had crammed a lot of study into the short time she had to prepare. But although she could bone up on the Sumer period and archaeology in general, she had found absolutely nothing about the site Salah’s father was working, so far from where ancient Sumer had prospered. Some mysterious outpost, some far city?
‘My father is maintaining very close secrecy until he can publish,’ he said. ‘You he could not refuse, but no other outsider has been allowed to visit. No media. A hand-picked team. You understand.’
‘I see,’ Desi said lamely, who didn’t know what it meant to ‘publish’ a site, couldn’t imagine why an ancient site would be kept secret, and was dismayed to learn she was on the receiving end of such a massive favour. ‘I didn’t realize what I was asking for. I mean…’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure you didn’t realize what you were asking for.’
His voice was hard suddenly. In anyone else she would have called it suspicious, but what could he be suspicious of as far as the dig went?
‘I’m new at this,’ she pointed out mildly.
‘And just by chance you happen upon the most tightly kept secret of archaeology of the last thirty years and discover an interest.’
It was suspicion. She couldn’t imagine what he suspected her of, but after last night, how could he speak to her in such a voice?
‘I didn’t go looking for this, you know,’ she pointed out calmly. ‘Sami is my best friend. Why shouldn’t she tell me about her uncle’s work when I told her what I was planning? I’m sure she has no idea how secret it is. She’d have said something.’
‘Sami should not know about it herself.’
‘She knows because it’s the reason marriage negotiations aren’t taking place yet. Till your father gets back from the dig. But by all means let’s not discuss the dig if you’d rather not!’ Desi said. ‘Let’s talk about something else. We’ve made love two nights running. Have you got the closure you wanted?’
Immediately she wished the words unsaid.
Salah turned his head and looked at her with a look so smouldering she felt physical heat. Memory roared up, making her weak.
‘Have you?’ he countered.
‘I wasn’t the one looking for closure. Why won’t you give me a straight answer?’
‘You were looking for something. Have you got it yet?’
‘I was looking to go to your father’s dig,’ she snapped. How much hurt he could still inflict! ‘Are we there yet? No? Well, then, not.’
He flicked a glance into her eyes.
‘So you didn’t come here to see me?’
‘Salah, how many times do you need that question answered?’
‘Truthfully, only once.’
‘By which you mean, you won’t accept any answer till you hear what you want to hear. I’m happy to oblige. What answer would you like? Let’s get it out of the way.’
‘Desi.’ His voice was almost pleading, and her eyes jerked involuntarily to his face. ‘I know that you are not here for the reason you say. I know you. You can’t tell me a lie and I don’t know it.’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she said, as bitterness welled up in her throat. ‘You don’t know me now, you didn’t know me then. You couldn’t have written that letter if you’d known the first thing about me.’
He shook his head at the attempt to derail him. ‘Tell me why you have come.’
‘Not from any motive you are contemplating.’
‘Is that an admission? What motive, then?’
‘Oh, leave it alone!’
The honeyed languour was gone from her body. Sunlight was beating into the car with such ferocity she was getting a headache. Heat and sun rarely bothered her, she blossomed in the heat, but this was different. A strip of chrome on the wing mirror was reflecting the sun straight into her eyes. She realized she hadn’t put on her sunglasses, opened her bag and pulled them out.
‘Hiding your eyes won’t help.’
‘On the contrary, it may prevent a headache,’ she said sharply. A herd of camels grazed on nothing in front of a settlement of half a dozen mudbrick houses. Tourists pressed cameras against the windows of a bus, snapping pictures as they passed. The highway curved around to the west; Mount Shir was behind them now. Ahead was an endless stretch of sand, shimmering in the heat, the highway a silver-grey ribbon laid across the vastness.
The road to nowhere, she thought.
After lunch in a small village restaurant, where they waited out the midday heat for another hour, Salah turned the four-wheel drive vehicle off-road and struck out across the dunes.
Now they were completely alone. Within a few minutes they had left all signs of civilisation behind, and were surrounded by the rich emptiness of the desert. Heat shimmered over the dunes; the sun was a white blast furnace against a blue of startling intensity; the pale sand, broken by rocky outcrops now and then, stretched to infinity. Only when she turned to look back at Mount Shir was there any relief for her eyes.
After several hours, the sun began to set ahead of them, the sky turning fiery red and orange and the sun getting fatter and heavier as it approached the horizon. As she watched, the sky shaded to purple, and now the sun was a massive orange ball, larger than she recalled ever seeing it before. When it began to sink behind the horizon, the sky above turned midnight blue.
The sun disappeared in a blaze; the sky went black very quickly. And still they drove.
Salah did not put on the headlights. The world was shadows. There was no human light visible anywhere, just stars and a moon almost at the full, bathing the dunes in ghostly purple. Desi was seized with a sudden, atavistic dread.
She shifted nervously. ‘When do we stop for the night?’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘An hour or so. Are you tired?’
She shrugged and took a sip of water from the bottle ever present between them.
‘A little. Aren’t you going to put the headlights on?’
‘What for?’
‘Can you drive in the dark?’
‘Why not?’
‘But how do you know where you’re going?’
Salah laughed. ‘There is only one way to navigate in the desert, Desi—by the sky. In daylight, by the sun. At night, by the stars. My forebears have done it for many thousands of years. Don’t worry—if my ancestors had not been good navigators, I would not be here.’
She laughed, and the strange dread lifted. They spoke little, but a feeling of peace and companionship settled over her as they drove on into the night. She almost forgot the harsh accusations of the morning in her pleasure at being with Salah in a world of two.
She had no idea how long they drove when at last a flickering light appeared in the distance. ‘What’s that? Is that a town?’
‘You will see,’ he said, and flicked on the headlights.
A cluster of strangely patterned tents met her eyes: a Bedouin encampment. By the time they reached it, a party of tall robed men was there to welcome them. Under instruction, Salah parked the Toyota against the wire fence of an enclosure, and they got out to be greeted by the men.
They were a tall race, clearly. The men towered over her in their flowing robes and turbans, with the dignified bearing of those who have never lost their connection to the land. They chatted with Salah in soft welcoming