The Bible of Clay (44 page)

He would have to go back, he knew that, but he would no longer be the same priest who'd arrived in Iraq. He would miss life in the open air, the camaraderie he'd come to know with this motley team—that sense of freedom he'd found. It was strange, under the circumstances,
hut
freedom
was the only word that seemed to truly describe his experience at this strange excavation, with so many varied people, under the infinite stars of the desert.

And that led him to think about Clara. He had developed a true affection for her. As he strove to protect her, she'd come to be like a sister to him—a difficult, touchy sister, but a sister all the same.

Perhaps the time had come to tell her that he was there to save her life. But no—he couldn't do that without breaking the secrecy, the absolute confidentiality, of the confessional, without betraying God and the man who had made the confession, however misled he was.

Out of the darkness, Clara slowly walked over to Gian Maria's house and sat down beside him. She, too, lit a cigarette and stared off into the night sky. The priest knew that the guards who watched her constantly must not be far away.

"Professor Picot is right. You shouldn't stay."

"That may be true, Clara, but I'm going to anyway; I couldn't sleep at night knowing that you were here alone."

"My grandfather may force me to go to Cairo." "Cairo?"

"Yes. We have a house there—you're most welcome to come whenever you're in the neighborhood." She laughed.

"So . . . you're leaving?" he asked, not hiding his concern.

"I'm going to resist as long as I can, but my grandfather will force me to leave if war breaks out. You're a religious man, Gian Maria—ask God to help us find those tablets."

"I'll ask, but you should ask too. Don't you pray?"

"No, never."

"Are you Muslim?"

"No, I'm not anything."

"Even if you don't practice, you must have been raised under some religious tradition."

"My mother was Christian, and I was baptized, but I've never set foot in a church, or a mosque either, except out of curiosity."

"Then why this absolute obsession to find the Bible of Clay? It's nothing if not a religious artifact. Is it just out of vanity?"

"There are children who grow up listening to fairy tales or stories of Prince Charming. I grew up listening to my grandfather talk about the Bible of Clay. He's always wanted me to find it. He would tell me stories in which I was the heroine, the archaeologist who finds a great treasure, the most important treasure in the world, the Bible of Clay."

"And you want to make a childhood dream come true."

"You really won't even consider that Abraham would talk to a scribe about the creation?"

"Well, certainly the Bible says nothing about that, and its story of the patriarch is very detailed.
..."

"You know that archaeology hasn't found some of the cities described in the Bible and that there's no proof of the existence of some of its central figures, yet you believe in everything the Bible says."

"Clara, I'm not saying there's no Bible of Clay. Abraham lived in these lands; he knew the legends of creation, the flood, everything. He could very well have told someone about those legends, or perhaps God revealed the truth to him.
...
I don't know. Honestly, I just don't know what to think about it."

"But you're here, you've been working like the rest of us, and now you want to stay. Why is that, then?"

"If the Bible of Clay exists, I want to find it too. It would be an extraordinary discovery for Christianity."

"For archaeology too, lest you forget. It would be a discovery like Troy or Mycenae, like the discovery of the pharaoh's tombs in the Valley of the Kings. The person who finds the Bible of Clay will go down in history."

"And you want to go down in history?"

"I want to find those tablets of my grandfather's; I want to see him live to hold them. I want to make his lifelong dream come true at last." "You love him very much."

"Yes, I love my grandfather very much, and
...
I think that I am the only person he's ever loved."

"The men are afraid of him, even Ayed Sahadi."

"I know. My grandfather . . . my grandfather is demanding; he likes to see work done well. As do I."

Gian Maria didn't want to tell her that perhaps Alfred Tannenberg liked to see other people in pain, that he humiliated the humble and sadistically punished anyone who crossed him. Nor did he want to tell her what his personal experience of her grandfather had been.

Gian Maria had been in Alfred Tannenberg's presence on only one occasion, when he went to take Clara a copy of his translation of the most recent tablets they had found.

Tannenberg was sitting in the living room reading, and when Gian Maria knocked, he told him to come in. Alfred interrogated him for fifteen minutes, then seemed to grow bored and sent him to wait outside until Clara came out. Gian Maria left the house knowing that he had seen in Tannenberg a manifestation of the devil himself; he was convinced that evil had found a refuge in that man's soul.

"You aren't like your grandfather," the priest said.

"I think I am. My father used to say that I was as hardheaded and stubborn as my grandfather."

"I'm not talking about your personality, I'm talking about your soul."

"But you don't know my grandfather," Clara protested. "You don't know what he's like."

"I've come to know you, though."

"And what do you think you know about me?"

"I know that you're a victim, the victim of a dream, your grandfather's dream. It's governed your life so thoroughly that you've become a prisoner without knowing it."

Clara looked at him hard, then stood up. She wasn't angry with Gian Maria, she couldn't be; everything he had told her was true. Besides, the priest had spoken to her with affection, with no intention to offend her, almost stretching out his hand to her to lead her through the shadows.

"Thank you, Gian Maria."

"Good night, Clara. Sleep well."

Fatima was waiting for her at the door of the house and quietly put her finger over her lips. She led her into her grandfather's room, where Samira, the nurse, was giving Alfred an injection under the close watch of Dr. Najeb.

"He overdid it today," whispered the physician.

Clara could only look on helplessly.

"As soon as he came into the room he fainted. Thank goodness Samira was here waiting to give him medications before he fell asleep; otherwise, I don't know what would have happened," Dr. Najeb explained.

Samira helped Fatima make Tannenberg comfortable in the bed, and as they did, he stretched out his hand toward Clara, who sat down beside him.

"I won't allow you to do this again, Grandfather," she scolded him while she caressed his hand. "I'm fine, just a little tired."

"Grandfather, you trust me. Shouldn't you tell me what's going on?" "Clara, you're the only person I trust."

"Then let me in on this other project of yours, tell me what you want done, and I will see that your orders are followed. I can do it."

Alfred Tannenberg closed his eyes as he squeezed his granddaughter's hand. For a second he was tempted to explain Operation Adam to Clara, to turn it over to her; then he'd be able to sleep. But his friends and enemies alike would interpret it as a sign of weakness. Besides, he told himself, Clara wasn't ready to deal with men who so frequently blurred the line between life and death.

"Doctor, I'd like to be alone with my granddaughter."

Fatima opened the door, ready to see that Tannenberg's order was followed. Samira walked out meekly, followed by Dr. Najeb, and then Fatima closed the door after herself.

"Grandfather, you mustn't—"

"The Americans are going to attack on March twentieth. You have only weeks to find the Bible of Clay."

The news stunned Clara; she couldn't find words to speak. It was one thing to think that the war was going to happen but another, very different thing to know exactly what day it would begin.

"Then it's inevitable," she said, the remainder of her once-high spirits depleted.

"Yes, and thanks to the war we're going to make a lot of money." "Grandfather!"

"Come, Clara, you're an adult. I can't imagine that you haven't learned there is no business so profitable as war. I've always had my hands in conflict and made my fortune thanks to other people's stupidity. I can see in your eyes that you don't want me to tell you the truth. Fine, I won't—but there you have it: The war is going to start on the twentieth. But you mustn't tell anyone that you know this."

"Picot wants to leave."

"Let him go. Let them all go, it doesn't matter. We just have to try to keep them here a few days more. They can leave on the seventeenth or eighteenth. Until then, everyone must keep working."

"What if we don't find the tablets?"

"Then we'll have lost. I'll have lost the only dream I've ever had. I'll speak with Picot tomorrow. I want to propose something to save all this work, and to save you."

"Will we be going to Cairo?"

"I'll let you know. Oh, and be careful with that husband of yours. Don't let him talk you back into your failed marriage." "Ahmed and I are finished."

"Perhaps. But I am a very wealthy man and I'm dying. Soon you are going to be a very wealthy woman. He may push for a reconciliation; my friends trust him, they know he's a very capable man, so they won't object if he succeeds me as head of the business when I die."

"My God, Grandfather!"

"My child, we have to talk about everything; there's no time for pleasant fictions. Now let me sleep. Tomorrow, offer the men twice their wages to work as hard as they possibly can. They have to keep excavating that blasted temple—until they find the Bible of Clay."

When she left her grandfather's room, Clara found Samira and Fatima waiting for her.

"The doctor said I should sit with him tonight," Samira explained.

"I told her that I could stay," Fatima complained.

"You are not a nurse, Fatima," Clara told her gently.

"But I can take care of him; I've been doing it for forty years!"

"Please, Fatima, go get some rest. This house can't function without you, and if you don't get some sleep we'll all suffer."

She hugged her old servant and motioned Samira into her grandfather's room. Then she retired to her own room.

Ahmed was sitting up in bed, reading. She saw that he hadn't put on pajamas, just a T-shirt and shorts.

"You look exhausted." He set down his book.

"I am."

"I looked for you, but they told me you were talking to the priest." "We shared a smoke outside." "You've become friends, then."

"He's a good person. I haven't known many of those in my life." "Your grandfather is worse, isn't he?"

Clara shot him daggers. "No, and I'm surprised you have that impression."

"Well, there was talk about it in Cairo."

"I imagine Yasir was the talker, but he was wrong. My grandfather is no worse than he was, if you must know."

"Oh, his mind is still clear, of course, but he looks
...
I don't know, more fragile, thinner."

"If you say so. . . . His latest lab results came back fine, Ahmed. He's fine."

"You don't need to be defensive."

"I'm not being defensive; I just know that you're counting the days until he's gone, but he's not going to give you that pleasure." "Clara!"

"Really, Ahmed, it's been hard for me to see it, but I know how deeply you hate him. I suppose it rubs you the wrong way to be his employee and subordinate to Enrique, Frank, and George."

Ahmed shot to his feet, his fists clenched. Clara looked at him defiantly, knowing that he wouldn't dare lift a finger against her—he would be signing his own death sentence.

"I thought we were going to be able to get through this divorce like two civilized people, without arguments or insults," Ahmed said, crossing the small room to the bottle of mineral water. He poured himself a glass.

"I just want to know the truth."

"Well, then, maybe it's time that we started to talk openly about things. I haven't left because your grandfather hasn't let me. He threatened to have me detained by the Mukhabarat. And he'd have done it too. One phone call from him and I'd have disappeared off the face of the earth. So I accepted his conditions. But not for money, Clara—I did it for my life."