The Lost Ark (2 page)

“Why are you still in this godforsaken place, Sam?” she asks.

“Because I don’t want to leave you, Liz. Don’t you see? I can’t leave you. You are buried all alone up on that damn mountain, and I’m the only one who knows where you are buried, and I visit you as often as I can.”

“It’s been three years, Sam. You can leave me now. It’s okay.
I’m
okay. I’ve moved on. You should, too.”

“But you’re still here,” I say, speaking into the glass at the figure standing on the dark street below. Her pants flutter in the wind, and her raven-colored hair lifts and falls. I could see her eyes sparkling with tears even from here. “I can see you, and you’re still here.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

And then my heart breaks all over again, because now I can distinctly see
through
her. Now amorphous, she shimmers like a ghost.

“Please,” I say, real desperation in my voice. I press my face hard against the glass, fingernails clawing. “Please don’t go. You’ve only just returned. You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved, the only girl who’s ever loved me. I can’t live alone, not anymore.”

“Go home, Sam. It’s time for you to go home.”

“I love you,” I say.

“I know you do,” she says.

And then she disappears, and the wind and rain blows across the now empty street, and I hang my head...and this is the position I find myself in when I awaken in the morning: sitting next to the window, face pressed against the glass, dried tears in the corners of my eyes....

Chapter Two

Dogubayazit, Turkey

Present Day

Faye Roberts was sitting across from me on a rare blustery day here in Eastern Turkey, telling me that she’d heard I was the best guide in Dogubayazit.

I tried to look humble.

We were sitting in my upstairs office with the rain beating down on the big window behind my desk. In the bar below, rock music thumped up through the floorboards. American rock music. None of that Turkish folk crap. Mostly, I was doing my best to forget the heartbreaking dreams of the night before, but failing miserably. I was also wondering if it was a coincidence that an American girl had miraculously appeared in my bar, seeking my help.

I didn’t know, but the word
spooky
, came to mind.

I tried to focus on the girl in front of me. Faye Roberts could not have looked more out of place. In the bar below was a room full of desert nomads and shepherds, drinking fine Turkish beer and wine, smelling of goats and dirt and sweat, and here in my office was this woman who was, well, all woman. And an American woman at that.

“And you say you traveled alone?” I asked again, incredulous.

“You sound incredulous.”

“Which is why I asked incredulously.”

“Do you always make jokes?” she asked.

“Do you always travel unescorted through potentially volatile Middle Eastern countries?”

“I didn’t realize Turkey was volatile.”

“Which is why I said potentially.”

Faye Roberts was a confident woman. Perhaps too confident. She seemed smart and didn’t have a problem letting you know it. Perhaps that’s how she had survived this far alone, at the far end of a place called nothing. There she sat in a fold-out chair opposite me, looking me square in the eye, daring me to challenge her. She was wearing a USC sweatshirt and blue jeans, both presently stained with beer. Her right hand was bandaged with a strip of semi-clean cloth (it was all we had lying around the bar). Her attire screamed American. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail that looked painful, and her opaline green eyes were big and round. She wore little make-up.

“Camilla Constantine suggested that I see you,” she said.

Camilla Constantine owned the hotel next to my bar. She was Dogubayazit’s wealthiest resident and biggest drunk—and I should know.

“Apparently, Camilla suggested you see me just in time,” I said.

Faye Roberts glanced down at her bandaged hand. “You think he will be okay?”

“The
yuruk
? Oh, sure. He’ll be back to his goats in no time.”

She nodded, clearly relieved.

“How can I help you, Miss Roberts?”

“Please call me Faye.”

“Sure,” I said. “How can I help you, Miss Faye.”

She wasn’t amused. She paused and seemed uncertain how to begin. She tapped her finger on her slender thigh. Her nails were short and unpainted. She sucked in some air and finally said, “I need to get to Mount Ararat.”

I sat back. Behind me the rain
pinged
against the glass. Cool air escaped through the shoddy cocking around the window. Laughter suddenly erupted from the bar below. Somewhere nearby a goat bleated. I hated goats.

“Did Camilla mention that the mountain is closed to all visitors?”

“Yes, but I’m willing to pay triple your asking price, including a bonus if we find what I’m looking for.”

“I assume you’re talking about Noah’s Ark,” I said.

She shook her head emphatically. “No, Mr. Ward. A month ago my father set out to climb Mount Ararat and he’s never returned.” She leveled her stare at me. “And I want you to help me find him.”

I removed a crumpled packet of cigarettes from my flannel shirt, opened the lid and glanced inside. There were three cigarettes left, and one of them was broken. I put an unbroken one in my mouth, and held the box out to Faye Roberts. She leaned forward and looked inside.

“Do you always offer your clients broken cigarettes?” she asked.

I pulled the last good cigarette out, which had been hiding behind the broken one.

“Not this one,” I said. “And you’re not my client.”

I kept holding the cigarette and she kept looking at it, with the look of a hungry bear eyeing something warm and meaty.

“So, do you want it or not?”

She shook her head after a moment of indecision, eyes lingering on the cigarette.

“I’d better not. I’ve been clean for two months.”

I shrugged and lit a match and touched a yellow flame to the tip of the cigarette.

“I quit fourteen years ago. Luckily, I have a very loose definition of
quit
.” I exhaled a steady stream of blue-gray smoke. “So, who’s your father?”

She was watching me exhale with obvious interest, green eyes round and envious. “Professor Caesar Roberts.”

I knew the name. “Biblical archaeologist from California Christian College. Noted author, and ark researcher. Somewhere in my apartment I have one of his books.”

“The one and only,” she said, face reddening suddenly. “Don’t tell me you actually read that dreadful thing.”

I grinned. “Your father’s book was quite informative, although I found it a bit too presumptuous. After all, there is no actual proof that the ark exists, and to assume otherwise is just conjecture.”

Outside, rain slapped hard against the window. Music pulsed from the jukebox in the bar. I put my feet up on the desk. “What do you know of your father’s disappearance?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. A month ago, his research team returned home without him, after their climbing permits had been revoked by the Turkish Department of Interior. Intent on climbing the mountain anyway, my father and one of his graduate students stayed behind and sought the help of a local guide who illegally led them onto the mountain.”

I shook my head. “A month is a long time, Faye. A man gets lost on Ararat, he stays lost. Forever.”

“If your intent was to cheer me up, you have failed miserably, Mr. Ward.”

Her long fingers drummed on the wooden armrest. I could smell her perfume, or at least I thought it was her perfume. It could have been any number of lotions or fragrances that women use to perfume their bodies with. Anyway, it smelled like grapefruit, and I liked it. Through her slightly open mouth, I could see the neat skyline of her tiny bottom teeth. Her tongue slashed back and forth behind her teeth. She was breathing softly. Rain ticked against the window, as it had been all day. Good for the dry land, bad for business.

“You are asking me to break the law,” I said shortly.

“I’m asking you to help find my father. If not you, then someone else.”

I stood and moved over to the window, my back to Faye. Rainwater slid down the pane, obscuring my reflection into a sort of live-action Dali painting. I knew there were many guides in Dogubayazit. Many good guides, but also many bad guides.

“Why was your father so eager to climb the mountain?” I asked.

“He...he has a map,” she said. I could hear the blush in her voice.

“A map? Everyone has a map.” I shook my head. “Local shepherds will gladly sell maps to unsuspecting ark researchers. Of course these maps are worthless, and usually lead you in circles.”

“Apparently not this one. My father drew it himself, based on his research, if that’s what you want to call it.” Her mouth twisted in distaste.

In the street below, muddy water, intestinal brown, flowed along broken gutters and over-flowed broken sidewalks. I sighed and rubbed my jaw. I knew I should turn her away and save myself a lot of trouble. Instead, I found myself saying: “I’ll make some inquiries, but I can make no promises.”

She stood quickly, chair scraping. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. When can I expect to hear from you again?”

“At dinner tonight, say eight p.m.”

“Where?”

“I’ll come get you.”

I walked her to the door and watched her descend the wooden stairs and go through the quiet barroom below. Most of the male heads turned and watched her leave. I didn’t blame them.

Chapter Three

I sat at my desk for another twenty minutes, thinking about the sudden appearance of this feisty American, realizing that she was the first unaccompanied American woman I had seen in three years.

Basically, the first
single
American woman in three years.

I lit a cigarette and thought some more of her and then I thought of Liz and felt guilty, realizing for the first time in a long time that someone had, miraculously, pushed my brooding thoughts of my killed fiancé from my mind for longer than an hour.

With this realization in mind, I stepped out of my bar and into the rain. I turned my collar up and walked north down a tourist street called
Mersin
. Dogubayazit was a town that existed on the tourist dollar, or in this case, the Turkish
Lira
. With Mount Ararat just a short drive away, Noah’s Ark themes were predominant. A shopper could choose from Noah’s Ark creamers to ark windchimes and bathrobes. I liked the Noah’s Ark water fountain. Cute.

I stopped in front of the Hotel
Kiraz
, a brooding, massive eight-story fortress comprised of gray bricks and gray paint. It lacked only a moat and a fair maiden.

I went through the double glass doors into a short entrance hall lined with hanging ferns and multi-colored Persian mohair rugs. I crossed the empty reception room and entered the adjoining restaurant. The restaurant was dark and moody. A fire crackled to my right in a huge stone hearth. The up-turned lights mounted on the walls cast their glow only a few feet, seemingly creating more shadow than light. The bartender was eating a sandwich and reading a newspaper spread out before him.

His name was Crisnik. I think. I could never get it straight. Turkish names are hell on American tongues. He was a weightlifter and liked to show it, rolling up his sleeves to show-off his knotted muscles. He looked up at me and shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth.

“Did your mother teach you to eat like that?” I asked in Turkish.

“Don’t have a mother. You know that,” said Crisnik.

“That’s right, because you grew up on the streets,” I said, reciting Crisnik’s life history in a nutshell, “and stole a car before you were nine, and stuck a knife in a guy you caught cheating with your lady. I almost forgot. I mean, I hadn’t heard the stabbing story in, what, two weeks? Tell it to me again.”

He poured a draft beer and placed it before me.

“Fuck you,” he said in English.

Then he moved over to the kitchen slide and called out my usual order and then went back to reading the paper. He ignored me.

I drank the bitter Turkish beer. The room was empty, mostly. A handful of hotel guests drank and ate and spoke quietly in the back. They looked European. They could have been speaking any number of Germanic languages.

Crisnik turned the page, flattened out the paper.

“Takes you a long time,” I said, “to look at the pictures.”

Crisnik didn’t bother to look up. “I’d better go check on your food,” he said. “Because when you’re eating, you keep quiet.”

He moved off down the bar. Like magic, a hot plate of food appeared in the slide. He scooped it up and set it before me. “Should keep you quiet for a while,” he said.

The dish was called
lahmacun pide
. It was a sort of pizza, with ground meat and tomatoes and onions. I ate the first slice and washed it down with the rest of my beer. And as Crisnik poured me another draft, I asked him, “A month ago two Americans were here, one older, one younger.”

“You’re suppose to be eating, not talking.”

“I’m a maverick.”

“You’re also talking with your mouth full.”

“A maverick with bad habits.”

Crisnik shook his head. A waitress came by with a drink order. She smiled at me. I swallowed, smiled back. She had big round eyes and rounded everything else. She ordered two whiskeys and sodas. A moment later, Crisnik set two whiskeys and sodas on her tray. She sauntered off, dark pants tight over her posterior.

“Healthy kid,” I said, watching her.

Crisnik nodded. “Uh huh.”

“So, do you remember the Americans?”

“What makes you think they stayed here?”

“Best hotel in town.”

“What about Camilla’s place?” he asked.

“That’s good too, but I happen to know they didn’t stay there.”

He was quiet, his tan face calm and smooth. He wore his hair long, sometimes in a ponytail, but it wasn’t in a ponytail today. Probably because he was tired of me making fun of his ponytail. “Tall kid, if I recall,” he said. “But the old man was something else. Frizzy hair and a frizzy beard. He talked fast, even for an American.”