“A treasure map,” the younger boy breathed. “I bet that’s what it is.”
His brother opened the scroll a little farther, revealing words inside the parchment’s border. “I can’t read it,” he said. “It’s written in some other language. A different alphabet.” He rolled it back up and put it back in the box. “I think it’s very old.”
“It’s mine,” the younger boy declared.
“It’s ours,” the older boy corrected, replacing the worn and tarnished lid on the box. “But you can keep it hidden in your closet.”
† † †
Late that night, alone in his room but still awake, the younger of the brothers lay in bed, wondering at the meaning of the box and the scroll. It was certainly a gift from the Holy Mother — of that he was sure. After all, hadn’t she directed him to bury Pepe where the object lay, when his brother had wanted to dig the grave in the midst of the palm trees?
The box and its mystery was his reward for listening to the Holy Mother and following her instructions.
He slipped out of bed and soundlessly opened his closet door. He retrieved the box and scurried with it back to his bed. By the light of his bedside lamp he worked the top free as he had seen his brother do.
Inside, the golden sheepskin scroll seemed almost to glow with a light from within. He carefully wiped his perspiring fingers on his pajamas and then ever so carefully lifted the scroll and unrolled it.
Symbols he didn’t understand covered it in neat rows, and though some of the ancient parchment was stained, none of the ink had faded at all.
As he gazed at the indecipherable words, he realized that whatever they were, they were meant for him.
Only him.
They had been buried for a very long time — he couldn’t even imagine how long — and they had been waiting for him. And when the Holy Mother had seen that he was ready, she had guided him to the place and given him this gift.
The boy replaced the scroll and the lid.
His finger traced the crucifix on the lid. Except that it wasn’t really a crucifix at all — it looked more like the place where a crucifix had once been, but had been pried away, like a stone removed from its setting. He held the box closer to the light and examined it more carefully. Yes, there had once been a cross attached to the lid, but it was gone.
But where was it? Perhaps if he prayed very hard, the Holy Mother would lead him to the crucifix, too, and then he could put it back in the lid of the box, where it belonged.
“
“I will learn to read this, Holy Mother,” the boy whispered. “I will learn to read this and do whatever it is you wish me to do.”
KUWAIT † 1991
Everything was yellow. Not just the desert; not just the sun. Everything.
The sky.
The heat itself.
All of it — yellow.
It had been bearable until a few moments ago. Until then the sky, at least, had been blue — a pale blue, not the brilliant blue of the sky at home, but at least the right color. Then, only a few moments ago, it had changed. The wind had picked up, a stain had spread across the sky, a stain the color of camel urine.
As the sandstorm raced across the desert the convoy ground to a halt, the transport trucks themselves seeming to hunker low to the ground against the howling force that swept toward them. It came at a terrifying speed. The men who couldn’t see it — the ones deep at the front of the truck, where at least there was a layer of canvas to protect them from the pale yellow nightmare — even they looked as if they were trying to shrink within themselves, to withdraw their extremities as might a turtle, were it so foolish to be caught in a gathering maelstrom.
But as the yellow wall surrounded the convoy, then caved in upon it, there was a strange beauty to the storm — a beauty so rare that the man in the very back of the truck rose from his defensive crouch, his hands gripping his camera. Swinging his legs over the back of the truck, he dropped to the ground, then scuttled into its lee. The wind was blocked just enough by the truck for him to straighten up, but its force was still strong enough to tear at his face.
He ignored the pain, pressed the shutter release.
He could feel the camera vibrate slightly in his hands as the film advanced.
Twisting first one way then another, he kept his finger on the release, catching one yellow image after another. Then, in the corner of the viewfinder, he thought he saw a shape.
A man?
He turned toward it, trying to center it in his lens, but even as the image began to shift, he realized his mistake.
Realized it, and tried to rectify it.
Too late.
The force slammed into his chest as he dropped to the ground.
The camera fell from his hands, bounced, and skidded under the truck.
Peering down at his chest — which somehow didn’t seem to hurt at all, despite the force of the blow — he wondered what it was that had struck him. A moment later, as a dark red stain blossomed on his khaki shirt, he knew.
He tried to speak, but his words sank in the blood that filled his mouth, and when he tried to spit, the howling wind slashed back at him, adding dust, grit, and sand to the mix of blood and saliva.
As he tried to swallow the whole grotesque mixture, fast enough at least to catch his breath, the truth of what was happening slowly sank in.
He was dying.
Dying here in the desert with the wind and sand howling around him. He cried out for help, but knew it was already far too late.
A sense of calm began to overtake him, as if the eternal tranquility of death was already embracing him.
He choked, coughed again, and struggled for the next breath.
A breath that seemed hours — an eternity — away.
The thought came softly to him amid the twin storms that were now raging around him, one as his organs struggled to survive, the other bent only on grinding him down into the sand that surrounded him.
There was no pain at all, but now his mind refused to focus. Too much of his attention was being demanded by his failing body, when already his spirit knew there were more important things at hand. His body suddenly seemed to be nothing more than an inconvenience, interfering with all that was truly important.
He had things to do.
He needed to pray.
Yet this was not the way he was supposed to die.
Not so young, not with so much left to do.
But it was happening again.
He was dying like his father had died.
Like his grandfather had died.
