The Bible of Clay (41 page)

Shamas—however intelligent, however promising—had caused Ili countless headaches. Shamas had never been content with simple answers. He needed to dissect everything he was told, to find its logic. He would not accept what others told him unless the reasoning was clear and evident. Still, no disciple had brought Ili as much satisfaction.

Long ago, Abram had persuaded the young man that there was but one God and that all things had been created by Him, by an act of will. Ili, in turn, explained that indeed, the order of creation had come down from Elohim, but that there were other gods. Shamas would not hear of it.

But time does not pass in vain, and Shamas' contentious spirit had grown quieter; he was now the best of the temple's many scribes. And today he was to assume a new place, a new distinction, ses-gal, and someday he would also be an um-mi-a above all others, for his wisdom and skill were unquestionable. They were the fruit of his unflagging observation and study.

Shamas' wife, a young woman named Lia, had straightened his tunic and smiled as they walked to the temple.

But as the ceremony began, Shamas' mind was distant. He was thinking of Abraham. He imagined him in the land of Canaan, where Abraham had indeed become the father of multitudes, for news of his patronage had spread all the way to Ur. God had promised him that, and He had seen that it came to pass.

God, though, still seemed to Shamas an inscrutable and capricious being. Though Shamas believed in Him with all his heart, he could not understand Him; sometimes when he tried to discover the logic behind the Creation, he thought his head was going to explode. There were moments when he felt he was on the verge of understanding, but that illusion vanished as quickly as it appeared, and his mind lapsed once again into darkness. After long thought, he concluded at last that he was but a mortal man—he had to be content to acknowledge God's will and trust what he felt in the very core of his being to be true.

The sound of Ili clearing his throat brought Shamas back to reality. He had not heard his master's words, had hardly been aware of the scribes and priests praying beside him to the goddess Nidaba.

He was eager to be alone with Ili, so that he might at last present to him the gift he had been preparing for several years. It was the finest of Shamas' labor: a series of tablets written in clear and elegant signs that told a story of the first days, just as Abraham had dictated it to him. The creation of the world, God's anger with men's evil and the flood with which He punished it, the destruction of Babel and the confusion of tongues—three beautiful legends written on the clay, which Shamas hoped would find a home in one of the rooms in which other histories, other epic tales, were safeguarded.

Later, as night was falling, master and disciple finally had the opportunity to enjoy a few moments of solitude together in Shamas' home, when they could speak to each other privately.

There was not a hair on Ill's head, and his slow feet and white eyebrows attested to his advanced age. But his eyes sparkled as he smiled at his protege. "You will make a fine um-mi-a someday," he told Shamas.

"I am happy to be what I am. It is a privilege to work here beside you, master, where each day I am able to learn new things."

"Though it is never enough for you. We teach you the wealth of knowledge our culture has to offer, yet still you ask questions. You wish to know the reason for the world and our existence in it, and not even God gives you the answers you seek."

Shamas was silent. Hi was right: Every answer his master offered only elicited more questions.

"For many years you have been a man," Ili went on, "and you must content yourself with knowing that there are some questions for which there are no answers, no matter which god one invokes. Although you have learned at least to respect the gods, you've kept me awake many a long night, fearing that your reckless questions may reach the ears of our lord. That no one has betrayed you, not even those who do not understand you, is testament to the respect you command."

"But, Ili, you know as I do that the gods in our temple are merely clay."

"They are, but it is not the clay we pray to. It is the spirit of the god that the clay represents, and that is what you will not accept. It is difficult for most to pray to nothing, to emptiness, to a god who has no face or form and who cannot be seen."

"Abraham said that God created man in His own image."

"So He looks like us? Do you think He resembles you? Or me? Or your father? If He created us in His image, that means that we can make a figure of Him in clay so that we may speak with Him."

"God is not in the clay."

"I have heard you say that God is everywhere. So why can He not be in that clay that men mold in His image?"

They had been carrying on this argument for so many years now that the passage of time had polished away all acrimony in their words. They no longer became irate with one another, they simply conversed as two grown men, as equals.

"I have brought you a gift," Shamas said, smiling at the surprise on his master's face.

"Thank you, Shamas. But the best gift has been teaching you. You have given me reason to better myself every day, knowing that your hard questions awaited me."

The two men laughed. They had come to love and admire each other sincerely and to accept each other as they were.

Shamas led Ili into his small workroom, and there he presented him with several tablets wrapped in fine cloth. Ili unwrapped them carefully, and his eyes lit up in wonder at the signs made by Shamas' fine bone stylus. They were the work of a master and bore little resemblance to the signs once made by an eager boy, which at times had seemed to defy legibility itself.

"It is the story of the creation of the world, just as Abraham told it to me. I wanted you to have it," Shamas said, his eyes glistening.

Ili's eyes, too, brimmed with tears as he held the package of precious tablets.

"You have spoken to me so much of the legends of Abraham."

"And now you have them, in the very words in which he told them to me. I still have the tablets I made in Haran all those years ago, but my hand was not as firm as it has become now, for I was but a child. These, I hope, may meet with your approval."

"Thank you, Shamas, thank you. I will keep them with me always, until the last day of my life."

That night Lia listened as Shamas recounted the ceremony of ascension and his gift to Ili. She was proud her husband had been made a high priest, an important man within the hierarchy of the temple. They retired for the night, happy with each other and the world around them.

But despite the happy day, Shamas' sleep was troubled. Shadows surrounded him and he dreamed of Ili lying broken and bloody on the ground, his fellow scribes dead around him, his tablets shattered and scattered. His head throbbed in agony, and as blackness began to engulf him he came abruptly awake.

As Lia slept, Shamas rose quietly and stole into his workroom. Stooping to one of the lower shelves, he pulled out a cloth parcel and unwrapped his old tablets, those he had brought from Haran. He contemplated them in silence for a long time. Seeing them transported him to his childhood, his adolescence, the years of his life as a shepherd with his father and his tribe. He felt no longing for the past, for he was happy, but he did wish to see Abraham once more and to speak with

him of God. Even for his own people, the God of Abraham was not the only god or the all-powerful god—just a god who was stronger than the others.

Shamas folded the tablets back into their cloth wrappings and returned them carefully to their place alongside the others, arranged in perfect stacks. He asked himself what would become of them when he died.

35

"are you all right?"

Miranda's voice roused Clara from a deep sleep. She had an intense pain in her chest and found it hard to breathe. The reporter was looking down at her with obvious concern, but Clara couldn't manage to respond.

Daniel set his camera next to the low wall of clay bricks and crouched down beside her.

A clutch of soldiers joined the reporters, clearly terrified at the sight of Clara lying shivering in a fetal ball on the yellow sand, her eyes vacant, as though she were somewhere far away.

The commander shouted to his men, and one of them ran off to get a blanket.

Clara felt paralyzed. Her legs and arms didn't obey when she tried to move them, and her voice still eluded her.

She felt Daniel sliding an arm underneath her head, his other hand grasping her arm, as he helped her to stand. Then he gave her a sip of water.

Miranda felt her pulse while the commander looked on, his eyes wide in fright. If something happened to this woman, it would be his head, literally.

"Her pulse is slow, but I think she's all right—she doesn't seem to be hurt," Miranda said.

"We should get her back to the camp so the doctor can examine her," said Daniel.

The soldier ran back with a blanket, and Daniel wrapped it around her. Clara could feel the warmth returning to her body.

"I'm all right," she murmured, finding her voice at last. "I'm sorry, I must have fallen asleep."

"You're half frozen," Daniel said. "What the hell possessed you to Ue down out here?"

Clara looked at him and shrugged. She had no answer to that. Or maybe the answer she had would be too complicated, under the circumstances.

A few minutes later, Clara, accompanied by Daniel and Miranda, was sitting in the tent that served as the dining hall for the soldiers guarding the site. A cup of coffee brought the color back to her face.

"What happened?" Miranda wanted to know.

"I went out for a walk around the site. I like to do that—it helps me think. I fell asleep and had a dream. I can't quite remember . . . ," Clara answered.

"You should be more careful. Desert nights are frigid." Daniel's paternal tone made Clara smile.

"Don't worry, I may have caught a little cold, but that's all. But please, don't say anything about this. I. . . well, it's hard to be alone here. My grandfather is so protective—he worries that something might happen to me. And with the political situation, and the place fall of soldiers
..."

"It was just dumb luck that we found you. We were scouting for a location. Wanted to film the ruins at dawn, do something different before we all leave this afternoon. This place is really very beautiful," Miranda said, looking around.

"And if you're all right," Daniel added, "I'm going to get back to that—but you should stay here, Miranda, and see if Clara needs anything else."

Clara intrigued Miranda, and the reporter seized the chance to be alone with her. There was something about this woman . . . Miranda just wasn't sure what.

"You're Iraqi, but you don't look like one," she remarked, to test the waters.

"I'm Iraqi—and nobody here would say I don't look like one."

"But your eyes are blue, and the color of your hair . . ."

"Not all my family comes from here; my background is mixed."

Perhaps that was the source of the affinity with Clara—they had that in common. She turned the conversation to the dig.

"You know, Professor Gomez told me that the patriarch Abraham may not even have existed."

"If we find the tablets, we will prove that Abraham is not a myth. I'm convinced he did exist, that he left Ur to go to Canaan, that he was the first monotheist, and that from that moment on he carried the seeds of his belief wherever he went."

"I'm surprised that when you were in Rome, no high Church official contacted you to authenticate the tablets your grandfather found."

"I didn't expect them to. The Church doesn't question the existence of the patriarchs. If we find the tablets, good, but if we don't, it won't matter to the Vatican—the foundations of their religion were laid long ago."

"But what about that priest, Gian Maria? He seems so out of place. Why is he here?"

"To help us. He's a good person, very hardworking and good at what he does. He's an expert in the ancient lang-uages of this region, and his participation in this expedition has been nothing less than . . . well, miraculous."

Miranda smiled. "What will you do when Picot and his people leave?"

"Stay on and keep digging."

"Bombs may be smart, but not smart enough to make an exception for you."

Clara shrugged her shoulders again. Until war became a reality, which she didn't think possible, she was content to keep going.

The sound of jeeps broke the early-morning quiet. The day's work was beginning. One of the vehicles skidded to a halt in front of the tent where the two women had been talking. Ayed Sahadi leaped out of it and stormed toward Clara.

"Why do you insist on shaming us? Your grandfather has ordered that the men in charge of your security be whipped, and me—I cannot imagine what he has in store for me. Does it amuse you to bring disgrace and worse to others?"

"How dare you speak to me that way!"

Miranda observed the scene in fascination. The man's behavior was well out of bounds for a mere overseer, although he had been introduced to Miranda as such the day before. He carried himself like a soldier, though in Saddam's country, she supposed, many men were. He and Clara looked as though they were about to leap at each other's throats. Finally Ayed broke the tense silence.

"Get in the car," he snapped, turning on his heel. "Your grandfather wants to see you at once."

He stalked out of the tent and sat at the wheel of his jeep, waiting for Clara to follow him.

Clara took her time finishing her coffee.

"Your grandfather has people whipped?"

Miranda's question caught her off guard. Clara had grown up amid regular demonstrations of her grandfather's harsh discipline, and to her it seemed only natural.

"Don't pay any attention to Ayed," she said curdy, as she rose to leave. "He exaggerates when he's angry."

She left the tent, silently cursing Sahadi for providing the reporter an unforgivable window into their world. Clara prayed that his careless remark would have no further consequences, that the press would not choose to pursue a story about the cruelty of Alfred Tannenberg. If they did, then it would be she, not her grandfather, who had Ayed whipped until he begged for mercy.

Miranda sat pensively, watching them drive away. She didn't believe Clara's denial for a moment, and she shuddered, just thinking about what Ayed had said.

Clara was getting out of the jeep as Dr. Najeb came out of the house. "I want to talk to you," he said, stepping off to the side. "What's wrong?" she asked in alarm.

"Your grandfather is getting worse; we should airlift him out to Cairo immediately. Here . . . here, he is going to die."

"Is there nothing you can do?"

"Not here. I don't have the proper equipment."

"Then what good is the operating room my grandfather had brought in?"

"It's good for a contingency, but your grandfather's condition is critical—we don't have any more time."

"You just don't want to assume the responsibility for what might happen, do you?"

"No, I don't. This is madness. His liver cancer has metastasized to other organs, and we are on the outskirts of a dusty village in the middle of nowhere—it makes no sense. But it's your decision."

She turned away from him without replying and walked into the house. Fatima was waiting for her in tears at the door of her grandfather's room.

"My child, the master is worse." "Fatima, I will not have him see you crying—he would not have it." She pushed her old nurse aside and entered the room, which was in semidarkness; Samira, the nurse, was watching over him. "Clara?" Alfred Tannenberg's voice was weak. "Yes, Grandfather, I'm here."

"I should have you whipped too. How dare you put the entire camp in alarm."

"Grandfather, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you." "Well, you did. If anything should happen to you . . . They would all die, I swear I would kill them all."

"Calm down, Grandfather. I'm here now. How are you feeling?" "I'm dying."

"Don't be silly. You aren't going to die, much less now, when we're on the verge of finding the Bible of Clay." "I know that Picot wants to leave."

"He'll give us time to find the tablets, don't worry. And if he goes, we'll keep digging." "I sent for Ahmed."

"Is he coming?" Clara asked with equal measures of hope and trepidation.

"He has to come. He's to update me on our current operation, and we have to finalize some details so that you can get out of here." "I'm not leaving!"

"You'll do as I say! As long as there is breath left in my body, I will not fall victim to anyone's army. We're both leaving for Cairo. Or I'll go to Cairo and you can go with Picot."

"With Picot? Why?"

"Because I say so. Now go, I need to rest and think. Yasir will arrive with Ahmed later today, and I want to be sitting up when he comes."

Clara found Dr. Najeb in the tent-hospital next to the house. He was mechanically putting the operating room in order.

"My grandfather must live."

"We all want to live."

"Do whatever you have to do."

"If we were in Cairo
..."

"We're here, and here is where you will do your work. We pay you very well to do it—you have to help him hang on." "I am not Allah."

Clara struggled to keep her desperation out of her voice. "Treat his pain; keep him strong so that he can appear healthy to his visitors," she said evenly. "We'll talk about returning to Cairo later. As long as we're here, my grandfather has to look like the man he once was." "That is not possible." "Then do the impossible."

The frigid edge in Clara's voice left no room for argument, and her once-attractive face was overshadowed by her cold, steely gaze. For the first time Salam Najeb saw her resemblance to her grandfather—down to the cruelty in her blue eyes.

Miranda was waiting for Clara a few yards from the field hospital, smoking a cigarette.

"I'd like to meet your grandfather," the reporter said, smiling slightly.

"He isn't seeing anyone," Clara replied coldly. "Why?"

"Because he's an old man whose health is unstable, and the last thing we're going to do is subject him to a session with the press."

Clara strode back to the house and closed the door without giving Miranda time to follow her. Once in her room, she fell onto her bed and began to weep.

When Fatima found her two hours later, all traces of distress were gone and Clara was preparing to join the others.

"Where are you going, my child?" she asked.

"The reporters are leaving at noon; we have to see them off. And I want to talk to Picot and have things ready for Ahmed and Yasir's arrival."

It struck the old woman that her onetime charge seemed to have become harder, more determined, just in the space of the morning. She saw in Clara's eyes her grandfather's fierce determination, and she realized that someone or something had brought out in her the worst features of Tannenberg's character.

Yves Picot was talking to the reporters; the looks between him and Miranda weren't lost on Clara.
They're attracted to each other,
she thought,
and they aren't hiding it. That's why he wants to leave earlier than he'd planned—he's sick
of
being here. The minute she leaves, he'll go after her.

Fabian and Marta were there too, as were Gian Maria and Lion Doyle.

"Why aren't you working?" asked Clara, trying to make her voice seem casual.

Marta raised an eyebrow in displeasure.

"We're saying good-bye to our friends," said Fabian, forestalling her response.

"I hope you've found what we're doing here interesting," Clara said to no one in particular.

Miranda walked over to Clara and put out her hand to say goodbye. Only Marta, who was watching them, seemed to notice their mute duel of wills.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you," Miranda said. "I hope to see you again someday. I suppose you'll be going back to Baghdad at some point; I'll be there until the war's over, if I don't get killed."

"You're going to stay in Baghdad?"

"Yes, a lot of us are going to stay. Holed up in the Hotel Palestina." "Why?"

"Because somebody has to tell the people what's happening, because the only way to stop the horror is to show it. If we leave, it'll be worse."

"Worse for whom?"

"For everyone. Come down out of your castle. Look around and you'll understand."

"Please. I'm a little tired of superior speeches."

Picot came over to Miranda just then and, laughing, pulled at her— the helicopter was about to lift off.

"Stay with us until we go," he mock-pleaded with her.

"That wouldn't be a bad idea, but I'm afraid my desk at home wouldn't understand."

They kissed each other on the cheek and Picot helped her into the helicopter. Then he waved his hand as the chopper rose and turned away, its rotors raising a fierce cloud of dust. Picot stood there until the helicopter was but a tiny dot on the horizon.