Randy hadn’t been the only one suffering from a change in water and diet.
Jack shrugged. “I heard he was definitely happier after he decided to stay at the hotel today. I think he’ll be okay by tomorrow. Shame he’s missing all this.” He held out a hand to indicate the vista, the brightly caparisoned donkeys, the sheer scale of it all.
“But he’s been on this tour before? I seem to recall he said so.”
“No, but he’d been on another tour with Lale, and they visited this region too. That’s why he wanted to come back. She was a good guide, he fell in love with the country.” He shrugged. “The country’s pretty enough, and the sites too, but the food!” He raised his fingers to his lips and kissed them. “That’s what brought me: cuisine.”
We walked over to the Western Terrace and viewed the rest of the statues, which seemed like a jumbled afterthought. When you’ve already carved a tomb out of a mountain, then covered it with a fifty-meter-high mound of buff-colored stone chips from sculpting a row of thirty-foot-tall sculptures, a collection of heads and reliefs lying around had to seem a bit of a letdown.
It was hotter than body temperature. I was covered in sweat and a brand of ancient dust I’d never encountered in New England. I pretended all I could smell was sunblock, baking rock chips, and camel and donkey dung, instead of me.
“So what do you think those big stone heads would go for?” Eugene Tollund asked me as we began our descent. “I mean, on the open market?” Eugene was the oldest member of our group, and I’d been impressed by his energy and enthusiasm. Eventually, however, I realized he seemed only to care about the monetary value of things, instead of their intellectual or artistic importance.
“I honestly have no idea. Probably a lot, because it would have to be on the black market. You couldn’t sell something like that legally.”
“I thought you said you were an archaeologist?” he said.
“I am.” I ignored the derisive tone of his words. “Doesn’t mean I know how much everything I dig up is worth. Mostly it’s small fragments of pottery and bone. I don’t do a lot of work studying the antiquities trade, so—”
But Eugene was already on to his next victim, posing questions no one knew the answers to, so he could prove his astuteness in asking.
An hour later, we were visiting the caves and inscriptions at a nearby site. It was on our way back down yet another steep slope that I saw Rose Ashmore, Randy’s wife, moving off the trail.
I held my breath. It wasn’t for me to say anything. I wasn’t her teacher, I wasn’t her mommy. But when she bent over, moved a rock aside, and picked something up, something that shone in the sunlight, I couldn’t not speak up.
“Um, Rose?”
She waved at me as she clambered up the hill. A few dark, fly-away curls blew in the warm wind, and she brushed them from her face. If her husband was like a short, stubby mushroom, she was more like a stalk of asparagus, thin, tall, awkward. “I’m fine.”
I tried to find a nice way to put it, then finally didn’t bother. “You found something? Picked it up?”
“No.” She shook her head, her brown eyes wide. She licked her lips.
She was lying.
“Well, I’m sure you know you should leave anything you see on the ground. These are protected sites.”
“Uh-huh.”
It was all I could do. I didn’t have any authority, just the obligation — and that self-imposed — of speaking up.
But maybe my seeing her had nudged her conscience, or she was afraid I’d tell on her, because I saw Rose huddled with our guide Lale at the next rest stop. I sidled up, quite unabashedly, to observe while sipping my tea. Eugene and Jack were nearby too; Eugene’s bald head was like a speckled brown egg and both he and Jack feigned inattention. But nothing goes with tea like scandal.
Harold Campbell was smoking one of his innumerable cigars, though politely away from the main part of the group. A perennial loner, for once he was interacting with someone else on the tour: I was surprised to notice he made two of the younger tour members, Nicole Powell and Tiffany More, laugh. He’d made his lighter disappear with a practiced and elegant flourish.
I turned back to the real drama. Lale’s lips were compressed almost to invisibility as she asked precisely where Rose had found the object. I knew Lale’s job could be endangered by something like this, and Rose might be in a great deal of trouble if the situation wasn’t handled exactly correctly.
It started to drizzle, and we all huddled under the rest stop’s shelter.
“The Storm God is upset now,” Eugene announced. We’d been learning the Storm God or Weather God was the chief god among the Hittites, a powerful king and warrior in control of the elements.
I winced. It was exactly the wrong thing to say, especially since we were all able to hear Lale rebuking Rose, however politely.
“It’s a good thing we are seeing Dr. Boran Saatchi today,” she said. “We’ll give it to him, with all the information you have about where you... found it. I don’t need to tell you this is very serious. I’m glad you spoke to me, though.”
She held out her hand, waiting.
Lale had been friendly and informative, all smiles the whole trip. Now her face was grave, and she was clearly angry, though suppressing it. Rose had the decency to look abashed as she handed over the object, which I could now see was a small white clay disc, the size of a quarter, with concentric ridges. It might have been a gaming piece. Whatever it was, it was culturally meaningful.
I got it, I really did. I understood that urge to want to hold onto the past, and I almost felt sympathy for Rose. But I was on vacation from solving problems, archaeological or criminal. I liked being done with work at the historical archaeology conference in Istanbul, I liked being away from my part-time consulting for the Massachusetts State Police. I liked not being an expert. Now Rose had reminded me of all that, and I couldn’t forgive her. As we scurried through the raindrops onto the bus, I was glad the situation was dealt with and out of my hands, but I was annoyed all the same.
“Okay, go ahead,” Brian whispered, as he sat down next to me. The bus was abuzz with what Rose had done. “I can see you’re about to burst.”
“On Mount Nemrut, there were signs in Turkish, English, French, and German, telling us not to climb on the mound behind the statues,” I whispered. “At every stop, Lale reminded us not to go off the paths or move away from the group. Hell, Brian, there were signs in the airport saying not to mess with the antiquities. Rose knew what she was doing.”
I looked away. “Why do people go on these tours, if they’re not going to respect the culture? I’m not even talking about the past. Randy only complains about the toilets, Rose is practically a kleptomaniac. Eugene is asleep when he’s not asking how expensive something is. Jack seems to think it’s just a moving buffet, and Harold, Harold never says anything to anyone, just stalks around like a great tall stick insect, puffing on his cigars and watching us like we’re acting in a play for him. What’s the point?”
“Lots of things. People travel for all sorts of reasons. It’s allowed.”
“Well — no. It shouldn’t be.” I felt better for having let off steam, but was still pouting.
“So only highly trained professionals and their spouses — who’ve been beaten into submission with interminable lectures — should be allowed to travel and see sights, maybe learn something? Even if it’s only that they like home more?”
The corners of my mouth twitched. “Yes. I’ve decided. Make it so.”
“How about if I buy you an ice cream at the next stop, instead?” We’d become addicted to the many varieties of gas-station freezer goodies we’d encountered during our long drives across the country.