by Jane Bow
“Once again money ran out. Daniel McGinnis died. A farmer called Anthony Graves bought most of Oak Island and built his house at Joudrey’s Cove, on the seaward side. He appeared to take no interest in treasure but—” Mlle Durocher winked. “The legend is that he paid for his groceries with gold coins. There were no more finds recorded though until 1878, when Anthony Grave’s daughter, Sophie Sellars, was plowing the strip of land between the original shaft and Smith’s Cove. Suddenly the ground under her two oxen caved in. Sophie and her husband pulled the oxen out and backfilled the hole. There was nothing in it, they said, but soon after that, they leased their land to a new set of treasure hunters for $30,000. Later investigators found a man-made shaft connecting Sophie’s Cave-In Pit to the Smith’s Cove tunnel.”
The next find was with another drill. At just over 150 feet treasure hunters found cement, wood, loose metal, a tiny piece of ancient parchment, more wood, more cement, eleven feet of blue clay, then a metal obstruction: the treasure at last, they thought. But when they dug down to retrieve it, once again the sea rushed in. A second intake tunnel from South Cove, on the other side of the island, intersected with the shaft just below 150 feet. The finds brought new investors, however, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, just after the turn of the last century.
At least six people had died in accidents on Oak Island by the time a California geologist arrived in the 1960’s. He built a causeway from the mainland to Oak Island, brought in a digger and bulldozers, and shovelled tons of clay into Smith’s and South Coves. Then he excavated a hole, nearly 100 feet wide, where the original shaft had been, tearing out most of the earlier tunnels, cribbing and markers. But his machinery kept breaking down.
“Then it started to rain.”
Vanessa laughed.
The old lady restrained a smile.
“It rained and rained: one of the worst summer storms on record. The Californian refilled the hole then dug out Sophie Sellars’ Cave-In Pit, turning it into a huge water-filled crater, and still it rained. Finally he ran out of money and left.”
The Oak Island treasure hunters who lived there now took over. And every summer when she arrived, Vanessa and Mlle Durocher discussed the latest Oak Island developments. One of the treasure hunters, who had built a bungalow at the island end of the causeway, drilled a hole he called Borehole 10X near the original treasure shaft. He lined it with steel cylinders. When he couldn’t go any deeper, he hung concrete retaining walls in the shaft until, at 220 feet, he struck bedrock. Drilling showed that the rock formed the roof of an underwater cavern at 230 feet. A camera he lowered into it revealed what might be a treasure chest with a key in the lock, and the head, forearm and hand of a man lying on his side inside the cavern. But then the walls of Borehole 10X collapsed.
The other treasure hunter, who reached his bungalow at Joudrey’s Cove by boat, discovered rocks with markings on them, a line of wooden stakes sunk into the ground, and five large cone-shaped granite boulders laid out in the shape of a cross. A skull-shaped headstone marked the point where the arms of the cross met its body.
Now Vanessa unwrapped the embroidered cloth from around Brother Bartolomeo’s book.
“It’s 16th century, Spanish.”
Mlle Durocher put out a finger to touch the black leather, as if in recognition.
“You know this book?” asked Vanessa.
The old librarian had a way of blinking rapidly when she was thinking.
“I do. Though it must be what, sixty years? You know your Grandad Holdt’s youngest sister, Celia, was my friend at school.”
Vanessa nodded, though she had never known much about Grandad Holdt, only that he had dropped dead of heart disease.
“I had forgotten all about this book,” Mlle Durocher said. “It was so long ago. We were only about twelve. The day Celia found it, in this same box in the attic, she swore me to secrecy, but,” Mlle Durocher looked toward the ceiling and crossed herself. “Now she’s gone, bless her soul, I don’t think she will mind. Did you see the note from Seamus Holdt, your ancestor?”
“No!”
“It was tucked into the ribbon, dated 1803 I remember. Cee must have lost it. Or destroyed it. Seamus was a fisherman but then he heard that a group of Nova Scotia businessmen, including a colonel and a judge and the sheriff, was starting a treasure hunting company. His note was an apology for losing the family savings on Oak Island.” Mlle Durocher smiled at Vanessa. “A stranded Spanish sailor had taken room and board in return for helping Seamus repair his boat and nets. This sailor also helped with the Oak Island digging, but when the money ran out, he caught a ship for home. This book was his present to Seamus by way of thanks. He said it was very valuable, Seamus wrote, but because it was in Spanish no one could read it. The minister wanted to burn it, thinking it must be Papist propaganda, but Seamus hid it in the attic.”
“Thank God! And Celia? Why didn’t she take it to Halifax, find a translator?”
“This was sixty years ago, chérie. The Second World War was over, the boys were coming home and we were very young.” The old lady smiled at her memories, then lifted the cover of the diary with her finger to peek at the handwriting inside.
“Here,” Vanessa took the exercise book out of the box. “I’ve started a rough translation.” She told Mlle Durocher about Brother Bartolomeo and the golden temple and Mia’s taking him up into the hills, and then read:
We came down into the village in the afternoon and the women immediately led Mia away. One of the tribesmen took me to a hut off to one side of the village. When he pulled back the door flap steam poured out. The hut was full of naked men. The chief invited the soldiers too, but they shook their heads.
“Damned if I’m going to be boiled alive,” said Jose.
The chief sniffed the air near him then wrinkled his nose. His men laughed. Jose took a step toward him, but I moved in front of him.
“God is with us here.” The chief gestured to me to remove my robe and I entered the hut. One of the men transferred red hot stones from a fire outside to a pit in the centre of the hut. The chief poured water on the stones and now the whole room became stifling hot. It was hard to breathe. I prayed, wondering if I was about to become a heathen sacrifice. But then my muscles relaxed, became fluid. My mind let go, drifting into a place where words do not live, where after awhile, as the water hissed on the rocks, my whole self began to float, unconstrained, free.
A long time later we came out, ran down the path and jumped into the lake. The water closed over my skin, expelled my breath. New, clean breath poured in and, coming out, drying off, my body tingled with life. The chief gave me a cotton skirt and a tunic embroidered across the upper chest, and a deerskin cape. I put them on and the cloth felt so soft against my skin. As soon as I was dressed the men led me to the temple.
How could I not know what I was doing? I did know and, praying to You all the while, I did it anyway because now I began to wonder, in the final analysis, beyond the credos and rules designed by the Church, what human can say or even truly know what is right for another?
The temple’s golden interior glowed with torchlight tonight. And there, by what must be the altar, Mia stood waiting. Her jet black hair shone under a gold circlet studded with emeralds. The chief chanted something and then took off two of his rings, made of heavy yellow gold. He gave one to Mia and, smiling shyly, she slipped it onto the third finger of my left hand. On it the jewelled face of the sun radiated light. Now the chief handed the second ring to me: a golden butterfly, its wings glittering red, green, blue in the torch light, so beautiful on my Mia’s long slim finger. The chief raised one of two silver goblets on which jewels every color winked in the torchlight. He shouted something and then drank. The other goblet, or chalice, was passed first to me and then to Mia. My Mia, my wife.
But happiness makes a man blind and deaf.
“Be ready,” Jose kept warning me. I did not hear anything other than the words.
Late on the night of my wed
ding, Mia and I lay in my bed, sated, her body curled up in my arms, her heart beating against the inside of my wrist when Jose shook me awake. And now my ears began to take in thumping, grunting sounds outside, a scream cut short, running feet, a strangled shout. Another soldier appeared in the doorway, wrestled Mia out of my arms.
“No!” Father, You must have heard my cry.
But still the soldier slit my Mia’s throat.
Vanessa had to stop. Tears were coursing down her cheeks.
“Come on, Brother.” Jose tried to pull me to my feet. But the sound of Mia’s last breath gurgling out, the sweet smell of her blood, the new screaming — I did not know it then as my own — shut out everything else.
Jose tried to use his strength to drag me out but I pleaded piteously for one more moment with my Mia, crawled back to kneel beside her, to cradle her body, so limp, so light in death, and I would have rather died there than move, but now here was Jose again, slapping and cursing, dodging the flailing fists with which I tried to kill him.
Yes Father, forgive me that in that moment I would have killed.
The only thing I managed to save of Mia was her butterfly ring.
Outside there was silence now. The only light came from the waning crescent moon and the soldiers’ torches leaping, dodging, flickering across the corpses flung down, necks askew in doorways, on the paths—
Vanessa could not go on. Mlle Durocher slid a box of tissues across the table.
“The soldiers ripped down the temple’s gold paneling, stuffed the jewelled chalices and everything else they could find into sacks and turned Brother Bart, the sinner, into a packhorse.”
Mlle Durocher shook her head sadly.
“Brutality: it changes its dress, its religion, but always it stays rooted, it seems, in the nature of the human.”
Vanessa was blowing her nose when the kitchen door opened.
“Excuse me, ladies.” It was the man from the reading room.
“Yes, Mr. Sanger?” Mlle Durocher jumped up, trying surreptitiously to shield the table with her body. Behind her Vanessa put the journal and the exercise book back into the box and closed the lid. The man came into the kitchen, saw Vanessa as she stood up.
“Well, hello there.” His hand was large, dry, warm. “Edward Sanger, from Philadelphia.” His accent was flat, American. Vanessa watched him take in her box, the embroidered cloth lying beside it. “Say, is that a Mason’s apron?”
“Why, yes.” Mlle Durocher snatched the apron off the table, shook it out. “I was just showing Vanessa here: see the radiant eye, the compass and square, the Star of David. You know the Freemasons, Monsieur, the ancient society devoted to goodness, truth and brotherhood?”
“I guess I do, Ma’am.” Sanger extended his left hand. The face of a gold signet ring on his baby finger was engraved with a mathematics compass pointing down over a set square that faced up. The Star of David in the centre was made of tiny diamonds. “Masons have been in Philadelphia since before the Revolution.” His smile held the relaxed easiness that comes with success. “Ben Franklin was a Mason.”
“Ah yes, Benjamin Franklin.” Mlle Durocher turned to Vanessa, saw that the journal was out of sight. “History: always there is so much more than what is written. Did you know that when Benjamin Franklin first applied to become a member, in 1731, the Philadelphia Freemasons would not have him?”
“No!” Vanessa tried to hide her interest. Where did the old lady get all this stuff?
“Yes, he had left his fiancée to go off to England in 1724, where he had lived a dissipated existence. It was not until he returned to Philadelphia and became so ill that he thought he would die, that his thinking changed. When he recovered he started a printing plant, married, and decided to be a Freemason.”
Sanger’s smile had become polite.
“Like George Washington and Paul Revere.”
“But the club members black-balled him.” Mlle Durocher held Sanger with her eyes. “So Franklin used his press to publish a venomous attack on the society, and announced that he would go on doing so.
Needless to say, they soon taught him their secret handshake.” The old lady glanced at Vanessa then raised her shoulders. “He had power, so he used it. Is that not right, Monsieur Sanger?”
“To get into a society devoted to goodness, truth and brotherhood?”
Vanessa looked at Sanger.
“Ben Franklin went on to become one of its leading members.”
Sanger held a book out to Mlle Durocher. “I was wondering if I could borrow this? I’m not a resident but they’ll vouch for me up at Stewart Hall.” Built on top of the hill behind Chester as a 19th Century lumber baron’s summer retreat, Stewart Hall was now a guest mansion geared to the privacy needs of the wealthy and famous.
“But of course, Monsieur Sanger.” Mlle Durocher took Sanger’s elbow, propelled him toward the door.
Sanger looked back at Vanessa and the metal box, and smiled.
“I do hope we’ll meet again.”
As soon as the door closed Vanessa picked up the apron with its embroidered Star of David, its radiant eye.
So Great Uncle Seamus was a Freemason. She was wrapping the diary in his apron when Mlle Durocher returned.
“He has gone, at last.”
“You don’t think he heard me reading?”
Mlle Durocher pursed her lips. “How would he have known to listen? But,” she shook out her birdlike shoulders, “this man, he has the eyes of the hawk.”
Vanessa laughed.
“He belongs to a society devoted to truth, goodness and brotherhood, Mademoiselle.”
“Ah, those are words Vanessa. Did you not see the way his eyes fastened on Seamus’ Freemason’s apron? And now he has just told me he is thinking of buying Oak Island.” Mlle Durocher looked around the kitchen, as if the spider plant might be taking notes. “I think not. Still, écoutes-moi, chérie, you must take this journal straight to the museum in Halifax so that it may be stored under lock and key at the right temperature, with no humidity. Then tomorrow after lunch you come back to me. I will have some books to help us explore …” Delight, excitement written into its wrinkles made her elderly face beautiful.
“I will,” said Vanessa. “As soon as I finish working with it.”
III
SHE COULD GO NO FURTHER. Close translation, fitting the words together syllable by syllable, required mental acuity and Vanessa’s eyes could barely focus now on the ancient script. She took tonight’s glass of Chablis out onto the deck, turned on Paul Simon. The June light was fading, leaching the color out of the sea, the trees, Gran’s flowers, leaving only the starkness of shadowed outlines jittering in a freshening wind as the three-quarter moon cleared the eastern horizon.
Vanessa thought of Brother Bartolomeo. His diary was here because love and the treasure had brought him north into “a wilderness bay full of islands.”
This bay? Oak Island was only twenty minutes away by sailboat.
You could go there. There is still an hour of daylight left and you are an excellent sailor. The thought seemed to come from the moon. Go down to the boathouse and get Dancer out.
No. Oak Island was closed to the public.
So, who will expect a visitor to come from the sea at this hour?
No, ridiculous. Never sail alone, you know that, Moon.
Was that how suicides happened? Sane, normally cautious people made just one incredibly stupid move from which there was no turning back? Because who in their right mind would take a sixteen-foot sailboat out at this time of day in this wind? Anyway, Oak Island would be deep in shadow by now, desolate in twilight. And Dancer had not been put in the water this year—
Winching her down is not hard and her sails are all there.
So? Say I do all that and manage to sail safely across, and then trespass. To do what?
To look around. To get out of yourself, to walk where Brother Bartolomeo of Altamira might have been, to feel what he had had with Mia, “
the towering, shuddering, monumental joy of what must surely be the truest communion.”
She was crying again, a thirty-three-year-old student of history standing on a Nova Scotia deck weeping in the twilight about a four hundred-year-old brutality: crazy.
No. The loss of love, its sights, sounds, joys, the tastes and scents of it stripped away — how could you not weep? Vanessa had never told a soul about the wake of her first loss. In the Spain of her childhood Carlita’s grandma had called Vanessa un beecho raro, a strange creature, but running, exploring, laughing with her friends, sharing all her secrets with Carlita over churros, the sugary strings of deep fried dough bought from the vendor across the street from the convent school, Vanessa’s difference had never accounted for anything more than a license to freedom from catechism lessons, confirmation, confession. Until the day her Spanish world had been taken from her.
Freshly arrived in Canada, to whom could she confide about lying in bed in the Ottawa house terrified of the urge that came every night, ordering her to get up, go into the kitchen, pick out the longest sharpest knife, walk into her sleeping parents’ bedroom and plunge it first into her mother, then into her father? She could hardly bear — still — to remember the imagined blood as the knife blade cut through the flesh of those she most loved, and struck bone. Alone, she had tried to defeat the urge by imagining herself getting out of bed and leaving the house, walking away into the darkness, huddling under a hedge against the November sleet, the blizzards in February. As the months passed, her primped blonde fifteen-year old Canadian classmates began to whisper about the strange, exhausted new girl from Spain. Not until the spring track and field season, when she had discovered that she was good at running — the nuns’ grudging concession to physical fitness had been once-a-week access to a climber in the town park — had Vanessa’s world begun slowly to rotate properly on its axis.
Eighteen years later here she was lost again—
