All Our Broken Idols

by Paul M. M. Cooper

  Katya

  Katya found Salim sitting with Lola in front of the lion hunt carvings. It was a position all three of them had begun to take habitually throughout the day, a base they always came back to after wandering the museum or going out on to the roof. Salim was staring up at the lions with empty eyes, and when she got closer, she saw that he was holding some printed pages, photographs of their excavation of the body from the dust room. She sat beside him and put an arm around him, laid her head on his shoulder. She looked at the photo, remembering the day she’d found it – how long ago that seemed. The body was as she remembered it: foetal and shrunken, its one hand extended, fist balled around the seal now hanging from her neck. She ran her fingers along Salim’s shoulder, along his neck and collarbone, and tried to work up the courage to tell him what she’d done. That Abu Ammar knew about the lion carving out there in the earth.

  ‘Did you ever notice the direction this man was reaching?’ Salim said, his voice far-off. He tapped the directional markers in the top of the grainy printed image, beside the metre rulers they’d laid out beside the corpse. ‘Lola pointed it out.’

  ‘South?’ Katya said.

  ‘Southeast, more like. Or south-southeast.’

  ‘What about it?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It’s just funny. It’s the exact direction of the Tigris. The river.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Yes. Like he was reaching downstream.’

  Katya ran her tongue over her teeth. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Salim,’ she said. ‘I told them.’

  Both Salim and Lola turned to look at her.

  ‘Told them what?’ he croaked, but it was clear he knew.

  ‘Salim … I’m sorry.’

  She thought he might shout or curse her, but he didn’t. He just nodded and stared straight ahead, his chest rising in one deep breath. And then he placed his head against her shoulder. Katya felt the weight and warmth of it, and looked up at the carvings on the walls. Even the King in his chariot, frozen in those moments for millennia, looked tired these days. Would he ever get to put down that spear?

  ‘We’re doing it then,’ Salim said. He ran his hands through his hair, which was growing long and matted. ‘Twenty-six centuries of history, just for another chance at life. I can’t even imagine what Dr Malik would say.’

  ‘I know what he’d say,’ Katya murmured, and swallowed. She knew what her father would say too. ‘But if we don’t get out of here, they’re going to kill us. And the one that keeps coming back, Abu Ammar …’

  ‘What?’ Salim said, eyeing her momentarily. Katya felt, strangely, a burst of shame. She just shook her head.

  ‘We’ve run out of artefacts, Salim. It’s the end. Unless we can get that van working.’

  He nodded, and reached out a hand to touch her cheek.

  ‘We’ve come too far to stop now. And honestly … what does all this even matter any more? These stones …’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Look at them,’ he said bitterly. ‘Dead stones and broken things, gathering dust. What use are they to anyone?’

  ‘They’re here so we can remember,’ Lola said softly.

  ‘No,’ Salim said. ‘They’re here so we can forget.’ He pressed the tips of his fingers into Katya’s cheek, and breathed out slowly. ‘I always wondered how Nineveh could have fallen,’ he said. ‘The whole city destroyed, all at once. Just like that. But now … I think I know how it felt. I didn’t see any of this coming. I’m sorry. It was my job to keep us safe.’

  She kissed him on his forehead, his eyes, his lips.

  ‘We’re going to get out of here. Just one more dig, and we’ve got the parts. Just one more dig, Salim. Then we’re free.’

  Katya put her arm around both of them, and they all sat there and held each other until the rumble of bombs in the city outside disturbed their peace.

  They got the text that evening. Athir had hidden the parts just as before, buried beneath the olive tree. The new spark plugs, some more petrol and a faked permit to travel. Salim’s hands shook when he read the text.

  ‘Now we just wait for that English bastard to come. When do you think it’ll be?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Just something vague, like “the next few days”. And what if the looters … or someone else … what if they go digging on the site and find our things? What if it’s all gone by the time we get there?’

  Salim shrugged and put his head in his hands. He looked exhausted, his face all angles and hollows. But he reached out and drew her close to him. She felt the shaking of his body, but his warmth passed between them.

  Katya spent the nights with Salim in constant fear. They knew that every passing day increased the chance the hidden parts would be dug up and stolen, or blown away in a storm, or carried away by a stray dog. Lola developed a cough. She looked pale and thin, a photo negative of a person.

  On the third day, they heard a knock on the museum door. The three of them were eating the last flatbreads they had left. Katya and Salim jumped to their feet in panic. Lola watched the two of them with wide eyes, chewing slowly.

  ‘Shit,’ Katya said.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Salim. ‘Stay calm. Stay calm.’

  ‘Just like before. We go to dig. You go to dig by the olive tree. And then I distract them when you find it.’

  ‘If I find it.’

  ‘If you find it.’

  They both hugged Lola before heading to the entrance hall.

  ‘Please come back,’ she said. ‘Katya, please come back.’

  They went down to meet Abu Ammar. He was there in the hall, flanked by two gunmen with covered faces. He nodded grimly at Katya and Salim as they came down to meet him, offering their hands to be zip-tied. Katya felt a strange new energy from Abu Ammar since their conversation in the storeroom. He avoided looking at her. He treated her briskly and made one of the gunmen tie her hands while he did Salim’s.

  The men didn’t bother putting bags over their heads this time. It was sweltering outside, oven air, and the air-conditioned car was a relief. As they drove off, Abu Ammar turned around and fixed Katya with a long look. She couldn’t work out its meaning. She glanced around at Salim, who was staring out of his window purposefully, the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching as the empty city passed before his eyes. Katya ran through their plan in her head: the olive tree, the dig, the distraction. They went by the blackened cavities of many bombed-out buildings. Abu Ammar was browsing the Internet on his phone, flicking through news articles. Katya saw flashes of military hardware, satellite photos of landscapes and cities, men in black standing over other men kneeling in orange jumpsuits.

  ‘“And his fruits were encompassed by ruin,”’ Ammar muttered. ‘“He turned his hands in dismay over what he had spent on it, while the fruit collapsed on its trellises.”’

  They parked the car on the road below the site, and Abu Ammar pulled them out into the bleached sunlight. They walked across the bare ruined ground for some distance, stumbling in the dust and broken brick, until the shattered mosque on the hill came into view. They arrived at the site, and Katya knew immediately that the looters had been there. The ground was littered with more cigarette packets and flares, fresh tyre tracks winding along heavily used tracks up to the site. New holes had been cut in the earth, their trenches torn apart, and there were holes beneath the olive tree too. She glanced over at Salim, and by the shade of grey he’d turned, she knew he was having the same thoughts. But still, mercifully, the lion carving remained covered: the broken tyre they’d used to mark the spot hadn’t been moved.

  ‘Over there,’ Katya told Abu Ammar. ‘That disturbed patch of earth, beneath the tyre. That’s where we found the piece. And we think there could be another fragment over there, by the tree.’

  He gave a snort.

  ‘Get digging then.’

  The earth should have been easy to dig, having been disturbed before, but Katya was weak. Hunger had thinn
ed her out, and her joints felt too bony. It confused her senses too, made the scent of the earth, of loam and clay, smell delicious. When she straightened up, she glanced over and saw Salim digging beneath the olive tree. His face was pale. He shot her a desolate look. The parts weren’t there.

  A series of booms sounded in the distance, and the howling of a jet. Abu Ammar and his men ducked behind the olive tree wall, muttering to themselves.

  ‘“Your enemies will summon one another to attack you as if inviting others to share their meal,”’ Abu Ammar muttered. He stood up and raised one finger to the sky, while his gunmen remained under cover and watched him with weary eyes. More planes streaked, the thumps of bombs going off in the city. It went on all day. From the hillside, Katya could see the new ruins they made in the distant skyline, buildings folded in on themselves like cardboard boxes. She thought what a relief it would be to have one of those bombs snuff her out right now, for it all to end in an instant.

  After some time, Salim slouched over to her. She knew what he would say just by the desolate look on his face, the sad, shallow holes he’d dug in a ring around the tree.

  ‘It’s not here,’ he muttered, his eyes fixed on the earth. ‘There’s nothing there.’

  ‘Keep trying,’ she said. ‘It’s not like we’ve got anywhere to be.’

  ‘They might get suspicious.’

  ‘They might. But it’s our last chance.’

  It took hours for Katya to reach the layer with the stone. Its smooth surface emerged slowly. Here was the King’s chariot, with its gilding and intricate details, the harnesses and finials. Salim was right: the chariot was the wrong way around. It was upturned. She uncovered its wheel, and found it broken, the spokes shattered. Beneath the chariot, King Ashurbanipal lay trapped, his legs crushed, his spear and bow fallen from his hands, his crown toppling from his head. And a lion, one of the animals that the King was slaughtering in the other panels, had the man himself in its jaws. As she uncovered more and more, Katya forgot where she was. The piece went on further into the trench wall, and she uncovered it gingerly, with shaking hands.

  ‘Hey!’ she called to Abu Ammar. ‘There’s something new here.’

  He was smoking, and looked over with irritation. Salim glanced up at her too, watching her keenly. Abu Ammar sidled over to her, and Katya pointed down at the emerging image in the stone. He just stood there and flicked his cigarette down into the trench.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s the missing piece of the frieze.’

  ‘Just dig it up,’ Abu Ammar sighed, and wheeled back around. ‘You didn’t say it was this big. It’s too big. We’ll need to get a crane up here to lift it out.’

  He shook his head and dialled someone on the phone, talked for a little while. Katya climbed from her trench and went to Salim.

  ‘Come and see it,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come and see what we would have discovered, in another life.’

  His face fell, but he nodded. Katya led him over to her trench.

  ‘Look. There are two new panels.’

  ‘That’s … incredible,’ he breathed. ‘My god. What does it mean? Is that the King? Crushed beneath his chariot? There’s no mention, in the texts … and what does the other panel show?’

  ‘I’ll keep digging. You keep looking by the tree. Maybe we got the place wrong. Maybe …’

  ‘It’s no use.’ His eyes stayed down in the pit with the lion. ‘I looked everywhere. It’s all been for nothing.’

  She reached out and touched his shoulder.

  ‘We’re stuck here anyway. Don’t give up.’

  ‘Hey!’ Abu Ammar shouted. Katya turned and saw a real flash of rage in his gaze. She withdrew her hand from Salim’s shoulder.

  It took about half an hour to clear the second panel. The carving showed a lion lying like so many others, arrows jutting from its hind legs and back, its tongue lolling from its mouth. Kneeling over it was the figure of a boy, his face a mask of pain and sorrow. Katya paused over the image for some time, and felt her fingers reaching instinctively for the cylinder seal hanging from her neck. The boy’s expression, that desperate loss and hopelessness, was the same look that had crossed Salim’s face. It was the same thing she felt. Suddenly there wasn’t enough breathable air in the world. They were going to die there: she felt it so acutely in that moment, the pure, terrible reality, that she couldn’t bear it. Katya heaved herself from the pit, scraping her knee. Tears popped in her eyes, and she ran to the ancient olive tree, its leaves shimmering silver in the breeze.

  ‘Hey!’ Abu Ammar barked. ‘What are you doing?’

  Katya stopped and turned to look at him. She breathed in, brushed away her tears, ashamed of them.

  ‘I need to pee!’ she yelled. It was true, and the directness of this seemed to silence Abu Ammar. He wrinkled his nose and waved his hand. Katya jumped down over the wall and behind the olive tree. No one tried to stop her or follow her. They had guns after all, and where would she run?

  Out of view, she pulled down her trousers and crouched in the shadow of the tree, among its roots that ran deep down into the ancient mound. She felt the relief on her bladder. As her eyes followed the stream through the dust and mesquite scrub, she thought of what Dr Malik had said once, about the rivers of the earth and its magnetic field, about all of human history flowing down through its geography. Then her eyes landed on something. It was a blue plastic bag like dozens all around her, like the rest of the litter in the wind. Only it wasn’t in the wind. It was weighed down by something inside. She shook herself and pulled up her trousers, took a few steps down to the bag. There was earth caking the outside, too. Fresh earth, still dark like the edges of the looters’ holes. She crouched down and reached out. Inside the bag was a bottle full of amber liquid, a square of paper covered in Arabic and spark plugs.

  ‘Oh shit,’ she muttered, and quickly looked over her shoulder to see if any of the men had seen her. They were beyond the wall, and the olive tree hid her from view. The looters must have found the bag in the night, one of countless plastic bags that littered the hill, then thrown it over the wall like rubbish. She took the bag and climbed back up the hill, heart pounding, and nestled it just behind the olive tree. Then she composed herself and stepped out into view. Abu Ammar was looking out over the city, hands on his hips, his pistol in its holster and his knife in a sheath at his hip. Katya walked casually over to where Salim was sitting with his head in his hands, and touched him on the shoulder. His head jerked upwards.

  ‘Behind the tree,’ she mouthed to him, and tipped her head in its direction. His brow furrowed, not understanding. And then his eyes widened. Katya jumped down into the trench and resumed digging. She took a long breath.

  ‘Quick!’ she shouted to Abu Ammar. ‘Come see this!’

  ‘What is it?’ he growled. ‘I told you, I don’t care. Just dig it up.’

  ‘No. I mean it. You have to see this.’ He came over with irritation playing all over his face. ‘You see,’ Katya went on, ‘we’ve always wondered what happened to the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal. In the last years of his reign, it’s like he disappeared completely. No one even knows how he died. People have theorised about illness, madness, remorse over his brother’s death. But this carving might be a clue.’

  Katya could see in the corner of her eye that Salim was edging to the tree.

  ‘So?’ Abu Ammar said.

  ‘So perhaps we have an answer now. Perhaps this is what happened to him. It’s one of the great mysteries of Assyriology – the disappearance of Ashurbanipal.’

  ‘What’s it worth?’

  ‘It’s the most important discovery for generations. It’s priceless.’

  The tip of Abu Ammar’s tongue ran along the edge of his lower lip. Salim was at the tree now, bent behind it. Katya willed herself not to look at him directly, but Abu Ammar still sensed something in the direction of her attention. He turned to where Salim was crouching. Katya shot
out her hand and touched Abu Ammar’s wrist. She brushed her thumb against his skin. His eyes lanced back to meet hers. He tried to pull away as if scalded, but she held him, felt the narrow bones in his wrist, the hairs on his skin that seemed to prickle at her touch. He seemed all at once very frightened, and Katya felt a tingle of terror deep in her own heart. She fixed his look. Then he yanked his hand away, his lips curling and pale.

  ‘What are you doing? Don’t touch me.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’

  Behind Abu Ammar, Salim was wrapping something in the tarpaulin, hands shaking, but his eyes were on Katya. He gave the slightest nod, his face the colour of ash.

  The two of them worked in silence for the rest of the day, unable to catch each other’s eyes for fear of giving something away. When a new group of armed men came with a crane and its scared-looking driver chugging up the slope, everyone gathered around the trench and watched. The chains pulled taut and the stone slid from the earth, grinding the trench sides as it came, and for the first time they saw the whole thing in one go, both panels. The dust slid from it in sheets. It was all there: the boy, the lion, the King crushed beneath his chariot. Katya felt exhausted tears cool her itchy eyes. She realised in that moment what she’d done, and how history would remember her.

  ‘We discovered something that would have changed the world,’ Salim murmured beside her, as if reading her mind. ‘And we sold it for a chance at our miserable lives.’

  On the way back to the museum, the men didn’t bother tying Katya’s and Salim’s hands. They let them sit beside each other in the back seat, as the car eased their way through traffic. Ahead of them, two pickup trucks drove with the huge slabs of stone weighing down their rears. Abu Ammar seemed deathly silent. As they drove down Nineveh Street, its evening markets came to life, hung with coloured lights. The sun dimmed in purple and orange, and the mosques crackled to life with the muezzin call to prayer. Katya reached out and touched Salim’s hand with her little finger. She glanced from the corner of her eye, and saw that his lips were moving in silent prayer.