The Angel of Eden (24 page)

Nick approached the man at the desk and began speaking to him in fluent Farsi. The official's eyes lit up with a spark of surprise, quickly extinguished behind his poker face, the universal expression
of border officers. He and Nick talked on, the man lobbing questions. Nick maintained a genial expression throughout. I mentally crossed my fingers. Bennet sat stock still, her eyes downcast, her hands in her lap, nervously twisting the gold wedding band. Just as I began to suspect we'd be marched into some windowless room in handcuffs, their conversation ended. The official laughed. All was well. He stamped our passports and said in English, “Please enjoy our beautiful Iran.”

Thirty-Two

March 6, 2005

Tabriz, Iran

T
he drive to Tabriz through the Zagros mountain range was both stunningly scenic and damn hard on the ass. The van's shocks left something to be desired, particularly when the highway did a bump and grind along rough asphalt surfaces. We stopped at Khoy for refreshments and a bathroom break, drove south to Salmas, then turned east along Highway 14 to skirt the top of Lake Urmia. “There is a bridge across,” Rosan remarked. “Never finished it. So now—a very long pier.” He shook with laughter.

Just before Sharafkhaneh our route dropped closer to the lake, and Rosan's cousin made a little detour so we could see it. Like the Dead Sea, Urmia was a salt lake. The water, a deep blue green, glittered like liquid crystal. Sheets of salt turned its shores white; fabulous salt formations shaped like giant brain corals clustered on the beaches. A pillar of limestone sprouted like a mushroom from the water, its narrow base etched by the waves.

“Hey, look.” Bennet pointed with excitement to a rosy cloud rising from the lake's surface. A flock of pink bodies and flapping pink wings. Flamingos, swarming the sky in such numbers they seemed an organic whole.

At one point we spotted what looked like an ancient ruin, until I realized that the row of columns were posts for a dock whose platform had long ago disintegrated. Beside it, the hulk of an old ship tilted on its keel—a fishing boat perhaps, with a long chain still fastened to its anchor, and so corroded its original color could only be guessed at.

I'd heard it was easy to drown in salt lakes, something Rosan confirmed when he spoke next. “Drinking too much of that water can poison—so salty. If too much is ingested it fails the organs.” He held his hands up wide and then moved them closer together. “Urmia, once a vast lake, now shrinking, shrinking. Getting even more salty. Too dry and hot everywhere. But not in winter so much.”

This corner of Iran was such a beautiful, alien land. I wondered what mysteries it held for us.

Less than an hour later we reached Tabriz, a sprawling industrial city, once a key location on the Silk Road. As Rosan promised, we arrived in time for dinner. Together at the hotel's restaurant we ordered a hearty dish of
koresht beh
—lamb cooked with quince and split peas, accompanied by Persian white rice and stone-baked naan. After the plates had been cleared, Rosan held up his index finger. “Tomorrow we will see the bazaar, famous even in the Middle Age, then the Blue Mosque. Also a factory where they make legendary Tabriz rugs. If you wish to buy items, we make all arrangements to send over to your homes.”

Bennet had been careful to order last, choosing a chicken dish instead of the lamb the rest of us had. When we'd drawn lots to see who'd come down with acute food poisoning, the short straw fell to
her. Now, as we sipped our tea, right on cue she got up and pressed her hand to her stomach. “Please excuse me,” she said. “I may have eaten too much. I don't feel well.”

The Italian murmured sympathetically. I noticed he'd taken quite a shine to her. “Rest, dear,” Rosan said, scraping his chair back and rising politely. “You will feel much better in the morning.”

I followed her out of the restaurant, explaining that I wanted to make sure she was okay. Nick stayed behind to talk. As he'd once told me, “You learn far more by socializing than at the point of a gun.”

The next morning I told the group that Bennet still couldn't keep anything down, adding that the hotel had summoned a doctor. Rosan put on a good show of worry. When the group returned in the afternoon, I reported she was in no shape to travel.

“We are spending several days in Esfahan,” Rosan said. “You may take a bus to join us after the lady has rested and can travel.” I nodded solemnly and Nick said he'd stay with us.

In a strange case of life mimicking lies, Bennet really did come down with some kind of bug; she got into bed early that evening and stayed there. While Nick ventured out to rent a vehicle and collect some provisions, I arranged to meet Rosan in his hotel room.

He winked when I handed him a healthy wad of cash. “Discretion is the better velour,” he said, getting the expression wrong but somehow retaining its meaning. “I have contacted the Kandovan hotel. They have a place for you.”

“Thank you—you've been great.”

He took a drag off his cigarette and waved away the compliment. “May you have a safe journey.”

That night Rosan's words kept returning to me. The time spent in his company had been a pleasant interlude; the journey ahead, a troubling prospect. I thought about turning back but knew I wouldn't. The mystery surrounding Helmstetter had me in its grip.

While Bennet slept, I sat in our room's most comfortable chair reading the photocopied paper by Reginald Arthur Walker, the man whose name my brother had noted in the margins of his journal. Walker's startling theory about the Garden of Eden's location made a lot of sense.

According to the Bible, the Garden of Eden could be found at the heads of four rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates were known, of course; their headwaters lay in the region encompassing Lake Van and Lake Urmia. But what about the Gihon and Pison? Those names didn't resemble any known watercourses today. Walker thought the former was the Araxes—which flowed southeast from the same region down to the Persian Gulf—because in the eighth century, large portions of the Araxes were called the “Gaihun.” As for the Pison, Walker noted that in the Hebrew of the early Genesis text, a
P
had migrated to a
U
. The name of the fourth river, then, should be Uizhon, not Pison. The Uizhon had its source in the same area, flowing east to the Caspian Sea. It was an amazing feat of investigation. And it placed Eden firmly in the territory near Lake Urmia, centered around Tabriz: the same land my brother thought might be the earliest home of the Sumerians.

I'd brought David Rohl's book with me and consulted it now, running my finger down a passage I'd noted before.

Genesis 2:13 describes the River Gihon as winding “all through the land of Cush.” Are there any classical or modern topographical clues in the general vicinity of the River Aras (formerly Gaihun) which suggest that this region may once have been called the land of Cush?

… to the north of the modern city of Tabriz there is a high mountain pass through which the modern road winds its way up to the towns of Ahar and Meshginshahr. Several of the Aras tributaries have their headwaters near these Azeri towns. The modern Iranian name of Ahar is Kusheh Dagh—the Mountain of Kush.

Mesopotamian histories called the region Aratta, or Edin. That territory held abundant stores of gold and precious stones similar to the biblical description of “the land of Havilah.” And Abraham was identified as having come from Ur, a Mesopotamian city. So the picture of Eden drawn by the authors of the Bible described what they believed to be the land of their ancestors. The ancient Persian word for enclosed garden was
pairi daza
—the stem word for paradise. Lush, walled gardens were a prominent feature of the Persian landscape even today.

And right at the heart of that Mesopotamian Eden lay Kandovan.

Part Three

THE SECRET GARDEN

Food of death they will set before thee, Eat not. Water of death they will set before thee, Drink not … The counsel that I have given thee, forget not.
The words which I have spoken, hold fast.

—FROM THE MESOPOTAMIAN MYTH
ADAPA AND THE SOUTH WIND
, PRECURSOR TO THE TEMPTATION IN GENESIS

Thirty-Three

March 8, 2005

Kandovan, Iran

T
he next morning, after eluding our tour group, we drove south out of Tabriz through a smoggy industrial corridor in the Chai River valley. Nick was at the wheel; he'd rented an older model Jeep Cherokee for the trip.

As we neared Kandovan, the towering silhouette of the long-extinct volcano Mount Sahand reared up in the distance. The cave city itself was a cluster of what resembled pink stone beehives, just like the photo I'd found in Evelyn's apartment. In the oldest part of the village the conical homes had been hollowed out from soft volcanic stone and fitted artfully with windows and wooden doors. High, wooden-slatted bridges connected walkways; in some houses, balconies jutted out from windows. Stone steps, cut in the center to provide rain sluices, rose steeply between dwellings. Power lines stretched between homes. Even Bennet, still feeling under the weather, brightened at the prospect of actually staying in one of these fairy-tale structures.

After leaving the Jeep in the lower town we made our way up to the stone hotel—and entered a surprisingly comfortable, even luxurious, interior. Whitewashed stucco walls and ceilings, mortared stone floors, beautiful wooden furniture with Persian motifs, and red-patterned carpets gave the place a rich, sensuous feel. Brass and copper wall sconces, along with the sunlight filtering in from the deep-welled windows, cast a gentle light.

When we reached our room, Bennet and I were greeted by more rich colors and Persian-inflected designs, including a desk and a banquette inlaid with delicate enamel tiles. The bed looked plump and inviting. Bennet flopped down on it. “This is heaven. There's even a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. I thought we'd be roughing it—nothing like this. Guess you could consider it our honeymoon suite.” She laughed.

“Well, in that case, Mrs. Madison, don't you think we should follow tradition?” I pressed her down playfully on the bed and gave her a long kiss and one thing led to another.