The Scorpion’s Bite

by Aileen G. Baron

  “If a hot bath is the highest human aspiration,” Gideon said, “then God is weeping.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two Bedouin and a Druze with a rounded white hat and trim beard stood at the edge of the saltpan. Beyond them, the blue pools of Azraq shimmered in haze from the heat. The fort, built of basalt, strangely dark and medieval, spread out behind the pools.

  Next to the pan, a collection of black goat-haired tents surrounded a large white marquee with the sides pulled up to catch the late afternoon breeze.

  “That’s Sheik Suleimon.” Gideon gestured toward an old man propped against pillows in the shade of the white marquee, his jaw slack in sleep. “Came here for the salt.”

  Lily had heard of Sheik Suleimon, famous for his wealth; the extent of his progeny, almost a thousand and counting; and his penchant for women, especially blondes. It was said that Sheik Suleimon once spotted a beautiful young woman at a camel market, asked to arrange a marriage, and was told that it was impossible, that she was his granddaughter. It was said that he had placed ads in personal columns of British and German newspapers, looking for blond wives; that he offered ten-thousand dollars bride price; that he had accumulated more than the four wives allotted in the Moslem tradition. It was said that in his youth, he was handsome and charismatic, the inspiration for Rudolph Valentino’s films about the Sheik of Araby.

  With a tilt of his head, Gideon indicated the Bedouin at the saltpan who had started toward them. “We’re in for some desert hospitality.”

  “You want to meet Sheik Suleimon?” he asked Lily. “He’ll invite us to eat and to spend the night.”

  The Bedouin bowed with a sweep of his cloak, asked about Gideon’s health, and invited him to the sheik’s tent. “Just some coffee,” the Bedouin had said, “and perhaps a bit of bread to speed you on your way.”

  Gideon answered that he must hurry, that he must spend the night in the fort to meet with Abu Huniak.

  “Just a little water.” But the sheik had already ordered his men to kill a goat, and now it was evening and they awaited a Bedouin feast in the white tent. The tent was large, the flaps closed against the cool night air, the ground and sides covered with fine silk carpets. Gideon and the two Bedouin from the saltpan sat on one side of the tent and Lily sat alone on the opposite side.

  Sheik Suleimon leaned back in a pillow-covered chair on a platform at the far end of the tent, his eyes closed. He had a white kafiya wrapped around his head, with a gold-decorated egal, the cord that holds a kafiya in place. He wore an embroidered tunic over a long white shirt, over that a cloak, and over that another cloak, as well as a shawl across his shoulders. Two middle-aged Bedouin sat cross-legged on cushions on either side of him.

  At last, a boy appeared, carrying a tiered brass stand that held a basin of water and a tray with soap and a towel. The boy left after they finished washing their hands, and returned with an enormous copper tray—a seniyah—piled high with meat and rice atop a layer of flat Bedouin bread. He placed it in front of Gideon. On the very top of the mound of food, and facing Gideon, was the boiled head of a goat and a pair of goat’s eyes, delicacies reserved for an honored guest.

  Gideon blinked.

  The boy returned again with a smaller seniyah that he placed in front of Lily. Her seniyah held the neck bones of the goat, the part next to the head, a singular honor for a woman. The next time she glanced toward Gideon, she saw that the goat’s eyeballs had disappeared. Had he eaten them? Had he palmed them?

  She watched Gideon and the Bedouin eat, tearing off chunks of the bread, rolling it around meat and rice, and she did the same, using her right hand, only her right hand. The left, she knew, was just for washing.

  The old sheik opened his eyes and squinted at her. She remembered to lower her own, not to stare, to look modest. Eye contact was brazen, vulgar in a woman.

  The sheik stirred in his chair and said something to one of the younger men seated next to him. The man helped him to stand, step down from the platform, and approach Lily.

  Braced by the Bedouin who held his arm, the old man bent down and peered at her with rheumy eyes clouded by cataracts. A network of wrinkles scored his face. He mumbled to his companion and his trim white beard moved with his words. Lily wasn’t sure what she should do. She kept eating, her eyes fixed on the food in front of her.

  Did the sheik think that Gideon and she visited to arrange a marriage? She looked down at the seniyah and felt her face flush.

  The old sheik muttered again, and the Bedouin led him back to his chair, one careful step at a time, the old man open-mouthed, gasping for shreds of air.

  How much would he offer Gideon as bride price, Lily wondered? Fifty pounds? Twenty pounds? A camel and a goat?

  ***

  Lily leaned back, feeling that she had overeaten. Opposite her, Gideon had done the same.

  “Wonderful meal, wonderful,” he said. “I couldn’t eat another morsel.”

  The boy reappeared, this time with a basin of water and soap and a warm wet towel to wipe their hands and faces. As they left, the old man stood at the door of the tent and bowed them out, with a special low bow for Lily, gesturing that his heart, his mouth, his head, were at her disposal. Again, she blushed and lowered her eyes.

  “No offer of marriage?” Lily asked Gideon after they left.

  “Tomorrow. It’s rude to discuss business in the tent.”

  “Business?”

  “For you,” Gideon said, “it would involve high finance.”

  ***

  They spent that night in the black basalt fort. Klaus was waiting for them outside the fort. The Bedouin with the brown turban from Wadi Rum, with a mangy dog scratching a tawny coat, stood near him.

  “I found someone to be our guide.” Klaus pointed to the Bedouin, a small man with the air of a bantam cock. He swaggered toward them, his hand on the hilt of a dagger in a scabbard decorated with small glass bicycle reflectors.

  “He knows the area,” Klaus told them. “Says he knows of some archaeological sites around here.”

  “Where did he come from?” Gideon asked. “I didn’t see anyone on our way in.”

  “There’s a small Ruwalla encampment not far from here in the wadi. This is Ibrahim ibn Rashid.”

  Lily wondered how Klaus knew of the Ruwalla encampment.

  “This is your dog?” she asked the Bedouin.

  “He follows me.”

  He picked up a stone and pitched it at the dog, hitting it on the flank. The dog yelped, whined and scurried behind a rock. “Sometimes, he helps me hunt.”

  Ibrahim ibn Rashid watched the dog slink away, gave Gideon a grudging bow, glanced over at Lily, then gestured toward Klaus. “He says you will pay.”

  Gideon looked surprised. Someone official had usually arranged for a guide—General Donovan or Emir Abdullah.

  He reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Of course.” He fished out a half-pound note and handed it to Ibrahim.

  “This is just a piece of paper.” Ibrahim inspected it and turned it over. “With a picture of a Hashemite. It is worthless to me.”

  “What do you want?” Gideon asked him.

  “A goat. A donkey. A camel.”

  “With this note, you can buy a goat.”

  “Where?”

  “In Karak, in Amman.”

  “How would I get there? This piece of paper is worthless to me.” He tore the note in half and threw it on the ground.

  Gideon bent down to pick up the torn note and glared at Klaus.

  “He’s just a Bedouin,” Klaus said. “He only knows the desert, but he knows it well.” He turned to Ibrahim. “We will get you a goat.”

  ***

  Lily dreamed of Rafi again the next evening and couldn’t get back to sleep.

  She strolled around the periphery of the pool near the fort, breathing in the sensuous, silent beauty of the desert. In the silver moonlight, the eerie outline of bould
ers cast deep shadows.

  Gideon stood on the verge of the pool, gazing across its surface, the quiet ripples sparkling and pale blue in the night.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she told him.

  “Bad dreams?”

  She nodded.

  They walked along the ancient shoreline, slowly savoring the night perfume of the desert, the sharp odor of wormwood, of terebinth, and gazed up at the velvet sky, bejeweled with stars.

  “The ancient Babylonians,” Lily said, “thought every star was a god, that the gods lived up there in the sky in a world of their own.”

  “Look there.” She pointed skyward. “A falling star.” They watched as it crossed the sky and disappeared.

  Gideon turned to her and smiled. “Another Babylonian god bites the dust.”

  “It didn’t even leave a track. A god is missing, and there’s nothing left to mark its place.”

  “Like in your bad dream?” Gideon gazed at her. “Brightness that passed through your life and left no trace?”

  “Maybe.” She turned her face away to tell him about Rafi, of their broken plans, of his last moments at El Alamein, how he was caught in the crossfire in a German minefield.

  “He didn’t have time to live.” Her voice caught. “He left nothing behind. No child, no family, no heritage.”

  “There’s always your memory of him.”

  “And then what? Nothing else to show that he ever lived.”

  Gideon took a deep breath and put his hands in his pockets. He looked up at the stars again, each one a god going about his business, winking at him before moving on.

  “You think that has anything to do with what happened to you in the cave yesterday?”

  He watched her, waiting for her reaction. She stared at him, blank-faced.

  “In Hebrew, the root for the word for tomb is the same as that for cave.”

  “I dug in caves before. Tombs as well, with never a problem.”

  “I know that. The tombs at Tel el Kharub. Eastbourne, director of the site, was killed. And the cave in Morocco. That time, it was Drury who was murdered.”

  Lily felt a chill. “Getting cold out here.”

  “You think so?”

  She clasped her arms tight across her chest.

  “When did you last see Rafi?” Gideon asked.

  “In Chicago, before he left. Over a year ago. Almost two years.”

  “When did you find out what happened?”

  “Last November.”

  He took his hands out of his pockets and looked over at her. “It takes a year, two sometimes, to recover from a loss. Everyone must grieve in their own way, take their own time. Rituals are important, like the one at the mourner’s tent we saw at the Bedouin encampment. You had none.”

  “You learned all this in your course on grief counseling at the seminary?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You sound wise, but you don’t know how it feels. I still have regrets.”

  “A life without regrets is a life not lived.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t give me platitudes. That’s not it. We neglected time. We thought we had all the time in the world.”

  She blinked back the sting of tears, and shivered. “I’d best be getting back. Even with stars, it’s cold here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the cool of the morning at first light, Lily, Klaus, and Ibrahim loaded the Jeep outside the fort before they went out into the desert for a day’s reconnaissance.

  Klaus continued to pontificate on Ibrahim’s virtues, emphasizing that the Ruwalla knew of caves and archaeological sites that couldn’t be found without his help.

  Ibrahim leaned on his rifle, glaring at the fort. He had refused to spend the night inside.

  “Was Lawrence’s headquarters,” he said. “Lawrence lied.” He shook his head, spit on the ground. “Lawrence and his friend, al Khatan. Both betrayed us.”

  “Lawrence wasn’t all bad,” Lily said, feeling obliged to defend a fellow archaeologist. “He understood the Bedouin, lived among you.”

  “A donkey’s a donkey, even if he’s raised among horses. He made promises he didn’t keep.”

  “He tried,” she said.

  Gideon brought out a box filled with bread, hard-boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a jar of feta cheese floating in oil. He set it down beside the jugs of cooled, boiled water, and went back into the fort for more supplies.

  Ibrahim hitched the hem of his abaya over his shoulder, rested the carton on it and started toward the Jeep, with his dog sniffing and haunting his footsteps. He dropped the box into the back of the Jeep with a thud, pushed the dog away with his foot, and went back for the water. Lily cringed as the dog whimpered, crept away and lay down on its side in the dirt beyond the Jeep.

  Gideon emerged again, grinning this time, carrying a watermelon.

  “Where’d you get that?” Lily asked.

  “From the icebox in the Legion kitchen.”

  “You stole it?”

  “I only borrowed it.”

  “So when we finish eating it we’ll give it back?”

  “Some day, I will buy a bigger and better watermelon and dedicate it to the icebox at Azraq.”

  “Even if it takes forty years?”

  “Exactly so,” Gideon said, handing off the melon to Ibrahim.

  Ibrahim reached for the melon with a smile, thumped it, dumped it on top of the box of food, and climbed into the back of the Jeep.

  “Careful, you’ll break the water jugs,” Lily said.

  She rearranged the box and then turned back to Ibrahim to pick up the threads of their old conversation, curious about what he said about Lawrence and Gertrude Bell.

  “You don’t approve of Gertrude Bell?” she asked.

  “She wished to be called al Khatun, the Lady,” Ibrahim’s nostrils quivered in anger. “She sailed around the desert from tent to tent with a train of camels loaded with chests of linen and silver and dishes, and a bathtub, in fancy dresses and flowered hats, throwing baksheesh to sheiks and camel-drivers. Like a queen.”

  “I thought all the Bedouin liked her.”

  “They liked her baksheesh. What can you say of a woman who acts like a man? She was a foolish piece of noise, always talking, always giving orders, a man-woman donkey.” He shrugged and wiped his hands together in a gesture of dismissal. “She was in love with Faisal,” he added, and Lily was surprised. “Made him king of Iraq.”

  “Faisal? Grandfather of the present king? Gertrude Bell and Faisal had an affair?”

  “Laa.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “No affair. She was too ugly. And I think, what I think, Faisal was in love with Lawrence, and Lawrence was in love with him.”

  “A ménage à trois?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never mind,” Lily said.

  “Faisal put up with el Khatan because she was Lawrence’s friend,” Ibrahim said. “And because she made him King of Iraq.” He rubbed at his face and shook his head again, this time in disgust. “Why Iraq? He was stranger. He was from the Hejaz.”

  He twitched his head. “Now Iraq is ruled by a useless child.”

  Lily remembered the picture of the curly haired Faisal, looking sad and frightened next to his confident cousin Hussein.

  Gideon came out of the fort, carrying two canvas water bags that he hung on either side of the Jeep.

  “Ready to go?” He turned to Klaus. “Got your camera, your film?”

  They clambered into the loaded Jeep. As Gideon drove out of the fort compound, the dog chased after them, tangling with the wheels, snapping, barking. Gideon gunned the motor, sped away, and left the dog in a wake of whirling dust.

  ***

  Jalil caught up with them by late morning.

  The day was heating up. They had paused and rested in the shade of the Jeep, eating chunks of the watermelon, sucking the sweet,
sticky juice, letting it run down their chins.

  Awadh, the older Bdoul from Petra, was with Jalil. Both rode fine Arabian steeds, shining chestnuts, sleek and proud.

  Jalil dismounted. “Brought you a new guide.” He indicated the Bdoul.

  Awadh’s face was vibrant with smiles as he told Lily his new horse was called Ghalib, named for a great warrior.

  Ibrahim stood, his hand resting on the hilt of the gaudy dagger at his waist. “He knows nothing. He’s an old man.”

  “He knows a great deal because he’s an old man,” Jalil said.

  Awadh, still beaming, gave a modest nod of his head. “I was with Lawrence.”

  Ibrahim looked ready to spring at him.

  “We can use both,” Klaus said. “The more the merrier. I’ve hired Ibrahim. He’s Ruwalla, knows this part of the desert.”

  Jalil nodded. “Ahlen we Sahlen, Welcome in peace.” He spoke to Ibrahim, but he looked worried.

  “Suleimon is dead,” Jalil told them. “And there’s been infiltration from Syria. This morning, a Syrian raid at the saltpans. They came for the salt, stole flocks. Killed two men of Suleimon’s khamsa.”

  Lily envisioned tribal warfare raging across the desert. “They killed Suleimon?”

  “No, no. Heart attack. The tumult of the raid. He was ancient. He’s been sick. His men were distracted.”

  “We were guests for dinner in Suleimon’s tent just yesterday.” Lily pictured the old sheik who bent over her, squinting at her through clouded eyes. “It’s sad.”

  “We can’t count on Suleimon’s men now.” Jalil looked north. “Their camp is in confusion.” He nodded and took a few shallow breaths as if he were sniffing the air. “That’s not all. Umm al Quttein was attacked.”

  “Who attacked? Same raiders?” Gideon asked. “What did they attack?”

  “Umm al Quttein is on the south slope of Jebel Druze, just this side of the Syrian border. It’s an Arab Legion post, just a few kilometers from pumping station H5. A contingent of Syrians, Germans, Vichy French, and a force of Druze cavalry.” He looked north again. “Vichy French officers led the attack.”

  “H5?” Gideon asked. “On the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline?”