But that was not to be.
After the burning of the Library at Alexandria, the knowledge went back underground. The same as it had been in the last days on the fourth planet, before the migration. Into the Mithraea, until they too ceased to exist.
But then the Church turned out to do what the Biblotheca and the Mithraeum couldn’t do. It kept the secrets over the years.
By being assigned as the Librarian at the church, Realini had been able to be close to part of that history. He was able to protect what those that had escaped hoped all would one day know.
Yes. Yes, it was time, he knew. Time to pass on this knowledge he had, so that one day that person could stand up, when it was revealed, and say that they knew it to be true. He had to pass it on so that person could say that it had been passed down to him, and to others, and that they were witnesses. Someone to come forth and concur that it is our history and it had been kept secret for thousands of years. That their lot had become dispersed, but on that day all would come together.
He had called for his good friend, Omja.
Omja had been young, only fourteen when he left the church with Alphonse. He had been sent to the Villa by others that knew. He had been chosen, Father Realini had been told, to be the one who’d be the keeper of the knowledge after he was gone. To know the whereabouts of the others, and to learn what had been left behind. Even Rector Bershoni had given his blessing on the boy. Before he died, Realini was to pass on what he knew to Omja.
Father Realini finished his breakfast of dry toast and hot tea. He left out of his cool, stone house and went out back to sit in the sun in his garden. He sat on the bench underneath an old Lebanon cedar tree. He had long ago buried under that tree what he wanted to pass on to Omja, and today it just needed to be dug up.
Alphonse smiled when he saw Omja and his young son come around the house into the backyard. It was a happy day for him. He would share his burden, and more importantly, keep the secret alive.
He and Omja sat under the tree while the boy played and he told Omja of their history. For hours they talked, and Father Realini gave no thought to Omja not seeming surprised or resistant as he learned of what happened and what he was to do.
After a long while, Omja got up and went to the shed on the side of the property. Coming back with a shovel, he dug a hole where Alphonse directed. He gave the box he found a few feet down to Father Realini, who took it with shaky hands, placed it in his lap and started to cry. Omja called out to his boy, and they went into the house to prepare food for the Father, and to leave him alone with his thoughts.
After Alphonse had his meal, he told Omja to go home. To take the box and not to ever tell anyone unless the time came, assuring him that he would know when that time would be. And if it didn’t come before it was his time to die, for Omja to pass it on just as he had to him.
“But, if it is alright with you,” Realini said to Omja, “I’d like to keep the boy here with me for a while.”
“Yes, but of course, Father.”
Father Realini and the boy walked around about the trees in the back and talked of this and that.
“You know that I don’t have much longer here on this earth with you, don’t you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And do you know how much I love you?”
“Not more than I love you, Father. Of that I am sure.”
“You are quite clever with words. Yes, quite clever.” He delighted in talking with the child. “Are you sure you are only ten years old?”
“Yes, Father. Well actually, ten and a half.”
“Wise beyond your years. That is why I have picked you.”
“Yes, Father. I know.”
“You are to learn it and keep it, close to your heart.”
“Yes, Father until it is time.”
“And - ”
“I will know when it is time,” the boy finished the Father’s sentence. “But you forgot Father, to say that I should never tell anyone of what you have told me, not even my father. But, in everything else, I am always to trust my father, and do as he says.”
“That’s my boy.” Father Realini laughed. “And I would have said all of those things if you had given me the chance.” The Father slid his hand into the boy’s. “Now come, use that great imagination of yours, and tell me of the wonderful things that are in this world, and how one day you will go to see them all.”
•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•
Omja knew this day would come. He had been instructed and prepared for it from the day he had come to the Villa. Yes, he loved Alphonse Realini, but he had been told that his mind was sick. That he had delusions, and that he was to watch the Father and take care of him. It could not be known that a priest suffered such delusions, they told him. It would not be good for the Church.
But Omja had never witnessed any odd behavior by the Father. He had been kind to him, and his family. More than kind. And Father Realini acted and said nothing different from any other priest Omja had known, until today.
Omja, too, felt like weeping. He sat at the window of his small red brick house, and looked out toward the barn, where he had placed the box. He thought better of bringing it into the house, not wanting his wife or young son to question him about it. He would have to hide it until the day he would destroy it, and whatever it contained.
The house was filled with the sweet smell of onions, and the licorice of fennel. A comforting warmth came from the fire on the stove where the sausage for the bean soup his wife was cooking sizzled. Yet, the smell of home and love that filled in around him could not take away his feelings of anguish.
Father Realini’s mind was gone. There was no doubt about that now. But he would take care of him, and that box that had been buried under the old cedar tree. He would care for Father Realini while he lived out his last days, assuring him that what was in the old box was safe with him. And then he would destroy the box and all of its contents, once the father was dead. Just as he had promised Rector Bershoni more than twenty years ago, and then nothing else would be known of it. And it would never be spoken of again.
He saw his boy returning from Father Realini’s. No wonder the Father got such joy from spending time with him, he thought, the Father’s mind, Omja had learned today, was not much more than a child’s.
The boy didn’t come straight in the house, but stayed out in the yard kicking his ball down the dirt road that ran in front of the barn.
“Don’t you stray too far,” he yelled out to his young son, “Supper will be ready soon. And don’t get dirty!” The boy ran over to the barn and sat near the box, seemingly unaware of his father’s instruction. “Do you hear me?” Omja muttered under his breath, getting up and going to the door. “Sometimes I think that boy is deaf. Or he’s lost in those day dreams of his again.” He yelled again, “Nikhil Chandra, do you hear me talking to you?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
New Haven, Connecticut
I put the television on mute, sat up in bed, pulling the covers over me, and stared at the wall. Lying in bed in a hotel room in New Haven, Connecticut, I thought about the last night I had spent in Jerusalem. It seemed so much longer than just yesterday.
The day after we dug up the box, I had just moped. Claire and Addie had gone out to eat with Jack and Greg. They stayed out late, Greg going to the casino in the hotel, and the other three going sightseeing, and shopping. I didn’t want to move. After they left I had went into the master bedroom me and Claire shared, pulled the Japanese-style sliding doors shut, and called Mase. I started crying as soon as he picked up the phone, and sobbed practically through the entire conversation.
Under two feet of dirt, tangled in cypress roots, was a black, metal box that contained a copy of the Book of Enoch in Ge’ez. A copy of the fragmented manuscripts of the Book of Enoch found with the Dead Sea Scrolls in a notebook, handwritten just like he had done with the AHM manuscripts. And a notebook that Dr. Sabir used for note taking. And, the
pièce de résistance – there in the box, in perfect condition, were the original AHM manuscripts.
I swear, I never saw so many archaeologists just taking stuff. First, it was Dr. Yeoman, now Dr. Sabir. So, yeah, I took a clay pot back in ’97 when I was there. But I put it back in the cave. I used it to store the fragmented remains to try to preserve them, not that that mattered now because they weren’t the real ones. And, the clay pot was not part of history. Although, I’ve dug up a lot of them, delighted over them, and called them just that – a valuable part of history.
But that aside . . .
Dr. Sabir, in those months before he had presented Dr. Yeoman with what he knew, had meticulously copied the AHM manuscripts and hid the originals underneath that tree. Then he presented Dr. Yeoman with fake documents.
No wonder they had been in such bad shape. They weren’t the same material. Looking at the real ones now, they were in perfect condition. Just like Dr. Yeoman had written in his journal.
After opening up that box and being so disappointed, I just wanted to be by myself. After I practically pushed everyone out, I looked down again into box, held my hands up in disbelief and disgust, and had plopped down on the bed. And that’s where I would have stayed until it was time to go to the airport to leave Israel even it hadn’t been for Mase’s phone call.
The things in that box were not proof of anything.
There was no piece of paper, book, or note that explained, or showed me, how to decipher the clues in the Book of Enoch. I found mention that the Book of Enoch described the story of the migration. But there were no instructions on how, or where, to find the technology of the Ancients. I knew I hadn’t mistranslated or misunderstood the Latin in the back of Dr. Sabir’s notebook. He had written, “ . . . the knowledge of the people from the fourth planet is hidden in the text of Enoch. I have found the key.” I could see his words.
I, despite those words, was now 99.9999% sure that there wasn’t a clue in the Book of Enoch. Yes, he was right, the Book of Enoch seemed to tell the story I had learned of the migration depicted in the AHM manuscripts. It was really like Enoch had seen with his own eyes the history of the Ancients. But that book didn’t tell me how to build a spaceship, or to cure cancer. Heck, I didn’t even know if they had cancer.
The only good thing about the stuff in that box was that now I had the original AHM manuscripts as proof of what I wrote in my book.
It was a big letdown, to say the least.
Everything around me seemed to darken, and was closing in on me. I was feeling like my insides were shriveling up.
Greg paid no attention to how bad I felt, and questioned me incessantly about the contents of that box.
“How do you know that these are real?” he had asked.
“We should probably have them tested,” Claire offered.
“Why didn’t you have the other ones tested?” Greg had started to really irritate me.
“I wasn’t even supposed to have those manuscripts. I could have gotten in a lot of trouble,” I had said. “What was I supposed to do, wrap them up and mail them off to the University of Chicago, and say, ‘Hey, can you validate these scrolls I stole’?”
“And now it’s okay for you to have them?”
Okay, so he had me there. Should’ve known better than to argue with “Super Lawyer.”
“I’ll just get Simon to get them tested for me. He has a research lab at MIT.”
“I don’t trust that guy,” Greg said.
“You didn’t even talk to him. How can you say you don’t trust him?” I asked, thoroughly aggravated.
Boy was I glad when Claire had suggested they all go to dinner. I couldn’t think while Greg was under foot.
And, sitting here in New Haven, Connecticut reflecting back over the last couple of days, what my thinking got me was that maybe I should start worrying about Simon. He had acted so strangely on the phone that night he found out I was going to Jerusalem. Then he just showed up at my hotel. And then, Jack got shot.
I shook my head and took in a breath. That couldn’t have been Simon.
I flew from Jerusalem to Connecticut by myself. The others had gone back home on their scheduled flight. Of course, Claire wanted to come with me. But I felt so bad about Jack that I didn’t want him flying home with that wound and Claire not being there to tend to him if something happened.
Picking up the Room Service menu, I surveyed it for something I could order to eat. Laying it back on the nightstand, without finding anything that I wanted, I thought about what I was going to do.
I found out more than what I had bargained for from my trip to Jerusalem. I discovered that Ghazi had been murdered. That Dr. Sabir’s journal was missing from the Hebrew University, and that someone was definitely after me. And, it was possibly Simon, a person that had been my friend for years. I also found out that that little petite, rose-scented Hannah Abelson might just be a murderer.
I glanced out the window of my room on the 12th floor of the Omni in New Haven. I thought about the moment that I realized that I was going to have to find the proof myself.
I had been crying to Mase for half an hour. He had asked me if I wanted him to come to Israel. To come right then and get me. Because, he had said, he knew when I got depressed I didn’t want to move. So, he said, he would come, pack my stuff up, and carry me home if I needed him to do that.
He said, “I know you’re strong. And I know you can do anything you set your mind to. And babe, you don’t have to prove that, or anything else, to anybody. Ever.”
I knew right then, once I hung up from my husband, what I had to do it. I shouldn’t care what other people thought, or whether or not Dr. Sabir had left me the answers. The answers were out there, and I was going to find them. I wasn’t going to care that people might ridicule me. I wasn’t going to worry that now without Dr. Sabir providing me proof, I was going to have to do it all myself starting from square one. Or, how hard, - extremely hard, it would be to do. I was going to find the technology of the Ancients. I had always known that I wanted to do it. I was just nervous about ruining my career, and my family’s lives. Not anymore. I wanted to find it. I wanted to do it for me, and because it would help save the world.
God, I sounded like a Miss Universe contestant. I want world peace . . .
Didn’t matter, I was ready to do this.
Without a second thought I had picked up the phone, called the airlines and changed my flight home. I was going to the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Yale University. I had remembered from that night me, Claire and Addie had googled the Voynich Manuscript that that was where it was kept. I had decided I was going to take a look at it.
I had flown into Connecticut, rented a car and drove right over to Yale. But that didn’t work out too well.
I just thought, I guess, that I could just waltz in there and they’d pull the Voynich Manuscript right out of the vault and hand it over to me. You would think that with the rigorous treatment I used to put people through to see the small pieces I had when I worked as curator of a museum, I’d have known better. I got so caught up in the moment. That’s how badly I wanted to see the Voynich Manuscript.
After getting nothing out of Dr. Sabir’s box, my mind had drifted to them. I don’t know why. Because certainly, if they held the answers, I would never be able to find out what those answers were. No way could I decipher it. Maybe I thought of them because their existence had kept popping up right in front of my face. First with crazy Professor Abelson and her apparent attempts to translate them, and then with the mysterious “I’m a Jesuit priest,” Nikhil Chandra. So, I had thought, why not look at it?
Let no stone go unturned.
The only good thing about the trip, it turned out, was the Mithraeum I saw. Of course it had nothing to do with anything I was working on. But it was interesting, satisfying the “sciency” part of me and helping to keep my depression at bay.
Yale had taken a Mithraeum from Syria and removed it piece
by piece and rebuilt in their Art Gallery. My kind of stuff.
The display in the gallery was of one of the many Mithraea that had been built in underground caves in Europe and Asia. No one knew, or still knows, what Mithraism was. A religion? Don’t know. No one has been able to determine who they worshipped, or what they believed in. All knowledge of Mithra, their religion, and their religious abode, the Mithraeum, had been gleaned from outside sources. No one ever got a clue to the goings on inside from one solitary soul privy to it. And they hadn’t left anything behind to help people figure out what they were all about. They had been just that secretive. So no one really knew, and a slew of folks just speculated as to various reasons of their existence. Probably none of it true.
I got ready for my flight back home. And on the plane thought about what I was going to do.
Even after my realization of getting nada from Dr. Sabir, I couldn’t stop reading over the things in that box. Keeping the manuscripts and notebook in my satchel, close to me, I hadn’t given up on the idea that something, perhaps by divine intervention, would spring forth from Enoch’s mouth and, (cue the organ music), the clouds would clear, the sun rays would beam down and I would be enlightened.
I had to be diligent because I knew I had to do this for Ghazi, too. If Ghazi got killed because of the AHM Manuscripts, then that meant someone didn’t want that information out. Someone wanted to hold us back, hold me back. Really, maybe stop me for good. I couldn’t let that happen. I had been so wishy-washy. Write the book, not write the book. No more. I had pulled myself up by my bootstraps, as my mother would say, and decided to fight back. Not worry if someone was trying to kill me. I was going to confront Hannah. And Simon. I wanted to know what they had to say for themselves. Simon for maybe being the one who shot at me, and Hannah for killing Ghazi. (In my mind there was no maybe about that one, she killed him.) And I was going to see that Hannah went to jail for what she had done.
Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin I Series Book II Page 17
