A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters Read online

  Jimmy had always found Spike an optimistic kind of guy; here in Turkey he became frankly ebullient. Neither mosquitoes nor misfortune troubled him; his tipping showed a true Christian generosity; and he had the habit, whenever they passed a cow on the road, of winding down the window and shouting to its owner, or even just to the countryside in general, ‘Drive it or milk it, fella!’ At times this could get to bug you, but Jimmy was one hundred ten per cent funded by Project Ararat, so he endured such high spirits as he would have suffered bad temper.

  They drove until the road ran out and the two shapes of Great and Little Ararat rose ahead of them.

  ‘Kinda like man and wife, ain’t it?’ Spike remarked.

  ‘How d’ya mean?’

  ‘Brother and sister, Adam and Eve. The big one there and that little neat pretty one by his side. See? Male and female created He them.’

  ‘Do you think the Lord had that in mind at the time?’

  ‘The Lord has everything in mind,’ said Spike Tiggler. ‘All the time.’ Jimmy Fulgood looked at the twin shapes ahead of them and kept to himself the reflection that Betty Tiggler was an inch or two taller than Spike.

  They sorted their equipment before entrusting themselves to the two feet the Lord had provided them with. They left the bourbon in the trunk, sensing that it was wrong to consume alcoholic liquor on the Lord’s mountain; neither had they any more need for the Carter buttons. They took their travellers’ checks, lucky horseshoe and Bible. During the transfer of supplies, Jimmy caught Spike sneaking the deflated football into his backpack. Then they set off up the southern approaches to the mountain, the lanky ex-basketball star a few yards behind the exuberant astronaut, like a junior officer trailing a general. From time to time Jimmy’s geological interests made him want to stop and examine the rock; but Spike always insisted that they push on.

  They were alone on the mountain and found their solitude exalting. They saw lizards on the lower slopes, ibex and wild goats higher up. They climbed above the operational altitude of hawks and buzzards, up toward the snowline, where the only movement was the occasional dart of a small fox. In the cold nights Jimmy wrote up the expedition journal and Spike read his Bible by the stark and hissing glare of their gas-lamp.

  They began on the south-eastern slope, that area of lukewarm agreement between church and science. They probed rocky gulches and looked in barren caves. Jimmy was uncertain whether they were due to find the whole Ark, preserved intact – in which case they probably couldn’t miss it – or just some significant remnant: the rudder, perhaps, or some planks still caulked with bitumen.

  Their first rough survey revealed nothing, which neither surprised nor disappointed them. They crossed the snowline and headed for the summit. Towards the end of their climb the sky slowly began to change color, until by the time they reached the top it appeared bright green. This place was full of miracles. Spike knelt in prayer, and Jimmy briefly joined him. Immediately below them was a gently sloping valley of snow, which ran down to a secondary peak. This could have made a natural resting-place for the Ark. But they searched it without success.

  The northern side of the mountain was split by an enormous fissure. Spike pointed to where this chasm ran out, some thousands of feet below them, and said there’d once been a monastery down there. Real monks and all. Then in 1840, he said, a terrible earthquake had gotten hold of the mountain and shaken it like a dog with a rat, and the little church had fallen down, and so had the village below it, some name beginning with an A. Everyone had been killed, apparently, and even if they hadn’t they would have been a bit later. See this fissure, well, four or five days after the quake a build-up of snow and water started to move down it. Nothing could stand in its way. Like the vengeance of the Lord. Wiped the monastery and the little village off the face of the earth.

  Jimmy Fulgood nodded seriously to himself as he listened to the story. All this had happened, he told himself, at a time when the Soviets had owned this slice of the mountain. Of course they were Russians then, and Christians, but it proved the Lord sure did have it in for the Soviets, even before they were Soviets.

  They searched for three weeks. Jimmy wondered if the Ark might be buried deep in the cornice of ice which encircled the mountain; and Spike agreed this might be possible but if so the Lord would surely indicate it in some way. The Lord would not send them upon the mountain and then conceal from them the very reason for sending them there: such was not the nature of the Lord. Jimmy bowed to Spike on this. They searched by eye, binocular and infra-red night-sight. Spike waited for a sign. Was he sure he would recognize the sign when it came? Perhaps they should search in whichever direction the wind blew them. They searched in the direction the wind blew them. They found nothing.

  Each day, as the sun heated up the plain below them and the warm air rose, a halo of cloud formed itself around the mountain-top, shutting off their view of the lower slopes; and each night, as the air cooled, the cloud dispersed. At the end of three weeks they came down to collect more supplies from the trunk of the Mercedes. They drove to the nearest village, from where Spike sent Betty a card saying No News Is Good News, which struck Betty as less clear than it could have been. Then they returned to the mountain and searched for another three weeks. During this period there was a full moon, and Spike would gaze up at it every night, remembering how the present mission had begun up there in the shifting dust. One night Jimmy stood at his elbow and examined with him the creamy, pitted orb. ‘Sure looks like a custard pie,’ Jimmy concluded, with a nervous laugh. ‘More like dirty beach sand when you get there,’ Spike replied. He continued looking up, waiting for a sign. No sign came.

  It was during their third spell on the mountain – agreed to be their last for the year – that Spike made his discovery. They were a few thousand feet below the summit and had just crossed a treacherous piece of scree when they came upon a pair of caves side by side. Just like the Lord stuck two fingers in the rock, they agreed. With the incorrigible optimism which Jimmy high-mindedly endured, the former astronaut jauntily disappeared into the first of the caves; there was silence, then an echoing howl. Jimmy thought of bears – even of the abominable snowman – until the continuing howl modulated, almost without breath being drawn, into a series of sporting whoops.

  Not far into the cavern Jimmy found Spike Tiggler kneeling in prayer. A human skeleton was laid out before him. Jimmy sank down beside Spike. Even on his knees, the former basketball star retained a height advantage over the ex-astronaut. Spike extinguished his flashlight, and Jimmy did the same. A few minutes of purest silence passed in the cold darkness, then Spike murmured, ‘We found Noah.’

  Jimmy didn’t reply. After a while they switched their flashlights back on and the two beams reverently explored the skeleton in front of them. It lay with its feet pointing towards the mouth of the cave, and seemed intact, as far as either of them could tell. There were a few scraps of cloth – some white, some of a grayish color – hanging between the bones.

  ‘Praise the Lord,’ said Spike Tiggler.

  They pitched their tent a few yards down the mountainside and then searched the other cave. Spike was secretly hoping they might find Noah’s wife, or maybe the Ark’s log, but there were no more discoveries. Later, as the evening darkened, there was a hiss of compressed air inside the tent and then Spike Tiggler threw his football across the rocks of Great Ararat into the hesitant arms of Jimmy Fulgood. Time after time it thumped into Jimmy’s large, ex-basketball-playing hands. His own returns were often poor, but Spike was not disconcerted. He threw and he threw that evening, until the air was cold and the two figures were lit only by the rising moon. Even so, Spike’s eye was flawless; Jimmy felt the football homing in to him with the nocturnal accuracy of a bat. ‘Hey, Spike,’ he shouted at one point, ‘not using that infra-red sight, are you?’ and a chuckle came back from his barely visible partner.

  After they had eaten, Spike took his flashlight and returned to Noah’s tomb, as by now he had chr
istened it. Jimmy, either from tact or superstition, remained in the tent. An hour or so later Spike reported that the position of the skeleton would have allowed the dying Noah to gaze out from the cave and see the moon – the very moon on whose surface Spike Tiggler had so recently stood. ‘Praise the Lord,’ he repeated as he zipped up the tent for the night.

  After a while it became clear that neither of them was asleep. Jimmy coughed slightly. ‘Spike,’ he said, with some caution, ‘It’s … well … it’s my perception that we have ourselves a problem.’

  ‘We have ourselves a problem? We have ourselves a miracle!’ Spike replied.

  ‘Sure we have a miracle. We also have a problem.’

  ‘Tell me how you perceive this problem, Jimmy.’ The tone was amused, tolerant, almost patronizing; the tone of a quarterback who knew his arm could be relied on.

  Jimmy went carefully, not being too sure himself what to believe. ‘Well, let’s say I’m just thinking aloud, Spike, and let’s say I’m into negativity at this moment.’

  ‘Fine.’ Nothing could harm Spike’s present mood. The mixture of fierce exhilaration and relief reminded him of splashdown.

  ‘We’re looking for the Ark, right? You were … told we’d find the Ark.’

  ‘Sure. We will. We’re bound to now, next time mebbe.’

  ‘But we were looking for the Ark,’ Jimmy persisted. ‘We … you … were told to look for the Ark.’

  ‘We were shooting for silver, we got gold.’

  ‘Yup. I was just wondering … didn’t Noah strike out somewhere after the Ark landed? I mean, he lived on a few centuries, didn’t he, in the Bible?’

  ‘Sure. Three hundred fifty. Sure. That village I told you about when we were on the top. Arghuri. That’s where Noah had his first settlement. Planted his vines there. Had his first farm. Built his homestead up again.’

  ‘That was Noah’s village?’

  ‘Sure was. Down in the Soviet sector,’ added Spike teasingly.

  Things were getting less clear to Jimmy now. ‘So God let Noah’s settlement get destroyed in an earthquake?’

  ‘Musta had a reason. Always does. Anyway, that’s not the point. Point is, Noah settled down there. Maybe he moved on, maybe not. Anyway, what’s more likely than he came back to Ararat to be buried? When he felt the weariness of Time upon him? Probably staked out that cave the moment he stepped down from the Ark. Decided that as a sign of gratitude and obedience to the Lord for preserving him he’d drag his old bones up the mountainside when he knew his hour was upon him. Like elephants in the jungle.’

  ‘Spike, those bones in the cave – don’t they … don’t they look a little, how shall I put it, well-preserved? I mean, I’m only playing devil’s advocate, you understand.’

  ‘Relax, Jimmy, you’re doing fine.’

  ‘But they do look well-preserved?’

  ‘Jimmy, we’re talking miracles and signs here. You’d expect them to look well-preserved, wouldn’t you? Noah was a real special guy. Anyway, how old was he when he died? Nine hundred fifty years. He was greatly blessed in the Lord’s eye. Now if he had bones which were strong enough to carry him around for a thousand years, you’d hardly expect them to decay at the standard rate, would you?’

  ‘I take your point, Spike.’

  ‘Anything else worrying you?’ He seemed to welcome Jimmy’s doubts, confident he could field any ball thrown to him.

  ‘Well, what exactly are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to tell the world, that’s what we’re going to do. And the world will rejoice. And many souls will come to the faith as a result of this discovery. And there will be a church built once more upon this mountainside, a church built over Noah’s tomb.’ In the shape of an Ark, perhaps. Or even in the shape of an Apollo spacecraft. That would be more appropriate, that would complete the circle.

  ‘I’m with you about the repercussions, Spike. Let me put something to you, though. You and I are men of faith.’

  ‘Men of science, too,’ said the astronaut to the geologist.

  ‘Check. And as men of faith we naturally wish to preserve our faith from any unnecessary slanders.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, maybe before announcing the news we should, as men of science, check out what we as men of faith have discovered.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning I think we should shut our big bazoos until we’ve run some lab tests on Noah’s clothing.’

  There was a silence from the other half of the tent as Spike realized for the first time that not everyone on earth would necessarily put their hands together the way they’d done for the astronauts coming back from the moon. Finally, he said, ‘I think you’re thinking good, Jimmy. I guess you’ve also got me wondering if we might have ourselves a problem with the clothes.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  Now it was Spike’s turn to play the skeptic. ‘Well, I’m only just supposing. You recall the story of Noah’s nakedness? How his sons covered him up? Well, we can be sure Noah’s bones are something special, but does that mean his clothes are something special too?’ There was a pause, then he went on. ‘I don’t think we should give any free lunches to the doubting Thomases. What if Noah was laid out here in his burial robes, and after a few centuries they’d all been blown to dust and ashes. Then along comes some pilgrim – maybe some pilgrim who doesn’t make it back safely through the infidel tribes – and finds the body. Like coming across Noah’s nakedness all over again. So the pilgrim gives Noah his clothes – which would explain how he never got back through the lines to spread the news. But it means we get a serious mis-read on the carbon-dating tests.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Jimmy. A long silence ensued, as if each were half-daring the other to make the next logical step. Finally, Jimmy made it. ‘I wonder what the legal position is.’

  ‘Nnn,’ replied Spike, not discouragingly.

  ‘Who do you think Noah’s bones belong to? Apart,’ Jimmy added hastily, ‘from the Almighty Lord.’

  ‘It could take years to go through all the courts. You know what lawyers are like.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Jimmy, who had never been in a court-room yet. ‘I don’t think the Lord would expect us to go through the legal process. Like appealing to Caesar or something.’

  Spike nodded, and lowered his voice, even though they were alone on the Lord’s mountain. ‘Those guys wouldn’t need much, would they?’

  ‘No. No. Not much, I guess. ‘Jimmy relinquished his brief dream of a Navy helicopter airlifting out the whole caboodle.

  Without discussing it further, the ex-astronaut and the scuba-diving geologist returned to the cave with two trembling flashlights and set about deciding which parts of Noah’s skeleton to smuggle out of eastern Turkey. Piety, convenience and greed were all silently present. Finally they removed a small bone belonging to the left hand plus a cervical vertebra which had fallen out of position and rolled across the right scapula. Jimmy took the section of finger and Spike the neck-bone. They agreed it would be crazy not to fly home separately.

  Spike routed in through Atlanta, but the media were on to him. No, he couldn’t say anything at this moment in time. Yes, Project Ararat had gotten off to a fine start. No, no problems. No, Dr Fulgood was on a separate flight, he’d had to finalize a few things in Istanbul before departure. What sort of things? Yes, there would be a press conference in due course, and yes, Spike Tiggler hoped to have some specific, perhaps some joyous news for them on that occasion. How do you feel (all dressed in primrose), Mrs Tiggler? Oh, I’m one hundred ten percent behind my husband, thrilled to have him back.

  The Reverend Gibson, after hesitation and much prayer, agreed that the two portions of Noah’s skeleton be subjected to scientific analysis. They sent the vertebra and the finger-end to Washington, using a trusted intermediary who claimed to have dug them up in Greece. Betty waited to see if Spike had managed to haul himself back onto the box car of the gravy train.

  Washington
reported that the bones sent for examination were approximately one hundred and fifty years old, plus or minus twenty years. They volunteered the information that the vertebra was almost certainly that of a woman.

  A sea-mist shifts listlessly across the black water as the seven o’clock ferry makes its way from Cape Hatteras to Ocracoke Island. The searchlight charges at the water ahead. Every night the vessel has to find its way again, as if for the first time. Marker lights, white and green and red, guide the boat on its nervous course. You come out on deck, shrugging against the cold, and look upward; but this time the mist has shut off the stars, and it’s impossible to tell whether or not there is meant to be a moon. You shrug again, and return to the smoky cabin.

  One hundred miles to the west, in the Moondust Diner, Spike Tiggler, holding aloft a plastic bottle of water from a stream that flows uphill, is announcing the launch of the second Project Ararat.

  10

  THE DREAM

  I DREAMT THAT I woke up. It’s the oldest dream of all, and I’ve just had it. I dreamt that I woke up.

  I was in my own bed. That seemed a bit of a surprise, but after a moment’s thought it made sense. Who else’s bed should I wake up in? I looked around and I said to myself, Well, well, well. Not much of a thought, I admit. Still, do we ever find the right words for the big occasions?

  There was a knock on the door and a woman came in, sideways and backwards at the same time. It should have looked awkward but it didn’t; no, it was all smooth and stylish. She was carrying a tray, which was why she’d come in like that. As she turned, I saw she was wearing a uniform of sorts. A nurse? No, she looked more like a stewardess on some airline you’ve never heard of. ‘Room service,’ she said with a bit of a smile, as if she wasn’t used to providing it, or I wasn’t used to expecting it; or both.