The Atlantis Keystone (17 page)

Half an hour later it was clear that Paul had once again misjudged their location. As they got nearer they could see that the island was small, with only a couple of houses. Erik started to get worried they were lost. The sun was already on its way down and their flight from Rhodes would leave in three hours.

The only upside was the spectacular sunset that was bathing the whole place in a pink-orange glow. Paul turned off the engine and they stood there in silence taking in the scenery. The island was already far behind them but another one had started to appear. It looked promisingly large. They stood up to take it all in. Erik put his arm around Laura’s shoulders. He could see she was cold. He suspected that it was only twelve or so degrees. The water was unusually still. All they could hear was the squeaking of some seagulls and the sound of water moving. It was a magical moment but Erik couldn’t stop worrying about Paul’s next move. He half expected that he would turn on the engine again with force and cause them all to fall off. He certainly didn’t feel like swimming in cold water.

Laura broke the silence: “Is the plan to find a hotel in Beirut tonight when we get there, or what’s the score?” she asked looking at Paul.

“Yes, I think that’d be sensible, although I suggest we get up fairly early tomorrow to travel to Byblos…” He turned the engine on and set off. Laura, Emma and Erik simultaneously fell back in their seat and exchanged looks of alarm.

“Byblos!” They all said in one voice. “I thought we were heading to Alalakh, that’s what you said?” Erik finished. His heart started to beat faster and he got a sudden pain in his stomach. Paul had misled them after all.

“I should have told you, my apologies,” Paul said. “We
will
be going to Alalakh to view the Minoan remains but I had a call from another colleague in Byblos yesterday. He wants us to travel there first. Apparently, there’s an interesting inscription in Cuneiform which he’d like me to look at. I simply couldn’t refuse. You can join me if you like – Byblos is very interesting. A must see for anyone travelling to Lebanon.”

Erik felt ill. They were stuck in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with a mad person! He glanced at Emma. He gave her a stare which proclaimed ‘I told you he was up to something fishy’. She returned his gaze for only a moment as if to say ‘Yes, I agree this is strange but I reserve judgment’. She remained quiet. He guessed she was lost for words. Erik hoped that she was finally able to see that Paul was acting bizarrely. He glanced at Laura. She looked worried but didn’t say anything either. Just as Erik was about to lose his nerve and start yelling at him, Paul proclaimed:

“There it is; we have arrived! Rhodes, here we come!”

P
aul and Emma had disappeared off to look at the Cuneiform tablet, leaving Erik and Laura to browse the archaeological excavations of Byblos. Erik was standing on a large stone block, supposedly the remains of an ancient building, looking out over a field of old ruins. The sky was scattered with a few clouds. Erik had put his jacket on as it was not particularly warm. Laura stood next to him, reading from her Byblos guidebook, completely engulfed in what she was reading. Erik could not feel the same excitement. He was thinking about work, hoping that the team in Sweden had sent the engagement letter to the client he had met in Athens and that his London project was progressing in his absence. Thinking about work seemed far better than mulling over dark thoughts about Emma and Paul, although he wasn’t sure what had actually happened between them, if anything. Emma had been strangely quiet and a bit distant since the yacht and Erik felt worried about her. He had not spoken to her about it though – they were still not on proper speaking terms after he had expressed his suspicions about Paul. These suspicions had not gone away. When Paul had announced his decision to change their plans and go to Byblos instead, he had felt even more certain that Paul was up to something. But after that, everything had gone smoothly. They had made their flight in Rhodes, arrived in Beirut, spent the night in a hotel there and travelled to Byblos the next morning. On arrival in Byblos an hour ago Paul’s colleague had made it absolutely clear that he had begged Paul to come over to Byblos and look at a Cuneiform text. So far his reasons for changing their plans had seemed perfectly legitimate.

He and Laura had been ambling among the old remains for some time when Laura suddenly stopped. She was reading the Byblos guidebook.

“You know that the identity of the Hyksos who invaded Egypt in the 17th Century BC is unknown but they are generally referred to as Asiatics?”

Erik responded hesitantly: “Er… yes.”

She showed him a passage in the guidebook. “Look, it says here that the Hyksos invaded Byblos in the 18th century BC. This means that the Hyksos ruled Lebanon, Syria and Israel before they invaded Egypt a hundred years later.” Erik was perplexed. He had no idea what Laura was getting at. She continued: “Well, there is a bible connection here as well. Joseph in the bible, who was Hebrew, is thought to have been a vizier of Egypt, basically prime minister, during the Hyksos rule. There’s no doubt that the Hyksos had strong ties with people from Asia Minor. This is because they had conquered this part of the world but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they ultimately
originated
from Asia Minor.” Laura looked at Erik almost as if she wanted him to reaffirm her thoughts. He was still in the dark about what she was trying to say and remained quiet, trying hard not to look like a giant question mark. “Let’s have a quick look in the bible,” she suggested after a moment’s silence.

“Well, unfortunately I used to fall asleep at church as a child – and during religious studies at school,” he said with a smile.

“But you’re still carrying that Bible from your grandmother aren’t you? I saw it in your rucksack earlier when I fetched the guidebook.” She pointed at his bag.

“Oh yes, I forgot about that! I didn’t want to leave it in the hotel room in Beirut just in case my suitcase was stolen,” said Erik as he had a quick look through his bag. “But it’s in Swedish.”

“That’s fine. You just have to translate.” They decided to go to a café in the harbour. Erik didn’t want to expose it to the elements. As soon as they found a table, he rummaged through his bag again and immediately found the old book.

“Isn’t it fitting that we’re sitting here in Byblos reading the bible – the name Byblos is the Greek name which means ‘papyrus’ and it was from this that the word Bible was derived!” Laura said with a laugh.

“Very fitting”, Erik said sarcastically. He was nervous about opening the old book, scared of what he might find. He had not had the need or the urge to read it at all since his grandmother’s funeral. He knew that it was full of scribbles but from what he had seen from a previous quick scan, they were all religious notes about the text, mainly to facilitate preaching in church. He didn’t recognise the handwriting. He guessed that it had once belonged to a priest. The pages were thin and fragile. It had that old book smell.

Erik had only just opened the bible and was about to ask Laura where she wanted him to look when he spotted a familiar handwriting in the margin. It was unmistakably his grandmother’s confident and old fashioned swirly lines. The note was clearly distinguishable from the other religious ramblings written by someone else. It was a brief statement in the margin of Genesis. He was surprised that he had even seen it.

“What’s the matter?” Laura said after a few seconds of silence but seemed to second guess what the problem was. “Please tell me if you prefer that we use another copy. I’m sure we can find another bible to use.”

“No, it’s not that”, he managed to say. “Look in Genesis. My grandmother has made a note.”

Laura leaned over and had a quick look. “What does it say?”

Erik explained. It was only a short statement. ‘
Du har rätt. Väggen gömmer vad du letar efter. Stör henne inte’
meaning: ‘You
are right. The wall is hiding what you are looking for. Do not disturb her.’
That was all it said. Despite the non-informative and brief nature of the message he knew instinctively that it had been intended for Anna and that it had been the reason for the old woman’s strange and unexpected gift of inheritance. Anna had spent a lot of time searching through the Torpa journals, obsessing about the legend of the girl buried alive in the wall so many hundreds of years ago. She had told him in Thailand that she had discovered something which suggested that a thing of importance was hidden in there. He still didn’t know what and it wasn’t clear how his grandmother could possibly have known about it and whether she had an awareness of the whereabouts of the tablet. If it wasn’t the tablet that was hidden in the space in the wall, what could it have been? Erik speculated that it may have been a secret passed down from generation to generation. The message indicated that the young girl in the legend, the ghost story, was hidden behind that wall but they knew that this had not been the case when the wall was opened the year before, unless the girl was hidden inside the chest. He was still none the wiser as to the reason why his grandmother had decided to convey the message in the first place and what she possibly could have had to gain from it.

“You’re shaking, what’s the matter?” Laura whispered, looking worried.

“No, nothing.” Erik took a deep breath. “It’s just that my grandmother’s note is so perplexing and it’s strange to think that she’s now dead,” he said briefly. He had no intention to explain it all to her.

“I’m sorry. Let’s go and try to find Emma and Paul.” Erik was grateful that Laura had not pushed him on the meaning of what his grandmother had written. It was all too strange.

Two women, now both dead were talking to him from beyond the grave. First Anna’s last words to him in Thailand and now his grandmother’s message. Erik felt a chill.

▪ ▪ ▪

Paul looked at her with peculiar avid eyes. The sun was still shining through the material of the large white tent where they sat, surrounded by busy archaeologists, students and other members of the excavation team. An oversized photograph of the Cuneiform tablet they had been asked to look at was placed on the table in front of them. Next to Emma was her own well used notebook. After several hours of staring at the tablet, she saw the lines carefully inscribed on its surface had suddenly started to dance around, coming alive and at the same time losing their meaning. The tablet was in exceptionally poor condition and the task of translating it had been much more cumbersome than they had imagined. It had taken them many hours to work out only a fraction of the text, so long that certain members of the team had decided to attempt to help them. This had annoyed Paul so much that he had left the tent temporarily, threatening not to continue unless his colleague asked that they were left alone. All in all, it had been a dismal day. The only statement of interest, at least judging from Paul’s reaction, had been the mention of Gades, the ancient Phoenician city in Southern Spain, today’s Cadiz. At this, Paul had started to act strangely, completely at odds with his earlier outburst, appearing to struggle not to smile, without explaining his sudden surge in happiness. This strange mood swing soon passed as they resumed their work. Emma was left in the dark about any potential discovery and felt that yet another day had been wasted over a useless ancient text of little interest. She was tired and as the straight Cuneiform lines started to wiggle she suggested they call it a day. Paul reluctantly agreed, looking less than pleased but gave her another look which to her surprise appeared full of suppressed feelings of tenderness.

“I hate to leave things unfinished. Would you mind if I continued alone?” Paul asked. Emma could not believe him. How dedicated could one person get?

“Sure, I’ll try to find Erik and Laura. But what about going back to Beirut? The last bus is in less than an hour, remember?”

He didn’t respond, already with his finger on the text. She left without saying goodbye. She had to admit that Paul had been acting strangely these last couple of days… or had he? She thought back on the boat ride. They had spent many hours alone in the outdoor cockpit, mainly discussing things like suffixes, prefixes, cases, grammatical structure and ideograms. They enjoyed each other’s company and the time had flown despite the cold, noise and wind when the yacht skipped over the water. She found him irresistible. Perhaps he had seen the yearning in her eyes. They were on open sea when he suddenly grabbed her jacket and pulled her towards him, just like he had done in Sweden. She found herself once again making out with her professor. She had wanted it for some time. But just like last time he stopped fairly quickly.

“I’m sorry, Emma. This could never be. You and me…” he said, still with his hands on her shoulders. To her he sounded like a broken record.

“Why?” she begged to know. “We could make it work”.

“No, it would ruin us both. Dating a student is simply not ethical and I wouldn’t like to do anything which could make anyone doubt your brilliance. You have a gift, Emma. A gift with languages. That’s more important than you and me.”

That had been it but she was determined not to give up on him. At least he was a gentleman. A selfish gentleman with poor navigation skills, lousy communication abilities and a bad temper.

▪ ▪ ▪

Erik and Laura had spent most of the day sightseeing, which turned out to be an exhausting thing to do. Erik’s tiredness was increased by the excitement of finding his grandmother’s notes and he struggled to keep his eyes open. He was happy to see Emma walking alone towards them near the Crusader Castle. He was even more pleased when she told them about her day. Not because he wanted her to have a bad day but because of the way she had described Paul’s obsessive behaviour. Erik’s mood improved even further when Laura had announced that she wanted to go shopping in the harbour area, leaving Erik and Emma alone; both too exhausted to join her. They were sitting on an uncomfortable stone bench which may or may not have been of ancient origin. To Erik its rough surface was as close to heaven as he could possibly get, with Emma next to him, suddenly leaning her head on his arm.