Ancient Echoes

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Paris

Charlotte hailed a taxi to take her from Charles de Gaulle airport into the city.

The night before, in Jerusalem, as the wail of sirens filled the streets, a gunman had been ready to shoot her as she drove Al-Dajani’s Mercedes. At the same moment, a police car sped by. The gunman faded into the darkness.

At the Tel Aviv-Jaffa airport, she purchased an El Al ticket to Paris. When living in Israel, she had always carried her passport, papers, and credit cards with her and had reverted to that system without thought. The few clothes, books, and toiletries back in her hotel room weren’t worth going after.

She went through the special internal security division, showing her U.S. Homeland Security credentials and weapon. She scarcely breathed until the plane left Israeli air space. She feared security cameras had captured her leaving the parking lot in a victim's car. She had no idea how long it might take before the Israeli police identified her.

On the plane, she looked through the papers she had picked up from Al-Dajani's desk. Most of them were photocopies of ancient Egyptian Demotic script. She remembered a few of the consonant glyphs, but would need her books and dictionaries to make any sense of the writing. The only thing clear to her was a symbol drawn on a sheet all by itself:

Given Al-Dajani’s area of study, the symbol very likely had an alchemical connection. In alchemy large outer circles represented boundaries of energy fields, and the four elements that made up all matter were represented by triangles.

But she had no idea what the complete symbol represented, particularly with its center having two vee shapes and a solid circle above them.

The taxi brought her to the Latin Quarter. She got out at the Rue Saint Jacques, two blocks south of the Seine, and began walking. The Musée National du Moyen Age Thermes de Cluny with its flamboyant Gothic turreted walls and dormers with seashell motifs was located nearby, on the Place Paul-Painlevé.

She slowed to make a thorough scan of the area, then hurried to the Cluny. The medieval mansion housing the museum had been built originally for Benedictine abbots in the fifteenth century. In 1515 it became the residence of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and widow of Louis XII. The newly formed French republic confiscated in 1793 and turned it into a museum in the mid-nineteenth century.

She entered an open cobblestone courtyard with gargoyles peering down from beneath a stone parapet. At the museum entrance, she gave her name, and asked to see the curator, Pierre Bonnetieu, saying she needed to see him about a mutual friend, Mustafa Al-Dajani.

After a short wait, a pointy-faced woman led her up the stairs to the administrative section, past the rotunda which housed the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, the museum's most famous collection.

Bonnetieu's office was paneled in dark wood covered with paintings. Shelves held fine pottery and figurines as well as leather bound first editions. The curator sat behind a massive inlaid mahogany desk. He wore an expensive but overly snug suit, as if refusing to admit his weight. His brightly florid face with sagging jowls spilled over a too-tight collar.

As he rose to greet her, he studied her face. “Miss Reed? You look familiar. I'm sorry, I can't quite place ...”

Although her heart pounded, her stance remained stiff, devoid of expression. “Many years ago I met you through my husband, Dennis Levine.”

His eyebrows rose with recognition. She watched his expression shift as the full impact of the memory hit. “Dennis ... oh, my. Yes, I do remember. I'm so sorry for your loss. He was a good man. A brilliant scholar.”

“Yes, thank you,” she murmured, then hurried on. “The reason I'm here may have something to do with what he had been investigating when he died.” She said no more, wanting to gauge his reaction to those words.

He showed no surprise. “Please sit.” He gestured toward the leather chair facing his desk. “May I offer you something to drink? A liqueur? Tea, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” she said curtly, then added, “Mustafa Al-Dajani is dead.” The words were a sharp crack in the air.

His face drained of color.

She quietly relayed the details of her visit with Al-Dajani, and how he'd mentioned the possibility of danger. “He said that after speaking with you about the visit of Lionel Rempart, an American professor of anthropology, he began to piece together information, and that caused him to think about what Dennis investigated. Perhaps it had to do with alchemy. Do you know what he referred to?” she asked.

The Frenchman grew agitated as he thought about her words. “Non. Impossible. The American, he wanted to know about an old alchemical text. Nothing special; nothing dangerous. That is all. I showed him the information I had, and when he asked what the symbolism meant, I referred him to Mustafa who is the greatest scholar of alchemy in the world … or, so he was.” He placed his hand against his mouth and whispered, “Mon Dieu. Mon ami.”

She waited while he composed himself. “Please, you must tell me what you know,” she said, her gaze hard.

He took a deep breath, his hands atop the desk, clasping and unclasping them. “Texts on alchemy are always written in symbolic, poetic language, impossible to understand. Mustafa and I learned that one book, and only one, existed which made everything understandable. We wanted it; we dreamed of finding it.”

Bonnetieu crossed to a wooden cabinet and poured two glasses of Courvoisier. He handed one to Charlotte.

“The book we looked for had once been owned by an alchemist who lived here in Paris in the fourteenth century. It was called The Book of Abraham the Jew. It is the text Professor Rempart asked about.”

She put down the drink. Her hand shook. “Did Dennis talk to you about that book as well?”

“He did.” He drained his glass. “I think it will be best if I show you, just as I did him. The book, you see, vanished centuries ago, if it ever truly existed. Most people think it did not. They say it is merely apocryphal, and legends of its existence are simply that, mere legends.”

Their footsteps echoed loudly as Bonnetieu led Charlotte through dark, stone-covered medieval corridors filled with exhibits from the Middle Ages.

Bonnetieu unlocked the room with the Nicolas Flamel display. The space had a musty smell, the stone walls dank and cold. He switched on the lights. Several didn't come on at all, leaving the room heavily shadowed.

“No one paid any attention to this collection for years,” he said. “Periodically, there's a flurry of interest in Flamel, then it all dies down again. The last time was because of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or the Sorcerer's Stone as you renamed it in the States. The book mentioned Nicolas Flamel, and people were shocked to learn there actually once lived such a man. But, few are interested now, so we rarely bother to open up this display.”

The Flamel materials, tracings of engravings, stone sculptures, and a manuscript allegedly written by Nicolas Flamel himself, fit in a single glass case. Beside it were translations in a number of modern languages.

Bonnetieu waited patiently as Charlotte read.

Born around 1330, Flamel had been a bookseller and had a stall next to Saint Jacques la Boucherie in Paris. Copyists and illuminators did their work at his house in the Rue de Marivaux. He married a slightly older widow named Perenelle. They had no children.

Flamel's quiet, happy life changed when a stranger in need of money came to him with a unique book to sell. He wrote:

… there fell into my hands for the sum of two florins, a guilded Book, very old and large. It was not of Paper, nor or Parchment, as other Books be, but was only made of delicate rinds (as it seemed unto me) of tender young trees. The cover of it was of brass, well bound, all engraven with letters, or strange figures; and for my part I think they might well be Greek Characters, or some such like ancient language ….

Upon the first of the leaves, was written in great Capital Letters of Gold the words: Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews, by the Wrath of God dispersed among the Gauls, sendeth Health.

Flamel concluded his description by writing:

After this it was filled with great execrations and curses (with this word Maranatha, which was often repeated there) against every person that should cast his eyes upon it, if he were not Sacrificer or Scribe.

Charlotte stopped reading. A chill came over her. “Maranatha….Mustafa said both Dennis and the professor, Lionel Rempart, used that word. Do you know what it means?”

“Ah, an interesting question,” Bonnetieu replied. “Saint Paul used it in the first Epistle to the Corinthians and currently it is interpreted to mean 'The Lord comes' or 'The Lord is coming.' However, he used it right after the word 'anathema,' a curse for damnation or excommunication. And since ancient Greek has no punctuation, in the past many kept the two words joined in their mind. As a result, anathema maranatha was believed to be the most extreme sort of curse, as in 'The Lord is coming to execute vengeance.' The word has now mostly lost its negative connotation, but in Flamel's time, it was a strong, horrible curse. I believe the book contained the warning if anyone not permitted to read it did so, they would be forever damned.”

Charlotte heard a quiver in his voice as if he believed such nonsense.