The Templar Inheritance

by Mario Reading

  Hart bowed his head in acknowledgement. What else could he do? ‘And why are we here?’

  ‘To meet some people. They will come here tomorrow. I owe you my life, John. So I am going to arrange for you to get into Iran illegally. In Iraq, we believe what a man says when he speaks directly to our eyes. You tell me you wish to get inside and find your ancestor’s scroll. I believe you. But you must believe me also. I have told you of my reasons for entering Iran. Now we will both do so, but in different ways. When we are the other side of the border we will meet again. Then I will help you go where you want to go. I owe you this. It is not far. Maybe a three-hour drive. There will be checkpoints. But fewer than in Iraq. Still. You will not be able to make such a trip without help.’

  ‘Are you really going to do this for me?’

  ‘Why do you always doubt me?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to doubt you. I’m just bewildered, that’s all. If we were in the West it would take weeks to organize such a trip.’

  ‘Here, everything is much quicker. There are no rules. No regulations. You see all the cars we passed on the road coming up here? None of them have insurance. Why? Because it does not exist here. If we are ill, there are no Iraqi doctors. We rely on Iranians, who are much better at this than we are anyway. This border area is a fluid place. Sometimes they close it. Sometimes not. Sometimes the lorries are backed up down the road for many kilometres and their drivers take days to pass through. At other times it is all done very quickly. Much is random here. We need to be lucky. If we are, with God’s help, it will all pass easily. If we are not, it will be very bad indeed.’

  Hart hesitated on the doorstep of his bungalow. ‘How are we going to play tonight then? Will you join me for dinner? Are we allowed to sit together here at least?’

  Nalan laughed. ‘Of course we are allowed to sit together. This is a holiday resort. People can do what they want.’

  ‘Might we even be able to get a bottle of wine? I mean, do you even drink wine?’

  Nalan clapped her hands together. Then she unpinned her hijab. ‘I am a Chaldean Christian. Of course I drink wine. And beer. Even whisky, although I do not like it. I even go without my hijab in places like this.’

  ‘How about champagne then?’

  Nalan frowned. ‘Now you are being too much of an optimist even for a Britannia.’

  ‘A Britannia?’

  ‘That is what they call the English here in the local Sorani dialect.’

  Hart gave her a mocking bow. ‘Then this Britannia invites you for dinner tonight. With or without champagne. But with his deepest thanks.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Nalan was wearing a floor-length traditional Kurdish-style dress in black silk, with matching silver-filigree jewellery at her throat, wrist and around her waist. The jewellery incorporated dangling silver coins and lapis lazuli inlays in the shape of diamonds. Her arms were bare, but covered in diaphanous gauze, and she had painted her fingernails and was wearing make-up for the first time since he had met her. Imprinted on her dress was a flower design in pearl beads, which was echoed both above and below her waist.

  Hart stood at the door of her bungalow and cursed himself for his own slapdash fashion sense. He was wearing a worn pair of black Levi cords, set off by a favourite rust-red Murray’s Toggery Shop shirt from Nantucket, which was fraying badly at the collar, and which he couldn’t bear to throw away. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’ He indicated his own clothes, then spread his hands apologetically to encompass hers. ‘You look beautiful. Very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you. And what didn’t you realize, John? You look nice. Like a ruffian. But nice.’

  ‘A ruffian?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t I get this word right?’

  Hart coughed behind his hand. ‘Exactly right.’ He wasn’t sure if he ought to kiss Nalan on both cheeks or not. ‘How do men and women greet each other here?’

  ‘We do not kiss, if that is what you mean. Not amongst the different sexes. But if we know each other well we sometimes do this.’ She leaned towards him and drew his forehead down to touch hers. Hart’s had quite a long way to go. ‘But this will only be done in private, like here, and not in a public place.’

  ‘Right.’ Hart was still breathing in Nalan’s scent. He doubted whether in his life he had seen a more beautiful or desirable woman. He fought back a disastrous desire to reach forwards and take her head between his hands and kiss her. ‘Shall I call for a golf cart? Or shall we walk?’

  ‘Let us walk through the park. It is a nice evening. The fountains will be playing. And it is too early in the year for mosquitoes.’

  She led him along the road and down some stone steps until they came to a parking lot, spanning the main park. ‘I want you to look over here.’ She gestured that he should walk ahead of her to the very edge of the bollarded area.

  The views across the gorge were breathtaking. Pinpoints of light were starting up from some of the houses on the opposite side of the span, and far below them they could hear the snow-swollen river churning past on its way down from the mountains.

  ‘You’ve been here many times?’

  ‘No,’ said Nalan. ‘Only once. With a school party I was helping teach English. I had no time to myself. I have always wanted to come back ever since.’

  ‘Probably with someone you love.’

  She glanced up at him. ‘Probably. Yes.’ She turned quickly away. ‘You see those mountains? In the far distance?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Iran is over there. And Hassif. But this evening I do not want to think of either. Is this possible?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Hart took her arm and they walked through the park towards the restaurant.

  As they approached the entrance, and almost without seeming to, Nalan drifted away from him. Hart understood, and did not try to follow her.

  They reached the doors to the restaurant with an eight-foot gap between them. They might have been total strangers, with all the unspoken intimacy of the last twenty minutes forgotten. It was another of Kurdistan’s paradoxes, Hart decided, this feeling of extreme sensuality followed by an aloofness prescribed by social custom and religious diktat. And for the benefit and protection of whom? The waiters? The maître d’? The pastry chef?

  They took a table at the far end of the restaurant complex. The place could not by any stretch of the imagination be termed intimate. There were possibly fifty tables set out in an absurdly well-lit room, which boasted the size and dimensions of a gymnasium. They were the only guests.

  ‘Doesn’t look like school is out,’ said Hart.

  ‘No. It is not that time of the year.’

  Hart glanced towards a central glass-display console. ‘Well, they do at least have wine. That much is for certain.’

  ‘It will be very expensive.’

  ‘But would you like some?’

  Nalan met his eyes across the table. ‘Yes. Very much.’

  Hart went across to the console and pointed out a bottle of Lebanese wine he thought Nalan might like to the waiter. There was a part of him that felt like a naughty schoolboy shirking class and out for a lark.

  When he got back to the table, he encouraged Nalan to choose their food, and he was glad that he had done so when a succession of wonderful mixed tabbouleh salads were brought for mezza, followed by different kebabs, koftas and kibbeh. He got Nalan to explain every course to him, and what meat or fish they were eating. Soon, almost without realizing it, they had drunk two bottles of Chateau Musar between them – her half bottle to his one and a half – alongside Hart’s favourite doogh drinking yogurt for good health, or so he insisted. They finished their meal with small portions of kanafeh, a form of pastry-like milk pudding made from cheese and semolina, and the near ubiquitous baklava, which they washed down with their Turkish-style coffee.

  ‘You have a good appetite,’ Hart told her.

  ‘You think I am fat?’ she said.

  ‘Fat? You? There’s nothing to you
. You’d blow away in a strong wind. When I had to lift you up—’ He came to an abrupt stop.

  ‘When you lifted me up into the loft above the rape rooms. Yes. Is that what you were saying?’

  Hart watched her from across the table. ‘Yes. That is what I am saying. That is exactly what I am saying. When I lifted you up into the loft above the rape rooms, you were so light in my arms I felt you might fly away from me. I even imagined something then. An odd thing.’ Hart could feel the wine he had drunk working away inside him. What was he going to say? He didn’t quite know. All he knew was that he couldn’t hold back any longer. He had to declare himself in some form or another or throw himself under one of the nearby tables and bury himself in a pile of tablecloths and crockery. ‘I thought you leaned forwards for an instant and rubbed your cheek against mine. I may have been imagining it. . .’

  ‘No. You were not imagining it.’

  Hart felt the muscles around his heart clench and unclench in his chest. ‘I wasn’t imagining it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  Nalan looked away from him and down towards the floor. ‘I should not tell you this.’

  ‘Please. Please tell me.’

  She sighed and turned her head, if that were possible, even further away from his gaze. ‘You moved something in me. Something I did not feel could be moved by a man. In the place we were, with the memories it held for me, I found myself wishing to overlay those memories with something better. Something purer. So I touched you. Knowing we would both probably die.’

  Hart reached for Nalan’s hand across the table, but she evaded him, placing both her hands in her lap.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you every day since then,’ he said, with the passion of hopelessness. ‘You are the real reason I came back here. You must know that. The story is secondary. I came back to see you.’

  ‘I know.’ Still she did not raise her eyes to meet his.

  Hart felt as if he were climbing high into the rigging of a tall-masted ship – high, high up, with all the world’s oceans beneath him. If he fell, all would be taken away from him. If he could simply keep his balance, somehow, by some miracle, and not tip over into the sea, the view would be his for ever. ‘I know I should not be speaking to you in this way. I know you are getting married soon.’

  ‘Yes. I am getting married soon.’

  Hart flailed around for the right words. The tall-masted ship was tipping, slowly, over onto its side. ‘But you are not married yet. And you are here with me. And you are beautiful. When I look at you I cannot believe how beautiful you are. I want to reach across the table and melt into you. . .’

  ‘As if I was a bowl of ice cream?’

  Hart’s eyes widened in shock. Then he realized Nalan was laughing with him, and not at him. That she was looking him directly in the eyes and laughing with him. In joy. ‘Yes. Rum and raisin. Made with real milk and not powdered. And with the raisins well soaked in Bundaberg Rum. And bought on a street in Italy from a travelling gelato salesman who has come directly from his family’s house to sell his wares so that they are as fresh as fresh can be.’

  ‘John, you are mad. The things you say.’

  ‘I didn’t start this. It was you who brought up the idea of ice cream.’

  ‘I’m surprised you can think of anything edible after the meal we have just had.’

  Hart had himself under control again. He had been about to say something stupid – even more stupid than what he had already said – and ruin everything. And Nalan had known it, and had diffused it with her comment about the ice cream. It had been done with such elegance and tact that he felt overwhelmed with gratitude towards her. She had saved him from making a total ass of himself, and allowed him to save face at the same time. His admiration and respect for her was increasing by the minute. ‘Would you like to walk back?’ he said. ‘We could go up to the parapets again. See the gorge at night.’

  ‘How do you see a gorge at night?’

  Hart swallowed. His side of this conversation wasn’t going well at all. Serve him right for drinking so much. ‘Well. Feel it then. Look at the lights across the valley. Listen to the river.’

  ‘I would like that very much.’

  It was a lot colder outside, and Hart cursed himself for not having thought to bring a jacket he could have offered to slip over Nalan’s shoulders. They were 1,000 metres above sea level, for Pete’s sake, and not long out of winter. He was an idiot. ‘It is cold. Would you mind if I put my arm round you?’

  ‘No. I would not mind.’

  Hart felt as if he were walking on eggshells. What was he to do? How should he play this? Here he was with a woman from another culture to his entirely, and about to be married, and all he wished to do was to take her in his arms and kiss her. But something was atrophying his every movement.

  They stopped by the concrete bollards near the parking place, close to where they had stood before supper.

  Nalan stepped in front of him and then snuggled herself back against him, so that he would be protecting her from the worst of the wind, which was coming from directly behind them. It was such a natural movement that he did not hesitate. He put his arms round her shoulders and they both stood looking out across the vast black emptiness ahead of them, and towards the tiny pinpricks of light on the other side of the valley. From time to time Hart bent forwards and nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek. But for some obscure reason he still did not dare to turn her round and kiss her full on the mouth. Perhaps he did not wish to spoil the magic?

  ‘I think we must go back now, John. You have no jacket and I have no coat. We have both come ill-prepared for a night up here in the mountains.’

  Hart could feel her slipping through his hands.

  ‘Yes. I hope there’s some heating in the rooms. An open fire would be nice.’

  Nalan laughed. She took his hand in hers and they walked back towards their bungalows.

  The sudden cold, far from sobering Hart up, appeared to be doing the exact opposite. Why could he never learn? ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘Some men will come here to meet us. To see you. We will speak with them. They will want money from you. But they are honest. You will see. Later, you will go with them.’

  Hart could hardly believe they were talking like this. As far as he was concerned, at that precise moment, Iran and the Copper Scroll and his bloody ancestor could go hang themselves. And the rest of the world along with them.

  They stopped at the entrance to Nalan’s bungalow. Hart saw the night slipping away from him. But he had no idea how to retrieve it.

  ‘Thank you for this evening. And thank you for being such a gentleman, John. You have made it very easy for me.’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘But you did. And I value that. More than you can know.’

  Hart bent forwards and they touched foreheads again. She gave him a quick peck on each cheek as a sort of consolation prize. Then she was gone, and he was left standing outside her door, in his shirtsleeves, in a howling gale, and facing the prospect of an evening spent watching CNN or Al Jazeera or whatever the hell else Iraqis received on their satellite dishes.

  Should he go back to the restaurant and drown his sorrows? Probably not. He would need to keep his wits about him for whatever occurred the next day. Well, maybe he would go back to his room and send Amira a text in the code they had agreed on back in England. If he succeeded in passing over into Iran, there would be no more communication like that open to him. He would be alone out there in deepest hyperspace.

  The story of his life.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Hart showered and brushed his teeth. Then he lay in bed with the lights off and thought about Nalan. She had gone as far as she dared go with him; that much was clear. Her aunt and uncle had set her up for an arranged marriage, and she intended to go through with it, come what may. It was the right thing for her to do, he couldn’t deny that. For where would an affair with him lead
her? Absolutely nowhere. The last thing she needed to be doing at this point in her life was to betray her intended husband and prejudice her future.

  There was a soft knock at his French windows. So soft that he wasn’t quite sure that he had heard it.

  Hart sat up in bed. Something told him not to switch on the light. He moved to the window and opened the curtains. Nalan stood outside. She was dressed in black jeans and a loose brown T-shirt.

  He pulled the French windows open and allowed her to slip in past him.

  ‘We need to talk, John. In private. And this is the best place to do it. But don’t switch on the lights. It is safer that way.’

  As she passed him, her hair drifted across his wrist. Hart was tempted to reach across and take it into his hands – to lower his face into it and breathe in its perfume. Instead he closed the sliding doors and drew the curtains back into place as if it was every night of the year that a desirable young woman entered his bedroom unexpectedly as if in answer to a prayer.

  ‘I’m sorry. You were in bed.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t asleep. Just sitting here thinking.’

  ‘Climb back in. I will sit on the other side. We can talk better that way. And it will be warmer for you.’

  Hart was grateful, now, that he had decided to go to bed in his T-shirt and underpants, thanks to the cold, rather than in his more usual nude state. Despite this, he found himself utterly wrong-footed by his own prejudices. Nalan seemed perfectly comfortable alone with him in his room. It was he who was attributing some ulterior motive to her every act. It made perfect sense for her to go back to her own room, change, slip out the back way, well protected from the street lights, and come and talk to him privately. Hell, what they were intending to do was sheer madness. They needed to discuss it first. And in the strictest possible privacy. It was only he who was letting other stuff get in the way of it.

  He got back into bed and leaned against the headboard. Nalan did the same on her side. She glanced across at him. Her face was lit up from the reflection of the street lights which leached in through the fanlight above the front door of the bungalow. The light caught the edges of her hair and turned them gold, like an aureole around her head. She looked more beautiful than ever in the half-light. Hart tried to relax, but it was impossible.