by D J Mcintosh
“Why did you say that?” I asked.
“This object was possessed by one of the most fearsome beings—Nergal of the Babylonians who reigned over the underworld. The god of plague. Anyone who possesses the object may.…” His face twisted in frustration as he sought the right English word. “May help the god to wake from his long slumber.”
“Did they say where they got it?”
“I did not wish to know.” He glanced quickly at Shaheen and then back at me. “The old Englishman did say one thing. They wanted to visit an ancient site.”
“Did he say where?”
“Oh yes—Babylon.”
We’d hit a wall for certain this time. The site of Babylon covered almost a square mile. I couldn’t believe the scientists would have been allowed to do any excavating there. Even if they had, it could literally take years to investigate the entire site in detail. Without being able to narrow down the specific location the quest could end right here. Unless I was able to unravel the secret held within the volumes of Basile’s book. And that still looked doubtful.
Forty-Four
December 6, 2003
Baghdad, Iraq
After the explosion, we’d moved from the Palestine to the Ishtar, formerly a Sheraton hotel. The Ishtar had once been a fine place but two wars separated by a decade of poverty had taken their toll. At one point its second floor had burned. The ghost of the fire still haunted the inn, though the staff had done their best to air it out. Everything smelled of melting polyethylene and burning plastic. Even the drinks tasted of it.
Following our visit to Khalid’s shop I spent a day and a half in our room with my photocopies of the volumes, racking my brains to discern some pattern I’d missed before.
Now that I knew which story Renwick pursued, based on the spindle whorl and the hidden house underneath the palazzo, I turned to Basile’s version of “Sleeping Beauty,” titled “The Sun, Moon and Talia.” The tale appeared in day five, the last volume, the one we’d just bought at Khalid’s shop. I scrutinized the story but could see no indications, by way of marks or other printing features, that set it apart from text in the rest of the volume. As with the other volumes, if the clue resided in the story’s Italian text, I’d need a translator to sort it out.
I possessed photocopies of three volumes and the one original we’d just bought. Alessio said he destroyed Naso’s volume so I was forced to work with what I had. I taped the paper photocopies up on the wall in their proper sequence. My inability to read the Neapolitan dialect initially proved helpful because it made it easier to compare the books and search for hidden maps or symbols.
The volumes yielded nothing as obvious as a map. And there were no unusual symbols in the thin margins. I became increasingly frustrated, unable to find any sign pointing to a physical location. Hiring someone to translate all this material from the old Neapolitan dialect into English would prove time-consuming and expensive. And, so far removed in time from the original book, the English translation that Tye Norris had lent me would be unlikely to help.
I examined the fifth volume carefully. It was in the same pristine condition I’d found the first one in: stiff, browned pages that could easily be spoiled. An engraving of a noblewoman surrounded by scrollwork appeared on the frontispiece. It differed from the others in that it had only nine stories and no eclogue, all of it incomprehensible to me.
Scanning each of de Ribera’s illustrations with equal care again I was struck by his vibrant, provocative images and yet they gave me no discernible geographical clues.
Shaheen had been gone all morning, leaving Ali to stand guard. Though he appeared unkempt and casual, Ali always kept a sharp eye out. He stationed himself near the door, occasionally pushing aside the curtains to look out the window and sweep his gaze over the grounds. I began to wonder what had become of Shaheen. When I asked Ali he answered with a smile and shrug. I’m sure he knew and had no intention of telling me.
Toward 11 A.M., I heard Shaheen’s voice outside. Ali let him in. He breezed in carrying a can of Coke, gave Ali a grin, picked his way through the line of my papers, and plunked himself down on the bed. “Loretti and Hill,” he said, shaking his head.
My mind was still half immersed in Basile’s volumes and I barely registered his remark.
“What about them?” I asked absentmindedly.
“Just got off the phone with Leonard Best, the contact back in the U.S. I’m working with on this. We finally know what killed them.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Cryptococcus gattii.”
Forty-Five
“It’s a spore-forming fungus. Ever been to Brazil?”
“Just a beach holiday.”
“Assuming you stayed away from the Amazon, you’d have been safe. It likes warm, moist environments. They call it a killer fungus because the death rate can reach 25 percent for people who come into contact with it. An even more dangerous strain is on the U.S. West Coast. Fatalities there hit 40 percent—that’s already close to mortality rates for the Black Death. The fungus our medical people just identified? Through a microscope it looks like a distorted human hand—a spongy palm with four fleshy fingers extending out from it. It’s what they call hyper-virulent, meaning it kills over 90 percent of lab animals exposed to it. Loretti and Hill never had a chance.”
“How’s it transmitted?”
“They’re speculating it’s airborne but don’t know for sure. It lives in soils; in that environment it’s practically undetectable.”
“So you’re out for a hike and you reach down to pick up a flower, your fingers stir up the dirt and you get hit with it?”
“And weeks later you’re dead. The spores we’re dealing with seem to have properties that are both more acute and different from the spore-induced sickness you find in the western U.S. They haven’t seen the skin and bone infections out there for one thing. It’s primarily respiratory.
“Saddam had some clever researchers. Now we’re wondering if they found a way to tweak this damn thing chemically to kill everything it came into contact with. If so, where the hell were they doing it?”
“If it’s undetectable in soil, how would you know? Sounds like an impossible task.”
“You’ve got that right. Our only shot is to figure out where the scientists went. There’s still one more lead to check out. Another contact turned up,” Shaheen said. “A guide at Babylon. Apparently she gave Loretti, Hill, and Renwick a tour.” He popped the lid of his Coke and drank some. “You made any headway with your brain teaser?”
“No. I’m at my wits’ end with it actually. I’ve been staring at it too long. It’s got to be something in the text itself. It would help if I could narrow down what I’m looking for. A map? Words buried in the text of one of the stories? There’s just not enough to go on. Not to mention I’m totally hampered because I don’t know either Italian or the Neapolitan dialect.”
Shaheen got up and walked over to the wall. “Aside from the one volume you don’t have, is all the material spread out here?”
On the point of saying yes, I realized I hadn’t laid out the photos of the gold covers. I hastily removed the images from my case and moved over to the window, shifting the curtains to get better light.
“Watch that,” Shaheen said sharply. “You forgot what happened last time?” He pushed me out of the way and looked out. “It’s okay, I guess. But don’t take long.”
I held the two pages up to the light and scrutinized the arabesque designs. There’d been no wind today to stir up the dust and the sun burned through with crystal clarity. Whether it was the particular quality of Middle Eastern light or the way I held the pages, I saw something I’d missed before. With a tremor of excitement, I shifted the angle of the pages and peered at them again to be sure. I was right.
As a last check I pulled up the picture of the cover design for the English book Amy told me had been copied for the gold covers of The Tale of Tales. Aside from the different initials, I now saw t
hat the arabesque design was altered on the Italian version. A slight but significant change.
The original image of the gold covers was archived in my email account, so if need be, another copy could be printed. I got a pen and sat at the small table with the pages in front of me, tracing the outline of what I thought I’d seen. Shaheen came over to observe. I held up the tracing. “These aren’t just designs. It’s Arabic script. The arabesques cleverly hide several Arabic words.”
Shaheen took the paper from me. “I think I see what you’re getting at. I can’t tell what the words are. They’re unfamiliar to me. Almost looks Persian.”
“We need to find a computer with broadband access,” I said.
That task proved easier than we imagined. The hotel was flooded with journalists and it didn’t take long to find one who knew a Jordanian specialist in Arabic calligraphy. The reporter used his satellite-linked laptop to send the image of my tracings to his colleague and got a reply back within the hour. It turned out to be a sacred script called Jeli Diwani, characterized by artful, elegantly entwined letters. Turkish sultans once used the writing for secret documents.
“The script makes up three words,” I said. “Mesopotamia, temple, and Jahannam. All this time Basile’s secret hadn’t been hidden in any of the volumes but on the golden covers in plain view.”
Shaheen’s eyes lit up when I mentioned the last word. “Jahannam—the Arabic word for ‘hell.’ Did the author ever spend time in the Middle East?”
“He served as a mercenary on behalf of a Venetian noble, Andreo Cornaro, in Candia—an early name for Heraklion, the capital of Crete—and got the stone spindle whorl from an Ottoman trader he met there. Do you see the connections? Temple combined with the word Mesopotamia and a third word meaning ‘hell’ indicates a temple dedicated to the god of the Mesopotamian underworld.”
“Well, that should be a piece of cake to find. After all this effort, we end up with nothing more than a fictitious reference to hell.”
“Actually, it may not be so difficult,” I said. “Several sites were devoted to Nergal, the god of the underworld, and his female consort Ereshkigal. The word Loretti was trying to say. Two of them are primary. Tell Abu Duwari, the ancient site called Mashkan-shapir, is associated with Ereshkigal. It’s about an hour and a half southeast of Baghdad. The other is Tell Ibrahim, an important cult center called Kutha, between the ruins of Babylon and Baghdad. Nergal’s temple site. Those are the main ones I know of; there may be others.”
Shaheen looked doubtful. “The book dates to the seventeenth century. How could an Ottoman trader possibly learn about any of those sites when in his time they’d have been long buried?”
“Local people would have known. A temple dedicated to the god of the underworld would retain enormous power in the local memory. The word for ‘hell’ in Sumerian mythology was Irkalla. Quite a different place from the fire-and-brimstone dwelling of demons with pitchforks that we think of. The Babylonians named it something like ‘the land of no return’ in their beautiful poetry—‘the house without light.’ Dry and dusty although not a place of punishment. Souls lived on for eternity suspended in something like a state of purgatory. Our best bet would be to start with the two main cult centers at Mashkan-shapir and Kutha.”
“We’ll give it a go,” Shaheen said. “After we stop off at Babylon.”
“You think that’s where they found the stone?”
“I’m not sure. But that guide who gave the scientists a tour of the ruins might know.”
Babylon’s colors struck me first. That and the ever-present dust. Pink-ocher earth tones defined mud-brick walls and buildings; moss-green palms and scrub trees dotted the landscape. As we drew nearer to the famed city the full reality hit me. This was no desert outpost but a major armed camp complete with requisite blast walls, concertina-wire rolls, heavy vehicles, and dozens of ribbed aluminum prefabs. Like giant black dragonflies, helicopters dipped and hovered above the site, the grinding drone of their rotors so loud they shook the earth. As we drew nearer we could see soldiers in full battle dress having their pictures snapped against the backdrop of an ancient statue.
In 539 B.C. the victorious Persians marched into Babylon, taking the city without force and putting a permanent end to Mesopotamian rule. Almost 2500 years later our own troops controlled it, treading the same path as the Persians.
At the height of its powers, Babylon was the most glorious city in the world. Small wonder that Alexander, even after seeing many splendors in the Aegean and the Near East, chose it as his favorite city.
In ancient times the Euphrates bisected Babylon. Now the river ran along one flank and much of the western portion had been submerged. I could only imagine what finds awaited archaeologists should that underwater cache ever be excavated.
The great Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi built a supremely beautiful capital, one that never deserved its modern reputation for profligate evil. With walls many feet thick, it proved impenetrable to enemy armies. Iron gates constructed at the entrance and outflow points of the river blocked invading soldiers. Cleverly, the Persians actually diverted the Euphrates and when the water levels fell, squeezed under the gates while the Babylonians were celebrating a festival. As I gazed on its forlorn remains I wondered whether someone many years into the future would be thinking the same thoughts about the dry husk of my Manhattan.
A strange landscape made up present-day Babylon. Saddam Hussein’s extensive re-creation—an Ishtar Gate of gleaming peacock-blue tiles, new fortified walls, and temple buildings—was set against the sad refrain of the original city’s crumbling ruins. On a hill, Saddam Hussein had commissioned a reproduction of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, now falling into ruin itself. All of it—the army camp, the replicas, the wasted beauty of a once great empire—seemed like a place frozen halfway through a time warp.
By now I was prepared for the interminable wait to enter a military station, but the situation here presented even more difficul-ties. We had to wade through checkpoints manned by soldiers from multinational forces—Polish, Italian, Romanian, and Spanish—none of whom knew each other’s language. This on the same ground as the Plain of Shinar, home to the infamous Tower of Babel. A prescient omen, I thought, for the ultimate fate of the invasion.
In addition to Ali, who’d driven us to Babylon, Shaheen brought along two others, both private contractors, a brawny young guy named Ben and an older man who’d seen action in both Iraqi wars. I didn’t catch his name. They followed us in a Humvee, a chase car for extra protection. The three men stayed with the cars while Shaheen and I went in search of the tour guide.
We approached a collection of buildings that once housed a museum and study facility. Thieves had made off with plaster renditions of Babylonian antiquities. The library and archives, however, did contain many genuine documents.
A pleasant-featured woman dressed in a hijab gave escorted tours, almost exclusively to military personnel. Doubtless she’d kept her job because she could speak English. She confirmed she’d given a tour to the scientists and Renwick.
“Do you remember where you took them?” I asked.
“I have a standard route. It was the same for them.”
Our own tour came with a running commentary, not so much about Babylon’s history as the damage caused by converting parts of the ancient city into a military base. She led us along a grand processional pointing out paving stones destroyed by tons of heavy metal driving over them. “They dug eight long trenches, piled up the soil, and filled thousands of Hesco containers and sandbags with it. The soil contained many artifacts, pieces of brick with Babylonian inscriptions, ceramics. A helicopter pad three hundred feet from the Ninmak temple caused a major portion of it to collapse.”
Gouges were visible in nine of the molded reliefs of the chief Babylonian god, Marduk, the creature with a scaled body, snake head, and eagle-taloned feet. “This damage occurred long after the Baghdad museum was looted,” the guide said.
> “Did the scientists or Charles Renwick attempt to dig through any of these areas?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No. They took my tour like everyone else.”
“What about this object?” I showed her the image of the round stone spindle whorl. “Did they question you about it?”
She frowned in concentration. When she answered she refused to look either Shaheen or me in the eye. “You put me in a difficult position. I have only this job. My husband lost his. And you wish me to speak ill of Americans so you can accuse me later?”
Shaheen gave me a nudge and spoke to her in Arabic. She twisted her hands as she answered him, darting the occasional glance at me. Then she walked away, our tour abruptly terminated.
“What did she say?” I asked Shaheen.
“Loretti did show her the weight. He believed it was an ancient puzzle of some kind. He told her he planned to remove a seal on the underside of the stone. She knew he’d taken it from an ancient site and was afraid to accuse him of looting it.”
“Shit. That means he didn’t admit to where they found it?”
“In a manner of speaking he did. He told her he’d just come from hell. The underworld. They called it Meslam—have you ever heard of that?”
“That’s Nergal’s temple district. At Kutha.”
Forty-Six
The road to Kutha ran parallel to the Tigris for some time. Every now and then white patches lined the riverbank like the last vestiges of snow melting under a spring sun. Except here it never snowed.
“It’s salt,” Shaheen explained. “Crystallizes out of the earth when the ground dries.”
As we veered away from the river, rows of derelict tanks and trucks dotted the roadside like rusty hedges, as if a huge scrap yard had been disassembled and strewn along the edge of the road. We passed an oil tanker flipped on its side, the fronds of rubber on its tires mere threads now, waving in the wind like seaweed.
