Seed- Part One

by D B Nielsen

  We all began talking excitedly at once; Jasmine insisted that she was going to dress up as a princess while Alex asked if he could go as Spiderman. Mum laughed and explained to him that it wasn’t that kind of costume party, much to his obvious disappointment. Fi and I started speculating on what costumes we were going to wear and I asked Mum if I could see the invitation.

  ‘It’s on the table in the hallway,’ she replied.

  I excused myself from the table to take a look. I found it where Mum said it would be, lying next to a bowl of artistically arranged oranges decorated with cloves; the gold tassel which was tied around a rectangular bright blue box glittered in the lamplight. I slid off the tassel and removed the lid ... and gasped.

  It was amazingly authentic. A rectangular clay tablet with cuneiform writing stared up at me. I lifted it reverently out of the box and traced the symbols with my fingertip before turning the tablet over. On the other side the invitation was in English, requesting our presence at the Babylonian New Year’s Festival, Akitu, that the museum was holding on New Year’s Eve.

  I knew that the Akitu festival wasn’t the same in our calendar; the Babylonians celebrated it between the months of March to April in honour of the supreme god, Marduk, his son, Nabu, and the other gods. Even so, the effort that the museum had gone to with these invitations, coupled with the hired performers and costumes, produced in me a thrill of anticipation.

  ‘Did you find it?’ Fi asked as she came up the hallway, breaking through my reverie.

  I handed the invitation over to her, being careful not to drop it.

  ‘Wow!’ Fi breathed. ‘This is really sick!’

  Her fingers mimicked my earlier movements as she traced the tablet’s cuneiform writing in wonder. Watching her actions, a shiver raised the hair on my arms as it occurred to me that I’d never touched or held the artefact and probably would never get the chance to now that it had disappeared. Despite this, I felt absolutely certain that I was meant to do that very thing, that somehow I was meant to find the Hanging Gardens.

  And my vision that night confirmed my thoughts.

  Twilight descends in amber and saffron, indigo and mauve to winnow the daylight. A blaze of light along the horizon’s blade. A crucible of melting silver, molten mercury.

  Why are we here? Imprisoned? Naked?

  I hear the stone’s eloquence. I hear the syllables of babbling brooks. I hear the cadences of trees. They speak to me of the chronology of seasons.

  Each circumference within the tree’s trunk bears a wisdom matured, as roots in ashes and loam. Its ancient sage preserved in sap. They speak to me of dead time.

  Bitter, rotting fruit lies at my feet, infested with fruit flies and worms.

  What is this place?

  Paradise lost.

  Who are we?

  Ghosts. Ancient presences who dream memory.

  Why are we here?

  This is the end of all places and the last of all worlds.

  I woke groggily to the garrulous voices of the radio talk show hosts discussing the latest drama in the love life of some Hollywood starlet. I’d programmed my clock radio early to ensure that I’d be getting a lift in with Dad and the shock of their blaring voices jerking me awake from a restless sleep wasn’t the best way to start a morning. I felt just like I’d put in an all-nighter before an exam and when I looked in the bathroom mirror I could see the redness of enlarged and dilated blood vessels in the corners of my eyes. There was no way I’d be approaching St. John looking like one of Dracula’s three brides so I threw myself under a hot shower hoping it would help to wake me up more fully. As the water coursed over my tired limbs I felt, if not revitalised, at least warmer. I almost didn’t want to leave the warmth of the shower, knowing that the bathroom’s temperature would be cooler and that, despite the central heating, the winter chill still managed to pervade the Manor’s interior, but I forced myself to do so.

  I grabbed a towel off the rack and quickly dried myself, shivering slightly. Wrapping the towel like a turban around my long wet hair, I ran on tiptoes back into my room where I threw on some warm clothes. Instead of wearing jeans today, I opted for more feminine attire; a short black pleated woollen skirt that rested above my knees, black stockings, knee-high black leather boots with a two-inch heel, and a dusky pink lace-edged camisole which peeked out beneath an angora cardigan in a matching colour. I even decided to blow dry my unruly hair with its tendency to curl straight and put on some makeup – something I didn’t do often except for a bit of lip gloss – as I wanted to cover up the pallor of my features and my still slightly bloodshot eyes. The end effect was pleasing even to me.

  Without vanity, I knew my best and worst features: while I’d never be called classically beautiful I was, as Darcy called Lizzie, “tolerable”, perhaps even going so far as to say I had “fine eyes”. But in a face that was almost all pale Nordic in feature and structure, the slightly slanted appearance of my unusual amber eyes lent my face an exotic touch. Both Saffron and I looked more like our mother with her exotic Persian-British heritage, as Dad’s ancestry was pure Scandinavian whilst Mum’s was a cultural mix. As an artist, Mum tended to capitalise on her exotic, sensual good-looks – though she didn’t wear much makeup, she dressed with panache in bright colours and flamboyant prints and fabrics that only she seemed to manage to pull off. Her wardrobe consisted of animal skin prints; flame, teal and lapis lazuli hues; and Oriental-inspired silk jackets and Chong-sam. Neither Fi nor I borrowed her clothes much – Fi because she preferred designer labels and me because I preferred a simple, more ordinary wardrobe – though I wondered if there was anything of hers that might work for the New Year’s fundraiser, even though I knew that the bulk of her wardrobe was still in transit.

  Dad was rinsing out his coffee cup when I walked into the kitchen, getting ready to leave.

  ‘I wondered if you had overslept and weren’t going to show. But I can see now what took your time.’ His eyes ran up the length of my slim frame and he gave a slight shake of his head as if to say he couldn’t believe how grown up I was.

  ‘Meeting someone?’ he asked suspiciously.

  I gave him a dirty look, replying with a little fib, ‘No. Both my good jeans are in the wash and Mum won’t let me wear the one with holes out in public.’

  Dad gave a mock shudder. ‘God, I hope not! If it were up to me I would have turned it into cleaning rags by now.’

  ‘Dad!’ I protested, ‘They’re not that bad!’

  ‘Bad enough,’ Dad muttered and picked up his leather satchel. ‘Are you still coming? Because if you are, I’m leaving now. Right this minute.’

  ‘Yeah, of course I’m coming!’ I answered quickly, ‘Give me a minute to grab my bag.’

  ‘One minute, Sage.’ Dad warned, probably thinking of how Mum’s “minute” usually took half an hour. ‘I’ll meet you in the car.’

  I didn’t need any further encouragement. Taking the stairs two at a time, I rushed into my bedroom and grabbed my overcoat and black leather tote crammed full of pens, notepad, tissue packets, keys, wallet and the mandatory mobile. As I passed through the kitchen, I snatched a banana out of the fruit basket for breakfast – I figured I’d eat later, thankful that Mum wasn’t out of bed to see me skip another meal against Dr Mukherjee’s advice.

  The crisp, sharp early morning air hit me as soon as I stepped out the back door like opening the lid of a freezer. I was too used to the milder climate of Sydney, so the English winter felt arctic. I was glad to slip into the warmth of Dad’s SUV; the car was already running and he’d turned the heat up to defrost the windows.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked as I put on my seatbelt.

  At my nod, he released the handbrake and put the car into gear. And then we were off. We hit the motorway leading into London, merging seamlessly with the flow of the traffic. Dad had turned on the radio and was listening to the BBC weather forecast, predicting further cold fronts moving in from the north. I stared out the window as the mo
torway’s metal barrier flew by my window.

  ‘Sage,’ Dad interrupted my abstraction, ‘I want you to know that I’m sorry about last night. I don’t mean to be so harsh on you.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I mumbled, suitably contrite for causing last night’s argument.

  ‘It’s perfectly natural that you’d be interested in the artefact – it’s in your genes. After all, you are my daughter. You’ll make a fine historian one day.’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, turning in the car seat to face him, ‘I want to be a conservator.’

  Dad glanced my way before turning back to face the road. ‘Okay, well, I think you’ll make a great conservator then.’

  I laughed. ‘You would say that because I’m your daughter!’

  Dad gave me a wry smile, ‘Admittedly, you’re more like me than the others but I’m proud of each of you. It’s just that you’ve always been more mature than your siblings; even Safie. You have a head on your shoulders. When you were little, your mum and I would remark on how you were five going on fifty. It was like this adult was trapped in a little person’s body. That’s why I’m harder on you than the rest – yes, even Safie.’

  I shot him a grateful smile, blushing uncontrollably.

  We continued in comfortable silence for a while, the humming of the engine a backdrop to my thoughts.

  ‘Dad,’ I began hesitantly, ‘I overheard Dr Jacobi say that the artefact represents a tree.’

  ‘That’s what St. John believes.’ His voice was low and controlled and I was grateful that he answered my question instead of ignoring it.

  I studied his profile. ‘Do you think that’s correct?’

  ‘It could be a stylised version of a tree. But one has to wonder why the ancient Mesopotamians fashioned such an object in the first place, especially in the form of two ziggurats. It doesn’t quite add up.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked curiously, studying Dad’s profile.

  ‘Well, as you already know, ziggurats weren’t like Egyptian pyramids, they had no internal chambers. The earliest examples were raised platforms dating from the fourth millennium BC. Later they developed into what we see today. We believe that the facings which were in different colours had astrological significance.’

  I gave an involuntary jerk, surprised at how well it fitted with what I knew instinctively, but Dad continued unaware, ‘The Mesopotamians believed that the ziggurats were dwelling places for the gods so that they could be close to humankind.’

  ‘They had shrines at the top of the ziggurats, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they were accessed by the priests who were very powerful.’ Dad replied, reaching out to turn down the heater, ‘The Etemenanki ziggurat was built with seven multi-coloured tiers, topped with a temple that we believe was painted an indigo colour and of exquisite proportions. But not much of it remains today – not even its base.’

  I questioned, caught up in what he was saying, ‘What does Etemenanki mean?’

  ‘The House or, if you prefer, Temple of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth.’

  ‘I like that,’ I said, more to myself than to him.

  Dad chuckled in response.

  ‘Do you know who built it?’ I continued to ask.

  ‘That’s a more difficult question to answer,’ Dad responded, ‘The core was found to contain the remains of earlier ziggurats probably built before the reign of Hammurabi but the final stage of the ziggurat which consisted of a fifteen metre hardened brick encasement was constructed by Nebuchadrezzar II.’

  This time I couldn’t control my reaction, gasping aloud. I’d forgotten all about my research on the great king of Babylon and my trip to the Ritblat Gallery – though for the life of me I couldn’t fathom why I’d forgotten.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Dad asked in concern.

  ‘Nothing,’ I reassured him, feeling a small flicker of some distant memory quickly extinguished, ‘It’s just that I know a bit about Nebuchadrezzar II.’

  ‘Well, he was an interesting ruler.’ Dad nodded in agreement turning onto the exit that would take us into London, ‘He claimed he was instructed by the god, Marduk, to repair the ziggurat.’

  I’d heard some of this before when I was younger, but Dad had never given me the details. ‘How do we know this?’

  ‘From inscriptions and cuneiform tablets. A stele from Babylon found in 1917 by the archaeologist, Robert Koldewey, bears an inscription of Nebuchadrezzar II linking him to the ziggurat.’ Dad hit his stride; there was nothing he liked better than talking about ancient Mesopotamia unless it was hands-on archaeological work. ‘And the Etemenanki is described in mathematical detail like a blueprint in a cuneiform tablet, the Esagila Tablet, which originated from Uruk, a copy of an older text. In actual fact, the tablet has very little to do with Esagila and more to do with Etemenanki but it does connect the Etemenanki to the Esagila.’

  ‘What’s that? Another ziggurat?’

  ‘That’s correct, it’s the temple dedicated to Marduk loosely translated as “the Temple that Raises Its Head”. Historians of the past believed that Etemananki was the Tower of Babel in Genesis.’

  ‘Really? Wow! That’s cool!’ I was impressed, ‘Do we still have the Esagila Tablet?’

  ‘Well, it’s curious you should ask that. George Smith, the translator of The Epic of Gilgamesh, described the tablet in 1872 before it disappeared into private hands. It resurfaced later and was acquired by the Louvre.’

  ‘I know of him!’ I said, startled. ‘Isn’t he the guy who was born into a working class family and had very little education but got apprenticed to a printer and eventually became an expert in Assyriology?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Dad confirmed.

  ‘I remember him because he was a little like me – he became fascinated with Assyrian culture and spent all of his lunch hours at the British Museum studying the cuneiform tablets. He was so knowledgeable that the museum staff finally brought him to the attention of Rawlinson, the leading Assyrian scholar at the time. From there he made some major discoveries and eventually became an assistant at the museum and was acknowledged an expert on ancient Mesopotamia.’

  Dad shot me a startled glance, stating proudly, ‘Now that’s my girl – maybe we’ll make an historian of you yet.’

  ‘A conservator,’ I corrected, smiling.

  He gave me a wink, laughing ‘I can live in hope, can’t I?’

  I shook my head, pretending exasperation, but found myself secretly amused.

  The roads into London and the British Museum became increasingly congested with early morning peak hour traffic which required Dad’s concentration as he negotiated the urban streetscape and avoided having an accident. This left me time for my own thoughts. Silently, I reflected that I would have a lot to investigate when I got home and the trip to Paris would need to be arranged soon if I was going to look at the Esagila Tablet.

  As we pulled into the staff parking at the British Museum, Dad asked me if I was interested in seeing some of the preparations for the New Year’s fundraiser as they were moving some of the displays and stored pieces to contribute to the drama of the night in advance. Such an event took time to organise and Dad had been asked to help choose some displays that would help create its ambience. I leapt at the opportunity to go behind the scenes, realising that this was a special treat and that Fi would be green with envy at having missed this.

  I followed behind Dad as we first went to his office to rid ourselves of coats and bags before walking through the museum, which was now empty but later would slowly fill with visitors, past the Great Court to the area that held the displays on the Ancient Near East. I was amazed at how our footsteps echoed on the marble floor in the vastness of a chamber that I’d only ever seen streaming with tourists and students. The cavernous interior of the British Museum came to life with the grace and dignity of its ancient relics. History spoke to us within these walls. And, once again, I remembered why this was one of my favourite places.

  Crossing into a long
gallery with its monumental sculptures which dwarfed my meagre figure, I saw the workmen already present preparing to move an Assyrian palace frieze.

  Dad motioned to me, patting the side of a stone gateway figure from Khorsabad. ‘We were thinking of having a pair of these giant, human-headed winged bull sculptures to flank the entrance so guests would pass beneath these mythological winged creatures which once guarded Assyrian palace entrances just like the Assyrians did over two thousand years ago.’

  ‘That’d be impressive,’ I said, imagining passing alongside these guardians with the immensity of the sculptures towering over me.

  ‘We thought so too.’ A voice said from behind me.

  It shouldn’t have been so familiar to me, not in the space of a few short weeks and less than half a dozen meetings, but its deep rich tone had struck a chord that continued to vibrate since our first contact.

  I turned slowly, involuntarily.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, lamely. I felt myself blushing all over, the attraction he held as strong as ever.

  St. John’s expression was inscrutable but it did nothing to mar his too-perfect face. I wondered how someone could blow so hot and then cold. It was like being on a roller coaster every time I met him, not knowing what the next minute held; whether he’d be aloof and distant or teasing or passionate. I wasn’t sure if I liked the roller coaster of relationships yet.

  He merely nodded in response to my greeting, jade green eyes not giving any emotion away. ‘What brings you to the museum today?’

  I felt myself flush hotly as if rebuked but Dad came to my rescue. ‘I thought I’d show Sage some of our preparations for our Akitu and get her opinion, seeing as she practically lives at the museum.’

  He gave another nod before addressing my father, ‘Speaking of Akitu, do you mind if I have a word with you?’

  The hint was loud and clear. It was to be a private conversation and he didn’t want me present. I hadn’t time to respond before he’d already turned and was walking away with Dad, stopping some distance from me. His movements were casual, almost leisurely, so I didn’t think it had anything to do with me nor the artefact. But still, I wondered what was so important that I wasn’t permitted to overhear it.