“Hassan!”
Max felt his stomach turn, bile rising in his throat. His mind clung to all the architectural data of the tunnel and the pyramid, but he always came back to this conclusion: there was only one way out and it was Naya’s house. Then there was Mohammed Hassan, the cop who killed Moswen and Zahara.
His gaze, unconsciously, landed on the fragment of JESSICA DESROCHES.
The granite plate.
Split, like it was done with a pickaxe.
He suddenly remembered something and his eyes widened, relief flowing through him.
“The Spidey tunnel!”
The tunnel’s progress had been stopped by granite, which Spidey thought was the pyramid, but it was the huge plaque with the names engraved on it!
Max took a small pickaxe out of his backpack with his trembling hands and put all his weight into a few blows. Pretty soon, the granite block crumbled and fell to the ground. Gravel filled the tunnel and Florence coughed, suffering from a bit of claustrophobic anxiety. As the dust settled, the stinging darkness of the Spidey tunnel was visible. Florence and Max stepped over the debris and entered the tunnel. Aqmool tried to plug up the entrance but had to resign himself into leaving it open.
Crawling on their hands and knees, they followed the path Max had taken a few days earlier. Max’s leg must have remembered his ordeal as the pain filled his entire body. Florence spat out dust, sniffed and panicked, scolding herself that she had left her camera behind.
Finally, they saw the light coming down from a collapsed ceiling. They had to dig themselves out of there, and soon enough – or not nearly soon enough in their cases – they returned to the surface, and breathed in the fresh air.
Instead of the dusty loneliness of the Gaza plateau as Max had experienced a few days earlier, they landed in the middle of a scene straight out of a war movie.
Men rushed towards them, pulled them, pushed them, trampled them to enter the tunnel. A crowd armed with sticks, picks, weapons, ran towards Cheops. Helicopters circled the pyramids like vultures overhead. Tanks with tails-leu-leu entered the site and shots were heard in the distance. The thick smell of teargas hung in the air.
Max, Florence and Aqmool managed to sneak through the pack, running against the current, away from the pyramids. They finally arrived at the exit of the site. Aqmool signaled to Florence he was going in a different direction, but that they should continue towards the city.
A few minutes later, Max and Florence collapsed onto the sidewalk of a deserted street. Their clothes torn, their skin sticky and Florence’s pink hair was white from the dust. They caught their breath, Florence resting her head on Max’s shoulder. Max put his arms around Florence’s cold shoulders, and listened to her soft sobs.
After a few long minutes, she raised her face and glanced up at him. Her tears had drawn skin colored gutters on her gray cheeks, and Max simply kissed her lips.
They kissed in the streets of Cairo, and this time they couldn’t blame the Moroccan wine or the ancient shivers, but just the pure joy of being alive and being together. Their endless kisses tasted like tunnels and their hands with blackened nails grabbed their bodies, as if they were clinging to life itself.
Finally, they stood up and walked for a long time, hand in hand, without a word, in the orange-pink sky of Cairo. Max was limping and Florence insisted they stop at a café for Max to rest for a while. They entered the café to order a cup of tea, but everyone inside stared at the television screen, watching the news.
Max and Florence, who had been in their own little love bubble, had almost forgotten the raging crowd which had almost trampled them near the pyramids. The helicopters of the television channels filmed them and from the sky, the crowd was even bigger. Max thought they had escaped close, while trying to understand the reason for the riots.
“What’s going on? Do you understand any of it?” Florence asked Max.
The Arabic commentary said that security in Giza had deteriorated in recent months to finally be non-existent, and the army had to be called in to contain grave robbers. The presenter noted that ordinary people from all walks of life, but especially the poorest, came running, equipped with backpacks and picks. A man was interviewed among the crowd who said that if rich foreigners could use Egyptian treasures with impunity, then so could the Egyptians. The report also showed images of Al-Shamy to Sotheby’s Paris demanding Nefertiti’s return and thrown out by security agents.
While Max was about to translate for Florence, he heard an expert say that it was probably a fake, because the frescoes were in the pure style of 18th century reproductions. It was then that Max discovered the images filmed by Naya, the tunnel, the frescoes, the satellite image, in a thirty-second session proudly bearing the BBC logo.
Max turned to Florence, who stared at the screen, not saying a word.
It was the images that caused the hysteria, the comment continued. They were the ones who had turned hundreds of honest citizens into treasure hunters ready to do anything to access the tunnel under Cheops and steal a piece of Pharaonic history. A disaster that has so far resulted in a dozen injuries. The toll would be much higher as clashes with the police intensified minute by minute.
Florence finally found the strength to face Max and tried to explain. “They weren’t supposed to broadcast it, Max. I never thought that they – ” Max backed away from her, not uttering a word. He no longer had the strength to fight Florence’s ambitions. He shook his head in thick disapproval and turned away, leaving the café and disappeared into the streets of Cairo.
On the other side of the world, in New York, Cheryl Wood-Smith sat on the floor of her office, her back against the wall. Her eyes were red, her gaze fixed on her outstretched legs in front of her. A dusty lamp hit the two cardboard boxes on a table with its yellow glow. From the dented lid protruded children’s drawings, empty files, a fake bust of Nefertiti – the contents of her desk at the Met. At the bottom were a few pencils, magnets in the shape of a museum and ten years of her life.
She listened to the sounds of the city beyond the closed window, which stretched into the night. The sound of footsteps approached the door of the office but was interrupted by another set of footsteps.
“Jake, why are you still awake? It’s late,” her husband whispered to their young son in the hallway just outside the office.
“Why is Mommy still awake?” little Jake asked.
“Mommy has to work. We mustn’t disturb her.”
“But you said she lost her job.”
“She has to work to find another one. Come on, go to bed, I’ll tuck you in.”
The footsteps faded into silence and the familiar sounds of the city filled the air once again. The same ones she had been hearing for over ten years. However, everything had changed a few days before. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Hot tears stung her eyes once more, her jaw clenched and her finger caressed the Udjat eye resting in the palm of her hand.
30
Sixtine crossed Zócalo, making her way through the crowd. Kids in fancy dress costumes played on the steps leading to the Museum of the Templo Mayor. The great celebration of the Dia de los Muertos had already begun, transforming Mexico City into a city of the dead, but Sixtine didn’t think much about it.
As she went up the stairs, she repeated the words she would say to Thaddeus. Over and over again.
At the guard stationed in front of the museum doors, the mere mention of the name Thaddeus di Blumagia made them hastily open the doors. The guard told her that Thaddeus was with the Museum Curator, and he asked her to wait a few minutes inside the exhibition hall.
The guard took up his post again on a chair in front of the door, and Sixtine found herself alone. To try to appear relaxed, Sixtine began to stroll around like a tourist. She pretended to be interested in one of the museum’s jewels, a gigantic Eagle Warrior in terracotta, its face in an eagle’s beak, wings on its arms, and claws on its knees.
This wa
rrior was a member of one of the two prestigious Aztec military orders, the Order of the Eagle, symbol of the Sun.
Sixtine smiled as she already knew it and somehow wondered where she had learned that.
Thaddeus was still not there, even though it was only seven minutes after he was supposed to meet with her, and she tried to keep herself calm. She slowly walked past the windows and saw animals, men, gods. The knives, altars, vases – everything was decorated. Everything told a story which Sixtine already seemed to know. The images that appeared in her mind were not in the museum, and yet seemed to belong in the Aztec pantheon. She desperately tried to place the source of this knowledge in her memory, in vain.
Was it their honeymoon?
She suddenly heard footsteps on the other side of the windows towards the entrance of the museum and her heart pounded in her chest. The museum darkened slightly, as if a light had to be turned off in one of the rooms. Then the noises also disappeared and Sixtine found herself I silence once again.
She continued her stroll, her stomach in a knot. She viewed the masks, feather suits, skeletal remains, codex fragments until it was ten minutes until midnight.
She continued on, passed a tzompantli, a wall decorated with hundreds of stone skulls, but barely looked at it.
She then arrived in a room in the center of the small museum, where there was a large model of the real Templo Mayor as it had appeared five centuries earlier to the conquistadors.
It had existed right here, right where she stood. Here once stood a monumental stepped pyramid, finished at the top by two gigantic altars, one dedicated to the god of rain and the other to the god of war. Two sets of steep stairs covered one of the facades and joined the altars. For the Aztecs, the Templo Mayor was the center of the world.
She then remembered the poet’s words. On the day of the inauguration of this great temple, the blood of eighty thousand sacrificed souls had been shed.
It was right here, and this human sacrifice, in the confused mind of Sixtine, smelled like the Green River.
First, the vertigo grabbed her, but she knew she was about to remember something important and terrible.
She slowly continued her tour of the museum in the other direction.
The ritual vases carried the blood and hearts of the victims, who were sacrificed on a chacmool, a beautifully decorated stone altar. The ornate flint knives opened the breasts of men, tearing them apart.
She remembered the vision she had in the catacombs near the Green River and gasped. What if Seth had been sacrificed in an Aztec ceremony?
She pursed her lips, attempting to stifle the rising nausea, yet doubt suddenly set in. These images in her head did not have the quality as the others, of the moments spent with Thaddeus. This vision seemed distant, surreal and disjointed, as if it recalled an absurd nightmare.
Suddenly, the museum lights went out one by one.
She descended the staircase to the registrar’s office to find Thaddeus, but when she arrived in the lobby, the guard had disappeared.
The door was locked.
Sixtine felt her throat tighten, yet she called out in a hoarse voice, “Excuse me, is anyone there? Excuse me, excuse me!”
One light went on, but several others went out. The museum was getting darker and darker. When she heard footsteps behind her, she whirled around.
“Sixtine, my dear,” Yohannes De Bok appeared, out of breath, and approached her. “Please forgive us for being late. It’s my fault, I’m too talkative.”
He took Sixtine’s hand, who did not understand, and led her to an emergency door, raving at full speed. “Don’t look so confused, my dear. Thaddeus and I were talking to the curator, we didn’t see what the time was.”
“You and Thaddeus?” Sixtine asked with a frown.
“Yes, Thaddeus came by my house earlier. He told me he was seeing you tonight, so I jumped at the chance to see you again,” De Bok said with pure excitement in his voice. “The curator has given us the pleasure of sharing their latest discovery on the excavations with us. I simply have to show you this, it’s incredible. In my life, I’ve never seen anything – ”
He stopped abruptly, glancing at Sixtine’s pale face.
“You look very pale. Are you feeling alright?” he asked.
“I walked around the museum waiting for you,” she answered and motioned to her left, “and I came across this.”
“Oh yes, human sacrifices,” De Bok cringed as they continued towards the exit. “Thaddeus can tell you about it, he has been inspired by it a lot in his work. You know, from the beginning, humanity has been materialistic. Man has always understood that the balance of the universe pays off. This is the very principle of religion, this kind of barter. An offering for a favor from heaven. The Aztecs, on the other hand, lived on a land where the gods could trigger a flood, a drought, an earthquake. So to tame these violent deities, you had to put a price on it. The ultimate price, human blood.”
They passed a large clay skeleton, its fake intestines hanging between its ribs, its body leaning forward and its clawed hands ready to catch a prey.
“This idea of a royalty to the gods is far from our modern beliefs. In our rich Western countries, we are probably the first society in the history of the world to think we owe nothing to anyone. But if the issue was the renewal of each day, the victory of light over darkness. At what length, Sixtine, would you be willing to go?”
They left the museum through an emergency exit and in front of them were the ruins of the excavation of the Templo Mayor, and the crowd and the lights of Zócalo in the distance. The half-hidden moon cast pale reflections on the white stones.
As Sixtine concentrated on her steps, De Bok walked ahead and continued his grim tale.
“The Aztecs sacrificed their enemies, of course. This murder was easy, justifiable one might say. They made these massacres into elaborate spectacles, which reinforced terror and in turn established the domination of the leaders. But they also sacrificed their most precious possessions. Their children, their champions, even their most beautiful women.
De Bok stood under the thick shadow of the structure that protected the sensitive areas from excavation. The beam of his flashlight revealed a rusty floor hatch already open.
‘Thaddeus, Sixtine is here,’ De Bok called out and motioned to the hatch, illuminated by a soft orange glow. ‘After you, my dear.’
Sixtine carefully climbed down the ladder. A series of storm lamps illuminated a space of about five hundred square feet, squared with stretched wires, and boards to access the various parts of the excavation, without having to walk on the ground. As she followed De Bok, she noticed that the ground was strewn with shovels, brushes and rakes and other archeological tools, but also with vases, masks, bones and skulls.
But she also noticed something odd.
Silence.
De Bok stood motionless in the middle of the boards, staring at her and his smile was strange.
Suddenly, Sixtine’s heart plummeted down into her shoes and her chest tightened. She felt all the horror of the equation of the underground and the rusty trapdoor and the Day of the Dead and the Aztec warriors. She stared at the antique dealer and gasped, her voice broken by fear, ‘Oxan Aslanian. It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘It’s always a good idea to be an expert on yourself, isn’t it?’ he answered with a devilish smirk. ‘I think so, too.’
‘You came without your disguise, this time.’
‘Are you disappointed?’ he chuckled and noticed Sixtine’s scowl. ‘Oh, don’t make that face. You’re someone else too, aren’t you, Jessica?’
He approached her slowly, one foot in front of the other. In a dazzling moment, she was aware of all that was going on around her. North, East, West, South. High, and Low. Inside, and outside. Beyond. All around the bowels of the temple and the underground which closed the blood of the Aztecs. The ancient heart of Mexico City.
Pumping in her ears.
The poet’s prophec
y was coming true.
31
Florence turned the key in the door, crossed the hall and took off her shoes. It was clear that Max had come to pick up his things, and left without a word. She went to the kitchen, washed her hands, and prepared a cup of tea. It was strange that she could do all these perfectly coordinated, absolutely ordinary movements, the mechanical ballet of life, but as she stood completely still, holding the best Darjeeling in India, she saw her hand shaking violently.
She walked through the house, looking for her father and eventually found him sitting in the library, reading the archives of Vivant. He had not heard her come in and was startled when he saw her, dropping his book.
At the sight of her, his eyes widened in worry and panic. Before he could utter a word, she raised her hand and said, “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Have you seen the news?”
“Yes.”
“It was me,” she admitted woefully.
“What?”
“The images of the tunnel. I stole them from Max’s laptop.”
Faced with the misunderstanding that stretched her father’s face, Florence told him everything.
Charles stood to hug her and whispered, “Oh, my Flo.”
For a moment they remained coiled up against each other, then she finally said, “I think we should go home, Dad.”
“All right, sweetheart. You go get cleaned up and sleep for a bit, I’ll take care of the rest.”
Charles left the room and Florence heard him call the staff.
In his father’s language, “taking care of the rest” meant giving confusing orders to everyone. It had been that way since her mother left. It was a good thing, by the way, and her father was over the moon while doing just that.
Florence plopped down on the blue sofa and glanced absentmindedly at the archives of Vivant. Only twenty-four hours before, she had been so happy to sit there. Now, there was nothing left of those beautiful moments, even the blue of the sofa had become dull.
Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 43