‘He thinks you’re dead. You know, Mina, I feel I’m on a strange quest in foreign lands, just like the good book says.’
She looked at him, quizzically. ‘The good book?’
‘The Bible, silly! Solid Baptist upbringing. Difficult to shake off.’
She smiled at him. He seemed to think for a second and suddenly burst out laughing.
‘Are you alright Jack?’
‘Yeah. Yes. I was just thinking about Jonah. You know how he left Nineveh, went to Yafo, and ended up in the sea.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, it just occurred to me that I’m your whale in the story.’
She saw herself leaving Mosul, travelling to Tel Aviv and being thrown off a boat into the sea. They both laughed hysterically.
‘OK. After I’ve returned the wet suit and diving gear, I think we should get going. I looked up the best way to get to Safed. It’s a two and a half hour journey by car. You’ll have all the time in the world to fill me in on background information. Also,’ he added, ‘I managed to salvage your suitcase from your hotel room. Get changed, and let’s go.’
As they were driving out of Tel Aviv, Mina checked herself in the mirror and was shocked at her appearance.
‘The bruising looks terrible!’
‘Don’t worry. The anti-inflammatory cream should reduce the swelling.’
She really hoped he was right: even speaking was painful. As she looked out at the landscape unfolding beyond the large windscreen, it occurred to her that she could just let the tablet quest go. She had survived her ordeal. She was alive against all odds. But no, she craved justice for what Oberon had done to her and Liat out of greed. For the first time in her life she longed to make someone else suffer.
‘Are you OK? You look like you’re about to murder someone.’
She did not reply, but Jack knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘We’re going due north into the mountains of Upper Galilee. Mina, I think it’s a good time to assess our situation,’ he said, changing lanes. ‘One, you found a mysterious stone tablet hidden within a clay casing. Two, what you translated didn’t make much sense to you. Three, as soon as the word got out about the little you did translate, Wheatley gets hold of you and Liat in order to steal the tablet.’
‘On the yacht, just before they knocked me out…’ Mina faltered, ‘Wheatley mentioned an ancient Chinese oracle bone that listed…’
‘Excuse me?’ said Jack, interrupting her, ‘what the hell is an oracle bone?’
‘I am not really sure. All I know is that the oracle bone script is the oldest form of Chinese writing. They were used to predict events in imperial China, that’s why they are called oracle bones’.
‘Right’, said Jack, ‘so what’s engraved on Wheatley’s doggy bone?’
‘According to Wheatley, it lists a stone tablet ‘from the land in the West between two mighty rivers’, and four clay copies which were sent to the four corners of the world. He said this tablet enabled their owner to make accurate predictions.’
‘Hmm I see. From what I gathered about Wheatley’s line of business, I assume it would have to do with weather forecasting.’
‘Yes, and I now wonder if it doesn’t specifically have to do with flood forecasting.’
‘Why?’
‘The tablet I found… it’s a version of Noah’s story.
Jack raised his eyebrows.
‘A good Bible student like you should remember the story of Noah.’ Mina continued, ironically.
‘Yes of course, something about a flood and a pretty big boat as I recall?’
‘Right. The world of men has become evil and God is displeased. He finds only one righteous man.’
‘Noah.’
‘Yes, and He entrusts him with the future of mankind, animals and plants. Noah builds an ark and the flood destroys everything. For many days and nights the waters do not recede. Eventually the rain stops and Noah sends out a dove to see if there is land in the vicinity. The bird returns with an olive branch in its beak, proving that the waters are receding, and the cargo on Noah’s ark is safe. God decides to make a covenant with Noah never to destroy humanity again, and produces a rainbow as a sign of it.’
‘Lovely story. I always did wonder where rainbows came from. Right. What about the Sumerian version?’
‘Well, there are many historical layers to the Sumerian version. It’s a little complicated. Some fragments of the flood narrative date back to the turn of the second millennium B.C.E. in Sumerian poems. Others are found in
‘OK. What about the tablet?’
‘I’m impressed. Last time I spoke to you, you kept interrupting me.’
‘You’re obviously getting better at telling stories.’ He grinned broadly at her. ‘The weather is getting worse. Do you know that Safed sometimes gets snowed in? I read that on the Internet yesterday. That’s if I was looking at the right place; there is a ton of different ways of spelling Safed.’
‘It’s Tsfat in Hebrew but it’s confusing, as sometimes it is also spelled Sefad or Sfad. It’s a really important town. It has been a prestigious centre of learning for over four hundred years and it’s one of Israel’s four sacred cities, together with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias… Did you say snow?’
‘It is over 900 metres above sea level.’
‘I hope you found us some coats and gloves?’
‘Mina. I’m a soldier. Preparation, preparation, preparation. Of course I have. So, the tablet?’
‘Yes. It differs from the Standard twelve tablets in philological ways that I can’t explain entirely until I’ve seen it again, but I don’t think that matters so much. What I find most intriguing is how different it is from the eleventh… there are loads of weird calculations.’
‘Calculations?’
‘Well the Sumerians were very advanced in mathematics and….’
‘Really? I thought the Greeks invented all that stuff?’
‘You’re doing it again.’
‘What?’
‘Interrupting me.’
‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘The Greeks were thinkers. They theorised about everything. The Sumerians and Chaldeans were quite different, they were obsessed with astronomy and astrology, which involved advanced mathematics. What is weird is that both the Sumerian and Hebrew original flood narratives contain the measurements of the ark, but nothing more in terms of mathematics.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘God tells Noah or, in the Sumerian version, different Gods tell Utnapishtim how to build the ark, how long it should be, how wide and so on. But the tablet I found provides lots of other calculations and formulas, which are far beyond my reach.’
‘Maybe I can help on that. Engineering and math, that’s me.’
‘You mean you don’t just shoot people and save damsels in distress?’
‘Now you’re being silly.’
‘I know.’
