“You really know how to tempt a person.”
“I admit that sometimes it’s useful. But I hope you don’t see me as a manipulator. Iago and I were already thinking of carrying out that project when the MAC has nothing more to give us. What I’m saying is that we’ll do it anyway, with you or without you, and—forgive my frankness—you’d be a valuable asset. I’m offering you a dignified exit so you could continue with the family when the MAC is done. I have no doubt your career as an archaeologist would be brilliant without us. No one has ever doubted that, believe me.”
“But you’re proposing something that’s virtually illegal. That afterwards we hang on to the pieces . . .”
“Only our pieces, the ones that once belonged to us,” he stressed. “Someday we may be able to legalize things by coming out of the closet, with our real age calculated on the basis of our DNA, and a law created that would allow us to recover what is ours, if we can prove it, and whatever we find of ours in the future. That’s my aspiration, though I doubt we’ll achieve it in this century, maybe not even in this millennium. The indigenous populations across the globe are fighting to have the remains of their ancestors removed from museums and returned to their lands, but you know the outcome. There’s no guarantee that we won’t be treated in the same way, never mind the unhealthy curiosity that would be focused on us from governments and other organizations. We’d become guinea pigs, believe me. So don’t give me any lectures about good citizenship. We’re on the margins of the law, because the law won’t protect us.”
He handed me some flint spearpoints and continued. “Ever since I saw that you were becoming involved with my son, I stopped asking you to arrange memoranda of understanding with other institutions for us. I didn’t want to do anything that would be detrimental to you and, anticipating that the two of you would end up together, I enabled both of you to focus on the Interpretive Center. Iago didn’t put pressure on you over it right from the start, either, which was the reason I realized, long before he did, how much in love he was.”
Well, well.
“Are you forging pieces from the museums with which you are collaborating?” I asked, my face pale. It couldn’t be true. Now that I was aware of it, that made me an accomplice to crimes in umpteen countries.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to exchange our forgeries for originals. That’s why we’re avoiding collaborations for now with major institutions like the British Museum and the Hermitage. They always verify their pieces, and we can’t afford a scandal. The plan is to make the swaps with those museums at the end of our time here, just before we disappear.”
Perfect! Good-bye career. Good-bye archaeology.
Don’t get nervous, Dana, it’s just a bad joke. Your boss is pulling your leg. He’ll burst out laughing next and pat you on the shoulder, and you’ll force him to invite you to some squid pinchos as compensation for the hard time he’s given you.
But no, Héctor was deadly serious about what he was saying, and I knew it.
“And how do you go about forging the ancient pieces? It’s not so easy.”
“The remaining members of TAF take charge. It’s the flip side of the deal to do with the research into the longevo gene. Nagorno is the artist, the expert in art history, not because he’s ever attended a university, but because he’s actively lived that history. Lyra is in charge of the alchemy.”
“The alchemy,” I repeated.
“The materials. Creating synthetic combinations that simulate the enamel on a dental piece, for example, or the alloy of gold and silver used by the Greek colonies that bordered the Dead Sea in the seventh century BC. She was always good in a forge. She creates the raw material; Nagorno molds it and converts it into a perfect copy, a work of art. Then it comes back to Lyra to be aged. You ought to know that she’s as good at her official job at the MAC in the Restoration Lab, restoring a piece to good condition, as she is with the opposite process—giving a piece the patina of age.
“And speaking of Nagorno, I owe you an apology,” he added, after he’d sat down on one of the unopened boxes.
“He’s the one who owes it, not you.”
“Nevertheless, I feel responsible to an extent for what has happened,” he insisted, picking up a replica of the baton of authority from Monte Castillo with the deer on it and swapping it from one hand to the other in a mechanical movement.
“Well, I don’t see how, Héctor. He may be your son, but he’s an adult. I don’t understand why you assume responsibility for his actions.”
“Not for his actions, but definitely for insisting on keeping this family together, when it never really has been. Urko remains by my side out of loyalty, and because we’ve been together for so long that there’s a camaraderie between us that goes beyond the one that exists between father and son under normal circumstances. I doubt any two humans have lived together for as long as we have, unless there are other longevo families somewhere out there, something I haven’t been able to discover to date. But it’s true that since Nagorno was born, Iago’s life has at times been hell, thanks to his brother, and he’s always put up with it because of me. Lyra, as you know, is so keen to lose sight of us that she barely considers us family. I’m trying to keep united something that never was a family, and I think that too many people whom I value are paying the price for my effort, you among them.”
Deep down, even the oldest man in the world refuses to learn from his mistakes, I thought. I didn’t want to waste this opportunity, however.
“What happened in Scythia, Héctor? What happened between Iago and his brother?”
“How much do you know?”
“Iago told me that they made you slaves, and that you made Nagorno’s mother pregnant. Beyond that he only gives me vague answers. You know how he is: if he doesn’t want to talk about something, there’s no way of dragging it out of him.”
“Then let me tell you about Nagorno’s early years, and the torment we had to go through until we could escape and save our lives.”
I sat down and switched off my cell phone. For once I did not want Iago to come through the door to the Prehistory Hall with his six-foot-two frame and his worries. Because it was as obvious as the imminent rain that Iago would again be the bearer of bad news.
58
ADRIANA
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
I don’t think Iago ever understood the love that linked me to Olbia for almost twenty years. She certainly reduced us to the position of slaves, and it was the first time we lost our liberty that way, but we were men accustomed to poverty, and I knew that we’d survive. In ancient times slavery was one of the destinies you might experience in your lifetime, and we ourselves had owned slaves on more than one occasion. The unequal relationship that Olbia and I had during the day turned into passion and pleasant conversation at night. I fell in love with her curiosity for the world, her sense of responsibility toward her people, a strength in which I never saw any crack. On the other hand, Iago, or Jason as he was then, never stopped making suicidal plans for our escape, despite the fact that I used to dissuade him from doing so. You see, I kept hoping that Olbia’s character would soften with the years, and we would become freedmen. But I was mistaken; that never happened.
“Nagorno’s birth twelve lunar months after he was conceived made the situation between me and Jason worse. Olbia insisted on having a son to continue Kelermes’s legacy, should he not return, but all her people were aware of her secret: that Nagorno was my son. Nagorno was tormented from a very early age. The adult Scythians despised him because they deemed him a dishonor, and the children of his age quickly learned to pick on him.
“There is something you ought to know about Nagorno that I’ve never encountered in any other human being: his powers of resistance. My son endured beatings that would have killed a well-trained warrior, but he always recovered, and he didn’t even ask for Jason’s cures.
On the other hand, Olbia pretended not to be aware whenever they were torturing her son, in accordance with a twisted logic whereby she believed that it would make him stronger. You have to understand that at that stage even we didn’t know if we were immortal or merely longevos. We simply knew that we didn’t grow old and we hadn’t died, so when we saw Nagorno’s wounds healing time and again, I assumed he was one of us, and I felt an obligation not to abandon Scythia without him, although considerable time would have to pass before he was prepared to accept his true nature and that we two slaves were his family. The return of Kelermes when Nagorno was almost twenty years old shattered everyone’s plans.”
“Kelermes returned?” I said, surprised. “Iago never told me that.”
“Yes,” he affirmed gravely, “Kelermes returned. A messenger preceded him by a few days. He asked for Olbia and announced the definitive victory of the Scythians over the Massagetae. After so many years, and having left no northern tribe alive, they considered their campaign over. Some of the men on the march had assumed ownership of the lands and settled there. Others, including Kelermes, were returning to collect their families to take them to the newly conquered territory toward the west of the river Tyras—known today as the Dnieper. When Nagorno found out, he assumed the organization of the welcoming banquet. He ordered the sacrifice of dozens of horses and supervised all the details to ensure they were worthy of Kelermes’s fame. By that stage Nagorno had already become a young man feared by everyone. He was the most refined of the Scythians, but he accompanied his mother on all incursions into the territory of enemy tribes and was also renowned for his astuteness and ruthlessness. I think he did it to please his mother. Olbia, for her part, refused to see me on the nights prior to her husband’s return. We were all nervous and expectant as we awaited the leader.
“The day finally arrived. Kelermes made his appearance mounted on a horse with a dark mane, which contrasted with the white skin of the scalps hanging from its saddle. From where I was standing, in the background, next to Jason and the rest of the slaves, I could see a man who was already approaching old age but striving hard to conceal that fact. He wore a helmet with layers of animal hooves such as I’d never seen before, which gave him an imposing appearance. His eyes were ringed with black paint, which darkened his bad-tempered gaze and made it even more disagreeable.
“Nagorno walked up to the chieftain a few paces in front of his mother, holding in his hands a braided belt adorned with deer plaques sewn onto the leather. It was a work of art he himself had engraved at the cost of hours of sleep over the past few nights. He bowed and was about to speak when Kelermes interrupted him. ‘Out of my way, boy! I want my wife to receive me.’ ‘And she will receive you in the manner you deserve. We have sacrificed the best animals, and you will enjoy a feast such as has never been seen before. But first you should know that I am your son, and I have spent my whole life preparing myself to be worthy of you.’ ‘My son, you say?’ he interrupted again with a laugh. He rode up to Olbia and shouted at her, ‘Who is this little bastard, wife? And why does he say he’s my son? Speak!’ ‘It’s the truth. I became pregnant before you left. Even I didn’t know that I was pregnant by you until it became obvious.’
“Kelermes dismounted and before any of us realized what he was doing, he grabbed Olbia by the throat with one hand. Nagorno tried to intervene but several of Kelermes’s personal guards restrained him and put a dagger to his throat. ‘Liar! All my life I’ve taken any woman who crossed my path, whether she was willing or not, and I’ve never sired a single child. And now you’re trying to make me believe that creature is mine?’ He turned toward the rest of the tribe, who were watching the scene with their heads lowered in order to avoid having to confront Kelermes’s fury. ‘We’ll ensure that the sacrifice of those animals isn’t wasted.’
“He approached Nagorno, who was still being held by six of the warriors. He looked him up and down for the first time. ‘Tomorrow we’ll celebrate your funeral, little bastard,’ and with that, he encircled Nagorno’s throat with his two hands and, venting all his anger on the young man, strangled him.
“Nagorno’s lifeless body fell to the ground. I tried to run toward him to help him, but Jason held on to my arm with force and then covertly slid in front of me. ‘If you move, he’ll kill us all,’ he whispered. ‘Let the slaves begin to construct a kurgan right now. Eighty feet in size will be sufficient. Olbia, let’s go inside your tent, and no one is to disturb us.’
“They picked up my son’s body and took it away. They forced us with their whips to begin piling up soil and turf. That night, exhausted, Jason finally convinced me to attempt an escape. I agreed; there was no longer any reason to stay there. Olbia wouldn’t risk asking for me again, now that Kelermes had returned. And apart from that we suspected that all the slaves and the Scythians who had stayed behind in the camp and were old enough to breed were going to be sacrificed once we’d finished Nagorno’s burial mound.
“Jason, for his part, had a brilliant plan. I imagine he’d spent the past twenty years working out the details. We shared our intentions with Ponticus, a slave who’d befriended us since the day we’d arrived.”
“Iago told me about him,” I said, my mouth dry.
“Ponticus was already old by then, and he knew his body wouldn’t withstand a flight across the steppes, but he was as conscious as we were that he’d be sacrificed the next day, so he volunteered to flee to the south, the opposite direction to us, to throw the Scythians off the scent and delay them. We all knew he’d end up with several arrows in his back, but he preferred that death to being strangled along with the others.
“The next day they awoke us at dawn to continue digging. As we were walking past Olbia’s tent, Kelermes came out carrying his wife’s broken body. He left the corpse on the ground and said nothing more than ‘Olbia died during the night. Bury her next to her bastard.’
“Jason saved me from falling flat on my face, because my legs went wobbly and I lost touch with the world around me. I obeyed his instructions. When we reached the mound, they’d already deposited Nagorno’s body in one of the side chambers. Kurgans are constructed with successive alternating piles of earth and inverted layers of turf placed over one or more chambers that house the dead, the sacrificed horses, and servants closest to the dead person. Nobody had suspected that the central chamber had been built for Olbia. Ponticus helped us to climb in between two layers of turf and made sure that the packed earth pressing down on our bodies wouldn’t crush us with its weight. Each of us had a hollow reed, with one end of it stuck out of the mound, to allow us to breathe.
“We counted on the fact that with all the celebrations, nobody would miss us until the next day, by which time we’d be beyond the reach of their horses. And then something happened: from where I was lying, near Nagorno’s chamber, I heard breathing. It wasn’t Jason, who was in the section closest to the exterior of the kurgan, so I removed the earth with my hands until I reached the tiny chamber that was Nagorno’s grave. I felt his body, and it wasn’t deathly cold, and I confirmed that his heart was beating. I tried to get him to speak, but given the state he was in, he couldn’t. So I dragged myself back to where Jason could hear me. ‘Son, he’s alive! Nagorno is alive!’ ‘He can’t be. We saw him die,’ he whispered in reply. ‘That proves he’s one of us. We have to take him away from here.’ ‘No, Father, don’t ask that of me. I can’t accept him into the family.’ ‘You have to. Time will smooth over your differences,’ I insisted. ‘You have no idea what you’re asking me, Father. Leave him. If he survives, he’ll get out of his own accord. But don’t bring him with us. I don’t want him beside me.’
“By then I already knew my son well. I knew from the tone of his voice that I wouldn’t be able to persuade him. ‘Then I will stay behind, too. You escape by yourself tonight,’ I said. For a good while the only sound was silence. Then Jason said good-bye. ‘All right, Father. I’m going without you. M
ay you have a long life. If we meet again, let it be on our mountain, on a solstice eve.’
“I remained in the chamber with Nagorno, warming his body with my own and trying to rouse him, because I knew I was incapable of dragging the weight of his inert body. Hours later Jason returned without saying a word and helped me to get Nagorno out and escape.
“Sometimes, when he talks about the hardest night of his life, I think he’s speaking of that night when he retraced his path in the middle of the steppes to come back for me and help me remove Nagorno from his tomb. Even so, Jason came prepared. We kept Nagorno unconscious for several days by making him inhale the smoke of poppy seeds—these days you call it opium—until we were out of danger and far enough away that we didn’t have to fear the Scythians were following us. Then, when he woke up and we told him who and what we really were, we had to keep him tied up for months. When we traveled to the north toward what is now called Siberia, on horseback by then, we put him to sleep with opium. When we were camped, far from any human presence, we had to be on the alert, because right from the start Nagorno refused to consider himself the son and brother of slaves. It was a long time before we stopped being afraid he’d try to kill us, and I think Iago still doesn’t trust him fully.
“And that’s all I can tell you that’s relevant,” Héctor said with a deep sigh. “As you can see, not enough time has passed yet to allow the three of us to get over that stage. I still yearn every night for my conversations with Olbia, Iago still hasn’t forgiven his brother because his mother made us slaves, and Jairo continues to consider himself a misunderstood bastard. That’s why he rejects before he’s rejected and attacks before he’s attacked. He had to live through difficult times, when no one was at his side. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to trust anyone except his own offspring, assuming that he manages to have some.”