The Bible of Clay

  Shortly thereafter he settled himself in a comfortable room, which he had no intention of leaving until the next morning. It had been expensive, given his meager hinds, but he wanted to run no risks— especially the risk of getting lost in an unknown city. And it would do him good to rest—he had been in constant motion for days.

  He called his superior in Rome to tell him that he'd arrived and would be crossing the border into Iraq the next day.

  Then, lying in bed reading, he fell asleep. It was just before three when he woke with a start. In two hours Yves Picot and his team would be leaving. Gian Maria spent the remaining time in his room, debating whether to ask Picot if he knew Clara Tannenberg. They shared a profession, and he very well might, or might at least know where to find her. But Gian Maria decided against it. For the time being it was safer to continue to bear the burden of his silence.

  Yves Picot was in a bad mood. He'd gotten to bed late, his head hurt, and he was sleepy. The last thing he wanted to do was talk. When the young man from the airport turned up in the lobby, he was on the verge of telling him to find some other way to get to Baghdad, but again, the man's imploring demeanor persuaded him to act with a generosity he was far from feeling.

  "Get in that Land Rover and keep quiet," he snapped, and turned back to supervise the porter.

  Gian Maria wasted no time in clambering into the SUV Picot had pointed out. A minute later, three young women joined him inside. They couldn't have been over twenty-two or twenty-three.

  "You're the guy from the airport!" exclaimed a short, thin blonde with green eyes. "We saw you when we were waiting for our luggage— you kept staring at us."

  The other two laughed as Gian Maria blushed deep red.

  "I'mMagda," the green-eyed blonde said, "and those two troublemakers are Lola and Marisa."

  They threw him quick air-kisses and chattered away nonstop as the SUV and others in the caravan pulled out.

  "What is it you do?" Magda suddenly asked him as they drove along.

  "Me?" Gian Maria asked disconcertedly.

  "Yeah, you. We know what we do!"

  "You're archaeologists, right?" he asked shyly.

  "Not yet," answered Marisa, a gangly girl with dark-brown hair.

  "We're in our last year of studies," Lola clarified. "We'll be graduating this year. But we've come on this dig because it's a great chance to actually do some fieldwork, and they're giving us course credit too. And doing a dig under Yves Picot—plus with Fabian Tudela and Marta Gomez—is awesome."

  "You're Italian, right?" Lola asked.

  "Yes."

  "But you speak Spanish," she probed.

  "A little; not much," said Gian Maria uncomfortably.

  "So—what is it you do?" Magda pressed.

  "I got my degree in ancient Middle Eastern languages," he answered, praying they wouldn't go on with their interrogation.

  "Oh, my God—we called those 'the deadly dead languages'! You must be kidding! What on earth for? God, I hated those classes!" Magda exclaimed.

  "Like Hebrew, Aramaic . . . ?" Lola asked.

  "Yes, and Akkadian, Hittite . . . ," Gian Maria said.

  "But how old are you?"

  Marisa's question left him disconcerted again. "Thirty-five," he answered.

  "You're kidding! We thought you were our age!" Marisa whistled.

  "Twenty-five, tops," Lola explained.

  "And you don't, like, need to work?" Magda asked.

  "Me?"

  "Yes, you." Magda's patience was wearing a little thin. "If you need a job, I could tell Yves; we're shorthanded." "What could I do with you?"

  "We're going to Safran to excavate; that's near Tell Muqayyar, ancient Ur," Magda explained. "And given the situation, there haven't been a lot of people interested in coming."

  "It's a very controversial mission," Lola said. "Most people we know see it as a wild-goose chase, and what makes it worse is this war right around the corner."

  "Not that they're so wrong either," Marisa chimed in. "In a few months Bush will be bombing Iraq into the Stone Age, and meanwhile we'll have been digging around in the desert as though it were the most normal thing on earth."

  "I'm going to help out with an NGO," Gian Maria said. "They're working in the poorest neighborhoods, distributing food and medicine."

  "Oh. But, still, if you want to come and give us a hand, you'd be welcome, I'm sure. I'm going to tell Picot. Plus, the pay is great, so if you need a little money . . .," Magda suggested again.

  The young women moved on to other topics, addressing Gian Maria directly only once in a while. He replied as briefly as possible— part reticence, mostly shyness. They crossed the border without any problems and arrived in Baghdad before ten. Yves Picot had an appointment with Ahmed Husseini at the ministry. The expedition members were to be put up at the Hotel Palestina that night, from which Gian Maria would contact the NGO.

  When they got out of their Land Rovers at the door of the Hotel Palestina, Picot's humor had not appreciably improved. He needed a cup of strong coffee, so he left an assistant to sort things out with the front desk.

  "Professor! Professor!" yelled Magda, running after him. "You know what? Gian Maria has a degree in dead languages—he might be able to help out."

  "Who the hell is Gian Maria?" Picot asked testily. He had long since had his fill of this young woman's crazy ideas, even if she'd helped enormously in persuading students to join the expedition.

  "That guy you put in the car with us."

  "Oh! My, you're very efficient, Magda—you never stop recruiting, do you?" Picot grinned in spite of himself.

  "Well, I mean, I understand why you didn't want to bring over that Bosnian teacher, but a specialist in Middle Eastern languages . . . He knows Akkadian," she said seductively.

  "All right—ask him where he'll be staying in Baghdad, and if we need him we'll call him," Picot conceded.

  "Need him! Of course we need him! Do you know how many tablets we'll have to decipher?" Magda insisted.

  "Magda, this is not my first expedition. Just ask him how we can get in touch with him and—Forget it. Send him to me in the coffee shop or restaurant or bar or whatever they have here. I'll talk to him myself."

  "Great!"

  Magda ran back toward the lobby, hoping that Gian Maria hadn't already disappeared into the city. She didn't know why, but she liked this odd man—maybe because he looked so shy and hangdog.

  "Gian Maria!" she called out when she spotted him.

  "Yes?" he said, blushing when he realized that everybody had turned to look at them.

  "Professor Picot wants to talk to you. He's waiting for you in the bar, or the coffee shop. You'll find him. Don't even think about it—just go! Come on—come with us!"

  Gian Maria tried to beg off. "But, Magda, I promised my friends at the NGO. I came here to help; people are going through a really bad time here."

  "I'm sure people are just as bad off in Safran. You can help the people there in your time off."

  Magda's apparently bottomless depth of energy and her irresistible enthusiasm overwhelmed the priest. She was full of good intentions— but she was like an earthquake that leveled everything around her.

  He found Picot in the coffee shop.

  "Thank you so much for bringing me to Baghdad," Gian Maria said at once.

  "You're welcome. Magda says you're a specialist in ancient Middle Eastern languages." "Yes." ^

  "Where did you study?" "In Rome." "And why?" "Why?" "Yes, why."

  "Well, because . . . because I liked it." "Are you interested in archaeology?" "Of course."

  "Do you want to join us? We don't have many experts. Is your Akkadian any good?" "Yes, it's very good." "So come with us."

  "I can't. I'm here to help out with one of the NGOs." "You decide. If you change your mind, we'll be in Safran. It's a godforsaken village between Tell Muqayyar and Basra." "Magda told me."

  "It's not easy to get around in Iraq—I'll give you the number
of someone to call if you decide to come. He's the head of the Bureau of Archaeological Excavations, Ahmed Husseini, and he'll help you get to us."

  Gian Maria said nothing, but his eyes gave away the impact the name Ahmed Husseini had made on him. When he'd finally managed to get into the archaeological conference in Rome looking for information on the Tannenberg attending, he'd been told that the only

  Tannenberg listed was a woman, Clara Tannenberg, who was taking part in the conference with her husband, Ahmed Husseini.

  "What is it? Do you know Ahmed?" Picot asked, curious.

  "No, no," Gian Maria said, flushing yet again. "Listen, Professor Picot. I'm tired, and my mind's a mess. Your offer ... I just don't know. I've come to help the Iraqis, and . . ."

  "As I say, you decide. I'm offering you a job. We pay well. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see how things are going."

  Picot left Gian Maria sitting there in the coffee shop, his mind racing, going in circles.

  Finally, he made his way back to the lobby. He'd just managed to stumble on the needle in a haystack. Picot knew Clara Tannenberg's husband and had told Gian Maria where he worked. If the husband was in Baghdad, it wouldn't be hard to find the wife.

  He needed to put his thoughts in order before he went further with any of this.

  He couldn't press for an introduction to Ahmed Husseini. He decided to wait a couple of days before trying to contact him. And he had to think carefully about what to say to him and how to say it. His objective was to reach Clara Tannenberg—the question was how to convince her husband to take him to her.

  Out in the street, he hailed a taxi and showed the driver an address written on a scrap of paper. The taxi driver smiled and asked him in English where he was from.

  "Italy," Gian Maria replied, not knowing whether that was good or bad, since Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, supported Bush.

  But the news didn't seem to affect the taxi driver one way or the other—he just went on chatting. "We are going through a very bad time—there is much hunger. It was not like this before."

  Gian Maria nodded without replying, fearful of giving offense.

  When they arrived at their destination, Gian Maria paid the taxi driver and, black suitcase in hand, walked in through a dilapidated door. A sign in English and Arabic announced the headquarters of Aid to Children, the NGO dedicated to providing support to children in conflict-torn countries.

  He walked through an anteroom, where women with children clinging to their skirts were waiting to be seen, and approached the young woman behind the desk. She looked him over from head to toe.

  "Can I help you?" she asked in English.

  "Well, uh, I've come from Rome, and I'd like to see Signore Baretti. I'm Gian Maria—"

  "Oh, it's you! We've been waiting for you. I'll tell Luigi," she said, shifting from not-so-fluent English to fluent Italian, and got up and walked to an office partway down a crowded hallway. She emerged a few seconds later, motioning him to come.

  "Go on in," she said, extending her hand. "I'm Aliam, by the way."

  Luigi Baretti must have been about fifty. He was going bald and carried a few more pounds than seemed healthy but exuded an air of energy and efficiency. Nor was he one to beat about the bush.

  "Sit down," Baretti ordered. "And forgive my skipping the niceties. I have no time for them, I'm afraid. Do you know how many of the children in our care have died this week for lack of medicine? I'll tell you—three. You can't imagine how many have died in all of Baghdad. And now here you are, with your big shots behind you, and a spiritual crisis that can only be fixed by a trip to Iraq to 'help out.' I need medicine, food, doctors, nurses, and money, not people who want to salve their consciences by flying in for a while to have a close-up look at the misery before they fly back to their comfortable lives in Rome, or wherever you're from."

  "Have you finished?" asked Gian Maria, after a moment of shock-induced silence.

  "What?"

  "Have you finished insulting me?" "I didn't insult you!"

  "No? Then thank you for your welcome."

  Luigi Baretti was taken aback. He hadn't expected a man who blushed like this one to stand up to him.

  "I'm not a doctor or a nurse, Signore Baretti; I have no money. So I'm of no use at all, according to you. But I would like to help, nevertheless."

  "We're overwhelmed here," the director said, by way of apology. He decided to choose his words more carefully, given that this man seemed to have friends in high places in the NGO. The fact that he was there at all was proof enough of that.

  Gian Maria was surprised at himself. He had no idea where he'd gotten the strength of character to speak to Baretti that way.

  "Of course you can help," Baretti said, retrenching. "Do you know how to drive? We need somebody to drive the children who need to be taken home or to the hospital or to go to the airport to pick up the packages that come in from Rome and our other offices. We need help, of course."

  "I'll try my best. Whatever you need," Gian Maria said. "Do you have a place to stay?"

  "No, I planned to ask whether you knew of someplace that wasn't too expensive."

  "The best thing to do is rent a room in the house of an Iraqi family. It won't cost much, and they can always use the money. We'll ask Aliam. When do you want to start?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "That's fine with me. Get settled in today, and Aliam can fill you in on how we work."

  Gian Maria asked himself again why he was taking on commitments he couldn't keep. He'd come to Iraq to find Clara Tannenberg, and instead he was taking this "spiritual" detour. What am I doing? Why can I control what I do? Who is guiding, or misguiding, my steps?

  Aliam told him that one of the Iraqi doctors who worked with them had a spare room in his house that he might be willing to rent out. She was going to the hospital to deliver a case of antibiotics and bandages that had come in that morning from Holland, and suggested he come along to meet the doctor.

  Gian Maria settled in beside Aliam in an old Renault. She drove very fast, swerving to avoid obstacles and other cars in the chaotic Baghdad traffic. Once there, Aliam strode purposefully through the doors and led Gian Maria down hallways in which cries and moans of pain mixed with the smell of disinfectants.

  The doctors' and nurses' faces were lined and weary, and as Gian Maria's tour of the hospital proceeded, the lack of supplies was a constant refrain. Often, they told him, they had to watch their patients die for want of penicillin.

  Aliam asked for Dr. Faisal al-Bitar when they came to the pediatric ward. A nurse made a weary gesture toward the door of the operating room. They waited a long while for the doctor to emerge. When he did, his face was creased with anger.

  "Another child I couldn't save," he said bitterly to no one in particular.

  "Faisal," Aliam called to him.

  "Ah, you are here! Have you brought antibiotics?" "Yes. A case came in this morning." "That's it?"

  "That's it—you know what happens in customs. ..."

  The doctor fixed his tormented black eyes on Gian Maria, waiting for Aliam to introduce them.

  "This is Gian Maria. He's just come from Rome—he's here to lend a hand."

  "Are you a doctor?"

  "No."

  "What are you?"

  "I've come to help in any way I can—"

  "He needs a room," Aliam broke in, "and since you told me you had one, I thought you might rent it to him."

  Faisal gave Gian Maria a smile that looked like a mask, a memory of pleasantness more than a sincere emotion, and put out his hand.

  "If you wait until I finish here, I'll take you to my home and show you the room. It's not very large, but it should be adequate. I live with my wife and three children—two girls and a boy. My mother lived with us, but she died a few months ago. That's why we have the spare room."

  "I'm sure it will be fine," Gian Maria said.

  "My wife is a teacher," Faisal explained, "and a fine c
ook, if you like our food."

  "Yes, of course," was Gian Maria's grateful answer.

  "If you are going to work with Aid to Children, you must get to know this hospital. Aliam will show you around, will you not, Aliam?"

  The young woman led him down more hallways and through offices, stopping to introduce him to the doctors and nurses they met along the way. They all seemed desperate for supplies and medicines.

  An hour later, Gian Maria met Faisal at the door of the hospital. The Iraqi's car, another old Renault, gleamed inside and out.

  "I live in al-Ganir; there's a church near my home if you want to pray. It's full of Italians."

  "A Catholic church?"

  "Chaldean Catholic, but it is more or less the same, no?" "Yes, yes, of course." "My wife is Catholic." "Really?"

  "Yes. In Iraq there's a large Christian community that has always lived in peace with the Muslims. Now, I don't know how long that will last. ..."

  "Are you Christian too?"

  "Officially. But I don't practice."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I don't go to church or pray. It's been years since I lost my way to God. It happened one of those days when I couldn't save the life of some small innocent and I watched him die in the midst of terrible pain. I can't understand why it has to be that way. Don't speak to me about God's will, or tell me that he sends us trials to test our faith. That child had leukemia. He fought for his life for two years, with a strength of spirit that was an inspiration to me. He was seven years old; he had never wronged anyone. God had no reason to make him pass some test. If God exists, his cruelty is infinite."