The sign, partly hidden by the vines, consisted of three repetitions of the word “Lumani” cut from a thick plate of steel and bolted to the wall, one atop the other. The vines hung halfway down the doors, an irregular fringe that varied between chest and head high. The tendrils reminded me of kudzu, the fast-growing Tennessee vine that, given half a chance and half a week, could swallow trees, barns, even slow-moving cows. Inside, I heard footsteps approaching the doors, then the rattle of a key in the lock. I suspected I was about to be greeted by an eccentric, crabby old Frenchwoman in bathrobe and slippers.
The left-hand door swung open, and the crabby old Frenchwoman turned out to be a lovely woman, possibly fifty, with wavy brown hair, warm brown eyes, and an even warmer smile. “Ah, bonjour. Hello, and welcome to Lumani,” she said. “I am Elisabeth.” An elfin-looking man with sparkling eyes and a short fringe of gray hair rounded a corner and joined her. “And this is my husband, Jean.” The final sound of his name — the — on of zhon—lodged in her nose rather than emerging through her lips, and I was reminded that French pronunciation was a mystery I would never master. “Please, please to come inside.”
Miranda, Stefan, and I ducked beneath the curtain of vines, followed my hosts down a short driveway, and stepped into a place of enchantment: a huge, enclosed garden courtyard complete with an arbor, hammocks, a gurgling fountain, large plane trees, and an immense metal mobile hanging from a cable rigged to one of the trees.
“What a lovely place!” exclaimed Miranda, turning in a slow circle to take it all in. Jean offered to show us around, while Elisabeth went to pour drinks — wine for everyone else, orange juice for me.
Lumani was like a cozy private gallery. The walls were covered with abstract paintings, and the garden and indoor spaces were full of sculptures, large and small. “The art is beautiful,” I said. “Are the artists local? From Avignon?”
“I made the sculptures,” Jean said shyly; then, with obvious pride, he added, “The paintings are by Elisabeth.”
Elisabeth emerged with the tray of drinks. I’d requested orange juice, but what she’d brought me was a deep red. Was it cranberry? Not my favorite, but I took a polite sip. Surprisingly, it was orange juice, freshly squeezed with a hint of pulp, but a richer flavor than regular orange juice — as if even the fruit in Avignon spoke with an exotic accent. “Delicious,” I said.
“Merci. Oui, it’s very special,” she said. “L’orange sanguine. Do you say ‘bloody orange’?”
Miranda grinned. “Blood orange,” she said, arching her eyebrows. “How appropriate.”
After we finished our drinks, Jean took me upstairs to my room. It was a third-floor aerie — I was practically nesting in one of the plane trees — with a bird’s-eye view of the garden. In the distance, beyond Jean and Elisabeth’s smaller, separate house, sprawled a jumble of tiled rooftops and spiky church spires. One of the spires, silhouetted against the sky a few blocks away, was unlike any I’d seen before: an open iron frame, its cluster of bells completely exposed. It was a bare-bones skeleton of a steeple, I realized; exactly my kind of steeple.
I pointed. “That church steeple — is it being restored?”
He followed my gaze. “Ah, non,” he said. “That is the design. It’s built that way for the mistral.”
“The what?”
“The mistral. Strong wind from the northwest. The tower is open so it doesn’t fight against the wind. The wind blows through, instead of pushing it down.” I liked the steeple even more now; its spare skeletal beauty was born of function.
As I leaned on the sill, lingering over the view, I noticed Miranda looking up, waving. “I’m jealous,” she called. “I wish I had a room overlooking the Garden of Eden.”
“Come visit anytime,” I said. “Just watch out for snakes. And don’t eat the apples.”
“Sorry, Miranda. what?” I hadn’t heard the question. My brain was empty but my mouth was full. Blissfully full.
“I know carbon-14 dating’s pretty good,” she repeated, “but how close can it get? How precisely can it nail the age of the bones?”
“Pretty damn close,” I finally answered. “Man, that’s good.”
I was finishing a bowl of lamb stew — my second bowl of lamb stew — at Pace é Salute, a Corsican restaurant near Lumani that Jean and Elisabeth had recommended. Its name translated as “Peace and Good Health,” both of which I regarded as fine things, but neither could compete with the honeyed lamb stew, made with tender chunks of lamb and a rich sauce of honey, garlic, citrus, and savory broth.
Suddenly Miranda’s question triggered a faint memory — faint but recent, something that had occurred as I was preparing to board my flight from Knoxville to Dulles. Was it really possible that only eighteen hours had passed since my secretary, Peggy, had dashed out to the helicopter with my computer and my passport? Reaching into the inner pocket of the jacket I’d been wearing for the past four thousand miles, I pulled out a letter she’d tucked into my passport — a letter marked “Urgent” that had arrived in the morning’s mail. “I’m glad you said that,” I told Miranda. “I would have forgotten this until the next time I went to the dry cleaner’s. And that might’ve been years.”
The envelope was postmarked Charlotte, North Carolina. Smoothing the letter, I scanned it again, because I’d given it only a cursory glance on the plane. “You’re not the only one interested in C-14 dating. So is the Institute for Biblical Science.”
“The Institute for Biblical Science?” Miranda’s eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, “though in practice, yeah, science often takes a backseat to the Bible.”
“And they’re writing to ask your advice about C-14 dating? I’m surprised they’re not writing to heap fire and brimstone on you. You’ve taken some fierce swings at creationism from time to time.”
“Not fierce,” I said. “Just factual. Okay, maybe a little fierce, too. I don’t get a lot of fan mail from the fundamentalists.” Putting on my reading glasses — a recent, annoying necessity — I read aloud. “‘Dear Dr. Brockton: I’m writing to ask your opinion on the accuracy of carbon-14 dating. Our Institute is initiating a study of artifacts from the Holy Land, and we would very much appreciate your thoughts on the precision and reliability of C-14 dating for establishing the age of artifacts, as well as human and animal bones. I would also appreciate any insights you have on the feasibility of extracting and sequencing genetic material from bone specimens. We would be happy to hire you as a consultant on this project, although — as you might expect — our budget is limited. Please contact me at your earliest opportunity to discuss this exciting project. Best regards, Dr. Adam Newman, Ph.D., Scientific Director, Institute for Biblical Science.’”
I folded the letter and reached for the envelope, but Stefan held out his hand. “Permit me?” I handed him the page. He read it quickly, then handed it back with a look of disdain. “Do what you want, but I advise you to stay away from them. Crazies. If you work with them, it will damage your reputation.”