“These people are carrying something like the Ark,” Natasha said, examining a group of silhouettes carrying a box on long poles. In front of them danced more men and behind, women ululated to the sky. It reminded Natasha of the description in the book of Samuel where King David leaped and danced before the Ark of the Lord. The paintings were old, but the colors had been renewed many times, the reds made brighter by adding layers, but Natasha could see the faded edges and wondered how long they had been there. The Lemba had oral traditions and priestly DNA, so could they really have the Ark?
“Come.” Matthew called them to the back of the cave. “This is the cave they showed that British researcher a few years ago.”
Isac followed him, ducking under the low hanging rocks. Natasha briefly stood alone, her thoughts with the people in the painting, carrying what they believed was the very presence of God. Then she turned and followed.
The second cave was small and stuffy, far from the air flow of the entrance, and it smelt of blood overlaid with a sickly incense. What looked like a large wooden drum was mounted on a raised platform in the middle, and around it were packets of offerings wrapped in leaves. There were copper loops on the drum for the carrying poles, which were stacked carefully at the side of the room, but this was no Ark. Even if the word Ark could be used to describe it, Natasha could see it definitely wasn’t thousands of years old.
“This is the ngoma, at least the one we use for most ritual,” Matthew said.
Natasha spun around. “What do you mean? Is there another one?”
Matthew gave a cheeky grin. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? I promised you the real ngoma, the real Ark of the Lemba.”
Isac nodded. “We don’t have much time, so show us quickly.”
Matthew walked behind the ngoma to the rock wall, felt along it, and then slipped sideways into a space that was camouflaged by the contours and shadows. He disappeared, then popped his head back out.
“Come, follow then.”
Natasha looked at Isac. She could see the excitement in his eyes at this surprise, not that he would ever speak in such an emotional way. Perhaps they would find the Ark today after all.
Natasha slipped between the rock faces into the roughly hewn passage, Isac following close behind. It was tight, and even though she could see Matthew’s torchlight ahead, this was not a place to be trapped. Thinking about it triggered a moment of claustrophobia, a sense of the immense weight of rock above her. The musty air couldn’t possibly have enough oxygen to support them all and her stomach flipped, a wave of nausea crashing over her. But Natasha knew fear and how to face it.
From a young age, she had been taught how it feels and how to continue despite it. She had been through ritual burial and rebirth, put underground in a tomb for 48 hours, breathing only through a tube to the surface. She had been acutely aware that the guard who watched over her grave could be overcome, that she could suffocate and die there. She had fought fear then and overcome it by the sheer strength of her will. Now she would do it again. Silently, she cursed the thing within her and again she swore to get rid of it, for this weakness did not become her.
“Are you well?” Isac’s concerned voice whispered beside her ear, and Natasha realized she had been standing still, her breathing rapid and rasping in the cave. She took a deep breath to still her fast-beating heart.
“Of course,” she snapped back, turning sideways in the corridor and shuffling after Matthew’s torchlight.
He was waiting for them up ahead.
“This is where it gets difficult,” he said. “You must stay close to me as there are tunnels, dead ends and fake entrances to confuse people who don’t know the correct way.”
“How do you even know this place?” Isac asked. “Are you of the priestly clan.”
Matthew grinned, his teeth bright in the torchlight.
“It was a girl, the daughter of the High Priest. She showed me as a dare, for the younger generation have little respect for these sacred objects. Come, I will show you.” Three tunnels forked away from where they stood, all sloping down in slightly different directions, none tall enough to stand in. “We have to crawl from here.”
Natasha crawled after Matthew into the cave system, breathing deeply to dampen the tendrils of claustrophobia that still threatened. She heard Isac pause behind her, and a slight scratching noise but she focused on keeping her mind in check, for he could look after himself.
After crawling for a few minutes, they took another side tunnel, this one with four choices, then another fork took them further down into the mountain. Natasha wondered at the size of this underground maze and how the Lemba could have excavated it with primitive tools. It must have taken many years, perhaps the result of paranoia on their part that people would discover this ultimate treasure.
Her excitement grew at the thought of what they might find. A cave system like this would perfectly preserve ancient wood, as it was essentially climate controlled, the same temperature all year round. She thought of Tutankhamun’s tomb, sealed in the fourteenth century BC and yet the treasures had been perfectly preserved in the dry environment for 3000 years until it had been opened again.
Matthew suddenly halted and called back between his legs, since he couldn’t turn in the narrow tunnel.
“Be careful here as we have to cross some holes. They go down to open pits that are impossible to climb out of, so we must go down the right chute to the ngoma.”
Natasha repeated the message back to Isac and they crawled on, soon reaching the holes he spoke of. She shone her head torch down into the depths of one of them but could see nothing in the black maws. They smelt of emptiness and for a moment, she felt a pull of attraction to the black depths, like the feeling of wanting to drive into on-coming headlights. She crawled carefully around the hole.
Finally, Matthew stopped and slid down into a hole that looked exactly like all the others. Natasha waited a few seconds and then slid in herself. It wasn’t too steep, so she pushed herself forward and down. The ground was rough enough not to slide and would be easy enough to get out of again when they had to make the return journey. It now occurred to her that the Ark must be small indeed to make it this far down the narrow passageways. Was this trip all for nothing, or would they find a piece of the Ark here too?
She emerged at the bottom and dropped a meter or so into a circular space. There was a fresher smell, so there must be an airflow carved into the mountain. Matthew lit a camping lamp which cast a warm glow over the room as Isac dropped down behind them.
“This is the sanctuary.” Matthew spoke with reverence, despite his earlier bravado. “That is the real ngoma.”
Natasha walked to the stone dais, where a truly ancient wooden artifact was displayed. It was a large drum, made of hard wood with leather stretched over the top, and clearly the modern ngoma was based on this design. She reached out her fingers, anticipating the rush she had felt in the sanctuary of Aksum.
“You cannot touch it,” Matthew’s voice was high-pitched with concern, as he grabbed her arm to pull her away from the ngoma.
Natasha laughed. “Suddenly so reverent. But I don’t believe in your gods.”
She roughly pushed him away and placed her hand on the ancient wood. Matthew sucked in a concerned breath, as if waiting for the expected thunderclap as she was struck down by the heavens. Natasha felt nothing except a sinking disappointment for the wasted journey.
“See, there is no power inherent in this object,” Natasha spat her words. “You give it power through your worship but it is nothing more than a wooden drum.” She turned to Isac. “What do you think? Can we take this back to Jerusalem as the Ark?”
Isac came forward and together they examined the ngoma.
“It’s clearly ancient,” he said, “and a hard wood that has been preserved by this environment, but it doesn’t look like what you would expect.”
“Bloody Indiana Jones,” Natasha cursed. “Everyone wants the gold cherubim on top, even though biblical scholars theorize that the description is from Egyptian priestly objects. It’s unlikely that cherubim would have even been on the Ark in which Moses carried the tablets of the Law.”
Isac traced dark carvings on the surface of the drum. “I have read that the Ark may be the same as the biblical ephod, a word that was never really translated. But it perhaps refers to a drum, carried by the high priest using chains that would leave the hands free for playing.”
Natasha nodded, quoting a biblical passage she had read in the notebooks, “And Miriam, the sister of Aaron, played a tambour, or type of drum, in celebration after Pharaoh’s forces were drowned in the waters. Perhaps it could refer to this type of instrument?”
Isac shook his head. “But this is not an Ark that we can take to Jerusalem. That needs to be a figurehead object, one that people will follow into battle. This is just not inspiring enough.”
Natasha sighed. “All this way for nothing. It looks like you can keep…” As she turned, she realized that Matthew had gone. “The little shit.”
“Stay here.” Isac pulled himself quickly up into the tiny passageway and Natasha heard him scrambling as he hurried after their guide. Then there was silence.
Natasha sat down in front of the ngoma and calmed her breath, concentrating on the whorls in the dark wood and the movement of air over the back of her throat. She could lower her heart rate incredibly fast with this method and sit still for hours. This discipline of her body was something she had mastered when young and still relied on when she felt out of control. Somehow it slowed time and gave her clarity in the maelstrom.
A thought came to her as she sat waiting. She needed Isac. He was her only true friend, but could even he get them out of the cave’s labyrinth? If not, the guardians of the ngoma would find them and they would be subject to some kind of justice. They could buy the tribe off, so she had no fear they would die here, but the timing wasn’t good. She would anger al-Hirbaa if she didn’t make it to Jerusalem in time, and being hunted by extremists out for revenge was not something she wanted. They needed to get out of here fast.
She heard a scrabbling behind her and Isac dropped into the cave.
“I followed a few tunnels back but he’s gone. I’m sure he’ll just take the money and run. Sensible kid.”
Natasha stood, stretching her limbs from the floor. “We must be getting old, my brother, to let such a boy escape.”
Isac shrugged. “No matter. He deserves the money for tricking us.”
“But now we’re stuck here and we have a tight deadline to meet. I don’t want to hang about waiting for the Lemba priests to find us.”
“Have I ever let you down?”
Natasha paused, thinking. “Never,” she said.
Isac gave a little bow, as a servant to his mistress. “Then step this way because I marked the tunnels so we could find the way out. You taught me never to trust anyone … but you have been a little distracted of late.”
Natasha was overwhelmed with gratitude for his forward thinking and his dedication to her. She even felt a prick of tears behind her eyes, which startled her. These emotions weren’t something she usually experienced so she shut them down, quickly regaining control.
“You’re worth every penny I pay you, Isac. Lead on.”
At her harsh words, she saw the light die a little in his eyes but Natasha pushed her own feelings aside. He was her protection, nothing more. Isac turned and climbed back into the tunnel, helping her up after him. Using his marks, they navigated their way back through the tunnels.
Eventually they made it back to the Jeep, where the back-seat lay empty of the money, as expected.
The moon was still high as they drove north towards Nairobi airport, and Natasha willed herself quickly to Egypt. There she would sacrifice and ask the gods for help in their quest.
DAY 4
St Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt.
A rustle in the cool darkness woke Morgan with a start. It came again and she realized it was long habits sweeping the floor as the monks walked to early prayers. She lay in the narrow bed and listened to the quiet footsteps, a scene repeated daily for hundreds of years as the faithful men called out to their silent god. Strange that it should be Christians who have a foothold here, she thought. After all, it was holy because of the Jews, because of their trek across this desert to the Promised Land.
She and Khal had arrived at St Catherine’s late the previous night, and had been shown straight to their basic rooms, but now she was keen to look around.
Morgan got up and dressed quickly, lightweight walking trousers, t-shirt and fleece jacket to guard against the chill of the desert morning. She pulled on her sturdy walking boots and then opened the door slightly, watching the last of the monks filing into the church to begin their prayers.
She slipped out of the door, walking across the flagstones with a light step, her breath frosty in the air. She loved the dichotomy of the desert. It could kill you with heat by day, and by night, with cold. Humanity had this hubris about physical survival she thought, but we are really just on the edge of dying every day.
As Morgan crossed the silent compound, she saw a tiny light shining from the Chapel of the Burning Bush. It surrounded what was believed to be the original bush, still sprouting, where Moses heard the voice of God telling him to go to Egypt and lead the Israelites out. Legend told that it was here that God told Moses “I am who I am”. Morgan thought on this for a minute. There was no defining her God, but she felt him here in the desert more than she did in the city. Perhaps this was why people retreated to places like this. With no distractions, no cornered world to prevent contemplation, you could meet with God high on the mountain.