target into a crack between ashlars. “Not my ancestors. The Bdoul’s ancestors maybe, but not mine.”

He led Lily to a place next to a boulder, about fifty yards from the target. “Stand here.”

He reached for the rifle. “This is the sight,” he said, pointing. “This is the trigger. It has a safety catch. Push it forward when I tell you.”

He handed the gun back to her. “The rifle has a short butt. Bring it up to your right shoulder.” He waited while she rested it on her shoulder, feeling the weight of it. “Your right eye should be over the heel of the butt. You should be able to see the target through the sight. Can you?”

She nodded, lost sight of the target for a second, then found it again.

“Put the first joint of your finger around the lower part of the trigger. Squeeze the trigger until you hear a distinct click.”

She pulled back the trigger, heard a distinct click, and jerked in surprise.

“Lower your cheek to the butt of the rifle so that you see through the sight.”

The wood of the butt was warm against her cheek.

“Keep your eye back. The discharge has a kick.”

“Will I knock out my eye? After this, will I go around looking like a pirate, with an eye patch and a cursing parrot on my shoulder?”

“Too close to your face,” he said. “Back it up a bit.” He reached over to move the butt of the rifle back. “Close your left eye.” He waited. “Aim.”

She squinted through the sight.

“You see the target? Is it clearly in the center of the sight?”

She would have nodded, but was afraid that she would loose sight of the target.

“Hold your breath and continue squeezing with your right hand. Where are the sights pointing now? High? Low?”

Lily had no idea what he meant.

“Hold it firmly on your shoulder with your left hand. Keep your head still. Hold your breath.”

“Suppose I begin to shake? Or run out of air?”

“Fire.”

The kick knocked her back, exploded in her ear. The gun clattered to the ground.

She swallowed, took a deep breath, and sneezed. The air around her smelled like a firecracker gone wrong.

“Didn’t hit the target,” Gideon tried to tell her. She had trouble hearing him. “It sailed over the wall, hit something inside the caravanserai.”

An echo rebounded off the canyon walls and rolled through the silence of the desert.

“Now you know the feel of it,” Jalil said. “Catch your breath. I’ll show you how to reload. Next time, aim down.”

“I think you hit the temple,” Gideon told her. “Wounded the goddess Allat, consort of Dushara.”

“I’ll try again,” she said. “Maybe next time I’ll kill her.”

She saw the Bedouin before she heard him, galloping toward them on a camel, grim-faced, brandishing a rifle, the strap flapping as he bore down on them. Even the cloak flying behind him seemed angry.

The Bedouin twisted the camel’s head when he pulled back on the reins, couched the camel with a gruff shout and a pull, and tripped over its front leg when he dismounted. He grabbed the strap of his rifle, flung it across his back, steadied himself, rushed at Gideon, and thrust a livid face at him.

“I am Khalid ibn Achmad, the brother of Qasim.”

Lily saw the Bedouin reach over his shoulder, ready to grab his rifle to threaten Gideon.

She picked up the twenty-two at her feet, slung it into position just as Jalil had coached her, and pointed the empty gun at the Bedouin.

She closed one eye and put the other to the thingamajig used for aiming the way Jalil had told her, aimed, put her finger on the trigger, and said, “What is it you want?”