The Last Testament

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

APRIL 2003, BAGHDAD

Mahmoud was regretting this decision. He should be above this now, he said to himself; as he was thrown into the air yet again, his bottom landing on the hard plastic seat of the bus as it hit the thousandth bump in the road. He should be the Mr Big who hired runners, yet here he was, working as a humble courier himself. Ten hours down, five more to go on the clapped-out old charabanc they laughingly referred to as the Desert Rocket.

For the last couple of weeks he had been working on a different business model. He would sit in the café on Mutannabi Street, waiting for pieces to come his way-and, let Allah be praised, they kept coming-and then pass them on via one of the countless boys who had emerged, like rats from a sewer, the instant Saddam was toppled. Mahmoud marvelled at the sudden proliferation of these teenage entrepreneurs. No one had planned for it; no one had ever discussed it. There had been no training; not even a rumour that there would be money to be made the day you-know-who was gone. Yet here they all came, slipping out of every backstreet and flea-ridden alley.

The trade was brisk, with mobile phones the preferred means of communication. Mahmoud would call, say, Tariq, who he knew had a shipment going to Jordan that night, telling him that he had a couple of items that needed transportation. He would hand those to one of the boys, who would run them across town. Then Tariq would pass them onto another runner, who would take the Desert Rocket to Amman. There he would meet al-Naasri or one of his rivals among the big Jordanian dealers. Al-Naasri would work out a price, and the courier would take the cash back to Iraq. Thanks to the phone network, the runners knew better than to slice off a cut. If they did, there were no shortages of ditches along the Tigris for them to fall into.

Mahmoud had been doing that profitably for a while. Business had been constant since the statue came down, but he had been close to the trade for longer than that. It was not spoken of in whispers; it was not spoken of at all, but there had been some-how should he put it?-movement of antiquities since the first war, the mother of all battles, back in 1991. Until then, looting had been unheard of, but the American bombardment loosened things up a little: even Saddam couldn’t keep an eye on everything when there were Cruise missiles falling from the sky. Not that he did not come down hard on the guilty men. Mahmoud, like every other ‘dealer’ in Iraq, remembered the fate of the eleven men found guilty of sawing the face off a magnificent Mesopotamian winged bull: the beast itself was too heavy to transport anywhere. Saddam made sure it was known that he signed the death warrant for that crime himself. And, with characteristic flair, it was Saddam who decreed that these thieves should suffer the same fate they had inflicted on the mighty bronze creature. Their executioner duly took an electric saw and sliced the faces off each one of them in turn. And each, waiting for his own death, had had to watch as it came to his fellows. When the eleventh man was killed, he had already witnessed the punishment that awaited him ten times over.

Despite that deterrent, some grand pieces did get out. Mahmoud never saw, but he had heard about, the section of a relief taken from the ancient Palace of Nimrod. Rather poignantly, Mahmoud thought, it depicted slaves in chains. He imagined that image, smuggled out to the West by the suffocated people of Iraq: it was like a distress signal.

The route then as now was Jordan and the conduit, then as now, was the al-Naasri family. The traffic in treasures along that path had never been heavier than it was now; trinkets and pots from every age of man, from the eras of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians and the Persians and the Greeks. Mostly it was fragments that were taken, though the tale was told of Tariq’s boys who lugged an entire statue to Amman, stashing it in the boot of the Desert Rocket. Apparently they slipped the driver a dollar or two-and told him their cargo was only a corpse. Such was the topsy-turvy morality of Baghdad in the spring of 2003.

Mahmoud had sent nearly a dozen runners to Amman in the last fortnight, each of them following the route he had taken himself when he was starting out. But something told him he was due a visit in person. He needed to see al-Naasri eyeball-to-eyeball. With business expanding at the rate it was, and the sums at stake, there were bound to be opportunities to bend the rules. Mahmoud wasn’t going to be a sucker. He wanted to be sure al-Naasri was playing it straight.

So he had filled a holdall with his latest hoard of three or four items, including a couple of ancient seals, that clay tablet he had got from the nervous man in the café and the pièce de résistance, a pair of gold-leaf earrings which, though it was anyone’s guess, his valuer had estimated to be four and a half thousand years old. He wasn’t about to entrust those to some spotty fourteen-year-old from Saddam City. All the more reason why he was spending fifteen hours in the company of the sputtering bone-trembler that was the Desert Rocket.

He had dozed off in the final hours of the journey, waking up with a start when the bus juddered to a halt. He had kept the bag on his lap throughout, the handles entwined around his wrists lest the thieving scum around him get any ideas. Even before he had opened his eyes, he had patted the bag, to make sure he could still feel the shapes within; he tested its weight. As for the earrings, he knew they were somewhere completely safe.

It was midnight by the time he got off the bus. He hadn’t realized how bad it smelled until he was off it, the odour released in waves as the unwashed, exhausted passengers emerged into the night. He breathed in the Amman air, inhaling the excitement of a place that wasn’t Baghdad. Last time he had been here it had been even more thrilling: handling bank notes that did not have his face on them, seeing statues that depicted men other than him. There were no real elections here either, but at least the Jordanians had not shamed themselves by approving their tyrant with a one hundred per cent vote.

One of al-Naasri’s boys was waiting for him, bored and listless by the railings. He said nothing, nor did he offer to take Mahmoud’s bag-not that Mahmoud would have let him-as he set off for the short walk down King Hussein Street. Before long there were signs for the Roman Amphitheatre, which meant the souk was close by. As they headed down the cobbled alleys, the boy increased his speed; Mahmoud had to run to keep up. Some kind of mind game, Mahmoud decided.

Most of the stalls were closed at this time of night, their steel shutters down. The boy was turning through the market, twisting left and right, so fast that Mahmoud knew he would never be able to find his way out alone. He reached inside his suit jacket, under his arm, to check that his dagger was still there, in its leather holster.

Eventually Mahmoud caught a smell: fresh pitta bread. There must be a night bakery near here. Sure enough, the row after row of empty, unmanned stalls was broken by a cluster of lights just around the next corner. Tinny music was playing on a radio; men were sitting outside, drinking coffee from small cups and mint tea from glasses. Mahmoud sighed his relief. This felt like home.

The runner made his way inside, Mahmoud following. He reached the table where a man was sitting alone. The runner nodded curtly and left just as quickly. From beginning to end, he had not said a word.

Mahmoud did not recognize the man at the table. He was too young, younger than Mahmoud himself. ‘I’m sorry, perhaps there has been some mistake. I am looking for Mr al-Naasri.’

‘Mahmoud?’

‘Yes.’

‘I am Nawaf al-Naasri. I am my father’s son. Come.’

He led Mahmoud out of the coffee shop and down another alleyway. He could stab me here, thought Mahmoud, take my bag and no one would ever know.

Instead Nawaf was tapping lightly on one of the steel shutters. After a second or two, it began to crawl upward, apparently operated by some electric mechanism. Inside, fluorescent lights flickered on to reveal what looked like a souvenir shop: big glass windows and fifty-seven varieties of junk inside.

‘Come, come. Some tea?’

Mahmoud nodded as he surveyed the merchandise. Clock faces on highly-polished slices of timber; jars of coloured sand and bottles of water ‘Guaranteed from the River Jordan’. It was crap, doubtless aimed at the Christian pilgrim market. One day, Mahmoud thought, we’ll have trash like this on sale in Baghdad: ‘Guaranteed from the Gardens of Babylon’. And the tat stores in Iraq will do the same job as they do here in Jordan, serve as fronts for the antiquities business.

‘Mahmoud! A pleasure.’

He wheeled round to see al-Naasri senior beaming a wild smile. Mahmoud, who had an eye for clothes, could see that the Jordanian was wearing a well-tailored suit, the fabric hanging properly. He was ashamed of his own black leather jacket, rumpled after the marathon bus journey, its patches worn almost to baldness. It wasn’t just the suit: all over, al-Naasri had the gloss that comes with wealth. It had only been a matter of weeks since the treasure had started flowing from Baghdad, but already it seemed to have transformed Jaafar al-Naasri. Maybe serious money worked its magic fast. Whether or not that was true Mahmoud was determined to find out for himself.

‘So, my friend, to what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘I thought maybe we would meet for a later night cup of coffee, perhaps a piece of cake. Talk about old times.’

Al-Naasri turned to his son, who was fussing in the back of the store. ‘I forgot that our friend from Baghdad is something of a joker with us!’ Then he turned back to Mahmoud, still smiling. ‘Would you forgive me, Mahmoud, if we got straight to business. It’s late and I am a busy man.’

‘Of course.’ Mahmoud tried flashing his own smile: he wanted to learn from this wealthy man, to copy him. He reached into the holdall, bringing out the first of the two seals that a young cousin had brought him within hours of what Mahmoud liked to think of as the museum’s grand opening. Others had reached him later, chipped and damaged. But none were as good as this one.

Al-Naasri took it from him, checking its weight in his hands, testing its solidity. He reached into the breast-pocket of his suit and pulled out a pair of half-moon reading glasses.

‘It’s real, I assure you. Mahmoud wouldn’t spend fifteen hours getting his arse pounded on that bus for a fake-’

Al-Naasri halted him with an upward glance of the eyes, peering out from above the lenses. The expression demanded quiet. The Jordanian was concentrating. ‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘What else?’

Mahmoud produced the second seal, larger and more ornate. He had the sequence of items all worked out, building to what he thought would be an irresistible climax.

Al-Naasri submitted the seal to the same scrutiny then placed it down on the table so he could examine Mahmoud with similar thoroughness. ‘You have done well here, my friend. I am impressed. Do I have the feeling the best is yet to come?’ He flashed the teeth once more.

‘You do, my friend, you do indeed.’ Mahmoud pulled the bag up onto his lap, and dug both hands in to bring out the clay tablet that had come to him in the café a few days earlier.

Al-Naasri extended his hands to take it from him. He held the envelope in one, and pulled out the tablet with the other. Suddenly he called over his shoulder to his son: ‘My glass, please!’

Nawaf brought out a jeweller’s eyeglass, which al-Naasri expertly lodged in his left eye. The older man hunched over the table, studying the object closely. He let out a low murmur, but said nothing.

‘So what do you think?’ Mahmoud couldn’t help himself.

Al-Naasri leaned back, the glass still wedged in place, so that his left eye was magnified grotesquely. ‘I think you have earned the right to see the al-Naasri collection.’ He let the glass fall out, catching it in his hand.

Without prompting, Nawaf began to unlock a door behind the shop counter which opened, Mahmoud presumed, onto a storeroom. All the big dealers worked like this: trinkets sold out front, the real deal hidden behind. Hurriedly, he stashed his hoard back in the bag and got up.

They walked in single file through a back room that was filled with cardboard boxes and two giant rolls of bubble wrap. This, surely, was where the treasure was to be found. But the al-Naasri men did not linger; they did not even switch on a light. Instead, with the father in front of Mahmoud and the son behind him, they kept walking, until they reached a second door. This one was sturdier and more heavily secured; al-Naasri had to use three keys to unlock it.

To Mahmoud’s surprise it opened onto the outside, a cool breeze of night air touching his face. Down a couple of stairs, and the three men were standing in a decent-sized backyard.

‘Nawaf, do you have the spade?’

Mahmoud swung round to see the young man holding a solid metal spade. Instinctively Mahmoud’s free hand reached for his dagger and whipped it out, thrusting it in Nawaf’s direction.

‘Oh, my dear brother, don’t be so ridiculous!’ said Jaafar al-Naasri, catching Mahmoud’s hunted expression and laughing broadly. ‘Nawaf here is not going to hit you. The spade is so he can show you our collection.’

Mahmoud’s head was spinning. Sleep-deprived and confused, his eyes adjusted to see that this barren scrap of land was in fact covered with sandy brown earth, like a vegetable patch. And now, directed by his father and apparently unfazed by Mahmoud pulling a blade on him, Nawaf was standing in the middle of it, digging.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Wait and see.’

Al-Naasri and Mahmoud stood, watching Nawaf as he dug, in a smooth, easy rhythm, into the ground. Mahmoud noticed Nawaf’s arms, knotted with muscles.

Slowly, out of the ground, a shape began to emerge. Nawaf dug harder, then threw aside his spade and crouched, scratching at the soil with his bare hands. In the moonlight, Mahmoud could make out a figure, an animal of some kind. Nawaf beckoned them over.

As he got nearer, Mahmoud saw it clearly. Pulled from the ground was a statue, a ram on its hind legs, its front hooves gripping a slim tree trunk, its horns caught in the tree’s ornate flowers. As Nawaf dusted off the soil, and in the light of the night sky, Mahmoud could see this extraordinary sculpture was carved from the most delicate copper, silver and gold.

Mahmoud gasped.

Al-Naasri senior smiled. ‘You recognize it, yes? Perhaps you have seen it in the newspapers.’ Mahmoud nodded, unable to speak. ‘It is the Ram in the Thicket, found in the Great Pit of Death at Ur,’ al-Naasri went on, enjoying the moment. ‘You probably saw it on a school trip to the National Museum when you were a child. I know I did. It was one of the highlights.’

‘And now you have it here?’

‘Have you not seen it with your own eyes?’

‘You are showing me this so that I will know that what I have brought is worthless. Is that right? You want to humiliate Mahmoud by this comparison.’

‘Not at all, my friend. You worry too much. I am showing you this so that you might know what glories you are to live among.’

Mahmoud smiled with relief. ‘Really? You think the pieces I have brought are worthy of being kept here, in the collection?’ He liked sounding complicit with this man, the equal of this genius of the trade.

‘Not just the pieces, Mahmoud. I also plan to keep you here.’ And, with barely a flick of his hand, he beckoned his son to move, precisely as they had planned. Mahmoud reached for his blade, but it was too late: the spade had already thudded against his skull, knocking him to the ground. He oozed a final breath, but Nawaf pounded him with the metal head of the tool twice more, just to be sure.

‘Our very own Great Pit of Death,’ Jaafar al-Naasri murmured, almost to himself. ‘Strip him and bury him,’ he ordered his son. ‘Right away.’

Jaafar al-Naasri picked up the holdall, checking that the seals and clay tablet were still in place, and headed back inside. He was turning the second of the three locks on the door when he heard his son laughing loudly. He turned round to see Nawaf, standing over the fresh corpse, rocking back and forth in mirth.

Al-Naasri walked back until he stood alongside his son. He could not see the joke at first, until Nawaf pointed at the dead man’s chest. There, glinting in the light of the stars, one attached to each of Mahmoud’s nipples, were two fine, golden earrings. Mahmoud believed he had hit upon the perfect hiding place: their revelation was to be his grand finale. And so it turned out.