Barry Unsworth - Land of Marvels

“The sulfur was probably ordered up from hell,” Patricia said in low tones to Palmer, who was sitting opposite her. As often happens, this remark, which was not really intended to be heard by the Johanssons, released feelings of irritation in Patricia that had been building up all through this talk of the firebombed cities. “Do you really mean to say,” she said loudly and furiously, “that you think God put the magnesium in the mixture to make it burn hotter? I can’t believe that people spend time and money and go to all that trouble in a futile attempt to prove the truth of a myth, and a pretty nasty little myth at that.”

Johansson’s smile was now full of tolerance and understanding. “We can only guess at God’s purposes, we cannot know them. When we speak of myth, we are acknowledging that fact. It is a confession of our ignorance.”

“It was a warning,” his wife said, directing a look of kindly reproof toward Patricia. “A warning that this rain of fire will one day be visited again on the wicked.”

“As long as it is clear who the wicked are,” Palmer said. “I mean, a lot of people who weren’t particularly wicked must have gone up in smoke too.” He had spoken mildly, with some vague idea of reducing the emotional level—Patricia was looking distinctly cross at having been called ignorant.

“It is not clear to us, but it is clear to God,” Johansson said.

“That must be terrible for him,” Somerville said. “All the darkness of all the hearts in the world.” He was conscious as he spoke of the darkness he had harbored in his own heart since Jehar’s proposal. Neither Johansson nor his wife seemed in any way put out by the obduracy they were encountering. Of course, he thought, they are the ones that have the proof.

“Just one black heart would be enough to go on with,” Edith said, taking care not to look at the major again.

“God bears this burden of the soul’s darkness through our Lord Jesus.” Johansson’s face had returned to gravity. “ ‘Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.’ ”

“ ‘And with his stripes we are healed,’ ” Mrs. Johansson said.

“Statistically though,” Palmer said, “it is unlikely that every single inhabitant of these cities deserved to have fireballs rained on him. Unless of course by wicked we mean simply those who are in line for firebombing, come what may.”

The Swiss, whose name was Spahl, spoke now for practically the first time. “It is interesting, what you say. But Malta, the Dead Sea, these are places far away. May I ask why you are here, what in this place you are doing?”

The Johanssons looked at each other and smiled, a smile of affectionate complicity. “There is no harm to speak of it now,” Mrs. Johansson said. “Now that we have the lease.”

“For fifteen years now my wife and I are engaged in one single quest,” Johansson said. “And that is to discover the exact site of the Garden of Eden. We have devoted all our time and efforts to it. I tell you now, with a full heart, that our efforts have at last been crowned with success.”

“Over the years we became convinced that it lay in Mesopotamia,” his wife said. “On grounds of climatic conditions first of all. The description of the plants in the Garden is very suggestive of a tract of land lacking in rainfall, to which irrigation has been brought. ‘And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight.’ He did not send rain to make the trees grow.”

“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 oil: 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.