Dorothy Mcintosh - The Witch of Babylon

I agreed with him there. Ishtar and her sister goddess, the Phoenician Ashtoreth, had incredible power over ancient minds. Mesopotamian temples were centers of magic, sorcery, and divination involving whole ranks of specialists. Here Ashipu priests recited incantations to exorcize evil spirits; the Baru and Mahu were diviners.

“The King James Bible substitutes the word whore for harlot ,” Tomas continued, “making us think Nahum called Ishtar the most degraded form of prostitute. But the true meaning of harlot describes a temple prostitute. Many of those women enjoyed elevated status. The mother of one of the Assyrian kings was a temple prostitute. Again, Nahum is drawing a red circle around Ishtar.

“Jump ahead eight hundred years to the Revelation of John, when Ishtar becomes the Whore of Babylon. Many scholars acknowledge that Revelation portrays the goddess holding a golden cup and riding a seven-headed, horned beast. The cupbearer had high status among Assyrian courtiers.

“The theory of transmutation—turning lead into gold—originated in Phrygia with the death of Midas’s daughter and the creation of this statue. Once temple priests performed the rituals to capture Ishtar’s presence to animate the statue, the ancient Assyrians would have believed the goddess was alive within it. Through the centuries this originating event was forgotten, but the lifelike statue of the goddess grew into a legend. Myth took over and people came to believe it was possible to turn a material substance into gold. The great Arabic court scientists of the eighth and ninth centuries in the Baghdad caliphate would have been familiar with the myth. It was they who provided a scientific foundation for the legend.”

I was only vaguely conscious of Mazare calling to us.

“Come,” Tomas said. “Time to leave now.”

I trailed behind him in a daze.

“So this will all end up in the Vatican?”

Tomas laughed when I said that. “You’ve been reading too many thrillers. Tomorrow I’ll meet the patriarch of Babylon, the head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq. He’ll do his best to ensure the temple and its contents are secure until the country is stable again.”

We made it back more quickly this time. While we waited for the car, Tomas told me that once we got back to the house Mazare would take me to Baghdad. We said brief goodbyes. There was no point, I suppose, in pretending we shared any sadness at parting.

Thirty-seven

Tuesday, August 19, 2003, 11:15 A.M.

The car bumping along a dirt road woke me. Mazare drove. I’d been dreaming about Laurel, reaching out to touch her. When I did so, her skin turned to gold. The image shattered, breaking outward, sharp pieces of metal flying, slicing into my face.

A canvas of parched ochre earth stretched away on either side of us as far as the eye could see. The dry, hot atmosphere had given me a throat as rough as sandpaper. I asked Mazare for some water.

He picked up a Thermos from the cup holder separating our seats. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. Have this coffee. It will help you wake up fast.”

I unscrewed the cap, poured some out, drank it all and poured a second. I squinted at the sun beating through the windshield. It had the sharp quality of morning sun. Aiming toward it meant we were headed east.

“We’re south of Tikrit, east of Samarra,” Mazare said. “All being well, we should make Baghdad soon. I’d take a more straightforward route but I have to avoid checkpoints and military vehicles.”

A little ways on he pulled over to the side of the road beside a dilapidated shack. A herder’s hut probably. “There are better clothes in the trunk.” He gestured toward the shack. “You can go in that place and change.” The smears of slime drying on my shirt and pants persuaded me he was right.

“Why does Tomas dislike me so much?” I asked him after I’d climbed back into the car and we’d taken off.

“He says you are not moral.”

I could think of several comebacks to that but I let it ride; my differences were not with Mazare.

“So why bother to protect me then?”

Mazare stole a glance at me. “Ari was furious when he found out what Tomas did—taking Nahum’s book and leaving you to be eaten by Ward and his vultures and then us almost blowing you up. He threatened Tomas. The first time I ever heard him do that. Ari said he would put the temple in the news and tell everyone its location unless Tomas saved you. That’s why we kept you with us for so long. To make sure you were healed.”

“When did you hear this?”

“Last week.”

“Are you telling me Ari’s here? I thought it was too unsafe; he’s supposed to be in London.”

“He came back. Tomas tried to stop him, but Ari refused to give up his reporting. He could not let it go. He said if he makes the tortures public that will end them. He’s not coming with the English television. There are ways to slip into the country. The Americans won’t find out.”

I recalled Eris’s phone call. There are people here who need to be alerted if Ari Zakar is back.

I swung around to face Mazare. “I’ve got to talk to Ari. They know he’s back. They’ve had a lot of time to look for him.”

Mazare raised his eyebrows. “How did you find out this?” “Just get me to him. For God’s sake.”

“I’m supposed to drive you straight to the hotel.”

I yelled at him then. “He’ll be thrown into that prison. I don’t want to think about what they’d do to him in there. You’ve got to take me.”

Mazare shrugged his shoulders. I sensed it was an anxious gesture.

“Here, take this. I’ll pay you.” I pulled out the roll of bills Ward had given me and threw it in his lap.

“I don’t want your money.” He threw it back at me. He reached for his phone and punched in some numbers, keeping his left hand on the wheel. When he made the connection he spoke in Assyrian, waited to hear the response, and ended the call. “Tomas says the crew have permission to shoot there but we should try to find Ari anyway. Thanks to God. He’ll try to call him too.” He hit the accelerator, made a U-turn, and headed west.

Nearing a main highway, we narrowly missed being fired upon. We raced along roads that were no more than lanes, skirted potholes the size of craters. At one point we had to drive off-road around an enormous spread of reeking mud. For the routes we took Mazare drove dangerously fast, but all the same I would have put my foot down on the accelerator to push the vehicle faster if I could.

I was shaken out of the turmoil of my thoughts by the car hitting rises that felt like small hills. “Where are we going?” I asked Mazare. “I thought Ari was in Baghdad somewhere.”

He took his eyes off the road for a moment. “He’s at Abu Ghraib shooting film with RaiNews 24. Reporters from Italy. The prison’s west of Baghdad. I need to be careful near it. I can’t just drive up to the gate.”

“Just get there as fast as you can.” My face and neck poured with sweat. My heart actually hurt. I could only hope Ari had done a good job of hiding his identity and that the prison’s military command was too far down the pecking order to be on the alert for him.

Mazare slowed the Toyota to a crawl. Ahead I could see dusty blocks of buildings. “This place is huge,” I said.

“Abu Ghraib. It means place of ravens. It can hold fifteen thousand men. That’s how many in Saddam’s day. America has not that number, but the prison’s evil raven soul is still the same.” He took his right hand off the steering wheel and made the obscene sign for coitus. “They strip people naked and make them do things to each other. They even keep children in there.”