by Nancy Madore
Nadia found herself smiling at the memory—her mother used those same phrases up to the day she died—but then she realized how far she’d strayed from the subject at hand and her smile stiffened.
“Jolly good,” Clive threw in when she paused, and Nadia felt his attempt at a British accent was as bad as his manners. “The old girl enjoyed listening to the radio. Did you get that, Gordon?” Gordon had taken out a notebook and pen and was taking notes.
Nadia blushed, scolding herself inwardly for digressing. Her mother told the stories so much better. But then again, Nadia had never attempted to tell them before. She preferred listening.
Yet she could tell by their expressions—even Clive’s—that they were impressed with the incredible details she knew of her grandmother’s life. It begged the question of how much more she knew.
“Anyway, Helene wasn’t allowed to listen to the radio as much as she would have liked because it gave Mrs. Barnes a headache. So, with nothing else to do, she began spending time in her father’s library.
“My great-grandfather was a collector of books. He mostly had books on history, mythology and philosophy…stuff like that. There wasn’t much there for a young girl. But Helene searched around until she found books with pictures. Most of the pictures were of historical characters—famous warriors, that kind of thing—but occasionally she’d find something more exciting like, say, a demon out of some ancient myth. If the picture was interesting enough, she’d read the book. Eventually she developed a love for ancient history.”
“So she had a personal interest in the discovery at Qumran,” concluded Gordon.
“Yes. She was particularly interested in archeology. At some point she must have shared this new interest with her father and suddenly they had something to talk about. She began spending more time with him and his friends. Helene was very proud of that. These were respected professors and archeologists, men who barely condescended to speak to their wives, and here they were, discussing history, religion and politics with a teenage girl. It made her feel important.”
“So you think that’s why he brought her along?” said Clive, glancing at the others.
Nadia nodded, wondering what other reason there could be. “The trip was scheduled for the Christmas holiday—which worked out as well for Helene’s father as it did for her—so the only issue, really, would have been how Helene would get along without Mrs. Barnes and Edward. But even this would have been a minor concern. It seems strange now, to think of it, but in those days change—and even loss—was taken in stride. People came and people went. One day Helene’s mother was there and the next day she was replaced by Mrs. Barnes. It was the same with Edward. Helene said Mrs. Barnes just brought him to work with her one morning and sat him down next to her at the kitchen table. Without a word of explanation. Some days he would come and other days he wouldn’t.”
“How much do you know about your great-grandfather and his colleagues?” asked Will.
“Helene’s father was a history professor at the University of London,” Nadia replied. “He seemed to be a pretty ordinary man. Having ‘missed his calling’ as an archeologist, he would tell people he was living vicariously through his two associates who worked in that field. Henry Butchard—or “Butch,” as my great-grandfather called him—was one of these associates and also one of his closest friends. Helene described him as a ‘dear old thing,’ but although he was in his early seventies and his hair was almost entirely white, Helene said he was ‘sharp as a whip.’ He participated in many important archeological events through his career, but his claim to fame was a dig he assisted with right there in Britain.
“The person Butch assisted in that dig—Sir Frederick Huxley—was another of my great-grandfather’s close friends. He’d been knighted by the Queen for his discoveries in and around Britain. They met on an expedition in nineteen thirty-eight, where an old battleship had been discovered in an ancient Anglo-Saxon burial ground. They consulted with my great-grandfather throughout the project—which lasted several years—and the three of them had remained friends ever since.”
“Which of them was the first to hear about the discovery in Qumran?” asked Will.
“It was Huxley,” Nadia said. “He’d participated in expeditions around the world and had connections everywhere. Whenever any new discovery was made he was among the first to know, according to my grandmother—who may have been a bit smitten by him. Huxley was the youngest of the three men, still in his forties. All those years later, Helene still described him to my mother as ‘dreamy.’ Working outside in warmer climates had given him that healthy, adventurous look that would have appealed to a sixteen year old. His traveling to exotic places probably didn’t hurt either.” Nadia glanced at her captors and couldn’t help noticing that they, too, had that masculine, outdoorsy look that her grandmother so admired, as well as the sophisticated manner that comes with being well-traveled. There was also something of the modern, new-age nerd in each of them, a kind of curiosity and attentiveness that might have appealed to her grandmother as well. Nadia abruptly cut these thoughts short and pulled herself back to the subject at hand. “I guess Helene talked a lot about Huxley.”
“Did your grandmother say what it was about this particular discovery that appealed to them?” Gordon asked. “I mean, you have to admit the timing was terrible. Most archaeologists were avoiding that part of the world. Why that discovery?”
Nadia took a deep breath. “Because that’s the one they’d been looking for,” she replied.
They all straightened up in their chairs. “Looking for?” echoed Will.
“Yes—well, Huxley had been looking for a Sumerian Book of the Dead for years,” she explained. “Most people believe Books of the Dead originated with the Egyptians, but Huxley didn’t think so. He said the Egyptian Books were imitations. He believed that the Egyptians stole the idea from a tribe of Sumerians—dating back to before the flood—who discovered the secret to immortality.”
“How did Huxley know this?”
“Because he had, in his possession, a Sumerian tablet that called for a Sumerian Book of the Dead,” she replied, pausing a few seconds before adding—“The tablet of the Qliphoth.”
Just as she’d hoped, this last piece of information caused the men to practically jump out of their seats. She had them on the hook. Which meant that she would live another day.
Chapter 7
“Huxley had the tablet of the Qliphoth?” Gordon exclaimed, glancing at the others. “But that wasn’t found at the site.”
“Butch may have destroyed it,” Nadia said. “He wanted to after their experiment succeeded. Or it may have been stolen. All I know is that Huxley definitely had the tablet beforehand and the way I understood it, the Book of the Dead they found in Qumran would have been useless without it.”
Once again she could see that they were encouraged by her knowledge of certain facts and this strengthened her hope. What she was saying seemed to resonate with them, giving them a reason to keep her alive. But it also brought her up short. Why were her grandmother’s stories resonating with these men? What had one to do with the other?
For the moment, she merely had to keep them interested in order to stay alive. But she was exhausted and, notwithstanding the food, she still felt weak.
“How did the trip to Qumran come about?” asked Will. “Whose idea was it? Were they planning to conjure this soul all along?”
Nadia sighed. “Originally I think the idea was to make a great discovery. I don’t know that any of them truly believed they could raise the dead. Perhaps Huxley did. Of the three, he was the most open-minded. Finding that tablet was a dream come true for him. It’s one of the oldest surviving documents of the ancient world. He had my great-grandfather help him translate it. That’s how they discovered that the tablet dated back to this ancient Qliphoth tribe in ancient Sumer.”
“Where did Huxley get the tablet?” asked Gordon.
“Helene always wondered about that. Sh
e said Huxley was very evasive about it…which made her think his methods might have been questionable. He wouldn’t be the first archaeologist to adopt the ‘finders-keepers’ policy.
“However he came by it, Huxley was convinced of the tablet’s authenticity,” Nadia continued. “But it was impossible to know without the second piece of the puzzle…the corresponding Book of the Dead, which supposedly held the ‘keys’ to each individual soul being summoned. This was how Huxley was able to eliminate the more common, Egyptian Books of the Dead. For one thing, the two didn’t work together. But even more importantly, the timing was all wrong. The Egyptian books came hundreds of years later. Why would a Sumerian tribe called Qliphoth create a formula for the afterlife for people they didn’t even know yet? It made more sense that they wrote it for themselves. That’s when Huxley realized that there had to be Books of the Dead that predated the Egyptian ones. Only Books of the Dead written during the same time period as the tablet of the Qliphoth would be the genuine article.
“My great-grandfather and Butch supported Huxley’s research, though Butch made it clear that his efforts were purely for Huxley’s benefit. Butch was the most pragmatic of the three, always choosing the most scientific solution in any debate. I think my great-grandfather was a kind of buffer between Butch and Huxley. He was practical, like Butch, but still open-minded, like Huxley. Though he advocated for facts, he seemed to secretly hope for more. They all enjoyed a good mystery. I think that’s why they were so interested in ancient Sumer. Anything might have happened back then. Helene said the men spent hours debating that period in history. They were convinced that something happened back then that impacted the world.”
“How’d they know that this Book of the Dead found in Qumran was from Sumer?” asked Will. “Or, for that matter, how did they know that a Book of the Dead had been found at all?”
“Huxley had connections all over the world,” said Nadia. “I suppose he probably told those connections what he was looking for. It was a British soldier—an old friend of his—who first alerted him of the discovery at Qumran. The British army was in the Middle East at the time, assisting the Arab Legion, and Huxley’s friend was stationed out there. Anyway, word had gotten out that some ancient scrolls had been found in a cave in Qumran. A local Bedouin was trying to sell them. Any marginally skilled antiques dealer would have been able to recognize the Sumerian hieroglyphs and cuneiform—though it would’ve taken someone a bit more knowledgeable to identify it as a Book of the Dead. Word of the discovery was getting out and several scholars in the area had already looked at the scrolls. It wouldn’t have seemed odd for Huxley’s friend—who was stationed just outside of Qumran—to get wind of it.”
Will nodded, though he seemed unconvinced that it wasn’t ‘odd.’ “How much did Huxley and the others know about the Qliphoth?” asked Will.
“Not a lot,” Nadia said. “The author of Huxley’s tablet, who remained anonymous, simply defined the Qliphoth as ‘our offspring.’ This is another mystery the men hoped to solve by finding the corresponding Book of the Dead. I think at first they thought it was simply the name of a tribe of people, but there was definitely something peculiar about them. I researched this a little myself when I was in college. The word ‘Qliphoth’—which is Sumerian—had been adopted into the Hebrew language, but its meaning remained ambiguous. Rather than giving it an actual meaning, the Hebrews described it as the opposite of another Hebrew word—I can’t recall the word itself—that means “creation of God.” This seems to imply that the Qliphoth—in its Hebrew translation at least—would describe the condition of being “not created by God.” Which could mean anything coming from that era. It wasn’t until afterwards that Huxley and the others realized that the word literally referred to a group of people that had come into existence by means of something other than God.”
Their expressions—which looked a little like a deer caught in the headlights—encouraged her. She just had to keep doing what she was doing, dropping little breadcrumbs for them to pick up. But it was getting harder to concentrate.
“Huxley believed these Qliphoth, whoever they were, might have discovered the secret to eternal life,” she went on. “Butch was intrigued, if only for the opportunity to play devil’s advocate. But it was my great-grandfather who surprised everyone by suggesting they go to Qumran.
“There was a cease fire in December, so they traveled by train to the Mediterranean Sea and then boarded a ship to Tel Aviv. From there they were assisted by British soldiers into Qumran.”
“Who were the British soldiers who assisted them?” Will asked. “You mentioned the Arab Legion. Do you, by chance, have more specific details?”
Nadia finally gave in to her desire to lie down on the shabby, but surprisingly comfortable couch. The air conditioner kept up its steady buzz in the background. She had impressed them with her intricate knowledge of the events, but she had impressed herself as well. She remembered every detail. It was as if she was there—or maybe it was that her grandmother was here, with her in this dingy little room. The strange sense of unreality returned. Nadia looked up at the ceiling but there was no sign of the white light or her grandmother. She spied a web in one of the corners and searched for the spider. The mention of the British soldiers made her insides clench.
“The soldier who met them in Tel Aviv was the same friend who alerted Huxley of the discovery. His name was Lieutenant John Brisbin, but Huxley called him Brisbie.” She could sense rather than see that Gordon was writing the soldier’s name down. “They all stayed at the Yarden Hotel that night and then drove to Qumran the next day. Helene told my mother that that day in Tel Aviv was the happiest day of her life. She loved Tel Aviv. It was December and she could go outside with only a sweater.” Nadia sensed that she was getting off track again but she didn’t care. She was too exhausted to separate the wheat from the chaff. She preferred to simply let the stories unravel naturally, like her mother did when she told them. She could almost hear her mother’s voice, soft and melodious, coaxing the stories into a living, breathing thing.
“Helene and her father decided to take a walk,” Nadia continued. “And they set out for Magen David Square. They were looking for a post office—Helene had promised to write Edward every day and she had several letters to mail.
“Tel Aviv was as different from London as it could be. Helene described it as a ‘cheerful, bustling city.’ It wasn’t extravagant, by any means, but Helene said there was definitely the sense of prosperity. There were shops and cafes on every street, and everything seemed to be available. There was no mention of shortages or prohibited items from ration’s lists. London had put on a good face, but the war had taken its toll. Helene hadn’t even realized how much it had affected her until that day, when all of a sudden—for the first time in her life—there were no restrictions on anything. Whatever you had money for could be purchased, just like that. Tel Aviv seemed completely unaffected by the depression that dogged the rest of the world. Buildings were going up everywhere. Women wore heels and lipstick. Men wore hats and jackets and smoked cigarettes.
“Helene spotted a sign that said ‘American Ice Cream,’ and was thrilled not to find a long line of people standing in front of it. Ice cream had been on the rations list for as long as Helene was alive. One small cone was all Londoners were allotted per week, and in order to get that you had to stand in line, sometimes for more than an hour. Many of the mothers would stand in line before school let out so their children wouldn’t have to wait so long. But Mrs. Barnes would never dream of doing such a thing, so Helene always had to start at the very end, which meant that by the time she reached the front of the line, all the best flavors were sold out.
“It was the first time in her life that she was able to simply walk up to the counter and order what she wanted. She ordered a strawberry ice cream cone with sprinkles and told my mother it was the best ice cream she ever had.”
Nadia gave up her search for the spider and turned toward the
men. She was mildly surprised to find that they were still listening with interest. This came as a relief, because the words seemed to be flowing of their own accord now. Everything else was shutting down.
“It was there that they learned about the invention of the Polaroid camera,” she continued. “There was a sign in the back of the shop that read ‘pictures in one minute.’ My great-grandfather naturally wanted a demonstration, and Helene was thrilled to pose for a photograph that wasn’t school issued.
“The camera was practically the size of a toaster, with a viewfinder sticking out of the top. Helene said there was a bright flash of light and then the man set the camera down. It made a low, ticking sound for a few seconds, then was quiet. They waited the full minute before the man opened a panel in the back of the camera and carefully lifted out the print. ‘You look just like a princess,’ he told Helene when he handed her the photo. She’d laughed at the time, but my mother said Helene always loved that picture.”
Nadia remembered the picture well. It was the one she’d spent so many hours staring at while listening to the stories. She always wondered what Helene was thinking in that moment.
With her grandmother’s image so vividly in her head, Nadia was once again becoming lost in the past, just like when she was a young girl. Closing her eyes, she could see her grandmother in that ice cream store just as clearly as if she herself was there.
The man who took the picture had been right. Helene did look like a princess, with her pale, wiry curls pulled back off her face with the flowery little headband that, on her, looked more like a dainty crown. Her hair flowed up over the top of her head and cascaded down her back like a brilliant, rippling waterfall. There was something imperious in the way she stared off into the distance, looking much older than her sixteen years. Her expression was thoughtful and solemn, with only the merest hint of a smile to add an air of mystery. Even her small overbite, which she tended to dislike, added just the right touch of charm.