Exodus (16 page)
After a moment, she saw him wave triumphantly from the ticket booth, his baksheesh accepted as an early morning bonus. Together they walked into the Siq, a narrow gorge in the red sandstone that led to the city carved out of rock. The sky was cobalt blue over their heads between the walls that stretched high towards the heavens, the colors muted this early in the day and the air cooler in the sheltered gorge. The cry of desert birds echoed off the walls, the only sound apart from their footsteps. It was an eerie place to be with no people, as if the ghosts of the Nabateans still remained, their souls trapped by the constant reanimation of the place, sucking the energy from tourists who tramped the beaten paths.
Petra was a fortress city, defended by its location deep in the rock canyons and watered by a perennial stream. In the fourth century AD, an earthquake had brought destruction, and under the Romans, the city went into decline. Later, the ruins had been ransacked and Morgan felt a sense of hubris here, the pride and arrogance of kings who thought their age would last forever, just before the gods brought them low. This lesson was repeated in every empire, with great men believing that the sun would never set on their power, only to find the inevitable end just around the corner. Morgan was grateful for Khal’s silent introspection, and they were comfortable as they walked in the silence, both thinking their own thoughts.
They rounded a corner in the Siq and there it was, Al-Khazneh, the Treasury. With a massive facade carved into the rock face, the classical temple was actually the tomb of a Nabatean King.
“A rose-red city half as old as time,” Morgan whispered as she looked towards the ruins.
“Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone.” Khal responded.
Morgan turned to find his eyes on her as he spoke the poetry of John William Burgon, a paean to the city. Khal was full of surprises, she thought, and the tension between them was taut, stretching for a long moment. Khal broke it by pulling off his backpack.
“Coffee?” he asked, producing a flask.
Morgan grinned. “You’re a saint. Where did you get this?”
“I bought it from the car hire guy. He totally ripped me off but I thought it would be worth it, and I have pita and labneh.”
Morgan’s stomach rumbled on cue. She loved the soft cheese, and being looked after in this way was something new. Feeding someone was an important sign of hospitality, necessary for guests in the Middle East. Khal was a true son of these parts, but she had become more English now, forgetting the ways of her homeland.
A finger of sunlight lit a patch of red earth in the middle of the open ground in front of the Treasury, so they sat and Khal filled the thermos cup with steaming black coffee. He passed it to Morgan and she took a sip to test the temperature before taking a deep draught of the hot black liquid.
“Just how I like it,” Morgan said. She knew she was a caffeine addict, but it was pretty much her only vice and everybody needed something to indulge in, she thought. She gave the cup to Khal and he refilled it before taking a sip.
“We could just stay here,” he said. “It’s like nothing exists but this place, this moment.”
Morgan sighed.
“Yes, but as soon as the tourists arrive, the peace will be shattered and the clock will still be ticking towards the President’s arrival in Jerusalem.” She smiled at him. “But we can at least enjoy our coffee break.”
Morgan looked up at the rocks around her. Staircases were cut into the sheer face, many leading nowhere, as if the stonecutters had been aiming for the gods and fallen to their deaths before they could finish their journey.
“Did you know that Petra has links to the Exodus story?” Khal offered another cup of coffee with his knowledge. Morgan accepted both. “This is Wadi Musa, and according to Arab tradition, Moses struck his staff here and water sprang from the earth for the Israelites to drink. Moses’ brother Aaron is buried near here on the mountain named for him.”
Morgan crumbled some of the red earth between her fingers.
“That’s why I love this part of the world,” she said. “Every rock has a history, every town a story that goes back millennia. Sometimes the veil of time is torn back and you can see what the past was like, but then the modern world intrudes and the illusion is shattered. Israel has such an intensity of both, moments of glory and then times where you lament that it was ever born, for troubles lie so deep in the country.”
Khal looked at her and Morgan felt he could read her soul.
“You love it though, your Israel,” he said. “I can see that. No matter how hard you try to escape it.”
Morgan sighed. “It’s not the country of my birth, but I feel it in my blood. Just being here in this landscape reminds me of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, the cliffs of Masada. It’s like coming home, yet I’m torn now, between my new life and my old.”
Khal nodded with understanding.
“That feeling will never leave you. I know it well for I am sometimes in love with my country and its great history, then frustrated at the craziness of what it has become. Our national identity is schizophrenic, the tombs of the pharaohs versus the Arab Spring and nascent Islamic fundamentalists. This is a time of great change, Morgan, but we can’t deny our love for the countries that call us.”
Khal reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“My father loved it here,” Morgan said. “He used to take me for walks in the hills of Galilee and tell me stories of the digs there. He never treated me like a child, more as an equal, so he didn’t spare the gory details. I remember once at Tell Megiddo, the biblical Armageddon, he told me of the 26 layers of ruins that lay beneath us. Each version of the city was razed to the ground, and all the slaughtered citizens lay under our feet, the bones of generations. I had nightmares for weeks.”
“It sounds like a fascinating childhood,” Khal said, “I’m jealous, for my youth was not so idyllic.”
Morgan turned to him, “Really?”
“I was born in Ezbet El Nakhi, the slum of Cairo,” Khal said, “and by aged five I was sorting rubbish from the tips. I should have died there but somehow a Christian mission found me and began my education. My mother was too pleased to protest that her Muslim son was going to a Christian school, especially as she barely found enough food for the other children. She died when I was seven and I moved into a mission school. They fed my love of ancient Egypt and my desire to help reconcile the faiths in my country, and they supported me in my studies.”
Morgan touched Khal’s arm, seeing the pain in his eyes. “So why the regrets?”
“Although I gained a new family and a new life, I lost touch with my brothers and sister, who were swallowed up by the rubbish tips of Ezbet. They could be anywhere now, perhaps even martyrs for the fundamentalist cause, since they recruit from the ranks of the hopeless. I looked for them, and sometimes I still think I see one of them in the street …” Khal paused and held up his coffee cup. “But enough of my melancholy. Here’s to the success of opposites, the triumph of archaeology over politics.”
Morgan laughed. “Cheers.”
Khal took a long swig and then passed it back to Morgan. Finishing the cup, she stood, brushing the red dust from where it clung to her slender form.
“I will not have my city torn apart, Khal. Two of the most glorious landmarks blown apart by extremists? Not on my watch. Let’s find us an Ark.”
Mount Nebo, Jordan, 12.38pm
The Jordanian landscape was hypnotic in its repetition but the hours passed steadily as Morgan and Khal drove north. The blue of the sky blended with earth the color of ground bones and dark green scrub trees dotted the landscape. Birds of prey hovered in the heat waves above them, keen eyes searching for rodents that scurried between holes and lizards that darted under rocks.
Finally, Morgan pulled into the car park at Mount Nebo. Groves of cedar and pine broke up the monotony of the rocky ground here, as the mountain stepped down towards the plateau. The summit was busy with coaches, and groups of tourists in matching baseball caps stood surveying the landscape under a burning sun. They looked out at a wide expanse, trying to catch a glimpse of the shores of the Dead Sea and the cities of Jericho and Jerusalem in the misty distance. The cities were sometimes visible on a clear day but today the haze shrouded them.
Morgan and Khal got out of the car and stretched. Morgan rolled her shoulders as she heard the nearest tour guide talking to a group of Christians.
“This is where God showed Moses the land of Canaan. You might call it ‘the Promised Land,’ but in Jordan, you can’t say that for political reasons, so we’ll just call it the land of Canaan.”
Morgan smiled. The knife edge of tourist dollars, religion and political correctness was always sharp here in the Middle East. Khal walked around the car to stand next to her.
“Please tell me we don’t have to listen to this stuff?” he whispered.
She smiled. “Are you sure? It might be fascinating.”
Khal raised an eyebrow. “You can give me the potted version.”
They grabbed their backpacks and Morgan led the way, down the road away from the summit towards the nearby foothills which had a view back to the famous Mount. Morgan pulled her smartphone from her pocket and opened the ARKANE GPS app.
“Martin Klein, the analyst at ARKANE, has sent me the location of a cave system on the east side of the mountain that we’re going to examine first,” she said. “It fits the description in II Maccabees. Apparently Jeremiah’s followers came to look for the Ark immediately after it had been hidden but they couldn’t find it. Jeremiah reprimanded them, saying that it would be hidden until God gathered his people at the end times, when the glory of the Lord would appear again.”
“But the Jeremiah tradition is little known,” Khal said, “at least amongst the conspiracy theorists who still think that the Ark is in Ethiopia, and the fundamental Christians who consider the Apocrypha to be heresy.”
His strides easily matched Morgan’s pace as they hurried down the mountain.
“Exactly,” Morgan replied. “There’s something else I’ve been thinking about as well. Do you know about the Copper Scroll?”
“One of the Dead Sea scrolls? The one with all the treasure?”
Morgan nodded.
“Exactly. The Copper Scroll was found near Qumran, pretty close to where we are. It lists 64 underground hiding places where treasure had been hidden. It’s considered to be a priestly document from Jerusalem, but the locations can’t be tied specifically to places as they are in a kind of code that, as yet, no one has cracked.”
“You think it refers to the Ark?” Khal asked.
“It talks about the tabernacle and golden fixtures hidden in an opening under the ascent, on a mountain facing eastwards, covered by forty placed boulders. Together with the verse from Maccabees, it may refer to the Ark. It’s worth a try anyway.” Morgan paused, looking at the app on her phone. “We need to head north here.”
She led Khal off the road and onto the dusty rock-strewn ground. The trees were thicker here so they had some shade, nevertheless, Morgan felt the sweat run down her back from the heat of the midday sun. Looking down at the smartphone, she followed the tiny arrow across the hillside. She tripped suddenly, stubbing her toe on a large rock. Khal reached out to steady her, his fingers strong on her arm.
“Careful now,” he said, his eyes showing concern. “I need you in one piece.”
His words echoed through Morgan’s brain as he looked away quickly, realizing he might have said too much. He walked on ahead of her and she watched him, acutely aware of the electricity in their touch. He turned back, his body tense.
“We’ve found the caves, but they’re down there.” Khal pointed over a sharp escarpment and Morgan looked over down to where he pointed.
“The contours of the mountain weren’t shown on the map,” she said, “so we’ll have to go around first and then down.”
They started to walk down the edge of the steep slope, chunks of rock skimming into the air as their boots trod deep into the dusty earth. Walking on this land reminded Morgan of her military service in Israel, tramping on patrol, the sound of helicopters overhead. She stopped and Khal halted, waiting for her as she realized that she wasn’t just daydreaming. The noise of helicopters was not in her memory. It was real.
“I hear them,” Khal said, cocking his head to one side. “Maybe two.”
“Not Israeli, not here,” Morgan said. “They must be Jordanian so maybe they’re not coming here.”
But she felt a prickle of fear and set off faster down the slope, almost jogging, as Khal strode by her side, both of them aware of how vulnerable they were on this open terrain. They needed cover quickly and the caves were their only option.