Alex Mitchell - The 13th Tablet

Once she got into her car she closed her eyes, made a silent prayer, and turned the ignition. The car started. It had to be a good omen.

After many twists and turns, she finally arrived at the village. She parked her car by the side of the road, stepped out cautiously and knocked on the door of the first house. An old woman came out. Mina said she had an appointment with Jack and wanted to know how to get to wherever he was. After a while, Mina realised that the reason the old woman kept smiling was that she had absolutely no idea where the men were. Mina had no reception on her mobile phone, so she could not reach Jack that way. As she walked back to her car, feeling somewhat helpless, a young boy came out of another house to meet her.

‘Hello Madam.’

‘Hello.’

‘I’m Jack’s collaborator.’

Mina smiled at the boy’s self-important tone. She immediately recognised him from the Professor’s description of Jack’s side-kick.

‘He asked me to take you to him when you arrived,’ he added.

‘You must be Muhad,’ she stated.

‘Yes Madam,’ answered the boy and beamed at her.

‘Let’s jump in the car then.’

This time, unfortunately, the car wouldn’t start. She lost her temper and cursed the day she’d bought the car in every language she could muster.

‘Don’t worry Madam Mina. If you are up to it, we can walk there. It is only a few miles’.

‘A few miles?’ she said.

She could just imagine the state in which she’d arrive there, sweaty and covered in dust. She doubted she would find a shower at their destination. The day was getting worse by the minute. Muhad was smiling at her.

‘What the hell,’ she thought. ‘Alright. Let’s go,’ she told the boy.

‘Excellent, Madam Mina. Follow me!’

‘Oh. Is it safe to leave the car here?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Everyone knows it’s yours. No-one comes to the village, Madam Mina.’

‘Just Mina, Muhad, Madam is for old ladies.’

‘OK.’

The more they progressed on their route, the more jovial Muhad became. He kept peppering her with questions, ‘Where is New York? Do you drive a S.U.V.? Are you an engineer? Are you married?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, Muhad,’ she said, trying not to smile.

‘I know. Jack always says that I ask too many questions. The boy puffed up his chest and took on a deep voice, ‘If you want to be a man, Muhad, you need to ask fewer questions and acquire gravitas’. He turned to Mina, ‘What’s gravitas Mina? Jack won’t tell me.’

She laughed. She could just imagine the daily banter between the man and this young boy. What a pair they were, the American engineer and his small, questioning associate. She understood why the professor spoke with such fondness of Muhad. He was very endearing.

As she gazed at the desert landscape surrounding them, the dusty road and detritus on either side, she thought of an article she’d read about the neurosis of Arab emigres longing for the cleanliness of the desert. When she first read this sentence she thought to herself that it had reminded her of the line in Lawrence of Arabia , ‘Why do you love the desert so, Lawrence?’ ‘Because it is clean.’

She herself had often felt a longing for the desert when stuck in a traffic jam or when submerged in problems back home. She had even gone travelling to New Mexico with a friend, hoping to find some solace in the emptiness of the landscape. But she had not found it, and instead had ended up here, in the real desert.

She realised she hadn’t gone walking like this since she’d first arrived in Mosul. She remembered the first days, visiting every corner of the city, her joy at being there among her fellow countrymen. But slowly, without becoming ‘one of them’ in the least, she had lost herself in work at the university and somehow forgotten the reason behind her deeper desire and longing to be here. Would she have been the same person back in New York? Would she have forgotten who she was, for the greater good of the university? Possibly. It was a strange conundrum she’d noticed among many university lecturers, who’d arrive as scholars but retire as administrators.

‘We’re almost there Madam Mina,’ said the young boy, who was practically skipping with excitement. His elation was contagious. Mina was looking forward to witnessing the moment the water gushed out. She was already thinking over the outlines of an interesting paper she would write on ethical scholarship and the overlap between archaeology and humanitarian work.

As the road twisted to the right, a group of men hard at work appeared in the afternoon sun. Digging like this would have been unthinkable during the summer but it was winter and the temperature was bearable, even in the early afternoon. The men were eager to find the water source and Mina thought that they would probably have braved the summer’s dazzling heat with just the same dedication. Jack looked up and noticed two figures approaching. He stopped what he was doing and walked towards them.

Despite his jeans and shirt being coated in dirt, he had the same rugged and handsome air about him as he had at their first meeting in the more rarefied confines of the university. She couldn’t help but notice his thick brown hair and his firm chest, shoulders and arms, all seemingly carved out of wood. His lack of pretension and unpretentious walk made him all the more attractive. He was definitely the strong, silent type. With every step he took towards them, Mina felt her heart beating faster.

‘Mina, I’m so happy you could make it,’ he said, looking straight at her with his piercing blue eyes. ‘Why didn’t you drive up here?’

‘My car broke down in the village,’ she replied, slightly embarrassed.

‘Man, you must be exhausted!’ He turned to his sidekick, ‘Muhad, where’s the Prof? Did you leave him in the village so you could keep Mina to yourself?’

Muhad blushed and dropped his head. Mina struggled not to burst out laughing. ‘The professor couldn’t make it, but I’m sure he’s as anxious as me and young Muhad here to see the result of your work.’

Muhad looked up at Mina and gave her a large, toothy grin.

‘You drove to the village alone? That was really dangerous,’ Jack said to Mina, trying not to seem too concerned.

‘I said I was coming,’ she answered, ‘So I came’.

Mina wasn’t quite sure, but she thought that Jack did not seem overly disappointed about Almeini’s absence.

‘Right!’ he replied quickly in an effort to change the subject. ‘Let’s join the workers. We’ve almost cracked it!’

When they reached the elevated spot where the men had been digging, Mina could feel the expectation in the air. She stood among them for what seemed an eternity, with little Muhad jumping around the trench. The men seemed so hopeful and absolutely focused on what they were doing. Suddenly, in the settled stillness of the air, they heard a gurgling sound, then a trickle of muddy water appeared.

Great cries of ‘Allahuakbar!’ went up and the workers yelled with joy. They had found the water pocket. Some were crying, others laughing madly. Jack was running left and right shouting orders to the various workers. He was smiling broadly, but had not lost his head: they needed to make sure that the water was channelled immediately, and he was already calculating the potential supply to the village from the flow of the water. The men got back to work with renewed vigour.

After a while, covered in mud, Jack waved to Mina and smiled. She smiled back. There was a feeling of elation in the air, a sense of easiness. Here in the middle of nowhere, in the most basic conditions, they had witnessed and shared undiluted joy. ‘Water gushing from the bowels of the desert …It’s like a tale from the thousand and one nights,’ thought Mina.