by Blanca Miosi
Dinner was too quiet. Linda seemed to be waiting for him to ask questions or start a conversation, and he had zero inclination to do so. The initial excitement had worn off, and the air grew heavy around them.
“I’ve been thinking...” they both said at the same time.
“Oh, you go.”
“No, you go first.”
“Ok, I’ve been thinking—it’s not going to work for us to stay together,” Nicholas began.
“Are you seeing someone else?”
“No!” Her question took him off guard.
“Then, why?”
“You seem to have forgotten that you’re the one who left. I got used to living alone; that’s all. I have more time to spend on my writing. See? I’ve already finished a book and am polishing it up...”
“Nicholas, I know it was really selfish of me to go off to Boston like that; I recognize that. But in these last few months of being away from you, I’ve realized that I love you, and I want to live with you. Why don’t we give us another chance?”
“Meanwhile, in the past few months I’ve learned that I can live on my own. I don’t want to go through it all again. I was trying to tell you on the phone, but you hardly let me get a word in. I need peace, and that’s the truth; there’s not another woman, and I’m not dating anyone else.”
“I’ll stay out of your way, Nicholas; you won’t even know I’m here.”
“That’s not true. I know you, Linda. Of course I’ll know you’re here. You should’ve thought about it more before you left.”
Linda dropped her chopsticks onto the plate and studied the remaining noodles as if they could give her the right words to say. Her forehead creased in a slight wrinkle. She pulled the robe tighter to cover her chest, aware that flashing her breasts was no longer appropriate.
“Ok, I’ll leave tomorrow morning,” she said. She picked up their plates and took them to the kitchen.
Nicholas knew her well enough to imagine she would be washing the dishes in tears, but he felt no compulsion to go comfort her. He felt no trace of pity or wounded pride; he simply did not want her around.
“You can sleep in the next room,” he said before shutting his bedroom door. Then he opened the door again and set Linda’s suitcase in the hall. He went to the desk and opened the bottom drawer. There it was, nearly smiling at him with its strange silvery green spiral binding. The thing seemed alive. He pulled it out and put it on the desk under the lamp. His hands trembled despite his efforts to the contrary, but they steadied as he found the line where he had left off.
7
Yerevan, Armenia
1974
Claudio Contini-Massera waited patiently for his passport to be examined. It was not his first trip to the Zvartnots airport. Everyone waiting in the interminable lines was subjected to the same remarkable apathy by the customs officials. The agent examined Claudio’s photo one more time, checked over the previous entries and exits, made a nearly imperceptible gesture with his lips, and turned on his heels. He went straight toward a man that was apparently a supervisor. After glancing at the passport, the supervisor looked up, saw Claudio, and approached with a solicitous air.
“Mr. Contini, I beg you to forgive my colleague. He is new to the job,” he said in Russian. He quickly and silently stamped and returned the passport.
“Thank you, comrade Korsinsky,” Claudio said to the supervising official.
“Welcome to Armenia, comrade Contini. Please, be so good as to greet our comrade Martucci for me,” the Soviet replied, escorting Claudio toward baggage claim.
“But of course, comrade,” Claudio replied, offering his hand, in which was concealed an envelope.
With miraculous agility the envelope disappeared into a pocket in Korsinsky’s uniform.
Count Claudio Contini-Massera made a special point to travel with a passport on which his title, a risky and problematic matter in that country, did not appear. The communist regime installed in Armenia ruled with an iron fist not only over its own inhabitants but also over any representative of the class they most desperately despised: nobility. As a warning to all who entered Armenia, Stalin’s statue presided over Victory Park, a bastion to remind one and all exactly who held the power. Claudio had to pass for an archeologist, a scholar of religion and ancient languages, and an Italian sympathizer to the communists. Though no one would have believed his story, as long as there was money to grease the wheel, things usually marched along just fine. The reigning corruption in Armenia had washed away the differences between the factions that had so recently and violently been divided into proud supporters of the Aryan race theories and communist sympathizers. Now both sides were forced to pay homage to the Soviets. The long-suffering Armenian populace knew that surviving mattered more than the color of the money. And as is want to happen, short-stay travelers tended to be the best for business, as long as certain representatives of the Soviet higher-ups got their cut.
Claudio Contini-Massera had managed to “rescue” valuable antiques and relics from certain rarely frequented places with the help of authorities within the “incorruptible” communist system. A wad of cash always seemed to calm their patriotic nerves; the money supplied the vodka the officials so vigorously consumed in their zeal to remember the motherland, and it helped them stockpile the wealth reviled vehemently in their political propaganda.
Francesco Martucci’s old truck sat idling outside the airport. Claudio marched directly to it, tossed his luggage in the truck bed, and opened the door. As a sign and symbol of the deep friendship between them, he greeted Francesco with an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
“I came as soon as I could,” he said, rubbing his hands together through the leather gloves.
“This weather is abysmal,” Francesco murmured. He shifted into gear, and his hair flew wildly in the freezing wind that sliced through the truck window which would not shut. “I was afraid you’d be delayed. I hate driving at night.”
“When are you going to get rid of this heap of junk?” Claudio needled.
“The less attention I attract, the better,” Francesco answered. “Besides, for what I do, this truck works just fine.”
“Are we going straight to...?”
“Seventy-five miles is a pretty long stretch...and at this time of night...”
“But during the day one of your comrades might see us, and don’t you think we should go ahead and get this over with?”
“All right, whatever you say,” Francesco replied reluctantly.
Nearly two hours later, the ancient complex of monasteries loomed ahead on the road. It was etched into a gorge southeast of the rural community of Areni, outside the city of Yeghegnadzor. The dark silhouette of the ancient buildings snapped against the ghostly backdrop of the majestic Mount Ararat with its eternally white peaks. Francesco stopped the truck a little ways away from the buildings, parking under a tree. Despite the dark, he wanted to take every precaution.
“I’ve got flashlights and extra batteries in the back,” Francesco said to himself, clicking off his mental list of what to bring. “Matches, helmets, water; my shovel is already down there, so is my pick; I’ll take a couple of these...” He grabbed the canvas bags and covered what remained in the truck bed with a plastic tarp, taking care to tuck in the corners.
“Don’t we need dynamite?” Claudio asked.
“Have you lost your mind? The monastery would come crashing down on top of us.”
“I’m just kidding,” Claudio winked.
“Yeah, well, let’s see how jovial you feel down below,” Francesco retorted. He headed for the narrow entrance to one of the churches and clamped his helmet down.
The beautifully carved pale wooden door did not fit with any of Claudio’s preconceived notions. Under the bright beam of his flashlight, the intricate filigree latticework nearly danced between light and shadows. Francesco opened the rudimentary padlock clearly belonging to a more recent era, and the thick, heavy door slowly turned on its hinges
, giving way to his gentle pressure. He motioned for Claudio to follow and then locked the deadbolt from within. Their flashlights were too weak to allow much study of the austere rock walls. One had to know the way by heart, as Francesco did, to be able to proceed with any surety or speed. A crack in the rock, which seemed to Claudio no more than one of the many sculpted entryways, opened slowly when Francesco pushed on it. They crossed the threshold into complete darkness. Claudio flicked on his headlamp and continued following Francesco, who was already going down some rough-cut stone stairs. He counted twenty steps that curved around until they reached another door similar to the first but with a large metal crucifix on it. Passing through, they went down fifteen more steps and came to an open gallery from which several tunnels branched off. Francesco took the one going farthest down. As they continued, the air grew progressively thinner. A light odor of sulfur wafted up, mixed with earth, mold, and dampness.
Another gallery, more forks in the road. Francesco went down a long corridor whose earthen walls seemed ready to collapse at any moment. A labyrinth of paths crossed and recrossed each other, some going up, some going down, but Francesco’s steps were sure and determined as he followed a familiar route. They filed by long rows of niches marked only with crossbones, an occasional ancient Armenian symbol or two, or a couple words in Latin. At the end of one long tunnel adorned with skulls etched into the walls, the path split yet again. Francesco took the right-hand fork and continued downward. Claudio noticed that at this depth the air grew somehow less oppressive.
“There are chimneys,” Francesco explained, pointing to some holes in the rock. “I think they go up to the walls of the ravine. To my best guess, the gorge is on this side,” he lightly tapped the wall to the right even as he continued descending the steep narrow path.
“I guess the builders had to make them so they could breathe,” Claudio concluded, hurrying to keep up.
“Here it is,” Francesco announced, indicating the arched doorway at the end of the trail.
He went through, with Claudio at his heels.
One rock-covered niche differed markedly from the rest. It did not seem to be as old as the other six. Its figures and descriptions set it apart: on top was the Armenian inscription Francesco had mentioned and which was incomprehensible to Claudio. Underneath was the cross with the inscription in Latin: “May divine wrath fall upon the desecrator.”
“These look like gammate crosses. That’s the Nazi symbol, isn’t it?”
“Well, the symbol was being used all the way back in the Mesolithic era. Here in Armenia you can find crosses and swastikas from over nine thousand years ago. They might have been related to some sort of astrological event,” Francesco explained solemnly as if giving a class lecture.
“Who’s tomb is it?”
“Probably someone important.”
“Or some thing,” Claudio retorted. “I think we should open it to know for sure. Nazis hid huge amounts of gold in the least likely places.”
“Oh, no. If anyone’s going to open it, it’s got to be you. I’m afraid of that divine wrath.”
“Francesco, you’re a researcher, a scientist. You can’t let little things like tomb inscriptions get to you. What were you doing down here anyway? Isn’t this every scientist’s dream, to find such a tomb and analyze the contents?”
“Ancient tombs, yes. But, Claudio, this tomb can’t be more than twenty years old. I’m just following my intuition. I think we should get out of here.”
“Oh, come on, friend. If you really thought that, you would never have told me about it. You want to know just as bad as I do what it all means.”
“We talk about all sorts of things—I just happened to mention this, and you took it seriously. You’ve collected so many relics you can’t even appreciate them anymore. Your hobby is plain old commercialism now.”
From one of his pockets Claudio extracted a Minox, a small camera no more than two inches long and barely an inch wide, flash included. He snapped several pictures of the inscriptions. Then he pulled off his jacket, laid it to one side on the dirt floor, and grabbed the pick. He tried prying at the edges of the rock that served as the gravestone. It would not budge. It had been cemented in with mortar. He began hacking methodically, and little by little the stone chipped away before the onslaught of the pick in Claudio’s expert hands.
“Well, who would have thought? You’re a stonecutter at heart.” Francesco’s jibe was stilted, a poor attempt to mask his growing fear.
“Hmph! I didn’t realize it ‘til right now!” Claudio managed to cough out between the exhaustion and the dust.
He kept at it for another half hour and finally stopped to rest, panting. His shirt was drenched with sweat. Francesco handed him the canteen, and he gulped thirstily.
Claudio got back to work with renewed vigor. After a few more hacks, the rock splintered like a river dividing into multiple streams. Claudio removed the debris carefully and, aided by his headlamp, made out a small box and the shape of a tube at the back of the niche.
“Eureka! Francesco, I think we’ve found something!”
He removed the last piece of rock and took hold of the chest, but it would not budge. It seemed to be anchored down at its base. Claudio grabbed a trowel from the tool bag and started working it under the chest little by little. When the glue finally yielded, he jerked the chest out with one strong heave. He handed it to Francesco and turned back to the niche with his light. The metal tube was lying in a back corner. He reached far back, grabbed it, and, looking it over, guessed it was about sixteen inches long and an inch and a half in diameter.
Claudio looked around for the chest and saw that Francesco had set it on the ground. He put the tube down on the ground and picked up the chest. It was heavy and closed in an apparently hermetic seal. With his headlamp he studied the lock to see how to work it, but eventually he opted to force it with the blade of the trowel. All of a sudden, as if some mechanism had been triggered of its own accord, the lid sprung open. The bright blue contents lit up the cave like a firecracker going off. Claudio, taken completely by surprise, dropped the chest. Some sort of bright rock tumbled over the floor into a corner and pulsed with a hypnotizing blue glow. The men stared at it for a prolonged moment, unable to look away. Finally, Francesco covered his eyes and screamed, “For the love of God, Claudio, put it back in the chest!”
Claudio woke from the daze and grabbed the gleaming rock. It was cold through his leather gloves. He put it back in the chest and closed the lid. They heard a light click.
“Oh, God! We’ve been blinded!” Francesco whimpered.
“No...hang on...I think that thing just temporarily dazed us.”
After a few eternal seconds, the flashlights once again put form and shadow back in their proper places for the men, lighting up the now empty niche.
“I think we should put everything back like it was,” Francesco said weakly. “I don’t like this.”
“No way. Even if I wanted to, we couldn’t. The flagstone is in a million pieces, and I want to know what’s in that tube,” Claudio said, trying to open it.
“No, please, wait ‘til we get outside to open it. I don’t want anything else weird to happen down here. We should leave,” Francesco insisted.
Claudio picked up the chest and the metal tube and put them in the canvas bag.
“You remember the way, I hope?” Claudio jested, searching for a way to lighten the mood.
Francesco just stared at him, and that was enough. He was completely silent the entire way back to Yerevan except to say he would come by the hotel the next day at noon.
8
Yerevan, Armenia
1974
Francesco Martucci was emotionally exhausted. He left Claudio at the hotel door and headed for his humble abode. The room he rented belonged to a widow and her daughter who lived in one room of the house and rented out the remaining three to other families. His refuge was at the back of the house, with no view except onto the back
yard of a similarly run-down house. He could have lived better. Yet, despite the leverage afforded by his post as a professor of history and archeology, Francesco Martucci was used to a simple life. Everything in Yerevan was controlled by the communist system, and he felt fortunate to have a room of his own. Things had been very difficult at first, but he enjoyed the goodwill of certain government employees. In a country like Armenia, knowing the right people could make life much more manageable. Francesco owed it all to his good friend Claudio Contini-Massera and the money he threw around so wantonly. Thinking of Claudio, he shook his head. They were complete opposites. Claudio liked the good life and stopped at nothing; the harder a goal was to achieve, the happier it made him. It was as if he took special pleasure in going against the status quo. But that night had been different. Francesco had an ominous premonition that the contents of the chest and the tube would entangle them in a mess of problems. He had worked so very hard to earn the Soviets’ trust, and here he was sticking his nose into shady business. He would have to explain things clearly to Claudio the next day. Life had been too easy for his friend in every way. Entirely too easy.
Claudio Contini-Massera walked toward the hotel with his suitcase in one hand and the canvas bag in the other. It was after three o’clock in the morning, a rather unusual time to arrive from the airport. So he lurched forward with the unsteady steps of a drunkard. If there is one thing that brings men together in solidarity, it is getting good and sloshed. He rapped on the glass door a few times. The doorman opened his eyes and, after a concerted effort at blinking, recognized him.
