Rob moved forward to get as close as he could without drawing attention to himself, desperate to see what was hidden underneath the blanket. He edged closer and closer. The praying and chanting grew louder, yet darker. Lower in tone. A hypnotic mantra. The lampsmoke was so thick it was making Rob’s eyes itch and weep. He rubbed at his face and strained to see.
And then girl whipped away the blanket, and the chanting stopped.
Sitting on the altar was a skull. But it was like no skull Rob had seen. It was human, yet not human. It had curved slanted eye sockets. High cheekbones. It looked like the skull of a monstrous bird, or a bizarre snake. Yet still it was human.
Then Rob felt a hard knife blade: pressed cold against his throat.
34
Everyone was shouting and jostling. The knife bit at Rob’s throat, pressing hard against his windpipe. Someone thrust a hood over his head: Rob blinked in the darkness.
Doors slammed and opened and he felt himself being jostled into another room: he sensed it because the noises were different, the echoes smaller. He was definitely in a more confined space. But the voices were still angry and shouting, babbling fiercely in Kurdish. Threatening and yelling.
A boot kicked him in the back of the knees. Rob crumpled to the floor. Images drove through his mind: victims on internet videos. Orange bodysuits. Allahu Akhbar. The sound of a knife slicing at a windpipe and the creamy froth of blood. Allahu Akhbar.
No. Rob struggled. He writhed this way and that but there were hands all over him, holding him down. The hood was made of old sacking; it smelled of stale breath. Rob could just perceive light through the weft of the cloth wrapped over his face. He could make out the shapes of shouting men.
A second door opened somewhere. The voices got louder and Rob could hear a woman calling a question and some men yelling back at her. It was all confusion. Rob tried to breathe slowly: to calm himself. He was pushed on his side now: lying down: and he could see Yezidi robes, dimly, through the cloth. Robes and sandals and men.
They were binding his wrists behind him. Rough twine was biting into his flesh. He winced at the pain. Then he heard a man growling at him-was that Arabic? Did he recognize these words? He twisted his body and strained his eyes to see through the rough cloth of the hood, and he gulped: what was that flash: was that the knife again? The big knife they had put to his throat?
The fear was searing. He thought of his daughter. Her lovely laugh. Her blonde hair on a sunny day: blonde as sunshine itself. Her blue eyes uplifted. Daddy. Nanimals. Daddy. And now he was probably going to die. He would never see her again. He would ruin her life by not seeing her again. He would be the father she never had.
The grief welled in him. He nearly wept. The cloth was hot and his heart was pounding, and he had to stop panicking. Because he wasn’t dead. They hadn’t done anything more than manhandle him. And scare him.
But then as soon as Rob’s hopes arose he thought of Franz Breitner. They’d killed him; that hadn’t been a problem for the Yezidi workers at Gobekli. They had pushed him onto the spike, skewering him like a frog in a laboratory. Just like that. He remembered the gush of blood from Franz’s chest wound. Blood squirting onto the yellow Gobekli dust. And then he remembered the trembling goat being slaughtered in the Sanliurfa streets.
Rob screamed. His only hope was Karwan. His friend. His Yezidi friend. Maybe he would hear. His shouts echoed around the room. Then the Kurdish voices came back, cursing him. He was jostled and kicked. A hand gripped his neck, almost throttling him; he felt another hand tight on his arm. But Rob angrily thrashed out with his boots: he was angry now. He bit the hood. If they were going to kill him, he was going to fight, he was going to try, he was going to make it hard for them-
And then the hood was whipped off.
Rob gasped, blinking in the light. A face was staring down at him. It was Karwan.
But this wasn’t the Karwan of before: the friendly, round-faced guy. This was Karwan unsmiling, grimfaced, angry; and yet commanding.
Karwan was ordering the older men around him: snapping at them, in Kurdish. Telling them what to do. And the older men in robes were evidently obeying him: they were practically kowtowing to him. One of the older men rubbed a wet cloth over Rob’s face. The smell of the dampness was vile. But the coolness was also refreshing. Another man was helping Rob to sit up straight; they had propped Rob against the rear wall.
Karwan barked another order. He seemed to be telling the robed men to go: they were obediently filing out of the room. One by one they left, and the door slammed shut, leaving Karwan and Rob alone in the little room. Rob looked around. It was a dingy space with bare painted walls and two high, slitted windows letting in a poor amount of light. It was some kind of store room maybe; an antechamber for the temple.
The cords around his wrist were still painful. They’d taken off the hood but he was still bound. Rob urgently rubbed his wrists together as best he could to restore some circulation. Then he gazed at Karwan. The young Yezidi man was squatting on a faded but richly embroidered rug. Staring back at Rob. He sighed. ‘I tried to help you, Mr Luttrell. We thought if we let you come here you would be satisfied. But you had to go looking for more. Always. Always you western people want more.’
Rob was nonplussed: what was he talking about? Karwan was rubbing his eyes with finger and thumb. The Yezidi man seemed tired. Through the slitted windows Rob could hear the faint noises of Lalesh: children laughing and giggling, and the gurgle of the fountain.
Karwan sat forward. ‘What is it with you people? Why do you want to know everything? Breitner was the same. The German. Just the same.’ Rob’s eyes widened. Karwan nodded. ‘Yes. Breitner. At Gobekli Tepe…’
The young Yezidi man moodily traced the pattern of the rug in front of him. His forefinger followed the scarlet maze of the embroidery. He seemed to be meditating: deciding something important. Rob waited. His throat was very dry; his wrists were throbbing from the ropes. Then he asked, ‘Can I have a drink, Karwan?’
The Yezidi man reached over, to grab a small plastic bottle of mineral water. Then he put the bottle to Rob’s mouth and Rob drank, shuddering and gasping and gulping. The bottle was set on the concrete floor between them, and Karwan sighed for a second time.
‘I am going to tell you the truth. There is no point in hiding it any more. Maybe the truth can help the Yezidi. Because the lies and deceptions, they are hurting us. I am the son of a Yezidi sheikh. A chief. But I am also someone who has studied our faith from the outside. So I am in a special position, Mr Luttrell. Maybe that allows me a certain…discretion.’ His eyes avoided Rob’s. A guilt reflex? He went on: ‘What I am about to tell you has never been revealed to a non-Yezidi, not for thousands of years. Maybe not ever.’
Rob listened intently. Karwan’s voice was level, almost monotonous. As if this was a prepared monologue, or something he had been thinking about for many years: a rehearsed speech.
‘The Yezidi believe that Gobekli Tepe is the site of the Garden of Eden. I think maybe you know this. And I think our beliefs have…informed other religions.’ He shrugged and exhaled profoundly. ‘As I told you, we believe we are direct descendants of Adam. We are the Sons of the Jar. Gobekli Tepe is, therefore, the home of our ancestors. Every Yezidi in the priestly caste, the upper class, like myself, is told that we must protect Gobekli Tepe. Protect and defend the temple of our ancestors. For the same reason, we are taught by our fathers, and our fathers’ fathers, that we must keep the secrets of Gobekli safe. Anything taken from there we must conceal or destroy. Like those…remains…in the Sanliurfa Museum. This is our task, as Yezidi. Because our forefathers buried Gobekli Tepe under all that earth…for a reason.’ Karwan took up the bottle and sipped some water; he gazed directly at Rob, his dark brown Kurdish eyes burning in the gloom of the little storeroom. ‘Of course I see your question, Mr Luttrell. Why? Why did my Yezidi ancestors bury Gobekli Tepe? Why must we protect it? What happened there?’ Karwan smiled, but the smile was pained, even agonized. ‘That is something we are not taught. No one tells us. We do not have a written religion. Everything is handed down orally, from mouth to mouth, from ear to ear, from father to son. When I was very young I would ask my father, why do we have these traditions? He would say, because they are traditions, that is all.’