Baalbek Moonrise

طلعة القمر ببعلبك

The temples don't sleep.

I've guarded them for twenty years, walked these stones under every moon. Tonight, a ghost returns.

"Siham?"

I know that voice.

I'm Siham.

Fifty-three, widowed, built like the Caryatids—substantial, enduring. My husband was a good man. But he wasn't Elias.

Elias is here now, after thirty years.

"Kifak, Siham?"

He looks the same. Different. Fifty-five, grey at the temples, still that intensity in his eyes.

"Inta mish masmuh hon ba'ad el sakir."

"Since when do you care about rules?"

Since he left. Since I married safety instead of passion.

He was the dig assistant.

I was the local girl who brought tea. We were twenty-three and twenty-five, stupid with desire, caught kissing against the Temple of Venus.

His supervisor sent him back to France.

I never saw him again.

"Why are you here?"

"They made me lead archaeologist." He laughs bitterly. "Thirty years, and I finally earned the right to return."

"Mabrouk."

"Don't congratulate me. I should have come back for you."

"I was married."

"I know. I kept track." He steps closer. The moonlight makes the temples glow. "He died seven years ago. I came as soon as I could."

"Seven years?"

"I had to finish projects. Make sure I could stay permanently." His eyes hold mine. "Baddé khalas ousal lal niheyi."

I slap him.

Thirty years of grief and rage in one strike. He doesn't flinch.

"Kamen."

I slap him again.

Then I kiss him.

The Temple of Bacchus has seen everything.

Roman orgies, Christian prayers, Ottoman camps. Now two Lebanese lovers reclaiming lost time.

"Siham—"

"Uskot." Shut up. "Khalasna hki."

His hands remember my body.

Different now—fuller, softer, marked by time. He traces every change like an archaeologist cataloging discoveries.

"Mashallah." His voice breaks. "Inti asra' min hal ruins."

"I'm not a ruin."

"La. You're what endures."

We make love against ancient columns.

The same ones that witnessed our first kiss. History collapsing into now.

"Elias—"

"Ouli." Tell me.

"Wahashtni." I missed you. Thirty years compressed into two words.

He enters me slowly.

The stones are cold against my back. His body is warm against my front. I'm suspended between past and present.

"Hal hajar shahed 'al hubbna."

"Aiwa." Yes. "W rah yidall."

The rhythm builds like excavation.

Layer by layer, we uncover what we buried. My legs wrap around him. His hands grip my hips.

"Aktar—"

"Aiwa—"

I come apart in his arms.

Crying, keening, releasing three decades of what-ifs. He follows, groaning my name into the Beqaa night.

Siham. Siham. Siham.

Like a prayer. Like a dig finally reaching its treasure.

We slide down to sit against the column.

The moon crests Jupiter's temple. The silence is ancient and companionable.

"Stay," he says.

"I work here, Elias. Where would I go?"

"I mean—khallik ma'é." He takes my hand. "Li aakhir el 'omr."

Five years later

The new excavation reveals a previously unknown chamber.

They name it after us—the Siham-Elias annex. Colleagues think it's professional recognition.

We know better.

"They found where we—" I blush.

"The stones remember." He kisses me. "W nhna kamen."

Alhamdulillah.

For temples that keep secrets.

For archaeologists who return.

For guards who keep faith with ruins—and love.

The End.