by D. J. Niko
“It is just as I thought—bad news.” His voice shook. “Why you insist on defying authority, I will never know. Now hear this, Sarah. You must turn this letter over to the police. Surely they are on their way as we speak.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It will only make matters worse.”
“No. What will make matters worse is your lack of cooperation. The expedition is already in hot water, and not cooperating would jeopardize the delicate diplomatic relationship between Ethiopia and England, to say nothing of Cambridge and UNESCO.”
“Professor, you don’t understand. This letter will be ammunition in their hands. They have been looking for an excuse to shutter the Cave I Tomb. This could be it.”
“That tomb is the least of my worries. Our predicament, young lady, is much worse than that. The Ministry want everything turned over to the government. They are pulling our permits until further notice.”
Her worst fear had come true. “What?”
“You heard me. We must shut down operations. I want you to send the crew home, effective immediately. We will then make arrangements to have artifacts already excavated shipped to the national museum in Addis, where they will be studied by an Ethiopian team.”
“This is bollocks! They have absolutely nothing to warrant shutting us down. The fact that we consulted Rada does not make us guilty of his murder. We have done nothing wrong.”
“Well, sneaking around on unofficial business with an Ethiopian linguist who turns up dead a few days later certainly does not look good, does it?”
“But what of the cave? Abandoning it now would leave the site vulnerable to looters—or worse.” She raised her voice. “We can’t afford to have these inscriptions fall into the wrong hands.”
“That’s the Ethiopian government’s concern now. They will be guarding the site until it can be reopened.”
“Dr. Simon, please. You must convince the Ministry we are the best stewards of this site. The thugs who killed Kabede will return. The inscriptions are what they’re after. Do you really think the Ethiopians will protect it when they can be bought and sold for a handful of birr?”
“That is quite enough. The decision is final. Now, I expect you to stay no longer than is needed to wrap things up. Is that clear?”
“And if I don’t?”
“If I were you, I would do exactly as told. There is more at stake here than just this expedition.” He cleared his throat. “The regents were not in support of sending someone so young and inexperienced on this project. It was I who insisted you were ready. Now I look like a fool, and they are demanding your removal. There are rumblings about … pulling you away from fieldwork altogether. I cannot defend you anymore. But if you play your cards right and come back to England, perhaps your father can intervene on your behalf.”
“My father?” Sarah’s voice broke. “I am not some little girl who needs to be rescued. I have done nothing wrong, and I will prove it. I will clear my name in my own way.” She slammed down the phone and let out a scream.
Matakala had gotten what he’d wanted after all. I suggest you give some thought to our request—if you want to continue working in Ethiopia, that is. When she had not rewarded his request to turn the tenth saint over to the church, clearly he’d taken it upon himself to teach her a painful lesson.
Still, she had no regrets. She would have done nothing differently.
Except one thing.
She reread the letter several times, memorizing the lines Rada had translated.
Then she held it above her lighter and set it aflame.
When the police came, she told them the letter had been shredded along with some other documents. She “hadn’t realized it was a piece of evidence—sorry.” But it was “nothing of note,” merely a “progress report on a routine translation.”
Daniel corroborated her story.
The police didn’t believe it, but they couldn’t prove otherwise.
Packing never had been easy for Sarah. It reminded her of the day she had helped pack her mother’s belongings to donate to the charity shop. Now, as then, she saw it as a barbaric act, this cold jettisoning of objects, each of which was attached to a memory, as if they’d never meant a thing.
As she arranged the artifacts and tools and journals, she knew in her scientist’s mind she should not be attached to her work; she should let go the minute an object was excavated and move on.
If only it were so simple. In this burial ground lay answers to questions she had never asked, forgotten lives in whose footsteps she had never walked. She had failed Cambridge, failed her crew, failed her father. Worst of all, she had failed the man who in death lay waiting for his message to be found, only to have it fall into bureaucratic oblivion. The question remaining was whether she would fail herself.
Aisha, the last of the crew to leave, walked into the lab, her hair wrapped in a bandana like Sarah’s, her raven eyes misty. “I’m so sorry. I know this must be very hard for you.”
“Don’t be silly, girl.” Sarah tried to sound cheerful. “This is only a temporary measure. We will reassemble, I promise you. And when we do, I’ll come looking for you. You have been my absolute right hand.”
The two hugged and kissed, and Aisha wiped away a tear as she strapped on her backpack. She opened the heavy door of the lab and let the sunlight into the darkened room. She waved as she walked outside, then descended the hill to the bus stop.
Sarah would miss the crew, miss Aksum. She stared at the rows and rows of wooden boxes, lined up like coffins waiting for the undertaker, and broke down.
Sarah and Daniel were the only ones left at camp. The night before they were to hand the project over to the Ethiopians, Daniel showed up at her door with a bottle of Glen Garioch 21 Year Old and two glasses. He flashed a sly grin and held up the goods. “May I come in?”
She’d just walked out of the shower and thrown on a crumpled T-shirt and jean shorts. She untangled her wet curls with her fingers. “I see you found the good stuff. I was saving it for a celebration, not a funeral.”
He sat on the bed and poured the scotch into the glasses. He took in the bouquet. “Aaahh. This stuff is the nectar of the gods. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it in the canteen sooner.” He raised his glass and offered a toast. “To better days.”
She tried to smile.
“This isn’t easy, is it? To give up, I mean.”
She took a long sip of scotch and another to work up the courage to tell him. “There’s something you don’t know.”
“Oh?”
“A couple of nights ago, I heard from the radiocarbon lab.”
“And?”
“And it was mostly as we suspected. The bones and coffin dated to 1600, plus or minus eighty, BP. That would put him somewhere around the fourth century, which is consistent with Ezana’s throne. What the lab couldn’t figure out were the teeth. They tested the enamel and the substance used for the filling, and they have no idea what it is. They looked at every substance ever used for dental work and came up empty. It’s a polymer of unknown makeup and apparently far more advanced than the ones currently used in dentistry. It couldn’t have existed then. It doesn’t even exist now.”
“Christ. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to. I’ve just been so …”
“Busy?” He finished his drink in a single gulp. “You still don’t trust me, do you?”
“If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have told you at all. But the fact of the matter is I feel like this is my burden. I don’t expect anyone to walk this road with me. That includes you.”
“There’s no road to walk, Sarah. Or have you forgotten the Ethiopians have shut down your expedition?”
She stood and walked to the window, staring at the barren hillside. In the bowels of those hills lay humanity’s past and her future. She saw the latter flashing in her mind’s eye like images from a silent film. Standing before an assembly of archaeology students, pointing to a giant screen
as she delivered her lecture. Attending one dinner after another, debating the fine points of Mesopotamian stone carvings with crotchety old men. Presenting a case for support to yet another scientific foundation. Was this the future she wanted? Over the past days, she’d been asking herself this very thing. She could take the safe route, eschewing fieldwork for the path of academia, or she could take the biggest gamble of her life.
She turned to Daniel. “You remember what you once told me about instinct? That there’s no substitute for it in this business?”
He looked at her without expression.
“Everything in my bones tells me this is one of the biggest finds of our times. That this man holds answers to questions we dare not ask. I have spent my entire career digging for something like this. Not just another artifact that fills in some blanks but something that could illuminate a fundamental truth. Whatever is inscribed in that rock is big enough for someone to kill for, which means something priceless could be destroyed. Knowing that and walking away would make me a traitor to everything I believe.” She considered not telling him, but someone needed to know in case the unthinkable happened. “Danny, I am not getting on the plane tomorrow. I am not going back to England.”
“Are you crazy?” He threw up his hands. “You can’t stay here. If you don’t think you’re a target, you’re not as smart as I thought.”
“They will not find me. I’ve already made arrangements.” She stopped herself, studied Daniel’s eyes for any trace of insincerity, and found none. “I will carry on with or without Cambridge’s blessing.”
“What are you talking about? How do you intend to—wait a minute. No.”
“Save it, Danny. My mind is made up.”
“Damn it, Sarah. You heard what Rada said that night. The stone is guarded. What makes you think those monks will receive you with open arms?”
“This.” She pulled a stack of photographs out of her bag and fanned them on the bed like a deck of cards. They’re close-ups of every section of the cave wall. “I have something the Christians have wanted for centuries. The teachings of the tenth saint.”
“How do you know?”
“After I read Rada’s letter, I was haunted by the reaction of the monks. I couldn’t shake the feeling they knew something. So I slipped out late one night and drove to Yemrehana Krestos. I met with the abbot. I told him about the tomb and the inscriptions, and he perked straight up. It turns out there really was a tenth saint, according to the Coptic mystical texts. The abbot believes the saint was buried with some significant teachings the church has wanted to get its hands on for centuries. I told him I would give him access to the inscriptions if his scholars would help me translate them. You see, we each have what the other wants. So he offered me asylum, and I offered him the chance to rewrite history.”
Daniel huffed. “This is crazy. Don’t you get it? You could be walking straight into the maw of the beast. Don’t you find it odd that as soon as Rada consulted the monks someone showed up at his office with a sawed-off shotgun? Have you considered that perhaps someone within the monastery tipped off the assassins?”
“Listen to me, Danny. Rada’s assassins got exactly what they wanted: to close down the expedition so they can bury the tenth saint and his inscriptions forever. They don’t care about the translation. They want to hide the evidence.”
“Fine. Let’s pretend you’re right. Let’s say those thugs don’t find and kill you. Even if you do translate the inscriptions, you will be held in insubordination. Your career as an archaeologist will be over. Why put yourself in such a corner?”
“Look, I appreciate your concern, but don’t waste your breath trying to talk me out of it. The wheels are already in motion. I will leave tomorrow at first light.”
“Why are you doing this? What are you trying to prove?” He paused. “There are easier ways for a daughter to earn her father’s respect.”
Her cheeks flushed. “This has nothing to do with my father.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“Fuck off, Madigan. You don’t know anything about me, so spare me your psychobabble. Save it for your tawdry television audience.”
Daniel opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself and raised his hands in a sign of truce. “We’ve said enough. I don’t want to make an enemy of you. Let’s just part right now before we really hurt each other.”
“Fine.” She walked to her bed and started stuffing clothes inside her backpack, keeping her back turned to him. She was shaking and didn’t want his last impression of her to be one of weakness.
Without a good-bye, he walked out and slammed the door.
Nine
The jeep clattered up the mountain along a pothole-strewn, red clay road leading to the second Jerusalem, as Lalibela was known among Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians. Sarah was excited but apprehensive. The stone that held the key to the inscriptions would soon be within her grasp—and with it, the opportunity to decipher one of history’s great puzzles. But she wasn’t naive enough to believe it would be without cost.
She would trust no one. She was perfectly alone, exactly as she wanted to be, yet she felt numb with dread. She missed Daniel, though she was loath to admit it. If only she’d been able to utter the word. Stay.
She cursed her impenetrable arrogance, her precious invincibility. It was a Weston trait, a birthright handed down like the trust fund or the thirties Phantom she didn’t want. She saw it for what it was—a window dressing on an empty store—but had not yet found the courage to let it go.
She rounded the final corner and came to the roof of an eight thousand—foot—high mountain, where thirteen rock-hewn churches were carved deep into the earth. She parked and walked to the edge of a chasm, marveling at the monument standing in its midst. Carved of a single hunk of stone in the perfectly symmetrical shape of the cross, the church descended hundreds of meters into the bowels of the arid mountain. Its intricate keyhole windows, pedimented doorways, and platform steps gave it the appearance of an ancient fortress meant to protect the spiritual riches of the kingdom. Sarah stood in awe of this feat of twelfth-century architecture and smiled as she recalled the popular legend that Lalibela’s churches were carved by angels.
Yemrehana Krestos, one of the lesser known of Lalibela’s rock churches, was a few miles from the main complex, situated within a cave above an isolated village in the highlands. Sarah recognized in the church’s intricate facade an allegiance to the Aksumite school of architecture. A series of horizontal reveals carved across the width of the exterior gave the building a three-dimensional quality. The thicker slabs were painted white, while the reveals were left the natural brick-red color of the local stone. Keyhole windows were ornamented with crosses—a curious combination of Coptic Christianity and Arabic influence. The only resemblance Yemrehana Krestos bore to Lalibela’s other churches was that it was made wholly of stone.
Sarah returned to the jeep and parked in a thickly wooded area away from prying eyes. She wasn’t taking any chances.
She strapped on her backpack, in which she had placed a few bare necessities and her travel documents, and continued up the terraced mountainside on foot. Save for the distant hum of cicadas, the mountain was utterly silent. The crisp, vaguely floral scent of juniper laced the air, and the midday sun warmed her face. As she approached the entrance of Yemrehana Krestos, she felt a strange serenity. She didn’t question it. Instead, she stood in reverence before the main doorway and let the feeling settle within.
She entered the church through a side door, as she had been instructed to do. “I’m looking for Father Giorgis,” she told one of the young acolytes. “He is expecting me.”
The boy surveyed her from head to toe, his contempt for a woman in their midst apparent. He addressed her coldly. “Wait here.”
For all its magnificent detail, the church was dark and gloomy inside. Its small windows admitted scant light, as if any more would make the brothers long for something brighter and warmer th
an these damp confines. The walls and ceiling were decorated with paintings of saints and biblical scenes, hardly visible in the shadows. Four columns linked by arches delineated the nave and drew the eye to the domed sanctuary. The space was the essence of simplicity, designed not to impress but to grant spiritual wings to the devout.
A figure emerged from the stone altar. He wore dirty white linen robes and a white turban and clutched a wooden rosary. His face was weathered from the years and the elements, his curly beard more white than black. Still, his gaze was placid, as if he had found redemption from life’s suffering. “Miss Sarah,” the abbot said, “it is good to see you again.”
Father Giorgis led Sarah down a narrow stone corridor lit dimly by makeshift torches—tree branches wrapped with linen dipped in kerosene. As they walked past, the flames shuddered. A trail of soot stretched to the ceiling.
Sarah realized they were heading into the heart of the cave. The damp air chilled her.
There were turns everywhere, dark passages leading to unseen corners. A maze. The place had been built to hide something. The interconnecting corridors were so identical that if she got lost, finding her way out would be nearly impossible. She tried to banish the disturbing thought and concentrate on keeping pace with Father Giorgis’ hurried footsteps. After what seemed like miles, they came to a wooden door painted with Christian saints and angels. Sarah, impressed by the exquisite depiction of the Resurrection, vowed to study the iconography one day when time was on her side.
With an iron key, Father Giorgis unlocked the door and led his guest into a chamber of tiny stone cells resembling a prison more than sleeping quarters. “Come.” He motioned. “This is where you will stay.”
Sarah’s and the abbot’s footsteps echoed down the corridor. The cells were empty and rife with cobwebs, as though the place hadn’t been inhabited for years. They stopped at a room no bigger than the interior of a compact car. There was just enough space for a modest cot and a washbasin.