Bone Box

by Jay Amberg

  Color drains from the world around Travers. His footing is unsure, his breath choked. He has no idea whether Monuglu’s last statement is a question or a command—and he couldn’t speak even if he had an answer.

  59

  “Merde…merde,” Sophia Altay murmurs. “Merde!” She is seated at the computer farthest from the door in this narrow, dimly lit internet café on a side street in Ürgüp. She wears a long beige skirt and a bulky white blouse. Her scarf, a muted yellow and brown, covers her head. Though she remains still, her skin prickles as though she has been stung a thousand times. Her breath is stuck in her throat. All hell is breaking loose before she has had a chance to release her translations of Jesus of Nazareth’s testament and John the Apostle’s letter.

  Despite her meticulous planning, the internet chaos she feared is already thundering about her at 14:46. She made the list of thirty-five global media outlets yesterday—everyone from Al Jazeera to Fox News. Her cover note is clear and concise, her translations from the original Aramaic exact. She scouted this café where she could—or should have been able to—blast the net and vanish into Ürgüp in less than five minutes. She has devised alternative escape routes. The man sitting by the door—dour, aging, paunchy, asthmatic—is far more interested in the football game on his monitor than in her. The only other customers, two German girls with flaxen hair and tight black T-shirts, provide a perfect diversion.

  Altay assumed that turmoil would ensue after her release of the documents. But not now. Not this heinous attempt to poison the well. Not eight or more ersatz transcriptions flooding the web in the last few minutes. Two versions using her address! And six others differing from hers in a single character: sophia.altay@sfj.org or sophea.altay@stj.org, or sophia-altay@stj.org, and so on. Each with variant translations of the documents. Each version proclaiming that any other version is a fabrication. Each asserting that all others are anathema. Each diverging from the truth. Each fomenting and escalating the confusion online. Each already causing controversy. Consternation. Division. Derision.

  A couple of the fraudulent versions are subtle, making only minor alterations like changing each use of the word Man to God in the phrase Son of Man. But others are heavy-handed and overtly apocryphal. One turns Jesus into a megalomaniac: Worship the Lord your God and serve me only and Serve no earthly master but me. Another calls for the equivalent of jihad—The one who kills in my name will be saved and The Son of God is coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, to cast my enemies into a lake of eternal fire. The versions of Saint John’s letters are, in some ways, even worse. One gloats about the murder of the High Priest, Jonathan, and another completely replaces the text with rantings from The Book of the Apocalypse. Yet another denounces both Hebrews and gentiles. And still another states, Jesus came to love me and lie with me. It’s absurd, but people are all too willing to believe what they want to believe—and whatever serves their purposes.

  Altay’s eyes fill with frustration and anger. The German girls are giggling and jiggling. Lighting one cigarette from another, the callous man is glancing salaciously at them. She cannot stand and scream; she cannot shake her hair and snarl. She rips off the tip of her left forefinger’s nail, slips it into her mouth, and bites down hard. She slows and deepens her breath, pulling her belly in with each exhale. Slowly, slowly she lengthens each breath.

  Joseph Travers’ news conference will be a disaster; the media hyenas will tear him apart. He had a sound idea but no specific plan—and certainly no sense that his diversion would become catastrophic. They agreed that neither would attempt to contact the other until 19:00. Her phone, one of three inexpensive burners she purchased with cash on the street in İzmir as she was fleeing to Cappadocia, is stowed, and she has no way to warn him except through email, which he won’t check in the next hour. He has, she believes, the wherewithal to survive, but not unscathed.

  And Abrahim? Poor, sweet Abrahim. She has lost contact completely. She cannot believe that he killed Leopold’s henchman, but he was perturbed beyond anything she had seen in him before. And whatever happened, he is certainly castigating himself, if not actually self-flagellating or indulging in some other form of Christian self-mortification. She has learned that his belongings, including his shoes, remain at the hostel, but he has not, apparently, been seen since she left him disconsolate along the road three kilometers outside of Göreme.

  She must finish here in the café and get out fast. Anyone able to wreak this internet havoc will also be able to track her through the web. She taps Send, and, watching the Outgoing Mail icon turn blue, adds her translations, the only authentic documents, to the swell of misinformation stirring controversy on the internet. She hears the computer’s swish of finality as her message takes flight. She grinds her fingernail with her molars. Leopold, that egomaniacal, confrontational Pharisee, has mounted this massive attack on her.… He is so pompous and so obsessed with her that…

  Her fingers freezing above the keyboard, she flinches as though she has been slapped. Leopold’s need for self-aggrandizement is total, but if he desires credit for the discovery of the ossuary, why discredit the letters? Unless his need to destroy her overleaps his ambition. No, he is far too egotistical to have undermined his own reputation and that of his precious Aegean Association. He has too little technological savvy and too few human resources. He is too aristocratic and autocratic to have sullied himself with this sort of… Joseph Travers and, admittedly, she herself, have drawn erroneous conclusions. “Merde!” she mutters aloud. “Merde!”

  60

  At five minutes to four, Charles Lee accosts Joseph Travers in the Sarihan Hotel’s pale stone and wood-paneled lobby. Lee wears a blue tie and a starched button-down white shirt with a gold Jerusalem cross monogrammed on the pocket. His face is red, as though he has just been working out, and his jaw is set. He clasps Travers’ arm and says, “Hey, Joe, we need to have a chat.”

  Yanking himself free, Travers says, “I tried to find you this morning, Charlie. Missed you entirely.”

  Producers bustle by each other as they cross the lobby between the cave rooms where they’re encamped and the garden patio where they expect the action to be.

  “We need a Come-to-Jesus meeting,” Lee snarls. “Now!”

  Travers wishes for a moment that he had a cloak to sell. The internet is, by all accounts, abuzz with controversy over contradictory versions of Jesus of Nazareth’s testament and John the Apostle’s letter. “I really don’t have time right now,” he says. A dozen people have asked him for interviews or for more information about the letters, but he has been too busy getting press packets made from the flash drive he now carries in his pants pocket.

  Allison Wade and Ravi shot footage of him removing one of the flash drives from the chink in the stone wall and presenting it to Nihat Monuglu, who, though he had almost strangled Travers minutes before, accepted it with stiff formality. Perhaps, Travers thought, like a wrestler receiving a medal after a championship match. Everything since then has been a blur of activity.

  A muscle twitches in Lee’s jaw. “Goddamn it, you acorn-cracking dipshit.” Lee’s voice is vicious. “You’re dead on your feet. And y’all already look like the fuckin’ village eegit in the media!”

  Shaking his head, Travers exhales slowly. “I wonder who caused that.”

  “You’ve got no evidence that those letters are real,” Lee whispers, seemingly aware for the first time that what he’s saying isn’t stuff for a hotel lobby three minutes before a news conference. “None.” His deep blue eyes darken. “They’re a fuckin’ fraud. Any moron can see that.”

  Travers takes a press packet from the pile on the table to his right and waves it once in front of Lee. “Oh, the documents are real, Charlie,” he says. “If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “You’re goin’ to get yourself fuckin’ pan frie
d.”

  Spittle smacks Travers’ eyebrow. He wipes it off with his sleeve. “Probably.”

  “Act like y’all are somebody.”

  That, Travers thinks, is what he’s doing. He told Sophia Altay he would hold the news conference, and he announced it to the world. He’s going to carry it through.

  His shoulders tensing, Lee glares at him. The muscles in his jaw dance. “If you go out there, you’ll betray your country.”

  “My country?” Travers smiles. “Our country has nothing to do with the documents, and you know it.” He’s happy to be an American. Proud, even. At least, much of the time. Always has been. But what the documents say goes beyond the borders of any particular nation, especially the United States where freedom of religious belief has historically been protected, even championed.

  Lee sets his feet and balls his fists.

  Or, Travers thinks, the letters have everything to do with our country.

  “For God’s sake, you fuckin’ cracker…,” Lee begins.

  “God isn’t on our side,” Travers says. “Or any other side.” He taps the packet against Lee’s chest.

  Lee pushes the packet away.

  “Charlie, your superiors…” Travers lets the word hang between them for a moment, “…won’t like it if you attack me here in front of all these reporters.”

  Lee’s voice becomes a low savage drawl. “When I’m done, y’all are going to wish you were dead.”

  Travers smiles. “You’ve got that wrong,” he says. “I’d never wish for death.”

  61

  The afternoon replicates Prescott, Arizona—clear and bright and hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement. The first question, hurled at Travers by a dark-haired, round-faced reporter with a Texas accent, is an unadulterated accusation. The guy uses the word fraud three times before actually asking anything. Travers, who faces the crowd and the hotel and the mini-forest of infrared broadcasting towers, feels lightheaded. He’s already sweating, and his balance is off. He figures he should recognize the guy, but he gave up watching network news after the orchestrated recitals of the second Iraq war—Operation Iraqi Freedom, the spin doctors dubbed it, and the networks lapped it up. Smiling at the reporter, he holds up the printed packet he picked up in the lobby. “As I mentioned this morning,” he says, “I have not seen the original documents. But I have stood on Ayasulak Hill where the letters were discovered and walked in the ruins there. And, I’m telling you that these letters are real. I can’t at this point prove to you that they’re authentic, but that doesn’t make them any less real.”

  “Mr. Travers,” a reporter in the middle of the scrum yells, “visiting an archeological site doesn’t make you an expert.” His English is perfect, but there’s a hint of an accent Travers thinks is Middle Eastern.

  Travers expected skepticism from the press, and this hostility likely comes from the spread of the spurious documents on the internet. “I’m not an authority,” he says, thinking he has already been clear on that point. The reporters want the story, but it’s open season on him. He’s fair game. And once he gives them Altay, he’ll be roadkill. He’s not stuttering, but words aren’t forming very well. “I’m only the…messenger.”

  “Mister Travers…” The CNN guy with the floppy military hat is waving a fax. “…how are we supposed to believe anything you say when you’ve already been fired by the Glavine Foundation?”

  Sweat breaks on Travers’ forehead, and his stomach drops. If it’s true, he had no idea. He doesn’t think Bill Glavine would turn on him so quickly, but he doesn’t know what pressures—political, social, or even personal—have come to bear. And, he hasn’t spoken to Bill since…he can’t remember. He inhales, shakes his head slowly, and says, “I’m trying to speak with you about these documents, not about me…” He looks around but doesn’t see Allison Wade anywhere among the reporters. “I’m talking to you as a private citizen on behalf of Doctor Altay, not as the representative of any organization.”

  “Then when will you provide hard evidence?” a reporter shouts.

  “Where is Doctor Altay?”

  “Where are the letters?”

  “When will we see the originals?”

  Travers holds up his hand to stem the flow. “You’ll see the letters when it’s safe,” he says. “As early as tomorrow morning.” He surprises even himself with that answer. Nihat Monuglu might or might not be willing to provide security. He might or might not be trusted. But he hasn’t reappeared since he got his hands on the flash drive. In any case, Travers doesn’t know if he can ever ensure Altay’s safety.

  “Doctor Altay will come forward then?” a reporter with a thick black mustache asks.

  Trying to settle his stomach, Travers takes a deep breath. The heat rolling over him in waves buffets him but also takes him home. His head throbs, and he’s tottering behind the microphones, but his mind is starting to clear. “I think so,” he says. “I hope so. But that’s her decision. I’m only acting as her intermediary.” He notices Leopold Kirchburg standing on the hotel’s terrace roof near where they ended their meeting in the morning. The small man next to him looks like the cutter from Selçuk’s street. Maybe not the same guy, but similar—wiry and sharp-featured.

  Travers grabs one of the microphone stands to steady himself. He looks out over the crowd. There are a lot of people—and well more than the hundred press packets he had printed. Perhaps twice that number.

  “What about the radical Zionism?” a female reporter shouts. She is dark with bright flashing eyes that show both fervor and scorn.

  Travers doesn’t answer immediately. As he scrolls mentally through Jesus of Nazareth’s testament, murmuring emerges from the crowd packed around the reporters. “I’m not a scholar,” he says, “but the intent seems pretty clear. Jesus is speaking out against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and other authorities.” Jesus was a Jew who adhered to scripture, he thinks. “And it seems to me that John remembers Jesus as a teacher, a rabbi, not a rabble-rouser.”

  “If the intent of these unauthenticated documents is so clear to you, Mr. Travers…” It’s the Texan again. “…do you admit they’re advocating homosexuality?”

  The crowd is muttering. The waves of heat are strobing in the light.

  “Advocating?” Travers wipes his forehead. He clutches the microphone stand and gulps air.

  The Texan is sneering as he raises his press packet. “It says right here, Jesus came to love me and lie with me.”

  Travers squints hard at the Texan, trying to stop the world’s wheeling. He glances down at his packet, turns the page, and finds the line. The sentence reads, Jesus came to accept and love men and women like me. It’s not just the internet that’s been compromised. Even some of the press packets, it seems, have been adulterated. He has been set up perfectly. He’s not sure how deeply he’s been undercut, but this might be the last moment anybody’s ever going to listen to him. “The only thing John the Apostle’s letter advocates is love,” he says as the Sarihan’s cave entrances unhinge. “Compassion. Caring for others.” He brushes sweat from his face. “Sophia Altay’s documents, the real letters, will speak to you. Some of you must have the authentic copies. You’ll recognize them. You’ll know them when you read them.”

  Reporters are shouting at him, a babel of accusations and recriminations. They’re becoming a mob; an incensed multilingual din surges around him. The crowd, the broadcasting equipment, the hotel’s white facade, the tufa spires beyond, the vast sky above—everything is skewed, the world listing as though it might capsize at any moment. He takes a breath. His whole body is sweating now, a chilling dampness despite the heat. But he’s not going to take the fall here in front of an international television audience. Bile is sour in his throat. He bites his lower lip. He’s not going to sink into darkness.

  62

  Sop
hia Altay, standing in the crowd on the cobblestones, takes a single step forward, then stops herself. Joe is clutching a microphone stand, swaying as though he will topple into the crowd at any moment. Reporters and cameramen are jostling each other. The crowd is swelling—not stampeding but pressing in on him. She can’t see if the newsmen are still questioning him or trying to tear pieces out of him, but, stifling her own urge to help, she pulls her veil more tightly across her nose.

  Coming here was rash, wrongheaded, even stupid, but she could not stay away. She is completely covered except for her eyes, but she is still concerned that she will be recognized. Her eyes have always been her best asset, and now they are her greatest liability. She can blend in a little—a veiled woman is not meant to be noticed—but the other women are young and European, Westernized right down to their hiking boots, or Turkish and older, squat and gathered in gaggles. Even nondescript, she may well be conspicuous.

  The afternoon is hot and still, more torrid than any she remembers from her student days exploring the cave churches. The crowd is close, and among the Turks and Europeans are Americans with crew cuts and Arabs with straggly beards. A couple of dark well-built men may be Israeli. Many of the people hold printed copies of the Turkish, English, French, and Spanish translations of the documents. Joe said he was going to get one hundred copies made, but there are far more than that number circulating among the crowd.

  The BBC van and seven others including Al Jazeera have their infrared towers raised like royal palms, their dark cables winding down their trunks like snakes. More than a score of media reps encircle the patio where Joe totters, and people press around the reporters. A squad of machine-gun toting Turkish military police rings the throng, eyeing those still coming up the narrow lane. Travers’ ploy has worked—too well. Conversations, discussions, even arguments are already occurring. Her epochal discovery is already being misused to further rend a world torn by animosity. She would like to weep, to melt into the stone—but she will not let herself.