“Secondly… Hakan, you can go on pretending I’m invisible, that the voice you hear comes from the Jew I’m going to marry, whom I guess you like only a little more than you like me. I imagine the concept of our marriage is an abomination in the eyes of a creature as ignorant and full of hatred as you are—”
Hakan snapped his head around to glare at her. His upper lip twitched and she could see the fury burning inside him that she would dare speak to him that way. He huffed several shaking breaths and then slowly turned to stare anew at Adam. A razor-thin smile parted his lips.
Meryam leaned over the table. “You’re torn, I know. Lash out at me and you have to accept that I exist and that I am giving the orders here.”
To Adam—always to Adam—Hakan replied, “And if I just quit? I could lead one of the Arkology groups. I could forbid my family and the other guides from helping you.”
Night had brought a cold breeze and it slid along the floor like rising water. Laughter erupted at a corner table where a German climbing party was opening more bottles of wine. The crisp, dry air pulled all of the moisture from visitors’ mouths, but there was always more wine to quench their thirst. Always more stories of the mountain, more dark-eyed guides with weather-lined faces, more prayers to a god who seemed so much closer here in the shadow of the mountains, and so much more callous in his disregard of those prayers.
“You could do any of those things,” Meryam agreed.
Tired, she rubbed her eyes and cracked her neck. It had been a rush to get here, to gather supplies and ensconce themselves in this hotel carved out of a rocky hillside, each of its rooms practically a luxury cave. A fairy chimney, according to the Swiss hotel chain that had built it. Seen from the outside, in the dark, the golden lamplight illuminating the caves of its rooms in the face of the rocky hill, the place did have a bit of magic in it.
Hakan slid his chair back and stood. Meryam had let the argument hang in the air, a cloud of discontent that only grew heavier, and Hakan had chosen to flee. The forty-year-old guide had unexpectedly inherited his family’s business without wanting the role or being suited for the compromises that naturally came along with it.
“You’re making a mistake,” Adam told him.
“If I am, this mistake is not the first of the evening,” Hakan replied.
“You have your own ambitions,” Adam said. “All due respect, Hakan, you’re a mountain guide and your family—for all of their honored traditions—lives a life one step away from being nomads.”
Hakan’s fists clenched. “As it has always been.”
“You’re proud of the traditions,” Adam said. “And you should be. But that doesn’t mean you want to do this till you die, or that you want your sons to do it, or your daughters to marry men who may die in the next avalanche. You already supply the horses—or your cousins do—so why not own the hotels? Why not own the shops?”
“This isn’t the life you want, Uncle,” Feyiz said.
Hakan spoke to him in Kurmanji. Meryam understood the single word he said. Silence.
“We’re paying you a great deal of money,” Adam went on, his tone all business. Reasonable, where Meryam knew she would have been incapable of reason. “And you know damn well that once the climbing ban is lifted, we’ll be the first ones up that mountain. It’s just us. I’ve got my own camera and we’re not waiting for anyone. The producer I’m working with is already talking to officials here who’ve checked our credentials and agreed that if we get there first and there’s something to find—and we follow all established rules for an archaeological site in this country—the dig is ours.”
Hakan rolled his eyes. “Without a monitor from the government? Never.”
“If we find anything, they’ll send someone.”
The guide stroked his thick beard, lip still curled in distaste. “Without a guide, good luck to you.”
This time he did look at Meryam, as if only now, putting the last nail in the coffin of her plans, would he acknowledge her.
“They have a guide,” Feyiz said quietly.
Hakan shot him a withering glare. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Now it was Hakan’s turn to be ignored. Feyiz refused to look at him.
Adam pushed Hakan’s chair out a bit farther, a suggestion that he should return to his seat.
“We’re going to climb,” Adam said. “If there’s nothing there, we’ll have wasted a lot of time and money. But if there’s anything worth finding, it’ll be our dig and our documentary film. We’ll need a project foreman who knows the mountain intimately and who doesn’t mind being on camera, part of the film. Our backers will be funding the whole thing. If this is the ark, the interest level will be so high that money will rain from the sky.”
Hakan held onto the back of the chair, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing, but he did not sit down. The wrinkle in his brow had turned from one of vexation to one of contemplation.
“There are many ‘ifs,’” Hakan said.
Meryam exhaled. “You don’t have to look at me when I speak to you. If your religious beliefs mean you must condemn me—and my relationship with Adam—in your heart, that’s between you and God. But we are doing this, and it will be much easier for us and much more rewarding for you if we have the cooperation of the Ceven family.”
Hakan glanced at her, locked eyes for a three count, then slipped back into his chair. He turned to his nephew, spoke in a low voice and in the language of their birth.
“Do you believe in the ark?” Hakan asked.
Adam frowned—he didn’t know the language—but Meryam gave the tiniest shake of her head to indicate he should say nothing.
“If it’s there, I’ll believe in it,” Feyiz replied.
“The cave seems too small to hold it,” Hakan said.
Feyiz shrugged, but Meryam leaned over and spoke to the younger man, as if his uncle were not there. She could pretend as well as anyone, could play this game if it would ease their way.
“These others,” she said in Turkish, with a slight nod toward the nearest table of Arkologists, “they’re looking for a legend. Any measurements ever written down are symbolic. If the ark existed, nobody knows how big it really was. If it’s up there on the mountain, we can measure it ourselves. We’ll remake the legend.”
Feyiz smiled. He had been in from the start—committed deeply enough to defy his uncle and anger the rest of his family. He had lost three relatives in the avalanche, but all of his children still lived. Feyiz wanted to keep it that way and knew that finding the ark could change his life.
“Are we in business or not?” Adam asked.
“Uncle?” Feyiz said.
Hakan hesitated and Meryam knew he would not agree. The climb would have to go on without him, which would make it much harder to get horses, to replenish their supplies, and to have the support they needed up on the mountain if they really did find something that warranted archaeological attention.
The German Arkologists erupted with another volley of laughter. One of them reared back and nearly spilled from his chair before righting himself, knocking his wineglass to the floor in the process. The glass shattered, spilling deep red liquid onto the wooden floor.
Hakan scowled in their direction, and then Meryam saw his brows knit, his eyes narrow. Meryam turned to find a young boy weaving through the dining room.
“Zeki,” Feyiz muttered.
Meryam took Adam’s hand, a flutter of excitement in her chest. She recognized the boy as Feyiz’s eldest son. Slim and handsome, not yet twelve years old, Zeki would grow up to break women’s hearts. Tonight his furtive speed suggested that he might have a very different future from his forebears.