The Bible of Clay

by Julia Navarro

  "He betrayed us."

  "He doesn't see it that way."

  "How does he see it?" George asked with an air of suspicion. "Have you talked to him?"

  "He called me in Rio three days ago."

  "He called you! Why not put an ad in the newspaper!"

  "I'm sure he used a secure line. I was in the hotel, and I must say I was surprised."

  "What did he have to say?"

  "He wants us to know that he has no intention of betraying us or starting a war between us. He repeated his offer: He'll lead the operation we've set in motion, he'll ensure its success, and he'll give up his share in exchange for the Bible of Clay. It's a generous offer."

  "You call that generous? Do you have any idea what those tablets are worth if he finds them? Do you realize their leverage, power, for the person who owns them? Come on, Frankie, don't let yourself be taken in. You and Enrique tend to let him off too easily, time and again. He's betrayed us; it's that simple."

  "Not exactly. He tried to convince us to turn over our part of the Bible of Clay if he found it, in exchange for all the profits of the other deal."

  "And we told him no, so he decided to go off on his own, and pulled that stunt in Rome."

  "Yes, he made a mistake. But now he's furious because he thinks we hired the Italians to follow his granddaughter."

  "But it wasn't us!"

  "That's what I told him, George. But until we find out who it was and what they wanted, I won't rest."

  "So what do you want us to do? Kidnap the president of the Italian security company and force him to tell us who hired him?" George looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "Does it not occur to you that Clara is married to one of Saddam's government officials? Honestly, Frankie, somebody may think that Ahmed Husseini is a spy. Saddam doesn't let anybody out of Iraq, but Husseini comes and goes as he pleases. There must be a lot of people interested in knowing why. Who knows if it was the Italian secret service itself, or NATO—I mean, who knows? It could be anybody."

  "But they didn't follow Husseini, they followed Clara."

  "Frankie, it doesn't matter. Alfred can't keep those tablets; they don't belong to him! None of us can make decisions or take actions on the basis of our own convenience or interest, ever. All four of us agreed on that long ago."

  Frank was momentarily lost in memory. "You're right, of course," he finally said. "How far are you willing to go?"

  "There's no forgiveness for betrayal."

  "So you're going to have him killed?"

  "I won't allow him to steal something that belongs to all of us."

  Clara gave a last look around her room. Ahmed was waiting to drive her to the air base, from which a helicopter would take her to Tell Muqayyar. From there, she would be driven to Safran in an SUV

  She'd rejected Ahmed's offer to go with her, and she had also refused to let Fatima accompany her, at least for now. She had enough company with the four armed gentlemen her grandfather was sending to escort her.

  Ahmed was no longer living in the Yellow House. For several days now, he'd been living at his sister's.

  Clara knew that her husband had had a long conversation with her grandfather before the old man left for Cairo. Neither of them would tell her what they had discussed, but Ahmed did mention that he might put off leaving Iraq until war actually broke out, although he wasn't promising.

  "Call me as soon as you get there. I want to know you're all right," Ahmed said.

  "I'll be fine, don't worry. It'll only be a few days."

  "Yes, but British bombs seem to have a special attraction for that area."

  "Nothing will happen, Ahmed."

  She got in the helicopter and put on the earphones to muffle the noise of the rotors. By noon they'd be in Safran, and she was looking forward to enjoying the solitude of the excavation site again.

  Ahmed watched the helicopter lift off and grow smaller and smaller in the sky, and he, too, experienced a sense of liberation. For a few days, at least, the guilt he felt around Clara would lift. He had made a conscious effort to keep his emotions under control and not to express the slightest reproach. She had made it easy for him, very easy, and had given him no opening to change his mind.

  But now he had to make a difficult decision: He could either allow himself to be blackmailed by Alfred and take part in the last operation, or he could try to escape from Iraq.

  He could feel the Colonel breathing down his neck—on Alfred's orders, no doubt—so leaving Iraq would be complicated, to say the least. If he stayed, Alfred had assured him that he'd pay him generously and, in addition, help him leave the country.

  Only Clara's grandfather could guarantee his escape, but could Ahmed trust him? Wasn't it possible that the old man would have him killed at the last moment? There was no way to know—with Alfred, you couldn't be sure of anything.

  He had talked about it with his sister, the only one of his relatives who lived in Baghdad. She, too, dreamed of leaving. She'd come back just over a year ago when her husband, an Italian diplomat, was posted to Baghdad, and she was hopeful that when the drums of war began to beat they'd be evacuated.

  For the time being, they'd taken Ahmed into their home, a large apartment in a residential area where many Western diplomats lived. Ahmed was sleeping in his younger nephew's room; the youngster had moved in with his older brother.

  His sister urged him to ask for political asylum, but he knew what a difficult situation it would put his brother-in-law in if he showed up at the Italian embassy asking to leave. It might even trigger a diplomatic incident. Besides, Saddam was capable of preventing them from leaving, regardless of how much diplomatic cover Ahmed had or how strongly the Italians protested.

  No, that wasn't the solution. He had to leave by his own means, without compromising anyone else, much less his family.

  By the time the helicopter set down at the military base near Tell Muqayyar, Clara's temples were throbbing and her head felt like it was about to explode.

  Like much of Iraq's war materiel, the helicopter that had flown her here was junk. The Colonel had told her it was the only one he could spare.

  Once she'd boarded the SUV, escorted by two soldiers, she began to feel better. Her grandfather's four men followed in another vehicle.

  The ride to Safran was hot and filled with dust, which swirled up in clouds whenever they met another vehicle, invading her nose and mouth and making even her saliva gritty.

  The leader of the village greeted her at the door of his house and invited her in for tea. They exchanged the usual formalities and then, when the appropriate period of courtesies had passed, Clara reviewed how she saw the project unfolding and what she would need.

  The man listened attentively, with a smile, and then assured her that everything had already been prepared for her visit; Ahmed had telephoned with detailed instructions. They had started erecting a number of houses made of clay, a material not lacking in the area. Once the impurities were sifted out, water was added to form a paste and dry straw, sand, gravel, or ash was worked in for strength. The construction technique was simple: Walls were raised in courses, almost like bricklaying, and when one course was dry, the next one was added on. A thatch of straw and palm leaves formed the roof.

  A half-dozen had already been completed, and at the rate they were going, another six would be erected before the week was out.

  Inside, the houses were very simple and not terribly large. Ahmed had ensured, however, that they would be provided with rudimentary showers and toilets.

  Proud of the work he had done in such a short time, the village leader also assured Clara that he himself had chosen the men they needed for the expedition. Clara thanked him and then, treading carefully so as not to offend, said she would like to meet with all the men in the village, since the workers needed to have certain qualifications. A long and complex negotiation followed, which the leader gave in to only when Clara decided to drop the Colonel's name. The next day, he said, she
could meet with them all. There were also women available, he told her, to do the laundry and clean the foreigners' tents while they were out excavating.

  It was almost nightfall by the time they finished their discussions. Clara had accepted the headman's invitation to stay in his house, with his wife and daughters, until the rest of the expedition arrived. But first, she said, she wanted to walk around the ruins for a while, to think about the work ahead of her. The old man nodded. He knew that Clara would do as she pleased, and besides, she was no responsibility of his—she had brought her own escort from Baghdad.

  She asked her bodyguards to keep their distance. She wanted to be alone, without having to feel their constant presence, alert to her every footstep. But they refused. Alfred's orders had been clear: They were not to let her out of their sight, and they were to kill anyone who tried to harm her, although first, if possible, they were to extract the identity of the perpetrator and who had hired him. Anyone attempting to harm Clara would pay for it with his life.

  The most Clara could win from her escort was a promise that they would keep a prudent distance—but she would never be out of their sight.

  She walked all around the perimeter of the site, which had now been cleared, her fingertips gently brushing the stones that formed the structure for the mysterious building. She observed the ruins from every angle, flicking dirt off a stone here and there, picking up shards of tablets that she carefully slipped into a canvas shoulder bag. Then she sat on the ground and leaned back against a rock and let her imagination wander through the desert, in search of Shamas.

  21

  "abram, can we go on with the story of noah?"

  "In truth, it is not the story of Noah but rather the story of God's anger with the impudence of men. Everything God saw on the earth was evil, and so He decided to exterminate its most beloved creature: man.

  "But God, who is always merciful, was moved by Noah's goodness, and He decided to save him—"

  "—And that is why He ordered Noah to build an ark of gopher wood, with pitch inside and out. I know, I've written this before," Shamas said, rereading one of the tablets stacked beside him. "And the ark was built three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. The door to the ark lay on one side, and God ordered Noah to build it three stories tall."

  "I see that you have written all that I have told you." "Yes, Abram, of course. Although I do not like this story as much as the story of the creation of the world." "No, my son? Why not?"

  "I have been thinking about Adam and Eve and how they hid from God because they were ashamed of their nakedness before Him. And about how God cursed the serpent for having tempted Eve to disobedience. It seems unfair."

  "Shamas, you cannot choose which stories to like and which stories to question. You asked me to tell you the history of the world. As part of that story, it is important that you know that God decided to punish mankind and so He flooded the earth. If you do not wish to go on—"

  "But of course I do!" The boy bit his lip, fearing he had angered Abram. "Forgive me. Please go on."

  "Where was I?"

  Shamas read aloud the last few lines he had incised in the tablet:

  Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

  "Ah, yes. Now write as I shall tell you," Abram commanded him:

  Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.

  And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

  In the six hundredth year of Noah s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

  And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. . . . And the Lord shut Noah in.

  In the boy's hand, the reed passed rapidly across the tablet. Shamas' imagination was stirred by the image of the windows of the heavens opening and the rain pouring out. He thought of a clay water jug breaking, releasing its contents. He continued to write, never lifting his eyes from the clay as Abram went on. . . .

  Shamas took advantage of Abram's respite to rest. The task he had undertaken was not easy. His inscriptions demanded his full concentration; his results filled him with self-doubt. And he wanted to go back to Ur. He felt that he was a stranger here in Haran, even with his father, mother, brothers, and sisters. But happiness had long abandoned their home. Now he hardly saw Jadin, and his mother was always ill-humored. They all missed the coolness of the house his father had built at the gates of Ur and longed for the security of a permanent settlement.

  "What are you thinking of, Shamas?" Abram asked. "Ur."

  "And what are you thinking?"

  "That I would like to be with my grandmother, and to go to school with Ili again."

  "Do you not like Haran? You're learning just as much here." "Yes, but it's not the same." "What's not the same?"

  "The sun, the nights, the way people talk, the flavor of the figs— nothing."

  "Oh, you are homesick!" "Homesick? What illness is that?"

  "Nothing you will die from, my son." Abram smiled. "It is the memory of what you have lost, or left behind. It is a yearning." "I don't want to leave the tribe, but I do not like living here." "We will not be here for very long."

  "Terah is an old man, and I know that when he is no longer with us you will lead us to Canaan, but I am not sure I want to go to Canaan. My mother would also like to go back."

  Shamas then fell silent, afraid he had opened his heart too wide and expressed his sadness too freely. He feared that Abram would tell his father and that his father would grow concerned, knowing his son was unhappy.

  Abram seemed to read his thoughts. "Don't worry, Shamas, I won't tell your father, but we must try to make you happy again."

  The boy smiled a bit, relieved, as he picked up the reed in readiness for Abram's next words.

  And so he learned that Noah sent first a raven and then a dove out of the ark, to see whether the earth was dry, and that he had to release a second dove, which returned with an olive branch, and then a third, which did not return. And that God took pity upon Noah and said, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; neither will I again smite any more every thing living as I have done."

  God, Abram told Shamas, blessed Noah and his children and told them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. He also gave men every moving thing upon the earth, and the green herb, but, said Abram, "He forbade man to eat flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof: 'And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.' "

  "You mean God allowed men to return to Paradise?" asked Shamas.

  "Not exactly, although He forgave us and made man once again the most important of His creatures, for He gave us all things that had been created. The difference is that now, nothing will be freely given. Men and animals alike must struggle for survival; we must work to obtain the seed of the earth, and women must suffer to bring forth children. No, God did not allow us to go back to Paradise; He only promised
not to wipe us again from the face of the earth. Never again will He open the windows of heaven and pour rain down in a torrent.

  "Now let's stop for the day, Shamas—the sun is setting. Tomorrow I will tell you why not all men are alike and why we sometimes fail to understand one another."

  The boy's eyes opened wide in surprise. Abram was right—there was so little light he could hardly see, yet he wished they could go on. Of course, his mother would be looking for him, and his father would want to see what he had learned that day in school. So Shamas leapt up, carefully gathered his tablets, and ran toward the mud-walled house in which his family abode.

  The next day Abram did not go to meet Shamas. He sought solitude, for within himself he felt the call of God's voice. That night he had awakened covered in sweat, feeling a great weight upon his chest. When he arose from his bed, he left Haran and wandered aimlessly for hours, until at nightfall he sat down to rest in a palm grove carpeted with soft grass. He was awaiting a sign from the Lord.

  He closed his eyes and felt a sharp pain at his heart, and he heard very clearly the voice of God:

  Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

  He opened his eyes expecting to see the Lord, but the shadows of night had crept into the palm grove, and the only illumination came from the reddish moon and the thousands of stars, like tiny points of light gleaming in the firmament.