“Cute,” I said.

  “I suppose so.”

  I pointed to the interconnecting doorways. “Doesn’t leave much room for privacy.”

  “They were too busy for any privacy, Sam. From sick and injured animals, to battling the volatile rising waters. Indeed, they would have needed quick access to all crew members.”

  The fourth room, however, was massive. According to the professor, it was the captain’s cabin. Like the others, it was empty, save for an ornately carved pole in the center of the room. Rounded and domed at the top, it could have been a phallic symbol. Perhaps, I mused, to express their suppressed sexuality over the long stay on the ship. I kept the theory to myself.

  The pole was covered in intricate carvings of intertwined serpents, culminating in a single massive head. Caesar walked around the pole. “Eight bodies and one head,” he reported

  “Perhaps symbolic of the eight crew members and their ship,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps.”

  The serpent’s eyes gleamed black. The head was unusually worn and polished, like the newel of a staircase. The base disappeared straight down into the floorboards. I had an idea.

  I touched the serpent’s head. It was cold and smooth. I pulled it toward me, like shifting a gear into second, minus the clutch. Caesar gasped. Immediately, a door swung silently open in the far corner of the room, a door that had been concealed until now. Faint green light issued out.

  “Appears Noah had a secret room,” I said.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  It wasn’t quite a room.

  Instead, we stared silently down a long, breath-taking hallway. We could have been two Viking warriors standing at the threshold to Valhalla. An arched cove ceiling gave the corridor visual and physical height. Dark wooden columns, spaced evenly along either side of the hallway like rows of alert sentries, were capped with saucer-shaped capitals, reminiscent of the Greek Doric pilasters. Between the columns were massive floor-to-ceiling murals that emitted a green, phantasmagoric luminance. The soft light cast our shadows behind us, and for the moment, the torch was unnecessary, although I was reluctant to extinguish it.

  “What do you think, Sam?” said Caesar. I could hear his tongue scrape over his dry lips.

  “I think this is some weird shit.”

  “Shall we go in?”

  I was reluctant. The flickering torch seemed to lap the air with renewed enthusiasm, like an eager puppy. “How did Noah feel about trespassers?” I asked.

  Caesar looked at me, arching an eyebrow. “You think it might be booby-trapped?”

  I shrugged. The walls continued to glow, as they had done for a long, long time. The torch whipped crazily in my hand, although I didn’t feel much of a draft. Black smoke billowed up from the flame, smelling vaguely of burnt hamburgers at a Fourth of July picnic. I think I was hungry.

  “It may be our only way out,” urged Caesar.

  “A valid point.”

  “And soon the snow will cover the ark entirely, including us, just as Omar had hoped.”

  I thought again of Liz Cayman. I thought of my life here in Turkey, the years wasted in mourning. Omar had stolen much from me. I gripped the torch until it shook in my hand, knuckles white. It was time to end his madness.

  “C’mon, professor,” I said, stepping into the glowing hallway.

  “What about booby-traps?”

  “We’ll take our chances.”

  ***

  There were no poison darts or trap doors. At least not yet.

  Our footsteps stirred the ancient dust into billowing clouds, ghosts awakening from a deep slumber. The green light refracted off the dust motes and exploded into something surreal and dreamlike, shifting and churning, surrounding us in a sort of green aurora borealis. The color touched everything, bathing us completely, transforming our clothing and skin. We looked like two giant tree frogs. Even the professor’s teeth glowed green. I’m sure mine were no different.

  As the dust settled, we stood before the first mural, which rose from floor to ceiling, perhaps ten feet tall. It depicted a lush landscape. Rolling green hills. Long green grass blowing in the wind. Even the sky had a blue-green glow. On the hills were scrawny cattle, vastly different from our scientifically bred and genetically enhanced beasts. Some of the paint had flaked away, revealing the dark wood beneath. To my untrained eye, the painting seemed to have been done simply, although expertly contrasting light and shadow. A sort of harbinger to the late Nineteenth Century impressionists. The brush strokes were short, quick and bold. I sensed it had been created in a burst of inspiration, with little forethought.

  I rubbed my grizzled jaw. “What do you think, old man?”

  “Rather well done,” he said.

  “Rather,” I said.

  “The artist was before his time,” said Caesar. “It belongs in a museum, or at least on my living room wall.”

  “I think Noah would have something to say about that.”

  The columns were spaced evenly, framing each mural, and sculpted in bas-relief by a master craftsman. The scene on the first column was one of a mighty river surging over boulders, winding its way through the countryside. Large trees, perhaps cypress trees, crowded the banks. Birds sat on the branches of the trees. Gargantuan ferns hung out over the water, as predators, such as wolves and jackals, patrolled the undergrowth. A boy stood knee deep in the river and washed what appeared to be earthen pots. Another fished along the river bank, pole held loosely in his hands; he could have been asleep.

  “Somebody had a lot of spare time on his hands,” I said.

  “Good point,” said Caesar. “Taking the biblical story of the Flood at face value, the crew was on board the ark for over a year. With that said, I would suggest these masterworks were created while on the sea voyage, as I note a sense of longing for what was lost.”

  I sensed it too. The painting on the opposite wall was of an old woman amidst a flower garden, wearing a patchwork collection of tattered clothing. She was hunched over a row of purple chrysanthemums. Rather than rendering the old lady in minute detail, her chubby form was merely implied; the artist chose instead to concentrate on the effects of light and shadow, contrasting the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, with the complements of green, purple and orange. The brush strokes were side by side, rather than overlapping. The result was pure, verdant energy—the colors exploding across the wall in a visual orgasm.

  “I’m sensing a pattern here,” said the professor. “Other than being a masterwork of impressionistic painting—five thousand years before the impressionist movement began in France—these paintings appear to be a sort of homage to earth and nature.”

  “Or eulogy,” I said.

  Caesar shrugged. “Also, the murals and carvings could have been therapeutic. Talk about your rainy day blues.”

  The next pillar depicted jagged mountains. Again, the craftsmanship was unrivaled. Grass swayed in the wind. Near the base of a mountain, a farmer moved behind his mule, plowing deep furrows into the earth. Birds soared overhead, out-stretched wings catching the light of the setting sun. Deer, ibex, antelope and something that looked amazingly like a unicorn bounded along the many animal trails. There were no predators, and again life seemed to be celebrated.

  Caesar said, “There is more going on here than just a spontaneous, undetailed rendering of a simple life. There is a love for life. A love for the simple act of living. Perhaps even a tribute to life.” He paused. “But there is one thing I don’t get: how is the paint glowing?”

  I thought about that. “The base for the paint may be pigments extracted from phosphorescent lichen, combined with linseed oil for added adherence. Of course the cold of Ararat would preserve it perfectly, perhaps even glowing to this day.”

  “But why use glowing lichen as a base for the paint?” Caesar asked.

  I shrugged. “What better way to enhance your requiem for Mother Earth?”

  Caesar inhaled. He seemed to want to reach out and touch the painting. He managed to control himself. “Truly a miracle,” he said.

  “At this point, professor, I’ve lost sight of what is a miracle and what isn’t.”

  Next was a portrait of a striking woman. Hair hidden behind a shawl, she was robed in many colorful layers of heavy material. The bones of her face seemed both fragile and strong. Lips full and unpainted. Her eyes were not just green but Earth green. The color of new grass. Budding leaves. Moss on a tree.

  “Naamah, I presume,” I said.

  “I certainly hope so,” said the professor. “Otherwise Noah has some explaining to do.”

  We were silent, staring at the woman who stared back at us. I said, “Do you think Noah was the artist?”

  Caesar inhaled. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

  There were more paintings. More columns. We saw scenes of family life, community life, workers plying their trades. But as we neared the end of the hall, we sensed an ominous change, from the innocent to the carnal. Drunken brawls. A public stoning of two children… then we came upon the next mural.

  It was a massive public orgy. And detailed at that. Caesar leaned forward, hastily wiping his glasses. His face turned a shade redder than a turnip. “Rather imaginative,” he mumbled.

  Hundreds of bodies were contorted and writhing and gleaming with sweat, men and women sprawled across the furs of bears and oxen, men vastly outnumbering the women. No orifice was left unviolated, no man or woman left wanting. As a whole, they could have been one endless, undulating serpent of flesh. They appeared to be in a palace, or perhaps a temple. Gleaming fixtures surrounded the room, and golden human-like statues stood regally off to the side, impassively watching the heaving masses, perhaps the only items left unmolested in the room.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose. The painting was disturbing. Most involved in the orgy seemed unwilling participants. Indeed, some were even bound, although not gagged.

  “I can’t say the women are exhibiting the same looks of sexual glee as the men,” I said.

  “And even some of the men seem a bit repulsed,” added the professor. He tilted his head and raked his beard with a single index finger. I think his glasses were fogging up. “Limber bunch.”

  “So what do you make of it, professor?”

  “Makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like a carnival ride.”

  At the end of the hall we came to the final mural. It showed a starry night above a field of green meadows. It could have been “Starry Night” by Van Gogh. The grass was bent as if blown by gale-force winds. And yet there was something quite ominous about the painting.

  “Do you see it?” asked the professor.

  “Yes.”

  A blazing fireball streaked across the sky, followed by a long, burning tail. The fireball seemed to be on a direct course with Earth. We were silent, digesting the information portrayed in the painting.

  “An asteroid,” Caesar finally said, nodding to himself as if to confirm his own suspicions. “It would have impacted the earth with the force of ten thousand nuclear explosions. Earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves would have swept throughout the land… perhaps global, perhaps not. Great cities, small towns, and villages would have been equally drowned in an instant. Nothing would have been spared.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  From the hallway we moved into a small, domed room. The room was vaguely reminiscent of a tabernacle, complete with lectern and altar.

  “A place of worship,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Caesar. “Which in hindsight seems obvious, especially for one as deeply devoted as Noah.”

  Sconces made of gold hung in pairs on the curved walls, distributed liberally throughout the circular room. Stretched before us were eight rectangular wooden mats. They appeared to be designations for kneeling. If so, they looked uncomfortable at best; then again, perhaps sore knees inspired humility. Beyond was a limestone altar carved in the shape of a box, that must have been hell loading onto the ark. And at the back of the temple, sitting side by side on the raised semi-circular platform of the lectern, were two massive alabaster sarcophagi. The alabaster glowed ivory-white in the flickering torch.

  The temple was very silent, and a little spooky. The only noise was Caesar’s labored breathing through his damaged nose, and the crackle of the torch, which continued to whip in my hand as if from a draft, although I was fairly certain there was no draft. The air itself was heavy and difficult to breathe. I found it difficult to relax in the presence of the two stone coffins.

  Caesar was game, moving between the wooden mats, rubbing his thick beard. “Many fertility cults arose with the advent of farming,” he said. “Later, in Mesopotamia, nature gods were worshipped. The gods were organized as a democratic council, reflecting the political relations among the various city-states of Mesopotamia. Although Noah is believed to have lived near Mesopotamia, it is interesting to note that he worshipped a single godhead. Also, it is thought that he was an adherent to an ancient tradition called the Sethites, named for one of the sons of Adam.”

  I followed Caesar to the altar. Built from a single massive block of limestone, it was surprisingly archaic, edges roughly hewn. It seemed to pre-date much of the artistic splendor within the ark.

  Caesar said, “Noah brought seven pairs of clean animals into the ark to be sacrificed. Early in biblical tradition, God demanded blood sacrifices to appease his wrath and atone for man’s sin.”

  “Just as long as it wasn’t virgin maidens.”

  I had an extreme sense that precious time was slipping by. We needed to find an exit. And soon. Even now, Faye might be on her way to the Kingdom of Saudi, via the emir’s private Lear jet.

  We moved beyond the altar, up two or three stairs to the lectern. The torchlight crawled over the two sarcophagi. Both had sliding panels on one end. The panels appeared to slide down into grooves, locked in place with stone pins on either side. Removal of the pins would doubtless open the sarcophagi. The flickering light revealed a simple form of writing etched deeply into the crown of each coffin.

  “Two very old vampires?” I suggested.

  Caesar ignored me and leaned over the first sarcophagus, blowing away dust, revealing more of the writing. “Some speculate that Noah was entombed within his ark, coming full circle, if you will. Although according to a Lebanese tradition, he was buried in the mountains near the ancient city of Damascus.” Caesar paused, “However, found in the Apocrypha, those books not included in the Protestant Bible today, is the legend that Adam’s body was preserved on the ark as protection from the Flood.”

  “Adam and Eve.” I grinned, then waved the torch toward the inscriptions. “Maybe these engravings will shed some light on the identity of our friends.”

  Caesar breathed loudly through his mouth, ruffling the whiskers around his lips. His nose had taken on a deeper shade of red. Magenta, perhaps. It seemed ready to explode. He shook his head with great regret. “Unfortunately, these pictographs or ideograms pre-date anything I’m familiar with, although they do appear to be calendrical.” Caesar paused, a wicked twinkle his eye. “Of course, we could open them and see what’s inside.”

  I shook my head and stepped back. “And risk the wrath of God?”

  “Wrong ark, Sam.”

  “Still, that sounds like a very bad idea.”

  He sighed, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s wait for the experts.”

  I gladly moved away from the sarcophagi. The wavering torchlight crawled over the curved walls. Sconces gleamed, shadows fled. The platform, however, was empty. I sighed, frustrated. We had reached a dead end—

  I stopped in mid-step. No, not entirely empty.

  At the far end of the curved wall was a small opening, perhaps five feet high and no wider than a man’s shoulders—a very short man’s shoulders. Just inside the opening was the beginnings of a wooden staircase that led straight up into the darkness.

  ***

  We left the temple with its creepy stone coffins.

  The stairs were spaced far apart, each riser more than ten inches high. The five foot tall Noah would have taken two steps for every one of ours. There were no balustrades to guide our hands, just smooth walls to either side, cold to the touch. With each step, the temperature dropped until our breaths frosted before us. The increased cold would keep Caesar’s nose from exploding.

  The stairs ended in a short landing and a blank wall, like the Winchester mansion with its stairs to nowhere. “Was Noah insane?” I asked.

  Caesar brushed past me, feeling the wall with the tips of his fingers. “No, Sam, although many claimed he was.”

  I leaned a shoulder against the fossilized wood and watched him quietly, wishing I had a cigarette. Even something that resembled a cigarette. The professor’s fingers began tracing a wide, rectangular outline. He nodded, grinning through his nest of whiskers.

  “It’s a window,” he said.

  “Doesn’t look like much of a window, professor.”

  He ignored me, pushing with his hands. The veins on his neck stood out like frayed rope. “You could help, you know,” he said, grunting.

  “Sure,” I said. “Looks like fun.”

  I moved over and applied my own weight to the wall. Suddenly two massive shutters swung out to either side. A shaft of murky light slanted through the opening, falling across Caesar’s triumphant face. The shutter itself was held in place by hidden joints that creaked horribly, but worked perfectly.

  “They probably used a rope to haul the shutters back in,” said Caesar. He leaned out the window, grinning like a fool. The wind whipped his hair into a gray cyclone. Snow fell across his shoulders and stuck to his beard like Velcro. Watching Caesar, I could almost imagine another old man leaning out this same window at the end of a very long journey. Perhaps even releasing a dove…

  ***