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I dedicate this book to my grandparents:
a Siberian labor camp survivor,
a decorated air force hero,
a stylish meteorologist, and
a hard-bitten chef.
Saw the Aleph from everywhere at once,
saw the earth in the Aleph,
and the Aleph once more in the earth
and the earth in the Aleph, saw my face
and my viscera, saw your face,
and I felt dizzy, and I wept,
because my eyes had seen that secret,
hypothetical object whose name
has been usurped by men but which
no man has ever truly looked upon:
the inconceivable universe.
JORGE LUIS BORGES, THE ALEPH
FERNWEH (IS GERMAN FOR “WANDERLUST”)
I was going to rediscover myself last summer. Possibly fall in love for real. Maybe have my heart broken. I was going to learn Arabic and reconnect with my Middle Eastern roots. And most of all, I was going to spend some quality time with Dad. I imagined the two of us out in an archaeological field, bonding over trowels, mattocks, and leaky water basins while labeling and filing precious ceramic fragments his squad of research students dug up from the ground. And to make this vision even more perfect, I was going to have my best friends, all four of them, along for the ride. With school now behind us and university not far ahead, this trip was our last chance to do something fun together before our paths diverged and we got too busy to hang out.
I was so proud to have made it possible for my friends to join me on this trip. Though rummaging in the dust while being assaulted by the desert sun wasn’t exactly their idea of fun, the prospect of visiting Dubai had gotten my friends pumped. That’s why I chose not to correct them whenever they’d mention Dubai and all the sightseeing it promised; we’d be spending most of our time at Tell Abrar—the site of an ancient settlement east of Dubai city, where my dad, Andreas Scholl, the head of the archaeology program at Dunstan University, was leading an international excavation campaign. Regardless, my excitement was so epic it was almost a living, breathing thing made of nervous insomnia and short on patience. I just knew the summer was going to be remarkable. Or, at the very least, different.
* * *
It took me weeks to get ready and pack, two days to sort out my vaccinations, and an entire weekend to decide whether to cut my hair super short and dye it green or leave it be. Lori and Minh shared in my fretful enthusiasm, sure, but they didn’t seem to suffer from any overwhelming impulses to get rid of their luscious locks or dye their hair some outrageous color. Dad diagnosed my travel fever as an acute case of fernweh. It’s German for an “ache to visit distant places,” an all-consuming craving to travel. And, rest assured, I had gotten fernweh bad.
The nonstop flight from Melbourne to Dubai was going to take fifteen hours. The five of us—Lori, Minh, Luke, Rowen, and me—were cramped in economy. We were just settling into our seats when Rowen sprang out and strode to where Lori was already seated, next to a cute stranger wearing a Formula 1 McLaren T-shirt. I poked my head in the aisle and watched Rowen. He leaned in to talk to the McLaren supporter, slipping the dude a fifty. A fifty. With quiet dignity, McLaren took the note and left his seat, which was immediately claimed by Rowen. That was quick. When Rowen Syme Jr. wanted something, he went for it. And what he currently wanted was Lori Bradford.
I relayed what I just witnessed to Minh and Luke, both seated in my row.
“How romantic,” Minh said, voice drenched in sarcasm. She used to be tight with Rowen, their epic friendship an important ingredient to our friend group’s overall cohesiveness. But lately something had shifted between them. And now Rowen was openly pursuing Lori while Minh was left rolling her eyes. And given how Minh Quoc was the most sensible person I knew, this new eye-rolling development was rather disconcerting.
“My only wish is that one day someone coughs up fifty bucks for the honor of sitting next to me in smelly coach,” Minh concluded.
To Minh’s right, Luke scoffed and tilted over her lap to say, “And I’m lucky enough to sit next to the two of you for free.”
Content to have the last word, Luke retreated back into his space and watched baggage handlers throwing bags onto the conveyer that fed into the belly of the plane. Minh asked Luke if he was keen to give up his window seat for either of us; he laughed and said no way. I guess Luke didn’t have a crush he wanted to impress. Or, at least, his crush wasn’t present on this flight.
“You know we’ll just take your seat when you leave for the bathroom, right?” I asked.
Luke wrinkled his freckled nose and ran a hand through his reddish hair, muttering, “I intend to hold it in.”
“Not for fifteen hours, you don’t.” Minh’s laughter was devilish. It was good to see her energy redirected from Rowen.
“We’ll see about that.” Luke withdrew even deeper into his space but not before winking at me suggestively. Even after being friends with Luke for years and surviving high school together, I was still struggling to figure him out. He was a chameleon, adapting to each new situation quickly and effortlessly, the transition near seamless every time. He’d assume a funny-guy persona in one social setting and switch to a brooding, moody cool kid in another. What was really hiding behind his multiple facades? Maybe this summer the real Luke Stokowski was going to show himself at last. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one curious about him—the five of us were close and tended to get all up in one another’s business.
I watched Minh as she rubbed the tip of her index finger over her white gold pendant with a turquoise “evil eye” encased in the middle—a protection charm. I’d brought it from Egypt, from when I was on a dig with Dad two years ago. I gave an identical necklace to Lori, but I’ve never seen her wear it. She never admitted it to my face, but I suspected the design itself or perhaps its meaning clashed with her style, and therefore the necklace was now gathering dust in some dark drawer. Well, at least one of my friends appreciated my taste in jewelry. But even if at times I found Lori’s uncompromising nature grating, in my mind it was balanced by Minh’s acceptance of all aspects of me. My friends were very different, but together we worked somehow.
When I was little, I used to spend my summers in the United States, where Dad grew up (I still measure stuff in feet and pounds because of that), but the rest of the year I was Melbourne-bound. After my parents divorced, my dad and I had to move to a new place, meaning I had to change schools in the middle of seventh grade. My new school was private but nothing fancy, not like Scotch College or Grammar—famous bastions of Australian wealth. There were cliques and there were bullies; there were nasty kids and there were nice kids. Melbourne’s increasingly diverse population was reflected in my classrooms, with third-generation Vietnamese Australians hanging out with some recent arrivals of assorted Eastern European extraction, while a handful of Aboriginal kids (who self-defined as Koori) had to si
t through some eyebrow-raising whitewashing of Australia’s settler-colonial history. Good thing our teachers were great and open to having challenging discussions in our classrooms.
My mother was born to Jordanian parents after they immigrated to England. My father is a born-and-bred American, though his parents came from Germany to settle in Pennsylvania in the fifties. Mom and Dad met in Australia, where they both were study-abroad students in Sydney. They got married there and eventually settled in Melbourne. Although I could pass in most cases, my assumed whiteness lasted only until someone took a longer look and spotted my “foreign” features—expressive brown eyes, slightly arching eyebrows, darker olive complexion, thick wavy hair, and countless other, subtler notes. My name was also deemed “foreign,” but that was a different story.
I counted myself lucky to have settled into my new school fairly quickly, thanks to Lori. Anglo Australian, light-skinned and coming from a moderately wealthy family, Lori was mildly liked, but, because of persisting sexist standards too opinionated to be universally popular. Lori took me under her wing, her friendship saving me a lot of social anxiety, in exchange for her never having to sit alone at lunch. We were symbiotic and perfectly happy like that. Then one day Minh and Rowen, who were forced to be friends pretty much as babies because their grandmas were neighbors, approached us for a group project. The four of us stayed close after that.
Luke Stokowski, the middle son of third-generation Polish immigrants, was last to join our little band of misfits. I suspected that Luke gravitated toward us because he was subtly rejected from everywhere else. As far as high school cliques went, we were his last resort. Still, the five of us stuck together and managed not to date or alienate one another all throughout high school—for the most part. And now we were set to have our first-ever summer break overseas as a group. While the rest of my friends didn’t exactly share my tender love for archaeology, I was excited to have them by my side all the same.
Lori’s lilting laugh came from down the aisle, the sound so perfect it had to be fake. Whatever Rowen was whispering into her diamond-stud-bejeweled ears couldn’t be that funny. Rowen’s idea of humor was retelling entire Seinfeld episodes but totally botching the punch lines. Lori’s laughter could mean only one thing: She was really into him. I exchanged another look with Minh. I could tell from her sour expression that this new Rowen-Lori development was bothering her. I didn’t think hers was a love-fueled angst; in the years that I’d known her, not once had Minh mentioned any romantic aspirations involving Rowen. Perhaps she just missed having him to herself. After all, they used to do everything together—random school clubs and homework Monday to Friday, and then surfing and lazing around the beach most weekends.
I didn’t want to ask Minh about it. I told myself I didn’t want to pry, but deep down, I also didn’t want some kind of personal drama of hers to overshadow our summer. Our circle of friendship meant we didn’t gossip about one another. Those outside our group, however, were fair game.
Case in point, Minh murmured to me over the hum of the jet engines, “Is Mr. Tall-and-Brooding going to meet us at the airport?”
She was referring to Tommy Ortiz, my dad’s research assistant. I didn’t really feel like discussing Tommy with Minh. Tommy was my long-term unrequited crush—a kind of crush that just wasn’t going away. I had to hide my annoyance whenever Minh flirted with him—said flirting intensifying when Rowen was around. But Minh was waiting for me to reply.
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Dad can’t come to pick us up himself. There’s a lot going on with the site. He’s still not done setting up the camp. Plus he’s got volunteers to train.”
“So he’s sending his brightest pupil,” Minh said sweetly, training her dark hazel eyes on me.
I nodded, hoping she’d just drop the topic. But she had other plans.
“So did you find out if Tommy has a girlfriend? Or something?”
I would’ve liked to know, but then again, I’d rather strip naked and run across the street during rush hour than get caught asking around about Tommy’s availability. I kept reminding myself what Mom once told me during one of our rare deep-and-meaningful chats: No guy is worth the trouble. Especially so, I thought, if the guy in question paid me little to no attention.
To Minh I said, “I’m sure he’s got a girlfriend … or whatever. I mean, I think he does. I don’t know for sure, but come on.”
Tommy was three years older than us, of Colombian Australian heritage, and a rising star of Dunstan’s archaeology program. For the past year, he’d been laboring away on his honors thesis in preparation for the big leagues—PhD research. He was also as gorgeous as they came. Aside from that, I knew little about him.
“Right.” Minh deflated. Her long, slim fingers, nails cut short, started bothering a loose lock of her inky-black hair, curling around and releasing it. She leaned back in her chair and made a point of playing with her entertainment screen, flicking through movie options.
The plane was moving, engines roaring, as the crew started to prep for takeoff. Just when I thought we were done talking about Tommy Ortiz, Luke said, “I really don’t get what you see in him.”
I didn’t even know he’d been listening to the conversation.
“The dude is so intense he’ll totally crack one day. Remember my prophetic words.”
“Shut up, Luke,” I replied with a grin.
Minh arched an eyebrow and put on her headphones.
But Luke was far from done. He leaned over Minh, ignoring her protests and exaggerated sighs, and said, “If Ortiz is so perfect, why is he deliberately endangering your dad’s research by spreading ridiculous rumors?”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Luke got his smartphone out. “Here…”
My curiosity triggered, I focused on Luke’s phone, held out for me and hovering above Minh’s knees. Making an even bigger point of ignoring us, Minh focused on her entertainment screen as much as was possible with Luke and me invading her space.
The thing Luke wanted me to see was a short piece in Dig It, a quirky archaeology blog run by a group of Dunstan graduate students. I was usually up-to-date on their posts, and not just because Tommy frequently wrote for them, but in the weeks leading up to this trip I simply had no time to do anything other than pack, read up on Dubai’s archaeological history, and agonize over my hair color choices.
I took Luke’s phone and skimmed through the post. It mentioned the site of Tell Abrar and provided a brief history of Dad’s latest excavation efforts before briefly saying how the site had a bad rep with the locals because some workers went missing from an active dig back in the nineties, leading to the site’s temporary closure. There was also some vague reference to the area nearby being a meteor crash site in the early twentieth century. All of it seemed to be based on verbal accounts rather than any physical evidence of an impact site. The post in question was indeed authored by Tommy. Which was odd, since Tommy didn’t strike me as a conspiracy buff, but who really knew what lurked beneath his bright-eyed surface? It was the stream of comments below the piece that really made me frown. While most were written by rational people laughing off the “spooky stuff,” there were a few actually accusing Dad of bothering “restless spirits” and the like. There was nothing about any “spirits” in Tommy’s piece, at least.
I had to give the phone back to Luke when a flight attendant sternly asked me to switch off my device.
“It’s just an article,” I told Luke after his phone was back in his pocket. “Bringing up the site’s history like that might be a smart move, actually. It could attract some unorthodox sponsors. Dad can never have too many.”
“Sure,” Luke said on a long exhale.
Maybe he was onto something. Putting whatever grudge Luke had against Tommy aside, I had to admit reading the article left me fidgety. Not a good state to be in right before embarking on a long-haul flight.
When the jet took off and started gaining altitude, I
managed to shed my unease over Tommy’s blog post. It was a speculation, what he wrote. Just good-old Tommy trying to generate some external interest for Dad’s dig site. For all I knew, my father was behind the feature, masterfully directing his research assistant’s hand.
For a while, I managed not to think about Tommy and the local lore surrounding Tell Abrar. I disappeared into a world of free movies and never-ending snacks. I was on my second feature film when the first proper meal was served. I took off my headphones so I could toast alongside Minh with a plastic cup filled halfway with soda. I said Lori’s name loudly, the sound carrying over the engines’ buzz, and she stood up in her seat two rows ahead to wave at me. I raised up my drink to salute her. Minh joined me, and the three of us yelled “Cheers” almost at the same time. Luke was asleep by then, and I suspected Rowen was drifting off too.
After the meal, I fell into that special type of drowsiness that comes with long flights, when you manage to sleep while still acutely aware of your body and its sorry state of being cramped into an uncomfortable seat. But slowly, my lungs adjusted to the cabin’s brand of cold air-conditioned air, and I truly slept. My dreams of the sunburned desert and invisible, human-devouring monsters roaming the sands were shaped by the monotonous growl of the engines working hard to keep this miracle of engineering afloat in the air.
TELL ABRAR
Today’s Melbourne is a city of immigrants. Given my parents’ very different heritages, I could even be Melbourne’s poster girl. I have freckles but they barely stand out against my darker complexion. Seemingly the only German thing about me is my last name. Also my punctuality, Dad says, but it’s meant to be a joke because I’m never on time. What else … I have Mom’s chestnut hair and brown eyes. I love my nose, which is slightly crooked. Minh says it’s charming. Lori says it’s time for rhinoplasty. I agree with Minh. Lori can be mean sometimes.
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