The Pharos Objective (11 page)

Giuseppe said, “You must understand. Of the two thousand or so scrolls recovered from the excavation at the Villa dei Papiri, we have only succeeded in opening some fifteen hundred. And that has taken two hundred years.”

They entered the library wing. Then quickly, before Caleb had a chance to peruse the titles or even to see how deep the shelves went, they hurried after Marcos down a central staircase. Caleb grinned and followed quickly. The smell of ages past, of old, musty paper, was exhilarating to him.

Giuseppe stopped at a brightly lit, bookshelf-lined room that reminded Caleb of his high school library. “The Officina dei Papiri,” their guide said. “Here we work on the scrolls. It is a difficult process. First, we paint the burnt exterior of the rolls with
gelatina
. When it dries we separate and unroll them, sometimes only millimeters at a time. This is a new process, developed recently by Norwegian papyrologists. It is much better than the previous method—a machine designed by Antonio Piaggio in 1796.”

He made a depressing face.

“But you must understand the situation: hundreds of scrolls were lost when the first excavators tossed them into the trash heaps. They believed the pieces
carbonizzati
to be lumps of coal. Also, early attempts to open the scrolls, they destroyed many. If the scroll you seek is not among those already opened, I fear your odds are not very good.”

Caleb saw his mother’s expression fall.

Nina sighed.

Giuseppe pointed to where seven men and three women, all in white coats, peered into microscopes at tiny fragments. Others worked at aligning blackened shreds on a steel table. Another woman held a magnifying glass and examined some fingernail-sized fragments.

Caleb cleared his throat. “What if we were to give you some help and tell you where this scroll had been located in Piso’s library?”

Giuseppe made a perplexed face, as if he feared his knowledge of English had failed. “What do you mean?”

Helen offered a weak smile. “We may be able to tell you in what part of the library this particular item was stored at the time of the eruption.”

“That,” he said, looking at them sideways, “would be impressive indeed. I should like to know how you came by such knowledge. However, it would still do no good. All the recovered scrolls were found in great heaps, buried by five-hundred-degree mud, then compressed through time.”

Waxman coughed. “So you’re telling us you can be of no help?”

“I am sorry. As I said, you are welcome to look through the scrolls we have already managed to catalog. Mostly we have discovered the writings of Philodemus, a first-century philosopher. Apparently a friend of Piso—”

“So you’ve come across nothing unusual?” Helen asked. “Maybe something astrological?”

Giuseppe shook his head. “Regrettably, no. Such findings would be of great interest to me personally.” He spoke under his breath so the others wouldn’t hear. “To be honest, philosophy has always bored me. I spend many, many hours dreaming of finding some treasure map or magical incanta—”

“So,” Waxman interrupted him again, pointing to a room in the back, where great shelves were stacked with the assorted chunks of what appeared to be black rock, “in there might be what we need, but your little team here won’t get to it for, what . . . decades?”

Giuseppe nodded. “Manpower is short, and the process is—”

“Difficult,” Helen said with a sigh. “So you said.”

“
Mi dispiace
.” Giuseppe shrugged and sighed. “There is always hope that new techniques will aid our search. Some new application of MRI technology perhaps? But until then, this is the way we must work. We know there is also another section of the library still buried, and we are waiting for permission to excavate. Maybe we find thousands more scrolls.”

Caleb hung his head so he didn’t have to see the expression on his mother’s face.

“But it is ironic, no?” Giuseppe smiled, and he seemed surprised that his guests didn’t join in the joke. “Don’t you see? Vesuvius, the very event that caused such destruction, also preserved these scrolls. They exist far beyond the normal lifespan of papyrus and ink. Frozen in time, just waiting”—he motioned to the lab and the shelves and the people all diligently poking and teasing the material free with tweezers—“waiting here for future generations to give new life to history.”

Caleb lifted his head, and gave him a smile. “Just like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts were preserved in caves or underground.”

“Yes, yes. These scrolls are like . . . who is it, Rip Van Winkle? They go to sleep for a long time and wake up to a different world. And best of all, they escape the elements and the persecutions, the
fanatismo
of book burning and intolerance of the Dark Ages.”

Caleb thought for a minute, and was about to give away their real purpose. He was about to say how the same thing applied to the lighthouse
:
if there really was some kind of treasure down there, the earthquakes had sealed it in and prevented intrusion by another ten centuries of curiosity-seekers and treasure hunters.
Sealed it in, possibly, until technology—or our developing psychic powers—could offer a way inside
. Maybe that time was now. As much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to feel the contagious sting of his mother’s obsession.

Waxman pulled Helen out by the elbow. In the stairwell he said, loud enough for Caleb to hear, “A wasted trip, then, unless we can RV the exact scroll and then wait for these guys to unroll it and hope we can actually read something of what’s left.”

“I know. But there has to be another way.” Helen looked away from him and met Caleb’s eyes. “We’ll review the scrolls they’ve already translated—”

“But it doesn’t sound like they’ve found it.” Waxman shook his head at Caleb as he walked past. “Thanks for the wild goose chase.”

After they all went back up the stairs, Caleb returned to the library. He thanked Giuseppe and shook his hand. Then he lingered for a moment, looking about the room with envy. Every one of those scholars in there, peering into the creases of time . . . he wanted to join them, wanted to pull up a microscope and hunker down for hours, days and weeks, sifting through the past. But that dream would have to wait.

He found Nina
in a courtyard, standing between the paws of a massive marble lion. Sunlight danced among the ferns and tomato plants, and a large iron fountain bubbled nearby. The scent of espresso carried on the breeze from a street-side café. They were surrounded by three-story walls lined with gorgeous balconies and doorways beckoning into splendid rooms. Through two archways in the western wall Caleb could see the colorful sails of the pleasure boats basking in the glittering Bay of Naples.

Helen and Waxman were standing in the shadows under the east section, engaged in a heated discussion. Helen waved her hands, at times pointing in their direction, then to the ground. Her bright shawl made her stand out, even among the European tourists in their colorful outfits and wide-brimmed hats.

Nina playfully put her hand into the stone lion’s mouth to feel its teeth. “So what do you think they’re talking about?”

Caleb shrugged. “Probably blaming me for slowing down their project.”

“Probably,” she said, laughing and petting the lion’s head. “Sorry Caleb. Just kidding. You know, your mother thinks you’re the most powerful psychic she’s ever seen.”

“What?”

“It’s true.” Nina tilted her head, resting it against the lion’s mane as she stared around the courtyard with a contented eye, as if she imagined herself a princess and this whole palace was hers. “It’s true. I heard them talking earlier, on the boat. She told Waxman that you seem to pick up things without even trying, unlike the others. Visions just come to you.”

“Only the ones I don’t want,” he muttered. “Visions of . . . my father, images everyone says can’t be real. What about those?” He glared at his mother. “How could she think I’m so talented while she denies those visions?”

“I don’t know.” Nina closed her eyes. “Maybe . . . maybe she does believe you. Did you ever think of that?”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged and peered into the lion’s mouth this time. “Maybe she sees him too.”

“What?”

“But she can’t do anything about it, so she tries to shut them out.”

“Of course she could do something!” Caleb’s hands were fists at his side. “She could tell the State Department!”

“And they’d believe her?” Nina’s fierce eyes, like jade buttons, held him in place. He had barely talked to this woman before, and now to speak so bluntly, like they were old friends . . . or as he imagined Phoebe would be speaking to him if she were here. Phoebe was always the logical one to poke holes in his fantasies—at least as far as Dad was concerned. “Why would they believe a woman who claims to be seeing her dead husband?”

“Because she—I could tell them where to look! I’ve seen landmarks that they could search for. A river by a hill. The layout of buildings on the hillside. They could triangulate by the shadows or the direction of the sun, anything!”

Nina shrugged, stood up and stretched like a cat. A silver necklace sparkled and drew his attention to the curves around the V in her dress. The eye-tattoos on her bare shoulders seemed to stare at him. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am.” Caleb turned from her and plodded over to the fountain. The chaotic bubbling and splashing calmed his nerves. She had him thinking, questioning, second-guessing his anger. He glanced sideways and for a moment Helen looked over and met his eyes. Something passed between them, a mutual softening of emotions maybe.

Then Nina was at his side, digging into her purse for change. “One Euro,” she said, looking at the shiny coin. “Whatever that’s worth these days.” She tossed it in, closed her eyes and whispered to herself.

“What did you wish for?” Caleb asked.

She gave him a wink. “Not supposed to tell, but I’ll let you know. I wished that your mother gets
her
wish. That we find it.”

They’re all the same
, Caleb thought.
Every one of them.

“We need to find it,” Nina whispered. “So we can go home.”

“What?”

“I want to go home,” she said. “I don’t care about the treasure. I don’t even want to know what it is anymore. I just want to go home. I miss my family. We have a cherry tree orchard in Virginia. This time of year the air is filled with the scent flowering blossoms, the buzzing of bees, and the sound the wind makes through them at night.”

Caleb blinked, gaping at Nina in a new light, as if the sun striking her features now revealed an even deeper beauty emerging from the shade. “I had apple orchards,” he said.

“Really?”

“Apple trees. Back home, in Upstate New York. Haven’t you been there, with the group? Waxman said he’s been using the house as a base.”

Nina blinked at him, smiling. “Nope, haven’t had the pleasure. I’m new, but it sounds divine. Bet you had some delicious apple pies every fall.”

“Twice a day,” Caleb said. “After lunch and for dessert. At least until Dad left and Mom, well . . . she got caught up in this crowd. No offense.”

“None taken. I’m—well, this is all new to me.”

“So you really can see things?”

Nina blushed. “Yeah, sometimes, but I don’t think I’m all that good at it. Can’t control it very well. Still, Waxman seems to think I can help.”

“I’m sure you can,” Caleb said. “But just be careful of him, Nina. He’s . . . not what he seems.”

“Really?” Her voice cracked. “How do you know? Did you see something?”

Caleb shook his head. “No. Don’t worry about it. I’m probably just overreacting.” He looked over Nina’s shoulder to where Waxman was holding Helen’s shoulders and talking in animated tones.

“Sorry about your father,” Nina said. “I heard he was interested in the Pharos too. He would have loved to be here.”

“He came to Alexandria a couple times right after I was born. Did a lot of research and even made a couple dives himself. At least he told me that much. Sometimes, while we were up in our little lighthouse—a museum now, really, since they put up a new one a mile away at the pier—he’d tell me all kinds of stories about the Pharos, about Alexandria at the time of its construction, about Sostratus and the Great Library and the temples and everything.”

Nina folded her arms, chilled suddenly. “Maybe you’ll see it soon. Like it was in your mind.”