‘That answers my first question then,’ Daniel said, ‘but why does the chronology stop in 1953? I think I found this the most perplexing.’
‘August 20, 1953, to be precise,’ Arthur said. ‘The same day, coincidentally, that the USSR announced it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.’
‘We presumed that this was the date responsibility would be taken from the hands of mankind and vested solely in God’s,’ Snellgrove said. ‘The actual terminal point of the pyramid’s chronology, however, is 2001, and like many people we believed that this year would be the start of Christ’s millennial reign on earth. I don’t have to tell you that it wasn’t, and so the fact that the Great Pyramid is silent from that year onward is an oddity.’
Baker now stepped up to the plate. ‘There’s consensus building, Daniel, that we’re missing something because there is something missing. We now think that the Great Pyramid was never intended to tell the full story, and that there’s a missing piece of the jigsaw somewhere else, possibly another structure.
‘We’ve every reason to believe it will be found in Egypt, but we’re not, in all honesty, sure just what it is we’re looking for. We’ve had money to finance a search for some time, but until tonight, never the person to lead it. We now believe that we have that person in you Daniel: you’re an archaeologist, an Egyptologist, a Christian man in all senses of the word, and now a British Israelite. We could never have found anyone more suited to the task.’
What Baker said was true: Daniel did have the necessary credentials. What he hadn’t said but intimated, however, was that the Egyptian authorities would never give permission to an organisation like the British Israelites to mount an expedition. It was understandable that they would be unsympathetic to claims that their greatest tourist attraction had been built by Israelis under the guidance of God for the benefit of the USA and Great Britain, and had in fact nothing to do with Egypt whatsoever.
By evening’s end, it had been agreed that Daniel would lead an expedition to look for the missing sections of chronology and prophecy. They ended with a prayer and asked God to bless their venture, and Daniel, in particular.
Five years passed before the expedition was under way. Daniel’s researches led him to believe that the missing messages might be located in a recently discovered pyramid eight kilometres north of Giza at Abu Rawash. This area of Egypt had previously been kept out of bounds by the military authorities and had never become a part of the tourist trail. Egyptologists generally considered it to be the tomb of the lost fourth dynasty Pharaoh Djedefre, a son of Khufu. In its day it would have been an impressive structure, and as it stood on a mountain overlooking the plain of Giza would have also been fractionally higher than the Great Pyramid. There was now very little of the pyramid left, its pre-cut stone slabs having been plundered and reused by the Romans, but there was a surviving shaft that ran deep into the mountain, and Daniel surmised they would find other passages leading from it. The expedition, he decided, would start here.
Throughout this time, Daniel was enthusiastically supported by his wife. If Sarah’s character had a flaw, it was that she lacked all critical faculty when it came to her husband. Any she might have once had now slept with the fishes and her loyalty to Daniel was consequently unquestioning. Therefore, when Daniel became interested in British Israelism, so did she; when he became interested in the Great Pyramid, she did too; and when Daniel decided to take Arthur’s offer of leading an expedition to Egypt, she agreed to go with him. This kind of love is dangerous. It led to both their deaths.
It was decided that Eric would stay with the Annandales during the month his mother would be travelling with Daniel. On hearing the news, Eric swallowed hard. Although Arthur and Alice Annandale had become close friends with his parents, he himself had never warmed to them and found both slightly strange. If they themselves didn’t smell like old people, then their house with its old and depressing furniture did. He also found conversation with Arthur difficult and suspected Arthur had similar difficulty talking to him. Concerning these new arrangements, the words sensible and best had come to his parents’ minds. To Eric’s, came the words Gosh dang!
Daniel and Sarah flew to Egypt and were met at Cairo’s international airport by an administrative assistant from the Egyptology Department of the American University. Rather than driving them to the small bungalow they were expecting, he took them to the Mena House Oberoi Hotel: Arthur had gifted them two weeks here, in the belief that a period of comfortable acclimation would be essential for them both. In the note they were handed at the registration desk, Arthur had written: ‘It’s a beautiful hotel but don’t trust the ice cubes!’ The hotel was palatial and its gardens beautiful. Even so, Sarah couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed that the view from their room was blocked by a pyramid – the Great Pyramid, in fact.
For the first few days, Daniel and Sarah became tourists. They stood in line with nationalities from around the world and entered the Great Pyramid; they walked around the Sphinx, took trips into the desert, rode camels and spent a whole day inside the archaeological museum in Cairo. On the fifth day, Daniel left Sarah by the pool and went to meet the foreman of the crew he’d hired. Together they drove to Abu Rawash and decided the areas to be cleared of rubble. The foreman’s name was Walid El Baradei and he told Daniel to call him Wally. Wally estimated it would take his crew six days to prepare the site for the first exploratory dig.
The last barrow-load of rubble was removed from the site late Friday morning – Daniel’s tenth day in Egypt. It was arranged that everyone would take the rest of the day off and return the following Monday.
That afternoon, Daniel returned to the site with Sarah. He wanted her to experience the intense spiritual quiet of the site before the dig started, and to pray with him for the success of their undertaking. He also wanted a photograph of them standing there together, and so positioned his camera on a tripod facing out toward the Giza plain. He then delayed the timer by a minute.
What overcame Daniel next is difficult to say. Perhaps it was the heat of the day or the emotion of being surrounded by so much sand; possibly it was the spiritual tranquillity of the location or the enormity of the discovery he was on the verge of making; or maybe it was simply plain and old-fashioned love for Sarah. Whatever the prime motivating force might have been, all now combined to send Daniel into a pogo frenzy of veneration, which Sarah quickly joined in.
Chanting the name of Jesus in unison, their arms outstretched and their palms facing upward, they jumped up and down together. ‘Jee-sus, Jee-sus,’ they chanted. Up and down, up and down they jumped. The seconds ticked away as the camera readied itself. ‘Jee-sus, Jee-sus,’ they chanted. Up and down, up and down they jumped.
And then, a split second before the camera clicked, there was an almost indiscernible cracking noise caused by the splintering of centuries old timber hidden beneath the surface of the flattened rubble on which Daniel and Sarah danced. Moments later the ground gave way, the camera’s shutter clicked, and the Goles plunged down a deep, pitch-black shaft. Their bodies ricocheted against its walls and against each other before coming to an abrupt halt on the shaft’s floor. And there they stayed. There had been one long po but no corresponding go, and no more mention of Jesus.
As a sepulchral resting place, the old pyramid once more came into its own.
News of Daniel and Sarah’s deaths reached Arthur several days after the event. It came as a double blow: on a personal level he’d lost dear friends, and on a professional level any chance of discovering the missing chronology of God’s voice in the near future – and possibly even in his lifetime. He felt remorse but surprisingly no guilt. ‘Mysterious Ways’ came readily to his mind, and clung to its walls like an analgesic.
Eric was given the news of his parents’ death early that evening. After school, Eric had developed the habit of either staying behind for extra activities or spending time at the house of a friend; anything that would delay his return to th
e Annandale house, its museum-like character and its curator-like keepers. He looked forward to the day his mother would return from Egypt and he could once more regain his old life. He missed his house and his bedroom; having his own television and playing his own music; but above all he missed his mother’s cooking. Mrs Annandale’s was plain bad.
When Eric returned to the Annandales’ house, Arthur asked him to step into his office. There was something about Mr Annandale’s manner that led Eric to believe that something was wrong, and he braced himself. Eric sat down in an armchair while Arthur remained standing, his back to Eric and looking out of the window on to the garden. Arthur Annandale was a man used to confronting situations behind a person’s back, and was uncomfortable imparting bad news face to face.
‘It looks like the roses are going to excel this year, Eric,’ Arthur started by saying. ‘I’m just sorry your mother and father won’t be here to see them. I know your mother was particularly fond of roses, her favourite flower in fact.’
‘What do you mean?’ Eric asked. ‘Why won’t they be here to see them?’
‘Because they’re dead, Eric: as dead and dried up as the herbs on those shelves there. I wish it were different, son, I really do. I wish I could tell you everything’s going to be okay, but it isn’t. You’re an orphan now, and once the funeral’s over we need to start making plans about what to do with you. But there’s time for that: we don’t need to think of that now. What we need to keep in mind at this moment is that your Mom and Dad died in God’s service doing God’s work. They died martyrs, Eric, and if you have to go, there’s no better way. I honestly wish it could have been me.’
He turned to Eric and continued: ‘You, I and Mrs Annandale have to get on with our lives now, and I think we should make a start by eating the liver and onions Mrs Annandale has cooked especially for us this evening. What do you say we do that, Eric? Shall we do that?’
Eric looked at him in stony disbelief. All he could say was: ‘I don’t like liver, Mr Annandale.’
As Eric lay in bed that night, he replayed in his mind everything Arthur had eventually told him: how his parents had discovered a shaft by accident, had then fallen down that shaft to their deaths, and that he was now an orphan – but not to worry as things would work out fine and he’d be well looked after. His parents had joined other martyrs who’d died in the Bible and would now be sitting with them at God’s feet, swapping stories and telling jokes. If the Bible were still being written today, his parents would have a chapter all to themselves.
It was at this point that Eric became curious about the people who’d died in the Bible and were now his parents’ friends. He already knew a lot of the stories in the Bible from attending church and going to Sunday school, but had never read the Bible and didn’t know who Arthur was specifically referring to. It became strangely important to him that he find out more about these dead people and, furthermore, write down their names. He determined there and then to read the Bible from cover to cover.
He would count the dead.
The Eye of the Storm
The intervening period between news of a death and ceremonies for the dead is a strange time, very similar to living in the eye of a storm. Unfortunately for Eric, there was nothing for him to do during this hiatus, and he stayed in his room in a state of suspended animation, insensible and disbelieving.
It was Arthur who took control. He appointed a funeral director and took care of all arrangements, from the repatriation of Daniel and Sarah’s bodies to the choice of funeral plots. He talked with The Reverend Pete, who announced the deaths to his congregation, and then contacted the head of the archaeology department, who in turn announced the news to faculty. He himself contacted Snellgrove, Baker and other members of the British Israelite fraternity who had met and known Daniel and Sarah.
As far as Eric knew, his parents had no living close relatives. His grandparents were dead, neither of his parents had siblings, and the only relatives he’d ever met had been introduced to him as second cousins twice removed. To Arthur, the relationship Eric described seemed more akin to the mathematical puzzles he’d been set as a child than to any blood relationship he could readily understand, but he contacted them nonetheless. The address he found for the Lawrences in Daniel’s address book had them living in New York City. Eight days later, and one day before the funeral, Eric received a letter from Jeff Lawrence with a return address of the Lyon Mt Correctional Facility.
My Dear Eric,
The news of your parents’ death came as a shock. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you to make sense of such a totally unanticipated and unnecessary departure, and how wrenching it must be for you. I don’t know what happens when you die – I never had the certainties of your Dad – but I do know that your parents will always be a part of you. As difficult as it is for you now, you must learn to be grateful that you knew and loved each other, and I hope that as time goes by your sadness will be relieved by your own fond memories of them. When I’ve had friends or family die, there’s always been a regret that I didn’t keep in touch with them more. Stupidly and wrongly, I just assumed they’d always be there. It seems to be human nature that only absence reveals the importance of a person.
If the letter had ended there, it would have been a good letter, but Jeff had continued. Abandoning the cogency of his first paragraph, he started to ramble and left the reader with the distinct impression that if two people hadn’t written this letter to Eric, then Jeff Lawrence was probably psychologically unhinged. He talked about slippers and suede shoes, the Book of Leviticus, hunchbacks and men with crushed testicles, and then described the events leading to his incarceration.
You might notice from the notepaper that I’m in prison at the moment, Eric, so won’t be able to come to the funeral. A couple of years back, life for us Lawrences started to fall apart. Susan left home to follow her dreams, which evidently didn’t include finishing college, and then Mrs Lawrence and I started to drift apart, especially after she told me she never wanted to see me again. I don’t think it was anything in particular I’d done, but she made it clear that I irritated the hell out of her and generally got on her nerves, and The Magic Boy litigation was the last straw. ‘Well, what about me?’ I asked. ‘Do you think it’s been easy living with you?’ But she never did answer because she was already walking out of the door with her suitcase packed and, as it turned out, my car keys. And that’s pretty much why I’m locked up here now.
One night, I got stinking drunk, Eric. It was late. I couldn’t get a ride from anyone in the bar because I was the last guy there, and I couldn’t find a taxi for love nor money. And then, as I was passing this car, I noticed its keys were in the trunk and, hey presto, the train to Lyon Mt Correctional Facility started to chug. I got charged with DWI, Grand Theft Auto and resisting arrest, though the resisting arrest bit was bullshit! All I said to the cop who stopped me was fuck off, and that was just out of frustration rather than anything personal. If you’d have been followed by a car with its headlights on full beam for three miles while you were trying to drive a stick shift, you’d have probably reacted the same way yourself. And the car was only a Toyota Camry for God’s sake, not as if it was anything special!
Anyway, I got one year behind bars, though this place is mainly fencing because we’re all considered low risk. I don’t get many visitors, so if you ever find yourself in the neighbourhood…
Good luck with the funeral, kid, and I hope that someday we’ll meet again. Stay strong, little man!
Your father used to end his letters with ‘Yours in Christ’. I wish I could do the same. In the meantime,
Yours in Prison, Jeff
Eric remembered the Lawrences’ visit to his parents’ house as a short but exciting period in his life, and vividly recalled the circumstances of their departure.
It was the Lawrences’ annual vacation. They’d flown from New York to San Francisco and hired a car at the airport and driven down to Santa Cruz.
The last time Daniel and Sarah had seen them was at their own wedding, and that was fifteen years ago. They’d occasionally talked on the phone and exchanged Christmas cards, but that was about all. Being a Christian, and therefore theoretically oblivious to the cost of any kind action on his part or perceived slights of others toward him, Daniel still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d sent a lot more cards their way than he’d got back. He also remembered Jeff getting drunk and a bit rowdy at their wedding. Nevertheless, the Lawrences were the nearest thing to family they had. It would only be for a week, and they’d promised to bring along an extra concert ticket for Eric.
The concert the Lawrences planned to attend was scheduled to take place in San Francisco, and the artist none other than the world famous Paul McCartney. During non-Christian moments of doubting others, it crossed Daniel’s mind that Jeff and his family were probably using his home as a convenient and cheap hotel, but as quickly as the thought came he tried as quickly to dismiss it. After the concert, Jeff and his family would drive to Los Angeles, where Jeff had some business matters to attend to.
For the first three days of the visit all went well. Eric liked Jeff. He was unlike his father’s other friends, and wasn’t serious like his father. He joked a lot, particularly at his father’s expense. He liked it that Jeff addressed his father as Chuckles and kept telling him to lighten up. On one occasion, he’d burst out laughing – much to his father’s annoyance – when, after his father had explained his interest in the Great Pyramid, Jeff had responded by saying he doubted a revelation from God could be arrived at by stretching a ‘goddamn measuring tape along a pyramid corridor.’
Last Bus to Coffeeville Page 24
