Return to Exile
Page 32
Inside the stuffy cinder-block terminal a cacophony of French, Arabic, German, and heavy British drowned out the live Tunisian band of Berber drums, sitars, and flutes. In the gray haze of cigarette smoke, Lisbeth rotated like a weather vane, listening to her cell phone dialing while she searched for the sugary Texas twang of a strong-willed blonde in big trouble.
She clicked off her phone. “You don’t think he took her to the cave, do you?”
“Maggie can be mighty persuasive, and Nigel’s a softie.”
“But she’s just a kid.”
“He took you there, didn’t he?”
“I was twenty-eight, and it was an emergency.” She crammed the phone into her duffel. “Go ahead and say it. This would not be happening if I’d taken your advice and brought Maggie to Tunis the moment she started pressing for answers.” She hefted her bag onto the customs inspection counter. “You were right. I should have walked her through the ruins. Helped her find closure. Put the past to bed once and for all.”
“You can’t ask her to do something you haven’t done yourself.” His blue eyes drilled her. “It’s forgiveness that girl craves. And I don’t mean from you.”
The customs official studied her and Papa suspiciously. “Coming into the country for business or pleasure?”
“Business.” Papa scooped up their stamped passports. “Very unfortunate business.” He took Lisbeth’s elbow and led her around a group of retired Americans on vacation. Flowered shirts, straw hats, and sensible shoes gave away their plans to spend their vacation tramping the sunbaked remains of a forgotten civilization.
The presence of so many tourists shamed her. Tunis was not the volatile hotbed she’d claimed every time Maggie broached the subject of returning. Truth squeezed Lisbeth’s conscience like the crowds pressing in from all sides. Political unrest wasn’t the real source of her reluctance to bringing her daughter to Africa.
She’d made a promise. Until the cost versus the gains of breaking that promise was settled in her mind she couldn’t do anything.
“This way.” Papa pushed past the luxury shops, cafés, and beauty salons. “I’ve got us a ride.”
Intrusive taxi drivers rushed them the moment they stepped into the sticky air.
A snaggletoothed man leaped in front of her. “Thirty dinars to Old Carthage.”
“Twenty to the Bardo.” Another driver hugged her left side.
A man who smelled like a goat moved in on the right. “Fifteen and a guided tour of the Tophet.”
“Camel rides only ten dinars, pretty lady!” shouted a young Bedouin elbowing into the cluster, the reins of two saddled beasts of burden clutched in his hand.
“How did Maggie navigate this?” Lisbeth asked.
“She’s a smart girl.” Papa squeezed her arm tighter. “Like her mother.”
“That’s what scares me.”
“Doctors Hastings!” Across the parking lot Aisa, her father’s faithful fry cook, paced the wind-sanded hood of an old Land Rover. His cream-colored tunic stood out against the black smoke pouring from the exhaust pipe of a nearby bus. He waved his hands and shouted, “Come!”
They hurriedly wove their way through the honking cars and heavy foot traffic. Aisa scrambled down from the vehicle with surprising agility for a man she guessed to be nearly seventy.
Lisbeth threw her arms around the wiry-thin Arab. “Aisa!” Her nose immediately detected the comforting scent of lamb roasted over an open fire. “New glasses?”
“And new teeth.” Shiny white dentures peered out from beneath the bush of Aisa’s graying facial hair.
“Nice.” She pointed at his glasses. “I kinda miss the duct tape.”
“Nothing stays the same.” He took Lisbeth’s duffel. “Come. We’ll get some food into your bellies and a plan into our heads for what we should do next.”
“We?”
“Isn’t that what friends are for?”
He loaded their gear into the SUV, then hopped in and floored the gas. The Rover shot into traffic. Lisbeth gripped the dash. Their chauffeur dodged parked cars and bicycles that clogged the streets leading away from the airport. Once clear of the traffic, they flew along the paved coastal road connecting Tunis and Old Carthage, windows down and the salty breeze kinking Lisbeth’s hair and anxious nerves into knots. As they neared the older part of the city, Aisa was once again forced to slow down. The narrow avenues crawled with street vendors hawking aromatic oils, brightly colored fabrics, and pottery in every imaginable shade of blue.
Aisa laid on the horn and shook his fist. “Hang on.”
At the huge clock tower, their aggressive cabbie abruptly turned east. He zipped through quiet residential streets lined with whitewashed houses trimmed in the same cobalt blue as much of the pottery. Leafy trees heavy with ripening oranges filled the yards. Here and there, ancient stone columns converted into streetlamps embellished the neighborhoods only the very rich could afford. Grand estates like the one her mother’s father had left to Lisbeth when he died.
Aisa whipped into a drive blocked by a massive wrought-iron gate. “Here we are.”
“Here?” Lisbeth stared at the familiar gate. “This house belonged to my grandfather.” She’d sold her jiddo’s estate through a third-party transaction to finance Maggie’s steep college tuition. She had no idea the buyer had been her father’s camp cook. “You live here?”
“Yes.” Aisa’s toothy grin showed his delight at her surprise. “The good professor is not the only one who knows how to turn sand into treasure.”
Lisbeth shifted in her seat. “You sold recovered artifacts?”
Aisa lifted his chin proudly. “My recipe for fried dough.”
“To whom?”
“An American food chain.” He pressed the remote control attached to his visor, and the gate swung open.
In the distance, Lisbeth could see the hill where the Roman acropolis had once stood. The French had built a huge cathedral. All around her, the palm trees had grown bigger and had acquired multiple rings of thick bark. Beside her sat a wealthy souk vendor who used to be a man who just barely eked out a living frying bread dough on an oil drum.
Nothing stays the same.
The power of time and its ability to change everything had tugged at her since the moment she set foot back in Tunisia. The port that had once been the spear pointed at the rest of the world was now an accusing dagger aimed at her. She’d abandoned Carthage in its hour of need. She could take no credit for its survival. For some unknown reason, its modern progress made her very sad.
Aisa settled Lisbeth in the room where she’d stayed during their rare supply runs to Carthage. She and Papa didn’t come often, because things were always so tense between her jiddo and her father. The two men had never had a good relationship, but after Mama’s disappearance it was easier to beat each other up than themselves.
Lisbeth showered quickly, slipped into the simple tunic she found laid out on the massive burled mahogany bed, then followed the enticing smell of roasting meat to the large, wrap-around terrace with a stunning view of the port. Over by the fire pit, she spotted Papa. He was dressed in a woolen tunic that hit him midcalf. His fry cook was whacking fist-size dough balls with a tire iron and wearing Papa’s faded chambray shirt and dungarees.
“Hate to interrupt this touching reunion, but, Papa, why did you and Aisa switch clothes?”
Her father handed Aisa another dough ball. “I thought I’d better dress appropriately for our journey into the third century.”
“Oh, no you don’t. I let you come to Tunis, but I did not agree to letting you go back in time. Plus, Maggie may still be in the twenty-first century.”
“You haven’t been able to get Nigel on the phone. Either he’s dead, or he took Maggie to the desert already.” Papa eyed Lisbeth carefully. “I’m current on all my shots.”
“That’s the least of my worries.”
“Well then, if things are as bad back there as you’ve always said, you’ll need my hel
p. And I can tell you right now, it’s going to take both of us to wrestle Maggie Hastings back down the rabbit hole.”
“I don’t suppose your willingness to fling yourself into a waterslide has anything to do with finding Mama?”
“I intend to bring my wife home along with the rest of my family.”
Lisbeth thought for a moment and then held up her palms. “We’ll have to hire a jeep.”
“I checked with customs, and the borders into Egypt are closed to vehicular travel,” Papa said.
Lisbeth’s stomach clenched. “So as of right now, neither one of us has a way to get to that cave.”
“The bald Irishman is not the only one with a plane.” Aisa glowed at their shock. “Came with the estate.”
She hugged Aisa and kissed his sun-weathered cheek. “Then we’ve got work to do.”
After a quick meal of lamb and fried dough, the three of them set out to prepare for Lisbeth and Papa’s entrance into the past. Flashlight in hand, Lisbeth hurried down the steps that led to the cisterns in the oldest section of Carthage. Lizards skittered over the broken blocks of masonry that littered the path. Papa and Aisa followed close behind, heavy ropes slung over their shoulders.
This crazy plan she had might not work at all, but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t count on Barek being at the well or the small chance that he’d be willing to haul them into the third century again if he was.
Shining her light around the stone base of each cistern, Lisbeth searched for the faded painting of the swimmer family. “I found them.”
Papa rushed over. “Look, Aisa. It’s the Hastingses.”
“Don’t touch it, Papa. Let’s just do what we need to do and get out of here.”
“Seems to me it would be a lot easier just to go from here,” Papa said.
“Who knows where we’d end up? I can’t take that chance.” She kept her light on the tiny figures that had guarded this portal for centuries. “Finding Maggie means we’re going to have to take the same route she did. And she only knows how to get to the third century via the Cave of the Swimmers.”
Fifteen minutes later they had one end of the rope tied to a stone and the other dangling inches above the dark water. A lifeline she prayed would somehow miraculously be there when they arrived in the third century.
“Now what about those antibiotics?” She turned the beam of light on Aisa. “I don’t suppose you were successful in finding a local doc who’d write me some scrips.”
The cook’s teeth glowed white. “No one can resist my fried bread.”
Don’t miss the start of the story!
Before Lawrence Hastings became obsessed with the Cave of the Swimmers and the mysterious disappearances surrounding it, he was just a young archaeologist excavating the Tophet of Roman Carthage. After an embarrassing on-the-job injury, he meets Magdalena Kader, a beautiful local doctor caught between her loyalty to her father and his traditions and what her heart truly desires. Can they overcome their vastly different worlds to find something more?
A Perfect Fit: An eShort Prequel to Healer of Carthage
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A mysterious disappearance, archaeology, time travel, medical suspense, political intrigue, plagues, gladiators, star-crossed romance—what more could you ask for?
Healer of Carthage
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About the Author
Photograph by Jacob Knettel
Lynne Gentry has written for numerous publications. She is a professional acting coach, theater director, and playwright. Lynne is an inspirational speaker and dramatic performer who loves spending time with her family and medical therapy dog.
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More from Lynne Gentry
The Carthage Chronicles
A Perfect Fit: An eShort Prequel to Healer of Carthage
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Lynne Gentry
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission (www.Lockman.org).
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gentry, Lynne.
Return to exile : a novel / Lynne Gentry.
pages cm.—(The Carthage Chronicles ; 2)
ISBN 978-1-4767-4636-4 (paperback)
1. Women physicians—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. Carthage (Extinct city)—Fiction. 4. Christian fiction. 5. Love stories. I. Title.
PS3607.E57R48 2014
813’.6—dc23
2014006722
ISBN 978-1-4767-4636-4
ISBN 978-1-4767-4640-1 (ebook)