In the Beginning: Mars Origin "I" Series Book I (21 page)

I got the manuscript from Mrs. Margulies
the fifteenth of January. The museum tour was to start February 7. I knew that
I could neither translate the copy of the manuscripts in three weeks (I
wondered if I could do it in three years), or start the translation and then
stop when it came time to kick off the tour. I didn’t have that much will
power. Although I hired someone to travel with the tour, I still had to go to
Atlanta for the kick-off. So, I put off translating the manuscripts.

The tour was going to seven cities in
twelve months and had been offered the opportunity to continue to five more
cities including Israel the following year.

I hired Elise Eckland, an Associate
Professor of History at Brown University to travel with the tour although after
the tour she’d be moving to DC for a position she got at the Smithsonian.

There was no way that I could leave and
travel the year with the exhibit, even if the translation didn’t have me
hypnotized, I couldn’t be away from Mase, the kids, or the museum that long.

Elise was young, petite and pretty, but
she hid that behind brown tortoise-rimmed, rectangular glasses, her long blond
hair pulled tightly in a ponytail and wearing clothes that looked like they
were possibly her grandmother’s hand-me-downs. Nonetheless, she was an expert
in ancient history, and had worked as assistant curator of the Art Museum in
Chicago for five years before teaching at Brown.

Per her contract, she brought along a grad
student who worked only for college credit, to help her. Still, as the chair of
the consortium and the initiator of the tour, some things I had to do.

The tour was to travel to cities that had
museums within the consortium, and a few that were not. Mase was tagging along
with me for the week I had to be there and then Elise would take over. The kids
were going to stay with Michael and Regina.

But between now and then I had to log and
tag all the pieces that were steadily coming in on loan from other museums. In
addition to the regular museum business, I had to make flight arrangements for
pieces that would come in directly to Atlanta. I had to meet with lawyers to
draw up contracts, and get insurance and security for the exhibit pieces that
covered every city of the tour. Elise worked by my side every step of the way.
She was more than ready to take it over.

I designed a brochure for the tour,
describing the pieces in the exhibit. But my real purpose for putting it
together was for Dr. Margulies. I wrote a tribute to him, his life and his work
and how he was the inspiration for the tour.

Once we got to Atlanta there wasn’t a lot
for me to do. Elise took over and I, it seemed, was just in her way. She made
the curator at the Atlanta museum change the area for display, the lighting and
she arranged for a group of fifth graders to come and draw their rendition of
the pieces, which she put out on display.

“Get everyone involved and loving our
history,” she said.

 So, Mase and I just spent all that time
together. He hung out with me at the museum whenever I had to be there, and
then we went out at night, holding hands, eating at great restaurants, and
meeting up with old friends in the area.

When I got back from Atlanta, I had Claire
pick us up at the airport and bring the notebook with her. I snatched it from
her when she met us at baggage and cradled it in my arms all the way home. Mase
wanted to stop and pick up the kids from Michael’s on the way.

 “No, take me home first. I have waited a
month since I first got the copy of the manuscripts, and I am not waiting any
longer.” I didn’t care what they thought. “You can just go back and get them
after I go home,” I told him.

But Mase and Claire kept trying to get me
to, “Stop first and get them because Michael’s house was on the way.”

That didn’t matter to me.

“Fine. I’ll just get out of the car and
walk home,” I said stubbornly folding my arms and creating a brick wall to
their pleas.

Finally, they conceded. Not that they had
much choice. I went home. Mase went back out and got the kids.

Once inside the house, I went straight to
my study, locked the door, and prepared to start the translation. I sat down at
my desk, with a smile curling around the edges of my mouth. I licked my lips,
clapped my hands and rubbed them together. I turned on the computer and double
clicked on Sean’s program, and then I slowly turned to the first page of the
notebook.

I became Howard Hughes. Other than going
to work and the bathroom, I didn’t go anywhere.

I definitely didn’t go out for pizza.

I spent every waking moment working on the
translation and every minute of sleep dreaming about the translations. I didn’t
let anyone or anything distract me.

Translating the manuscript was the hardest
thing I had ever done.

It took me a couple of days to scan all of
the pages of the notebook into the computer. I’d have to use an OCR to convert
the scanned pages to text. Then I saved a copy on floppy disk. I had to use a
few floppy disks to save it because of its size, but I knew I needed to use
some sort of back-up just in case my computer crashed or I lost the notebook. I
hid the disks in a safe place. Then I visited the library at Case to try and
find the books I needed to help me with the dialects. I collected the tools I
needed - three different thesauruses, three Hebrew and two Latin dictionaries
and a whole slew of books on different Hebrew and Aramaic dialects.

I could very easily read a text in Hebrew
or Aramaic without looking up every other word but I couldn’t do it here. The
intertwining of the three languages made it almost impossible to do and I was
so surprised how the dialects could change the meaning of a word so
dramatically.

“Nothing is hidden to the trained eye.”
Dr. Margulies’ words kept ringing in my ear. I wanted to translate the
manuscripts for Dr. Margulies just as much as I wanted to do it for myself. It
was his father that had made the initial discovery and it was Dr. Margulies who
had helped to cultivate me as a historian and Bible scholar. This translation,
I felt, was a legacy to them.

 But what was even harder than translating
those manuscripts was trying to figure out what it was that the author didn’t
want people to know. What had made him encode it like this? It didn’t make any
sense. I wondered how much trouble Dr. Sabir had when he translated it.

I worked on the Aramaic first. There
wasn’t as much of it and it was easier for me to do. The program that Sean had
designed for me had a ‘Find and Replace,’ so when I figured out a word, I just
had the program find all instances of it in the document and change it to the
English equivalent.

Claire had already found a lot of the
Latin words that I remembered from the original manuscripts, which helped a
lot. And she was always bringing me the new words I would find in the notebook
as I worked on the translation. There was a page of Latin at the very back of
the notebook. It didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the notebook. Something
he maybe added afterward. I didn’t want to really deal with it, so I figured I
wouldn’t translate it unless my translation seemed incomplete once I finished.

I don’t read while I translate. I find
that when I do that, I tend to jump to conclusions about what’s really written,
not getting a full understanding of what the author wrote. I translate like I
type, I see each word as I type it and that way I can’t usually get the meaning
of the entire writing. Plus, with the ‘find and replace,’ I filled in words
without ever looking at that part of the text. I must admit, it was pretty hard
for me not to go back and read what I had already translated because I wanted
to know its secrets so bad. But I was determined to get the true meaning of
this thing. Michael had jumped to conclusions from just a few of the words and
I didn’t want to make that same mistake. I was sure that Michael was wrong. There
was no way that I was going to believe that Man had evolved from anything.

Oh happy day!

I finally finished translating the copy of
the manuscripts in Dr. Sabir’s notebook. It was Thursday, May 21, 1998 at 8:07
a.m. It took me three months, seven days, two bottles of Extra Strength
Tylenol, and four-and-a-half cases of Pepsi, but I did it.

Time had really flown by. The seasons had
changed just like they do in the movies - fast moving skies. I looked down at
the notebook when the ground was covered with snow, in the biting cold. When I
looked up the trees were starting to blossom, birds were singing and gentle
breezes blew in the smell of spring. During the interim, I can’t remember
anything else.

At the time I finished the translation,
Mase had left to drop the kids off at school, and then was headed out to do
some research on an article. I was home by myself and was just printing out the
translation when the phone rang. It was my assistant Nichelle. I hadn’t been to
work since the previous Friday, and lo and behold there were things she needed
me to take care of. There were papers she needed me to sign, a few phone
messages I needed to return. A couple of them were from Elise. She asked if I
wanted her to bring the papers and messages to my house. I told her “No.” I
decided I’d better make an appearance at work.

I was so excited about reading the
translation. I knew that I was getting ready to learn history that was unknown
to anyone else. Finally, what was put in clay pots, two thousand years ago,
would be revealed to me. But, so there wouldn’t be any distractions, I put off
reading it until I got to the museum and took care of things there.

I showered, washed my hair and put on a
pair of khaki pants, a pink striped oxford shirt, a pair of navy boat shoes and
a navy Polo jacket. I put my hair in a ponytail and pulled it through the back
of my pink AKA Sorority baseball cap. Not my usual office attire but I’d just
go in the back way, no one would see me. I would take care of the museum
business first, then not take any other calls, lock myself in my office and
read the translation. Reading the translation at home wasn’t a good idea I
reasoned, too many distractions, even though I had learned to ignore most of
them.

I got to the museum about ten-thirty. It
only took me about forty-five minutes to finish the museum’s business. I didn’t
think I hurried through it, I just worked with such diligence that it didn’t
take me hardly any time to finish. I realized that if I worked with the same attentiveness
every day, I probably wouldn’t ever get behind in my work.

Finally, 11:47 am, I sat down to read my
translation of the four, 2,000 year old manuscripts found in Cave 4 at Qumran.

I read the translation of the manuscript
for the first time with trepidation.

The second time with repudiation.

Maybe I read it wrong. Perhaps, it was my
translation.

The translation was sketchy. I’ll admit to
that. The sentences didn’t really flow like they should. It sounded more poetic
than prophetic. Maybe that was the problem. And, maybe I should have translated
those odd pages found at the end of the notebook that had been written entirely
in Latin. It was on the last pages of the book, pages after the end of the
manuscripts’ pages. I’d thought it must be unrelated. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

I took a deep breath, rubbed my hands over
my face several times, and went back over my translation. This time I tried to
use better sentence structure, putting in commas, and paragraphs. In some
places I had used two English words for one Hebrew or Aramaic word when I
wasn’t exactly sure what was being said. I thought perhaps some of the words I
had chosen in the translation process were inaccurate. So, now I picked one
that was closer to the real meaning as I understood it. The word that would
best fit and made the most sense. I was anxious but I tried not to rush through
it.

I went through the whole thing. It took me
about two hours. Then I read it again.

“Oh my God. Oh. My. God.” I cried out
loud. I can’t believe this. This can’t be true.”

In one swift movement, I grabbed the
notebook, my jacket, purse, and keys and opened the door to the outside.
Fumbling, dropping the keys twice, I finally got the car started and headed out
of the parking lot. I drove around for more than an hour, crying, talking to
myself and stopping in the middle of traffic to reread parts of the
translation. I decided that I needed to talk to someone. Someone that I knew
would not just be a sounding board but who would fiercely object to the things
I said. I decided to go and see Greg.

I made a U-turn in the middle of Euclid
Avenue and drove downtown to his law firm. Blindly, guided by blaring horns, I
weaved my Passat recklessly through the unusually frantic midday traffic. My
abrupt arrival found Greg in with a client. I sat on the edge of the front
office couch, right leg shaking, rocking back and forth, and clutching the
notebook in my arms, the wait made even more unbearable amidst cautioned stares
of Greg’s associates.

Greg’s downtown office was modern and
sleek. Its upscale interior, with its smooth lines and neutral colors,
epitomized Greg. Through the glass and chrome doors many of Cleveland’s
privileged and influential denizens had come. Now, here I sat, sullen,
disheveled, looking unkempt and out of place. My face streaked with the stain
of my tears, eyes red and my hair standing on end from me pulling at it. I had
my arms in my jacket but not pulled up over my shoulders making me have to
strain to lift up my arm to try and smooth down my hair. I wiped my face with
the sleeve of my jacket. Digging through my purse I pulled out a pair of
sunglasses and put them on. I tried to look presentable. In actuality, I
probably looked like a drug addict needing a fix.

As soon as Greg rounded the corner from
the hallway of his office into the lobby, he saw me. One look and he handed his
client over to Anne.

“What is wrong with you? Are you alright?”
He studied my face.

“I didn’t think you would ever come out.”
The words barely edged out around the knot in my throat.

“Why didn’t you just say it was an
emergency?” He took my arm and led me back to his office. “I would have come
right out. What in the world happened?” He sat me down in a chair in front of
his desk and then walked around it and sat in his desk chair.

“I’ve got something to tell you.” I wanted
so desperately to stay calm. I got up and walked back over to the door and
closed it. I turned around and met the worried expression that had unfolded on
his face.

“What?” he asked. The worry on his face
seemed to have spilled out over into his voice.

I took off my sunglasses and stuffed them
in my purse. “Greg, remember at Claire’s house, right before I went to
Jerusalem with Dr. Margulies? Remember you said that whatever was left to be
translated in those Scrolls would not cause any new revelations?”

“Yeah, vaguely.”

“Well, you were wrong. This is a
revelation.” I held up the notebook as I walked over and sat back down in the
chair.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” I took a deep breath.
“Greg, I was all wrong about the meteorites.”

“Okay. We didn’t really believe that
anyway, right?”

“After I translated the entire
manuscript-”

“Wait.” He put up his hand and stood up.
“You couldn’t even read all of the manuscripts.”

“Oh.” I grunted. My eyes followed him as
he walked around the desk and sat down in the chair next to mine. I realized
that now I would have to explain this whole thing about getting the notebook to
him.

“I didn’t tell you. Dr. Sabir had copied
the manuscript, untranslated, verbatim, in a notebook.”

“Who is Dr. Sabir?”

“Dr. Margulies’ father.”

“Hold on. I’m lost. Where is Dr.
Margulies’ father?”

“He’s dead.”

“He’s dead and Dr. Margulies is dead. How
did you get it? And why don’t they have the same last name?”

“Long story.”

“Okay. So, let’s hear it.”

“Dr. Margulies’ father worked on the Dead
Sea Scrolls. He was the translator of the manuscripts. The one Dr. Yeoman’s
journal is talking about that died.”

“The interpreter who was killed?”

“He didn’t get killed. Well, not like I
thought. He was struck by lightning.” I could see the restraint in his face. He
had to muster the tact not to comment on my continued insistence that the man
had been murdered.

“Tell me how
you
got the
manuscript,” he said instead.

“Mrs. Margulies gave it to me after Dr.
Margulies died.”

“Dr. Margulies had this notebook of the
complete manuscript all along and he never told you.”

“He didn’t know.”

“He didn’t know?” He didn’t believe that.

“No.”

“He didn’t know he had the notebook?”

“No.” I practically shouted. “He didn’t
know he had the notebook.”

Trying to stay calm was not working.
Greg’s questions pricked me like I had gotten tangled up in a briar patch. I
wiggled up out of the chair and started walking in circles, depressing the
threads of the carpet as I dragged my feet over it. The blue upholstered
furniture and walls becoming a blur.

“Well, are you gonna tell me?” he asked.

I stopped. I spread out my arms and just
blurted it out. “Life didn’t come to Earth from Mars on a meteorite. It came in
spaceships. Life as we know it started on Mars.” I pushed the notebook in his
face as if he could see the words inside.

“So, what? In the beginning men came from
Mars?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you saying, Justin. God didn’t
create man?”

“No. Yes, of course God created man.” I
went and sat down, leaned forward and looked in his face. “He just put them on
Mars.”

“So why does the Bible say, ‘God created
heaven and
earth
?’ Earth, Justin. Earth not Mars.”

“Greg. I told you this a thousand times,
earth is just a relative term, it means dirt.” I got up and started circling
the floor again. I was waving my arms around in the air and straining my neck
to look up at the ceiling, finding it hard not to shout the words out. “Mars
has dirt, technically its earth.
We gave it
the name Mars. Really this
doesn’t have anything to do with God. This is science.”

“Everything has to do with God, Justin” he
said.

“Not this.”

“What do you mean? Aliens from Mars, who
were created by God, came down and impregnated Neanderthals or Indians or
something?”

Oh here he goes again
. I collapsed into
the chair.

“Greg. You are not listening to me.” I
rubbed my temple with my fingers. “No aliens came from anywhere. Well, in a way
they did. But not really.” I propped my elbows on my knees and buried my head
in my hands.

I couldn’t find the words to explain.

“See you don’t even know.”

“I do know,” I said, closing my eyes. I
was becoming so frustrated. My head, throbbing from crying, felt thick and
sluggish, nothing connected. My brain felt like a lighter being flicked over
and over that had run out of fluid. I let my body go limp, my head fell and
rested on the back of the chair and my arms dropped to either side of it.

“I just don’t know how to explain it to
you. Or to anyone.” I held my head up so I could see his face. He frowned at me.
How could I explain this? I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. This was too
much for me.

“Greg, I gotta go.” I stood up but instead
of going out the door, I went and stood in a corner facing the wall. I let my
forehead fall against the wall.

“Justin. What do you mean you have to go?
Sit down. Let’s talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” I said my voice
quivering.

He was too impatient for me. He was making
me even more upset than I was. I was wrong. I didn’t need someone to antagonize
me. I needed someone to just listen.

“Justin, what is wrong with you?”

“I gotta go.” The words came out but my
feet didn’t move. It felt like I was standing in sludge. And inside of me it
was as if a small flame had started growing.

“Justin,” he got up from his seat and came
over to me. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.” I lied. “I’m going home.
I’ll call you later.” Barely able to drag my heavy feet, I started for the
door.

“You want me to take you home?”

“No.”

“You want me to call Mase to come and get
you?”

“No. I’m fine.” Tears were falling down my
face and I was sweating. I covered my hand with the sleeve of my jacket and
wiped my eyes and my forehead. Greg went over to his desk, got me a Kleenex and
turning me around to face him, wiped the tears from my face and handed me the
tissue. He walked back over to his desk, leaned against the edge of it, crossed
his arms and watched me wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

I couldn’t keep from crying. Maybe this is
how Dr. Yeoman felt when he hid and destroyed documents.

I finished blowing my nose and walked over
and handed the tissue back to Greg. He took the tissue, threw it away and
leaning back across his desk got another one and wiped the tears still
streaming down my cheeks.

“Come on, Justin now, you’re scaring me.
Tell me what this is all about.

“I’m leaving. I’ll call you when I get
home.”

I hurried and got out of Greg’s office
before my feet stopped working again. I tried waiting for the elevator, but it
took too long. I ran down the five flights of stairs from his office and I flung
the door to the outside open. The glaring sunlight hit me in my face. I found
my sunglasses and stumbled my way to the car.