Mar Moussa Path | درب مار موسى
"She guides pilgrims on mountain paths to holy sites. He's the atheist anthropologist studying religious journeys. On the road to belief, they find their own faith. 'Inti el darb el wahid' (أنتِ الدرب الوحيد)."
Mar Moussa Path
درب مار موسى
Pilgrimage is walking toward.
I guide people on mountain paths to holy sites—Qadisha, Harissa, forgotten churches. Their faith leads; I follow.
Then the skeptic joins, studying what he doesn't share.
I'm Samia.
Fifty, pilgrim guide, body built by mountain walking. My faith is practical—one step at a time.
Professor Marc Duval studies religion without practicing it.
"I'm not here for worship."
"Everyone says that."
"I'm here for research. Anthropological observation."
"The mountains don't care why you walk. They just watch."
He's fifty-two.
French anthropologist, pilgrimage studies. His notebooks fill; his heart stays empty.
"Why do they do it?" he asks of passing pilgrims.
"Ask them."
"They give unsatisfying answers."
"Maybe you're asking the wrong questions."
We walk together.
He observes; I guide. Slowly, his observation becomes participation.
"My feet hurt."
"That's the point."
"Pain?"
"Awareness. Hard to think when your body speaks."
He stops thinking.
Not believer yet, but not purely observer. Something shifts on mountain paths.
"Samia—"
"Eih?"
"I came to study pilgrims. I'm becoming one."
"Becoming what?"
"Someone who walks toward instead of watching."
"Toward what?"
"I don't know." He takes my hand on the mountain path. "Inti el darb el wahid." You're the only path.
"I'm just a guide—"
"You're what I've been walking toward without knowing."
The kiss happens at a mountain shrine.
Candles flickering, centuries of prayers soaked into stone. His mouth on mine is arrival.
"Marc—"
"No more observation. Just this."
We make love in a pilgrim shelter.
Where travelers have rested for centuries. He lays me on simple beds.
"Mashallah." He breathes. "You're—"
"Weathered. Faithful—"
"The journey's end."
He worships me like shrine.
Every touch an offering. Mouth on my neck, my breasts, lower—
"Marc—"
"Let me arrive at you."
His tongue between my thighs.
I grip the shelter walls, crying out at mountain night. Pleasure like reaching summit.
"Ya Allah—"
"Yes. That's faith."
When he enters me, I feel pilgrimage complete.
We move together in the shelter—his body and mine, arriving.
"Aktar—"
"Oui—"
The climax is destination.
We cry out together—journey ending, staying beginning. Then we lie on pilgrim beds, found.
Two years later
Marc's book publishes.
"Walking Toward"—not just observation but testimony. He guides now, alongside me.
"Worth the journey?" I ask.
"I found what I wasn't seeking." He kisses me on the mountain path. "You. This. Faith."
Alhamdulillah.
For paths that lead.
For anthropologists who convert.
For guides who become destination.
The End.