Not once in her years of travel had Sophia so desperately longed to reveal her identity. Of course it would do her no good at all, American wealth being only a vulgar and inadequate substitute for British peerage—but in the face of Miss Bell’s judgment it was the only superlative to hand, and she found herself reaching for it again and again. The reflex went expressly against her idea of herself, and she resented Miss Bell for it at once. A chilly silence fell between the women—all while Lawrence kept on about verses and fortifications in his eager, oblivious way.
And so Sophia left Carchemish with lowered spirits. Abu Alim made no comment on the change in her mood, but she knew that he saw it; knew, too, that he was glad to be gone. There’d been little for him to do while she took her walks with Lawrence, and the idleness had made him ill at ease. He was a quiet man from a farming family, a devout Muslim who’d learned English in his youth from a Protestant missionary. The skill had proved lucrative enough that Abu Alim had purchased an orchard in Homs for his sons, so they wouldn’t have to squabble with their cousins over the family holdings.
Sophia had never told Abu Alim the true purpose behind her wanderings, and yet at times it seemed to be an open secret between them. After their first summer together, he’d stopped offering her a parasol in the sun; more than once she’d seen him glance at her trembling hands, before making some excuse to leave her for a few minutes so that she might take her medicine in private. Nor did he comment upon her “market trips,” when she’d go alone to a local souk and return hours later with nothing more than a new woolen scarf. At times the polite silence between them seemed absurd, and Sophia longed to rip the veil away—but again and again she refrained, not wanting to upset their equilibrium.
From Carchemish they reached Aleppo, and followed the River Queiq into the heart of the city; then took the railway south, bound for Damascus. But as often happened, the railway timetable proved untrustworthy, and they found themselves stranded in Homs, the next train not expected until the morning.
“Please, go home for the night,” Sophia told Abu Alim, not wanting to keep him from his family. “I’ll sit up at the station. I’ve seen other women do it, it’s perfectly safe.”
But as she’d feared, Abu Alim wouldn’t hear of it. He hired a donkey-cart and loaded her luggage upon it, and sent a message ahead to his wife to expect a guest; and at that point Sophia was obliged to quit her protests and accompany him through the winding streets.
When they arrived, his wife, Dalal, was waiting outside. She clapped and sang out at the sight of them, then brought Sophia inside and sat her next to the fire, and served her strong tea from a brass pot. Their sons were both tending to their orchard with their wives, and soon it was proposed that they should journey out with supper for everyone, as a surprise.
They arrived in the last light at an orchard at the desert’s edge. The young men were reddened and dusty from the day’s work; they shouted in joy at seeing their father, and embraced him with nearly enough force to knock him over, before bowing to Sophia and complimenting her Arabic. The orchard boasted a stone farm-house with a cushioned patio behind it, and the men disappeared inside the house to wash and pray while the women showed Sophia to a cushion and laid skewers of seasoned chicken upon the fire.
The food was delicious, and the fire warmed Sophia enough that she could even enjoy the meal. She answered their polite questions, made the proper inquiries and congratulations—one of the daughters-in-law was visibly pregnant—and then listened while Abu Alim and his sons discussed the prospects for the harvest, and whether they thought Italy would truly start a war for control over Libya. Coffee was passed around, and dates and pistachios from the family’s own trees. Sophia drew a proffered blanket over her shoulders, and watched the family before her, and found herself thinking about the dig at Carchemish. For the first time, the entire undertaking struck her as misguided, even pointless. Hogarth’s men would piece together the fallen city from its stones and shards; they’d take their photographs and their measurements, and return home to write their papers and give their lectures—and they’d leave Carchemish exhumed behind them like Mrs. Shelley’s patchwork creature, a bloodless thing, neither alive nor dead. There’d be no one to build new homes from its ancient stones, to plant orchards and eat the fruits, to sit around the fires and talk of crops and rain and war. To turn the city’s bones to living flesh, and breathe a new future into its lungs.
The wind had strengthened, whipping the fire about. Sophia shivered once, and then realized with a jolt that she hadn’t taken her evening dose of medicine. She’d expected to be on the evening train to Damascus, not at the desert’s outskirts. Her powder-flask was at Abu Alim’s house, with the rest of her belongings.
She looked up, and saw that Abu Alim was watching her. “It’s growing late,” he said. “We ought to go back to the house.”
Protests, from the younger generation. It was only half past nine, the fire still burned, there were pastries to eat—
“Miss Williams and
