The Bible of Clay

by Julia Navarro

  When the Colonel left, Ahmed helped Gian Maria up off the floor and into a chair. Then he asked one of the servants to go to the medicine cabinet and find some antiseptic and bandages.

  Ante Plaskic was still lying on the floor, unmoving, and Ahmed tried to help him to stand up too, but the Croatian was in worse shape than Gian Maria; he was barely breathing. Ahmed thought it best to let him lie for the moment.

  The two soldiers who'd just interrogated the two men had stayed behind in the living room, looking on indifferently; they couldn't have cared less whether the men lived or died—they were just doing their job, which was to follow the Colonel's orders.

  Ayed took charge of the situation and ordered the soldiers to search the house again and be sure men were posted on the outside as well, as the Colonel had ordered.

  "Gian Maria, where's Clara?" Ahmed asked him.

  "I don't know . . . ," the priest answered in a raspy whisper.

  "She trusts you," Ahmed insisted.

  "Yes, but I don't know where she is—I haven't seen her since I got to the house. I... I'd like to find her too. I'm worried about what might happen to her. The Colonel... is a monster."

  Ahmed shrugged his shoulders wearily. He had a feeling of terrible dread, almost nausea, in the pit of his stomach.

  "I don't want anything to happen to Clara; tell me where she is so I can help her. She's my wife, Gian Maria."

  "I don't know where she is, Ahmed—but I fear for her life," the priest replied, looking over at Ayed Sahadi, who had just gotten Ante up and dropped him on the couch.

  "I have to go—the Colonel is expecting me," Ahmed said resignedly. "You too, Ayed. We can't stay. The servants will help you two, though. Get out, get out of Iraq as soon as you can; today, if possible. I'll call my office and leave instructions so you can pass through the checkpoints if you leave by car. But if I were you, I'd start moving as soon as possible."

  Gian Maria nodded. He could hardly move, but he knew he had to do as Ahmed said.

  "I'll go to the Hotel Palestina," he whispered.

  "The Palestina? What for?" Ahmed asked.

  "Because most of the foreigners are there, and they can tell me the best way to get out of here. Maybe I can go with somebody, if they help me...."

  "I can try to get a car to take you to the Jordanian border, but I can't promise anything," Ahmed told them.

  "If there's no other way, I'll ask for your help, but I'd rather go it on my own," Gian Maria replied.

  "Go to the Palestina, then—you'll both be better off there," Ayed told the two men. With a look to Gian Maria that was not lost on Ante

  Plaskic, he warned, "And listen to what Ahmed is telling you: Get out of Iraq as soon as you can."

  Before he left, Sahadi went over to the priest and told him softly, "Don't tell that man where Clara is. I don't trust him."

  Gian Maria didn't even respond. Later, when Ahmed and Ayed had left, silence fell over the room. The only sounds were from outside on the lawn, words exchanged by the soldiers guarding the house.

  It was more than half an hour before either man could bring himself to move. Meanwhile, the two servants treated their bruises and contusions, the cuts on their faces and torsos, and made them more comfortable—although the women were so nervous that their hands shook.

  Ante asked them to bring him aspirin for the pain as he finished swabbing the rest of the blood off his face. But it was still a while before the two men could move around, much less talk.

  50

  clara and fatima hurried into the hotel palestina

  before the doorman had a chance to ask what business they had there. At the front desk, Clara managed to persuade the clerk to call Miranda in her room and then to let her speak to the reporter herself.

  "Hello, Miranda? I'm a friend of Professor Picot's. You and I met in Safran. Could I come up and speak to you?"

  Miranda recognized Clara's voice. She thought it was odd that Clara used the artifice of mentioning Picot but gave her the room number and told her she was welcome to come up.

  Two minutes later, when Miranda opened the door to her room, she was met with the spectacle of two Shiite women covered in black from head to toe. She invited them in, then closed the door, turned, and stood there, obviously waiting for some explanation.

  "Thank you. I can't tell you how badly we need your help," Clara said as she removed her veil, then gestured toward Fatima to sit down in the room's only chair.

  "I knew it was you—I recognized your voice. What's going on?" "I have to get out of Iraq. Miranda, I found it—I found the Bible of Clay! But now they're trying to take it away from me," Clara explained, the words tumbling out.

  "The Bible of Clay? You mean it actually exists? My God, Yves won't believe it!"

  The fact that Miranda had referred to Picot by his first name wasn't lost on Clara. Apparently there was something more than friendship between the professor and the reporter, and Clara could exploit that.

  "Will you help me?"

  "Help you what?"

  "I told you—I have to get out of Iraq."

  "Wait. Tell me what's happened first. Who wants to take the Bible of Clay away from you? Do you have it with you? Can I see it?"

  Clara reached down into the shopping cart and carefully removed a package wrapped in several layers of cloth. She laid it on Miranda's bed and started unwrapping; soon, eight clay tablets were laid out over the sheets. In a smaller package were the two tablets her grandfather had found in Haran decades ago.

  Miranda was unimpressed. The tablets, inscribed with unintelligible signs, were almost identical to scores of others she had seen at the dig. Her well-honed reporter's instincts demanded more.

  "Are you sure this is the creation story?" she asked, her eyes drilling into Clara's.

  Slowly, Clara traced the words written in the clay, translating for Miranda. As she read, the battle-hardened reporter was surprised to find herself first moved, then electrified. And thoroughly convinced.

  "How did you find them?" she asked.

  "It was Gian Maria, actually. . . . We found another room in the temple, with dozens more tablets, many of them in shards. Gian Maria was classifying them when he discovered these."

  "And who wants to take them away from you?" the reporter wanted to know.

  "Everyone—my husband, Saddam's people, the Colonel. . . They think they belong to Iraq," Clara told her, finding the easiest excuse. "They do," Miranda replied seriously.

  "Do you really think that Iraq is in any position to guarantee their safety—their existence? Do you think Saddam cares about them? You know as well as I do that right now, archaeology is the last thing the authorities will protect."

  Miranda didn't seem convinced by Clara's argument; it was clear there was much more to the story.

  "You should call Picot," Miranda suggested.

  "All outgoing calls are being monitored. If I call him and tell him what I've found, they'll track me down and take the tablets." "So what is it you want?"

  "I want to get them out of Iraq and present them to the world," Clara lied. "I want them to be part of the exhibition that Picot is organizing in Europe. You know my husband obtained permission for Picot to take some of the Safran pieces with him. Well, these were found in Safran. We can get them out as part of that. Miranda, this is the greatest archaeological discovery in the last fifty years, maybe more. The Bible of Clay is going to make people rethink their ideas about history and archaeology. And it's going to cause a huge commotion among Judeo-Christian scholarship, because it proves the existence of Abraham, and it proves that Genesis as it appears in the Bible came down from him."

  The two women looked at each other for a few seconds in silence. Neither trusted the other, maybe because there was an unconscious rivalry between them, a rivalry that centered on Yves Picot, albeit for very different reasons. Clara knew, too, that Miranda thought of her as a pet in Saddam's court who couldn't be trusted.

  "You're asking me t
o help get these tablets out of Iraq?"

  "Yes . . . and me too."

  "What about Gian Maria?"

  "He's at the Yellow House; he stayed behind with Ante Plaskic." "Why? Why aren't they with you?"

  "Because I had to escape—I had to run. Ayed Sahadi covered for me, for a price. But if anyone finds out they'll kill him—and us too. Gian Maria will meet up with me here if he can."

  "What about Ante Plaskic?"

  "He doesn't know anything; I didn't talk to him." "Why not?"

  "I don't know. ... I... I don't trust anyone but Gian Maria." "What about Ayed?"

  "He's helping me for money, Miranda. Although he's capable of turning me in if he gets a better offer." "And your husband?"

  "My husband doesn't know I'm here. I don't think he would denounce me, but I don't want to take that chance. I don't want to expose him either." Clara sighed. "We're getting a divorce; we haven't been living together for months."

  Now Miranda knew she was beginning to hear the truth. "But why come to me? I have no connections here. I can't do anything," she protested.

  "You can let Fatima and me stay here. Nobody will look for us in your room. We won't be a bother; we'll sleep on the floor. Ayed promised to come for us when the time was right, and if he doesn't... I don't know, something will turn up."

  "The Colonel will look for you here too. They'll search every room. And he'll find you."

  "No, it would never occur to them that I would stay in Baghdad. They'll think I'm trying to cross one of the borders, and since Fatima has family in Tehran, they'll look for us along the Iranian border."

  Miranda lit a cigarette and went to the window. She needed to think. Clearly the two women were scared, but she knew Clara wasn't telling her the whole story. There were pieces that didn't fit, and she knew she could get into big trouble if she helped them. Besides, she really believed that a discovery of this magnitude rightfully belonged to Iraq, the Iraqi people, and the tablets should leave the country only with permission. Yes, Iraq was on the verge of war, but there was still hope—Russia, France, and Germany were still vehemently arguing in the UN Security Council against U.S. intervention.

  Clara could sense Miranda's doubts.

  "At least let us stay here until Sahadi comes," she pleaded. "Then we'll leave. That way, you won't be compromised. With the curfew in effect, if we're out on the street at night, we'll be arrested. We can't run that risk."

  "I'd like to know what you've done to make your friend Saddam want to arrest you," Miranda said.

  "I haven't done anything. But right now even the privileged aren't safe. If I can manage to get out of Iraq, you'll see that I haven't lied to you in any way—Picot and I will show this discovery to the entire world."

  "All right. You can stay tonight. There's not much space, but I guess we can figure something out. We'll talk more tomorrow, but I've got to go now—people are waiting for me downstairs."

  When Miranda closed the hotel room door behind her, Clara breathed a very deep sigh of relief. She'd managed to overcome the reporter's reluctance, although she knew Miranda hadn't decided how far she was willing to go to help her. What Clara was sure of was that the reporter wouldn't expose her, and that in itself was all she needed for the moment. It would give Ayed Sahadi enough time to contact her.

  In the Colonel's office at the headquarters of the Secret Police, activity was more intense than usual. The Colonel was on the phone, shouting at some poor soul on the other end of the line. Soldiers moved in and out, delivering documents, packing others into black courier bags marked Classified.

  Ahmed Husseini was drinking a whiskey, and Ayed Sahadi was chain-smoking his Egyptian cigarettes, waiting for the Colonel to finish his phone call.

  He finally slammed down the phone and turned to them.

  "They won't allow me to leave—the palace needs me to stay here in Baghdad. I told the president's aide that I am a soldier and I want to be with my unit in Basra, to personally appraise the situation on the Kuwait border," he told them, not bothering to hide his disappointment.

  "You need to be at the border the day after tomorrow; Mike Fernandez is waiting so he can get you out of Iraq and into Egypt. He's going to provide the documents and money you need to make a new life for yourself," Ahmed said wearily.

  "You think I don't know my own job? You think you have to explain that to me? If we don't get out of here by the twentieth, we may never be able to get out," the Colonel said.

  "I have to stay," Ahmed said bitterly.

  "Yes, you do. It's your duty," the Colonel said firmly, then switched to a tone of reassurance. "You have to coordinate the operation, Ahmed. The Yankees won't do anything to you; Tannenberg's friends have made sure of that."

  "Who knows what will happen," Ahmed insisted.

  "Nothing will happen! Nothing! They will get you out of here. Ayed too. He'll stay with you, and you'll make sure the operation goes smoothly. Listen, my friend, Tannenberg's men are in position, and you must appear in control. If you do not, if you waver, the whole operation will collapse. Tannenberg is no longer with us—the men need someone else to follow, someone with authority whom they can trust. You are his granddaughter's husband, the head of the family now, so act like it!" The Colonel had no patience for Ahmed's weakening resolve.

  "Where in the hell is Clara?" Ahmed mused aloud.

  "We're looking for her. I've put out a special alert to all the border checkpoints. But we have to be careful not to alert the palace," Ayed reminded them.

  "Your wife is very clever," the Colonel said to Ahmed, "but not clever enough to keep us from finding her."

  "I think we ought to go over the operation one more time with the men, Colonel," Ayed suggested.

  "Then let's go to it," the Colonel replied, slapping the arm of his chair and standing up, ready for action.

  Miranda was distracted throughout dinner. She couldn't erase Clara from her mind. She was tempted to call Picot in Paris, or that other archaeologist, Marta Gomez, to ask for advice. But if the telephones were being monitored, she'd only get Clara arrested—and herself too, for having sheltered a fugitive.

  "Are you not feeling well?"

  "No, I'm okay, Daniel. Just tired."

  The cameraman shrugged. It was obvious that she hadn't paid any attention to the conversation over dinner, and her furrowed brow was a clear sign that something was worrying her.

  "Well, as Lauren Bacall said to Humphrey Bogart, if you need me, just whistle. . . . You know how to whistle, don't you, Miranda? You just put your lips together and blow."

  Miranda couldn't help but laugh. "Thanks, Daniel, but I'm really okay. It's that this whole business is so exhausting. Too much hurry up and wait."

  "Well, you might as well get over it, because it's either wait or leave," Daniel replied.

  "I don't want to leave, but I almost wish they'd give the word and start, you know? I hate the idea of war, but this is killing me."

  "Politically incorrect, as always," said an English reporter Miranda had run into in other battle zones.

  "I know, Margaret, I know, but you're all as sick of this waiting as I am, and I'll bet deep down you're wishing the same thing."

  When she returned to the hotel after dinner, Miranda turned down a nightcap and went straight up to her room, anxious to learn whether Clara was still there.

  She opened the door cautiously and found the two women sound asleep, huddled on the floor next to the wall, with the bedspread over them.

  Miranda undressed quietly and slipped into bed, trying to decide whether to invite her guests to share the bed with her. But the bed was small, and there was no way all three of them would fit. She rolled over and drifted off to sleep.

  The Croatian eyed the priest suspiciously. "Where's Clara?"

  Gian Maria had been waiting for Ante Plaskic to ask and was prepared to Ue. "I don't know—I wish I did—I'm afraid for her."

  "She wouldn't have left without saying good-bye to you," Ante postul
ated.

  "Do you think that if I knew where she was I wouldn't tell you? I'd have told those men who beat us. I. . . I'm not used to violence."

  "No, you wouldn't have said a word. You'd have protected her," Ante Plaskic shot back, unconvinced.

  "I'm a priest, Ante."

  "And I know what priests are capable of. In the war, the priest in my village helped people. One day a paramilitary patrol came in looking for a man, the leader of our militia. The priest had hidden him in the church, and he refused to confess. He was tortured in front of the whole village—they pulled the flesh off his bones, but he never talked. Not that his sacrifice made any difference; they found the man and killed him, after wiping out the entire village."

  Gian Maria knew that Ante was sending a message, but he chose to ignore it. Instead, he forced himself to be personable and laid his hand sympathetically on the Croatian's shoulder.

  "What you've been through must have been terrible."

  "I'm not looking for compassion," Ante told him flatly.

  "We all need understanding and compassion," Gian Maria replied.

  "Not me."

  As the hours passed, the two men had pulled themselves together and felt recovered enough to leave the Yellow House. The two servant women helped them pack the few belongings they'd brought. One of them said she had a cousin who lived nearby and that if they paid him, he could drive them to the Hotel Palestina. They agreed, then sat back and waited.

  The servant returned with her cousin, who helped them into the car, and within fifteen minutes they were at the Hotel Palestina. Although it was almost midnight, there were still people hanging around the lobby and bar. The desk clerk swore he had not a single free room; only after continued insistence and the stealthy exchange of considerable money did he agree to show them two rooms, which he told them had been dismantled for a remodeling that had recently been put on hold.