First came copies of the engravings Lara had already seen. Then more scenes of war.
In the middle of the largest wall Lara found Cleopatra, this time passing glittering jewels and gold onto a pair of warriors. In the next pictures Lara could see what seemed to be large furnaces and metallic vessels usually associated with melting of iron. But these did not hold iron. Instead they held some sort of a liquid yellow substance. The following pictures showed swords and spears made of this yellow material.
Lara understood. Marc Anthony had tried to pull the wrong strings with Cleopatra's gold. For the Nabataeans it had been a time of animosities, and foreign trade was at a complete dryspell. Iron was not naturally found in the area, so it had to be imported. It trade routes were blocked by war, no gold could buy iron that simply could not be imported. It was not gold the Nabataeans had wanted but iron! They'd melted Anthony's treasures – the only available material - and made weapons.
Gold was not a particularly hard material, which made Lara wonder what had become of the soldiers who'd tried to fight their enemies' iron swords with their golden weapons.
They'd probably ended up like the chamber guard. And the Nabataean's enemies had probably found several ways to use the gold they'd gotten from their adversaries' weapons. Marc Anthony's gold was probably scattered all over the Mediterranean shores.
The swords that adorned the small cavern Lara stood in had probably served as a bad example, nothing more. This had likely been a armament storage which had stood empty after a grand defeat in battle.
Lara wondered what Cleopatra would've thought if she'd known how what sort of purposes her gold had served. It had not aided Anthony in his quest for glory, instead served as vessels of self-destruction in border disputes.
Lara sat down, inspecting the crumbling metal of a sword. The leaves of gold that had covered the handle were probably the last pieces of gold from Anthony's bribes and was such a small amount that it could only be used as a decoration.
Lara sighed. There was nothing for her here.
The shut her flashlight to spare the batteries, then climbed back into the main caverns.
She felt anxious to see sunlight again.
When she'd climbed back up Lara sat down onto a rock to massage her tender arm muscles, strained from the heavy climb.
So this was a complete waste of time.
Or had it really been so? She'd gotten to see Petra. Gotten some time to think about things – even though everything seemed to become more and more complicated the more she tried to make any sense of it.
Still, finding out that there was nothing left to be discovered was never fun. She had found out what happened to Anthony's bribes, which was quite a meaningful archaeological mystery solved, but Lara liked concrete results, something she could hold in her hands.
Now that the Petra file was closed she was again faced with options, none of which seemed particularly inviting.
Oh how she would have liked to reschedule this monologue, but she knew sitting around on red rocks was only postponing the inevitable.
She was falling in love with Jordan, despite the fact that the time for her visit was not the best possible in terms of her state of mind.
Lara did not want to go to the funeral. "Did not want" was more of an understatement, really. As though the occasion itself would not be awful enough, the service would probably be attended by a lot of people Lara thought she would never again have to face. Relatives. Family friends of her parents – upper-class socialites who comprehended Lara's choices even less then her father had. What would her role be in the whole thing? She could not imagine a deeper humiliation – being forced to face the stares of all those people who knew she was there only because she had to, not because she wished to bid farewell to a loved one.
She could stay there and never see the rain-battered, gray streets of London again. She could have a life of intrigue and excitement, one many would choose without batting their eyelids. Live a life free of modern burdens.
A life with Hussain. No strings attached. But still, there would be a connection of some sorts. He couldn't keep her as a lover could he? Not without the whole family expecting a marriage. And they could not keep the affair hidden either.
Was it even an affair?
She needed him but did not love him. Simple as that. Sex had been an added bonus but not what she'd come looking. She'd come in search of answers, not a quick pleasure in a freezing tent.
This was part of her life, this traveling and discovering. But it was not all of it.
Suddenly Lara realized that the matter of her Father would have to be solved sooner or later. She could not life the rest of her life without some sort of a quid pro quo with him. If it meant empty words beside an open grave, so be it. Their relationship needed to make some sort of a turn.
Lara did not consider herself a very religious person. She did not really believe in a concrete heaven and hell and neither did she think that the living could contact the dead. But still, Lara had seen things that crossed the line between supernatural and natural, and could not deny that a person who died might not completely leave. Some sort of a premonition, a shadow could remain.
She believed there was some sort of a connection between people who either loved or hated each other deeply. And she had to know which of these strong emotions was causing the fact that memories of her Father would not leave her alone until she received some sort of closure.
She would have to return to England. She would have to bury her father. She would have to hear his will being read.
She would have to face the question: was he ever proud of her or had he truly abandoned her?
For blood was thicker than water and nothing less than bloodbonds would drag her back to Surrey.
They're only feelings. They can't crush me physically, she assured herself. Even is she felt like collapsing, it was only from the inside.
Still, give me a collapsing temple anyday.
But before she could book a flight to Heathrow, another matter required her attention. Hussain.
Lara gathered her things from the tomb she'd camped in, relieved that she wouldn't have to spend another minute in the place. She decided to ask Hussain for a horse to ride into the Siq entrance, determined to beg if she had to.
By five o'clock in the afternoon she'd emptied the tomb and placed her backpack below the architrave leaning into a pillar.
The she changed into a long-sleeved shirt and jeans and hiked down to the valley floor, abandoning the familiar route she had used several times and instead opted for one that required slightly more climbing.
She arrived at the camp at sunset. Noone was outside, so she walked to Hussain's tent.
He was eating alone, which seemed peculiar. Lara walked in and knelt down beside him. His eyes lit up when he noticed her.
"Lara! Did you found what you were looking for?"
Lara pushed a sweaty lock of hair behind her ear. "Yes and no. The place was empty. It seemed the gold had been used for weaponry."
"I'm sorry," Hussain said and it sounded very genuine. Lara didn't know whether she should say it was nothing or begin complaining about everything.
Suddenly anger boiled up inside Lara. Why the hell does this have to happen to me! I know how to do my job, but in facing this sort of things I'm totally lost!
She stood up, fists clenched.
Hussain pushed his plate aside. "Lara, what's wrong? And don't say it's nothing. Ever since I came to talk to you on the jebel you've seemed like there's so much on your mind, that it's overwhelming you to a point where you can't even grasp what's happening. As a desperate solution you just go with anything."
Lara stared at him. "So you're saying I just tagged along when you decided I was attractive?"
Hussain gave her a strange look. "Come on, Lara, this isn't about that and you know it. You're absent, distant."
"How do you know I'm not like that with all of my one-night stands?" she spat out.
The second the words had left her mouth she regretted them. He'd been so... kind. So undemanding. It had seemed quite clear in some way right from the beginning that this would not lead into a long relationship.
This was beyond relationships. Just an encounter in the desert.
She'd needed this.
Hussain stood up and touched Lara's arm. She half expected to feel like slapping him but didn't. There was nothing sexual about his touch.
Lara gazed up and faced him. "Why aren't you eating with the others?"
"Where is your family, Lara? You did not answer me when I asked."
It felt like a tie-in, two questions which noone wanted to answer.
Lara bit her lip. She owed him an answer. She felt guilty, as though she'd taken something from him and given nothing in exchange. There was something strange about Hussain, an aura of giving in. This was the first time he'd confronted her in any way.
Lara sat down onto the thick, soft carpets and circled her finger on the sand that had gathered between the threads.
Hussain sat down beside her.
"I have to return to England for my Father's funeral. And, I have another job which is going nowhere – I have no idea where to start, and the subject is something I'm very much unfamiliar with. Why would anyone think I'd want to go chasing bloody roses around! It's not as though anyone's offered me any more important work, and it's my Aunt who has asked for this, but it's just that—That--" Lara's voice broke.
She did not cry. There were no tears left. She simply couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. She leaned onto her palms on the carpet, unwilling to look at Hussain.
Great. On top of all she was now burdening him with her troubles.
Lara couldn't understand how he could have so much interest in her. Why he – or onyone – would be willing to listen to her. Anyone who wasn't either forced on gunpoint or a relative of hers and thus bound by empty obligation.
He was acting like a relative. Suddenly Lara felt like her throat was filled with sand. Was she acting and feeling like this because he was acting like her Father never had?
How bloody Freudian. If he touches me now he's dead.
He did. And Lara could not raise a finger against it. He kissed her, held her wrists so she could not push him away, and she had no desire to do so. She drained her soul out into the kisses as though he could make everything go away.
He couldn't, that was certain. But maybe it had been enough for her sanity to get something else to think about even if it wasn't for any longer than a few minutes at a time. Just a distraction to keep her from shattering to pieces.
But if he had helped her, what could she possibly do for him? Lara wasn't one to leave a debt unpaid.
Their lips finally separated. Lara leaned back. "You didn't answer my question," she reminded quietly, "But you don't really have to. Instead you could tell me what you studied."
He took a deep breath and Lara wondered why this seemed like something he didn't want to discuss.
"Theology."
Lara smiled. "I didn't know one could study Islam in Toronto."
He looked ever so slightly annoyed. "I am not a Moslim, Lara."
She looked suspicious. "You're not? I've never heard of Christian bedouin clans before."
He spread his hands. "That is because there aren't any. I studied the sharia for two years in Amman, and met a Canadian woman named Rachel. She was a devout Catholic and I got interested. We split up – my Father obviously did not approve of her, but I had began to read about Christianity and decided to turn. So I abandoned the umma and became a Catholic. At this point my Father gave me two choices. Either I left for good or returned to Islam and to this life."
Lara was stunned. "So you went to Toronto to study."
He smiled sadly. "I did. I tried contacting Rachel again, but it just didn't work. I was at that point considering becoming a priest, but that's when my brother died."
Lara did not reply, just shifted her position on the carpet, urging him to go on.
"My Father summoned me home. He wants his family around like every bedu, and decided it was not worth it to keep me away. With my brother he'd seen what too much Islam can do."
Lara did not smile. "Why on Earth did you agree to come back?"
"It wasn't easy being in Canada. I doubt I'd ever really have become a priest. This is where I was born. It would've been difficult there without my family."
"Couldn't you have met someone?" Lara crossed her arms. She would not have made a similar choice.
"I meant my family, Lara. Not a wife and children but family."
Lara turned away. Hussain had made a choice she would never have. If her Father had wanted a new chance, she wouldn't have granted it.
But maybe she should have. Her problem was that a chance like that had never been offered to her. Or had it? According to Aunt Gillian everytime her Father had been in touch with Gillian he'd asked about Lara.
Had he been trying to give her a chance and she had just not noticed due to the anger she'd carried in her for a decade?
And had her Father at some point given up? Given up and become enraged at her stubbornness? Or simply given up, saddened by her permanent absence?
Lara had a grim guess she would soon find out.
Hussain noticed her sour mood and decided to change the subject. "What is this rose you mentioned?"
Lara laughed bitterly. "Don't tell me you know anything about roses. That would be just too bloody creepy."
"Not about roses, no, but if it has anything to do with theology I might be able to help."
Lara thought about it for a second. "Alright then. I'm looking for a religious symbol called the rosa mystica. It might be a rose variety but more likely it's just a symbol. I've found a lot of references to different meanings of the rose in Christian symbolicism, but there are so many of them I don't know where to begin."
Hussain thought for a moment. "I'm no expert, but we did have a professor who'd done some extensive studying on botanical symbols. He emphasized the rose in a way that's quite uncommon – as the symbol of undying love. Love that could defeat death, that did not disappear in death. This dated back to the legend of Adonis and Sfrodite. According to the story the first roses grew from his spilled blood."
Lara looked puzzled. "In some Christian legends the first roses grew from Christ's blood that had been shed as he hung on the cross. Could this have been derived from the Roman legend?"
Hussain shrugged. "I really couldn't say. Nevertheless, the rose symbolizes love that does not disappear in death or during hardships in life."
"What about the colours of roses? Red is obvious, but what about yellow and white?"
"Yellow, associated with the Virgin Mary, stands for heavenly light. White, which in some cultures is the colour of death, is in Christianity associated with purity, joy and forgiveness. White is the colour of a union – one reason why wedding gowns are white. It's the colour of awareness and life."
Lara nodded. This was all good and well, but she was still at point blank. Maybe she should just admit to Gillian she was completely lost with flowers and that they should probably contact someone else.
"White is often combined with violet, which is the colour of regret and expectation. This is really abstract, I know. That's why I'd like to recommend a place to you. A place you could visit in Amman if your schedule permits."
"I'm sure I can arrange something," Lara muttered.
"There is a small church on Abu Baker El Saddeeq street dedeicated to the Virgin Mary. It's from Byzantine times. Go there."
"Thanks for the tip," Lara sighed, trying not to sound sceptical. "I'm sorry –" she suddenly began, "—about... All this."
"Why are you apologizing to me?" Hussain asked, and Lara did not have an answer. She turned to leave.
"Fursa sa'ida, Lara," he said to her. 'Thank you for letting me to get to know you.' It was a common thing to say to a departing visitor, but here it served as a joke.
She felt a smile creep onto her face. "You're something, you know that?" She laughed.
"You are something, too, Lara," he replied in mock courtesy.
Out of the blue, she walked back and pressed her lips briefly onto his. She expected to feel the usual melange of regret and sadness that always came when saying goodbyes, but now she was feeling strangely lifted. "Kul sana wa intum bi-kheer," she whispered, and disappeared out of the doorway.
'I wish you well for the coming year'. Perhaps they would meet again, perhaps not.
That went quite well. The only thing I know for certain is that the funeral won't.