The Lost Testament

7

Most of the forged scrolls and parchments Husani had handled in the past were clearly of recent origin, the ink black and the writing easy to read. The text he was looking at now was barely legible at all, and Husani had not the slightest doubt that it really was old. He’d never heard of a forger successfully fading ink on parchment to this extent and with this degree and feeling of authenticity. What’s more, assuming everything Mahmoud had told him was the truth, and the dates on the papers were accurate, the object had been locked away in a steel box since about 1965, almost half a century earlier, and that more or less ruled out the chance of it having been manufactured as a fake antique. If somebody had made it, they would also have sold it, not hidden it away. Nothing else made sense.

So it was old. The next question was did it have any value and, if so, what was it worth? And if it was valuable, just how little could he persuade the rascally Mahmoud Kassim, well-known in the souk for always demanding the highest possible price for anything he had on offer, to sell it for?

With an expression of disinterest on his face, Husani put the parchment to one side and then examined the sheets of paper that had been underneath it. It was immediately clear to him that these pages, too, were just as uninformative as those he’d already looked at. The only common factor seemed to be that they had been typed at about the same time, in the mid-1960s, as the other sheets. Other than that there was nothing to link them, and none appeared to be of the slightest interest. At the bottom of the pile there were a few sheets of newspaper, one of which he examined. It was clearly Italian in origin — the name of the paper made that clear — and also dated from 1965.

Husani still had no idea what the significance was of the piece of parchment, or what the Latin text on it was describing, but the way it had been hidden, or protected, in the centre of a stack of paper, locked inside a metal box and then secreted away somewhere in a house, suggested that it was important in some way. He needed to buy it as cheaply as he could and then try to find out exactly what it was.

Mahmoud was still looking at him, an eager expression on his face.

‘Do you know what it is, that thick paper?’ he asked.

Husani had found from his previous dealings with Mahmoud that the man often knew far more than he was prepared to admit at first, and it was a mistake to try to deceive him on such matters. A little truth often went a long way in his negotiations.

‘It seems to be a sheet of parchment,’ Husani began, and Mahmoud immediately nodded.

‘That was what I thought, too.’

Husani nodded. He’d guessed as much. Mahmoud would certainly have done some investigating himself before offering the object for sale to anybody. And the trader’s next words confirmed his suspicions.

‘I’ve had a look at the writing on it,’ Mahmoud said, ‘and I think I’ve been able to make out a couple of words, or most of the letters, anyway. It looks like Latin.’

‘What were the words?’ Husani asked.

‘I think one was a place name and the other possibly the name of a man, but the ink is faded so badly that I can’t be absolutely certain. I ran some searches on the Internet on what I think they were, just in case they were of some significance, but I didn’t find out anything particularly interesting — not to say they won’t yield something of importance if an expert were to look at it.’

Husani looked away from Mahmoud’s face and down at the parchment.

‘From what you’ve said, you probably know more about this than I do. I’m fairly certain that it’s a piece of parchment, but that’s about all I can tell you about it. Like you, I can see the writing on it, and I can make out a few of the letters, but it’s so indistinct that it might be impossible to ever decipher the whole thing. The only other point is that it looks to me as if the parchment is quite old, but other than that, I really have no idea what it is.’

Mahmoud’s expression changed, a frown replacing his earlier eager smile.

‘So do you think it has any value?’ he asked.

Husani replaced the parchment on the lower stack of papers, added the remainder and put the entire pile back into the old leather case before he replied.

‘Possibly,’ he said, ‘but I doubt if it’s worth very much. Pieces of old parchment are not exactly rare, and I have several for sale in my shop right now, all in much better condition than this. At best, I think this is nothing more than a curio, something I might be able to sell to a tourist just because it is so obviously old, and not because it has any other importance.’

‘Then I could sell it myself,’ Mahmoud suggested, clearly expecting Husani to disagree.

‘You could indeed, and if that’s what you want to do, I wish you luck,’ Husani replied, deciding at that moment to call Mahmoud’s bluff. He closed the catches on the suitcase and turned as if to leave the storeroom.

‘On the other hand,’ Mahmoud went on, ‘it’s not the usual kind of item that I would sell. Would you make me an offer for it? I’ll include the suitcase and the papers as a part of the deal.’

Husani turned back to look at the trader.

‘You know as well as I do that the papers are completely valueless, and the case is so old and battered that most people would just throw it away, not try to sell it. I’m not sure that it’s even worth my while bothering about the parchment,’ he finished. Then he suggested a figure that was little more than the old leather suitcase was worth by itself.

Mahmoud reeled backwards somewhat theatrically, clearly appalled at the sum offered, and proposed a figure more than ten times higher. And then the haggling, the part of the transaction that in truth both men enjoyed more than any other, began.