“Also there is the fact,” Johansson said, “that Adam and Eve, when detected in their sin, had nowhere to hide but among the trees God had made to grow. Outside the Garden the land was bare, there was no other vegetation. We lost much time searching at Kurna, where Arab tradition places the Tree, but this was a great mistake. Kurna is in the south, where the floods are heavy, much of the time it is swampland. Would the Lord God have set our first parents down in a swamp?”
The Johanssons paused on this question to exchange a smile in which all such mistakes and disappointments were dissolved in joy. No one else at the table said anything.
“We believed for a while that it might have been at Aman on the Euphrates,” Johansson said, “but in the end it was the evidence of the four rivers that convinced us. ‘And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.’ Four is a symbolic number, it stands for the four quarters of the world. Once we had understood this, we realized that the earthly paradise must have been set dead in the center of the known world. After that it was only necessary to identify the four rivers. They are the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Persian Gulf. We had some uncertainty about this last, but it is a narrow inlet, it can be regarded as a river. Now, if you join the mouths of these rivers with ruled lines, with the Nile and the Gulf at the base, you will get a perfect equilateral triangle. And if, within this triangle, you bisect the Belikh and Khabur rivers at exactly the same latitude, you will form a perfect diamond shape. At the very center of this diamond, the one unique and indisputable place, that is where the Garden was.”
The Johanssons sat back in one identical movement and smiled one identical smile of triumph around the table. For an appreciable while nobody spoke. Then Palmer, with a certain sensation of coming up for air, said, “And you have identified the spot, you say? The actual bit of ground, I mean.”
“We inspect it tomorrow,” Johansson said.
“It is not far distant then?”
“It is less than a mile from this very place where we are seated. It is between this house and the little hill where you are digging. That is close to where the railway will pass, but it will not touch the sacred place where the Garden was.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Somerville said, not knowing, in his own quandary, whether to envy or pity such blithe confidence.
“Because, my dear sir, my wife and I, on behalf of the Society for Biblical Research, have obtained a lease of the site to the extent of four acres of ground. Let me tell you now of our further design. We intend, naturally with the blessing and financial backing of the society, to build a beautiful hotel surrounded by gardens on this site, and we will call this hotel the Garden of Eden.”
“Or the Paradise Hotel,” his wife said, with sudden sharpness; it was clear that there had been some disagreement between them on this matter.
“It will be a great success. People will come here from all the four quarters of the world; the railway will bring them. It will be a sort of pilgrimage, you see, being built in such a sacred place. And it will be unique in all the world. A luxury hotel that will also have a spiritual atmosphere. We are proposing to incorporate a mission house and a chapel with a minister of the church in permanent attendance. How happy it makes us that we can speak of this now, now we have the lease.”
Once again, as in his earlier question, the Swiss showed himself interested in immediate, practical matters. “And this lease that you have,” he said, in his soft, slightly purring voice, “this lease, from whom you have obtained it?”
“Why, from the Ottoman government, of course. It bears the stamp of a high official at the Ministry of the Interior. They have granted us a lease of ninety-nine years.”
Elliott quitted the table shortly after this. He was grinning to himself as he made his way to his room. The Johanssons had provided some light relief, much needed. They looked so happy, which made it funnier. Someone at the Ministry of the Interior had made a tidy little sum. All the same, it wasn’t such a bad idea; there would be plenty of people ready to shell out for luxury with a spiritual atmosphere. The waters of Jordan coming from the shower—nicely warmed up. Especially honeymooners, he thought. Quite a kick in it, having your nuptial couch directly over the spot where Adam and Eve had theirs. Of course, they didn’t have long to enjoy it before being kicked out… The lease wasn’t worth much. The Ottoman government might have legal title, but they had no firm hold on the region and if war broke out those who came off best would have the say-so and it was pretty unlikely to be the Turks. But of course it was not just the Johanssons; the agreement was with these biblical research people, an international organization with members in every country of Europe and the United States. It would survive the war. It was like oiclass="underline" Common interest, common profit, these would survive any upheaval. A multinational, multilingual luxury hotel with a spiritual atmosphere and spacious honeymoon suites—and a lake of oil not far away.
He had decided against locking his door when he was inside the room and awake. It gave the wrong message; he wanted to appear confident that Manning would keep his word and allow him the time they had agreed on. However, he kept his revolver always within reach, in the drawer of his table or under his pillow. And while he slept he kept the door locked.
He had cause for self-congratulation this evening, in spite of his troubles. He had completed his investigations, more or less; he had sufficient evidence. It was only necessary now for him to get out of here and back home with a whole skin.
He had been since early in the morning on the site of what he was now convinced was a gravity-induced, piercement salt dome, a vast pillar of Cenozoic and Mesozoic salt something like three hundred million years old, which had traveled through several miles of sedimentary rock to reach the surface. Everything had confirmed it. The caprock was composed of limestone, anhydrite, and traces of calcite over a large part of its surface, the result of groundwater interacting with the salt and causing mineral changes. A good deal of the calcite had dissolved through this exposure to water, forming cavernous expanses; he had discovered the existence of a system of linked caves not far below the surface, and he was now sure that these were filled with oil.
This promised extremely well in regard to the amount of oil trapped in the flanks of the dome; he had reason now to think it was there in vast quantities. But when a zone like this one was penetrated by the drill, the oil would come out fast and furious; there was danger of a gusher that could be sudden and violent in the initial stage, before it could be brought under control. This would make the operation more difficult and dangerous—and more expensive. The risk was increased by the difference in pressure between the strata that had been broken and pushed upward in the slow rise of the salt and the shallower strata these had penetrated. This meant there would be overpressured layers—floaters, as they were called—near the surface, and these posed a threat of violent outflow when attempts were made to drill through them.
All this would go down in his report, the one that neither the British nor the Germans would see. He would describe the site and give the exact location; he would specify the risks and give his estimate of the quantities; he would include sketches and diagrams and notes of depth and densities. And this report he would carry with him at all times. It would be with him on the morning, coming soon, when he rode out with his helpers as if for another day combing the ground, carrying with him the few possessions he would need. And it would be there, still with him, when he dismissed these men and paid them and made his way on horseback, accompanied only by Alawi, to Lataku, where the boats left for Cyprus and Smyrna. Here he would say good-bye to Alawi and give over the horses to him. Only in the evening would his presence be missed, and he would be well on his way by then…