“Enjoy the coffee,” Paul whispered to himself with a smile. The coffee and the cigarette lighter were the only consolation the Colonel would take from the incident. Paul hoped that he was not littering the time line by leaving them behind. The Colonel would undoubtedly drink the coffee in the hours ahead. What would he do with the lighter? Would he keep it as a reminder of his days in the desert? Would he pass it on to his son as an heirloom? Might it turn up in some pawn shop years hence?
The cold wind increased, and a drift of rain began to fall as Paul huddled on the roof. The train moved quickly on, but any time it encountered an upward grade, it slowed noticeably. That was his one hope: Minifir was a hill and the train would labor on the grade and slow to a crawl. With any luck Paul hoped he could slip away unnoticed when it was safe to make a jump. It was all he could think of for the moment—that and the Colonel sulking in the train car below him. There was nothing he could do now but wait. The train rumbled on, and they were both still riding the rails of the same Meridian. But time was running out, and a moment of fate awaited them, not far ahead in the gray sallow dawn of November 10th, 1917.
23
After a dreary night of painful marching, the Arabs led Nordhausen to the tumbled skirts of a low hill. They moved very quietly as they approached the place, and the professor wondered if they had reached Minifir at last. The land seemed empty around them, shrouded in misty rain, but dawn was not far off. Nordhausen was still worried that they would stumble on Lawrence’s men. What should he do in that event? If I let myself be taken, he thought, these two fellows will tell the raiders I’m seeking Lawrence and I’ll find myself on a collision course with a Prime Mover.
His guides seemed tireless, but when they reached the lowlands of the hill, they stopped and indicated that it was time to rest. The toothless Hassan spied out a low overarching spur of rock that promised some break against the weather and began clearing away small stones and gravel beneath it. Hakeem, the thin, scraggly man, was searching about for any sign of wood that might still be dry enough to light a small fire. Nordhausen was only too glad for the rest, and he tugged at his boots, yanking them off to rub his sore feet. Hassan grinned at him, pointing for the amusement of his brother as the professor soothed his weary feet and reluctantly pulled the leather boots on again. The moisture had dampened them and they were slowly re-conforming to the shape of his feet, though still too tight for comfortable use.
They settled into a small camp, and Nordhausen passed some anxiety as they began to light the fire. The damp wood was sure to smoke and draw attention. Then he realized, that if the entry coordinates had been accurate, they would now be on the opposite side of the hill from where Lawrence and his men were hiding. That thought gave him some comfort, and he edged as close to the small fire as he could, braving the gray-brown smoke for the chance of a little warmth. He was hoping the Arabs had something to eat, and was pleased to see that they produced a small tin pot from their haversacks and cooked up a serving of spiced rice.
They ate in silence, but with great relish, taking turns dipping their fingers into the pan for clumps of thick, gummy rice. The simple meal was followed with another blessed serving of sweetened coffee. Nordhausen bowed graciously when they served him, thankful for the civility and simple hospitality of these two men. It’s a pity, he thought, that I shall have to repay this kindness by stealing away in the dark. He decided his planned course of action as they ate. The Arabs gave every indication that they intended to rest here for a time, and they were arranging their sleeping mats, or so Nordhausen thought.
He later realized that these were prayer mats, and the men soon oriented themselves to the south, in the direction of Mecca, kneeling to chant a simple prayer. Nordhausen watched in solemn silence, realizing how appropriate it seemed that these men should prostrate themselves and acknowledge some higher power and authority over their lives. It would be natural for any man to reach for this grace at the end of a hard labor, particularly in a place as barren and empty as this one.
He thought about his own life, littered with books and technology of the 21st century. When a student once asked him if could pick any time to live in, and any place, he remembered how he had answered, without hesitation—this time, and this place. He opened his arms expansively to his simple study at the edge of Berkeley in 21st Century America. He thought it a grand existence, full of knowledge, comfort and opportunity. But the student seemed almost surprised to hear such an answer from a professor of history. What about all the nonsense, the television advertisements, the marketing, the noise and pollution? He could still hear the young man’s arguments: It’s a world of cell phones and stock trades, and all the feeling has gone out of it. Better than the plague, Nordhausen had explained, and hordes of barbarians ravaging the countryside. Better than tyrannical dictators, disease, crushing poverty, deprivation and social inequity of the past.
The student scratched his head, still not satisfied. Yes, he had argued, it was a comfortable life, but instead of God we had astronomy, and the voices of poets and philosophers were drowned out by utter triviality like Jerry Springer, the WWF, Madonna and Britney Spears. Nordhausen had offered a knowing smile. There’s nothing Plato did that was any more significant than Jerry Springer, he said, tugging at the young man’s thinking. In the grand scheme of things, the sun did not care one way or another. It would burn in fiery indifference and then go nova to incinerate the whole—or collapse into a black hole and vanish. Nordhausen passed a brief moment recalling his startling foray to the edge of the Cretaceous and the demise of the dinosaurs. The world got on quite well without them, he thought, and it will get on quite well without us as well. From this perspective all things were trivial. The greater part of a man’s life was simply spent moving from one humdrum moment to another. At least his life in America offered him a comfortable chair, a warm bed, and all the food he could eat.
Still, there was something that tugged at him as he watched the two men bend themselves to prayer. The moment of quiet humility seemed to touch him in an unexpected way. Some men turned inward to find their sense of purpose and self, yet others were constantly reaching for meaning outside themselves—a notion or realization that would allow them to affirm that they were something more than animated dust. A quote from Andre Malraux came to mind: ‘The greatest mystery was not that we have been flung at random among the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness.’
Some men built castles and glittering skyscrapers of wealth that reached up through the neon aurora of glowing cities—other men knocked them down. Osama Bin Laden had been such a man, and after him Ra’id Husan al Din. Such men, scorned by the Western World, came to see themselves as agents of God. Surely the Islamic radicals may have taken this point of view to justify the war of terror they prosecuted against the West in the early years of the new millennium. Nordhausen realized that this was also the month before the Hadj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca that would be making its way along this very rail line if not for the interference of the war. Back home at this time people would be contemplating the next big sale at the mall to get a start on their Christmas shopping.
That was the difference, he thought. There was something about these people that would always be in opposition to Western ways, and Western domination. Their whole view of the world was radically different. The West preached that a man’s fate was his own; that he was free to speak his mind, claim his stake of land, and answer only to the inner voice of his own personal freedom. The Arabs, however, listened to another voice. Above and beyond the petty ambitions of men, the voice of Allah was the single overarching guide in the affairs of Muslim society. It was Allah who gave and denied, and his will permeated all things. The Muslim world was not driven by its own inner ‘manifest destiny,’ but rather by the sublime will of Allah, something external, beyond the reach of man, but ever beckoning. The West did not hear the voice of Allah and, to many Muslims, it was a Godless, materialistic society driven by greed. It was a land of marvels, of secret arts, of unbelievers and infidels.