Two days later, by some minor miracle, all the swelling and most of the bruise had faded from my eye. Nicholas, having completed repairs on the boat, was driving Niki and me to the dock at Fira. Father Jon was to meet us at Threader’s boat. When supplies were loaded, we’d set sail for Pialigos and the Rock.
Niki rode in the front passenger seat. I lay stretched out in the back, catching up on my journal and mulling over the implications of the Josephus letter.
The idea that Jesus might have traveled with a scribe made a lot of sense, especially when Niki explained how many biblical scholars viewed the process of Gospel composition. Mark, she had said, was the first complete Gospel written. The anonymous author, having gathered a list of sayings and other material, added his own narrative to create a coherent story, which he completed around 70 AD. A few years later, Mathew and Luke wrote their Gospels. Each incorporated nearly all of the work of their predecessor before adding their own unique material. John, written twenty years later, came from an entirely different Jesus tradition. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were known as the “synoptic Gospels,” because they shared a common source.
It was the “unique material” used by Matthew and Luke that caught my attention. Niki explained that it was made up of various sayings of Jesus—the Sermon on the Mount, for example—and that each writer had incorporated it, more or less, into his own Gospel. Known as Q (from the German quelle, meaning source), this list of sayings was considered the closest to the actual words of the historical Jesus. The individual who first put this group of sayings in writing, however, remained a mystery to scholars.
Could the letter of Josephus and the Pialigarian scroll possibly point to the author of these sayings? Could Anatolios, scribe and possible secretary to Jesus, actually have written the Q source? Had Jesus spent his eighteen undocumented years studying under an obscure Essene mystic named Marcus? Most intriguing, was it possible that the basis of the Nazarene’s teachings had their origins in the Three Measures of Wisdom?
My head swam with questions. I tried to heed Father Jon’s warning that any connection between our scroll and the letter of Josephus was purely speculative. Still, if even a fragment of our conjecture were true, we were onto something huge. We had to find the scroll.
I’d tried to reach Marion a dozen times by telephone. I wanted to tell her what was going on and share my excitement. Had she gotten any of my messages? Why hadn’t she returned even one of my calls? I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. For some reason, Barnes didn’t have an answering machine at the villa. Maybe Marion had tried to call but Dora was away from the phone and didn’t answer. Frustrated, I decided to send her a letter explaining the phone situation; I told her how much I missed and loved her, that I’d definitely be out of touch while we were off on our little voyage. I kept trying to assure myself that everything was all right with Marion, that she was just throwing a very long and aggravating tantrum. Deep down, I wasn’t so sure.
Niki’s voice suddenly snapped me to attention. “What is the fire?” she asked Nicholas over the rush of wind, water, and motor.
I sat up to see a thick column of smoke billowing from the direction of Santorini’s harbor.
“I do not know,” Nicholas said. “A scrapped boat, perhaps. Sometimes they strip them of everything salvageable and then tow them out to set them on fire. Most economical, I suppose.”
He was right. Nicholas got close enough for us to see a salvage tug circling a boat disintegrating beneath a storm of orange flame. A group of spectators watched from the dock.
Anxious to see if Threader had kept his word, I searched the dock for his boat. It wasn’t there, but Threader was. He stood among the spectators, his fists planted at the waist, his clothes torn and burned. What the hell? Then it hit me. Dancing Daphne was ablaze in the harbor.
Father Jon waved from the end of the dock. Nicholas maneuvered close enough for me to throw him a line. The father was far too cheerful to know that our ride to Pialigos was burning before his eyes.
I leaped to the dock and sprinted down the beach toward Threader.
“Where are you going?” Niki shouted. “We still have to unload the boat!”
I didn’t stop.
Threader, his face streaked with blackened sweat, glanced at me before turning back toward his mortally wounded vessel. “They damn near got me, Adams.”
Niki caught up, breathless, eyes wide with questions.
“Hello, Niki,” Threader said, forcing a half smile. “Sorry you got to see this.”
“Captain Threader? What is it?” Her eyes darted in many directions. “Why do you say …”
“I was supposed to be in there.” Threader nodded toward the flames. “They tried to block the door, but I busted out.”
“Oh my god!” Niki said, gasping. “That is your boat? Somebody … somebody did this to you?”
“Not somebody. Giacopetti. Sure as there’s a devil in hell, that son of a bitch done it.”
Father Jon joined our group. In silence, we watched the boat sink lower into the water. Then, the bow began to lift. Threader, knowing what was coming, raised his hand slowly, his fingers trembling and then curling into a white fist. The hissing mass groaned and sputtered a final breath before slipping quietly into the tranquil blue of the morning harbor.
Father Jon made the sign of the cross and muttered a prayer beneath his breath. Niki buried her face in her hands, weeping. Blake Threader slipped an arm around her shoulder and looked on as the tug crawled like a beaten dog back to the dock. The dispersing crowd offered hushed condolences, solemn pats to the shoulder, and downcast faces sagging with pity for a broken old seaman whose lifeline to everything meaningful had just unraveled and snapped before his eyes.
I wanted to say something, but none of it would make any difference.
Threader coughed, cleared his throat, and through a raspy chuckle said, “Guess I ain’t gonna be much good to you folks now. If I was you, I’d start shopping for another skipper.”
“Can’t do that, Threader,” I said. “We’ll figure out something.” I didn’t have a clue as to what.
“Yeah? You gonna get the father here to raise her from the dead?”
“I believe in miracles,” Father Jon quipped nervously, “but I—”
“The Penelope,” I said. “Is it a charter?”
“Hell yes,” Threader snapped. He threw a smoldering glare at the vessel. “She’s one of the reasons I’m running a goddamn salvage yard. Guy like me can’t compete with the likes of her.”
“You know the owner?” I asked.
“Some damn Frenchman,” Threader said.
“I know this man,” Father Jon piped up. “Philippe Lerfervre. He owns a villa not far from here.”
Niki stepped in. “Then you will talk with him. You will tell him that our captain is a seaman of great experience and skill, a captain in great demand.”
Threader blew out a chuckle; his eyes dropped. “That’d be spreading it on a little thick, I’d say. Niki, that’s awful nice of you, but that was a few years ago. People around here, well, they aren’t stupid. They got eyes. They can see that I’m nothing more than a two-bit drun—”
“Enough!” Niki barked.
The word splashed across Threader’s face like a bucket of cold water. He looked like a man shaken out of a walking coma.
Niki turned to the Penelope. “She is a beautiful vessel. Perfect!” She whirled back toward Threader. “You can sail this yacht, no?”
Threader toyed nervously with his fingers. “Look, Niki, I appreciate what you’re—”
She stiffened, daring him to finish his sentence.
He shot a worried glance at the father and me. Our shoulders went up in a simultaneous shrug that said we’d rather eat glass than be on the receiving end of that butt-searing glare of hers.
Then, some remembered shred of dignity seeped into Threader’s eyes. He raised his face to Penelope and straightened his shoulders slightly, almost confidently. “Hell yes, I can sail her. I do it every time I go to sleep at night.”
Niki nodded sharply. “Yes. And if this yacht could dream, she would dream of a captain of your skill standing at her helm, steering her through the great, open sea.”
Threader tilted his head like a curious dog, studied Niki, and laughed. “You’re funny, girl. You know that, don’t you?”
“Perhaps I am funny. But I am serious.”
There was no need to convince anyone of that.
“Father Jon!” Niki said, jerking him to attention. “Go! Speak to this owner. Use your influence, whatever it takes. And you”—she drove a stiff forefinger at me—“you will use your American wits to help negotiate the deal. Rufus, he will pay. Whatever it takes, he will pay. And you, Captain, you will dream of sailing the Penelope no longer. Come with me. You will have a bath and new clothing fitting for a captain of your stature.” She raised an open hand to the Penelope. “Today, you, Captain Blake Threader, you will fulfill the dream of this … this magnificent vessel.”
It wasn’t possible to restore a complete human wreck to its former proud state in a matter of only a few short hours. That’s what I believed … until I actually saw it happen. There was no doubt in my mind that if we’d hired another skipper, Threader would have either drunk himself to death or taken the quicker route of putting a bullet through his brain. Captain Blake Threader had gone from a broken, filthy, destitute drunkard to the proud captain of a prize vessel. He stood tall at the wheel of the Penelope, the shimmer of purpose burning as bright as the late-afternoon sun in his eyes. Niki had performed a miracle.
I watched her sitting at the deck table next to Father Jon—talking, laughing—and I knew I could feel no more pride for another person than I felt for her at that moment.
Securing Penelope was a stroke of luck. The yacht had been slated to go out for the next three weeks, but Lerfervre’s client had a last-minute change of plans and had to cancel. Lerfervre’s biggest worry, of course, concerned the credentials of our skipper.
Since Lerfervre spoke only French, my American wits were useless in the negotiations. Father Jon, fluent in the language, closed the deal. On the way back to the dock, I asked him what he’d said to convince Lerfervre of Threader’s qualifications. The father only said that he’d offered “satisfactory assurances.” When I asked how Lerfervre responded to our taking Penelope to Kyropos, Father Jon snapped his fingers. “I knew there was something I was forgetting.” He smiled. “Oh well, only a minimal confession will be required. A couple of Our Fathers. Three, maybe four Hail Marys. No more.” It made me think that a degree in business would come in pretty handy for a guy entering the priesthood.
In any case, we had secured the fifty-one-foot, five-cabin luxury motel on water. By late afternoon, Threader had Penelope leaning flat and tight in the wind, cutting through the open sea toward Anafi and the ten-hour trip that would take us to the northern tip of Carpathos.
Threader insisted that Penelope was thrilled to be getting back to her roots. When I smiled doubtfully, he explained that the word yacht came from the German jacht, short for jachtship, meaning hunting ship. “You can bet your ass she’s happy,” he insisted. “She’s shedding her money-fattened cargo for the chance to go on a real hunt.”
The plan was to skirt the coastlines of Carpathos and Casos. Once we cleared the southern tip of Casos, we would bear east into the Mediterranean for Pialigos. Father Jon, Niki, and I sat at a table sharing spirited conversation and, compliments of Father Jon’s monastery, a bottle of some of the finest, unnamed red wine I had ever sipped. Dry, courage-building stuff it was. I needed it. Doubts about my vision of Kyropos seeped in beneath the thrill of the voyage. One minute it all seemed real; the next, I wasn’t so sure.
Hours had passed when Father Jon excused himself for a nap. Niki, wearing a white cotton blouse over a yellow bikini, invited me to join her at the front of the boat. Sitting together, bare legs freely dangling, chins resting on arms crossed over the bow railing, we watched in long silence our blue world of sea and sky pass.
I was lost in thoughts of her and the strange feelings of familiarity that she evoked. Had she played some role in a soul memory that was beginning to ease into my mind from the mists of antiquity? It all seemed so far-fetched, so unbelievable. Yet the bands of stress tightened in my head when I thought of the complications that such a thing might generate in my present situation. If I didn’t believe it, why did it worry me?
“What are you thinking, Stuart Adams?”
Niki’s voice startled me. I wasn’t aware that she’d been watching me. Confused, I needed to talk about my feelings. But not now, not with her.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing? Scientific studies have been done. No one can think of nothing, not even you.”
“Well, I guess I can’t argue with science, can I? Okay, I confess; I was thinking.”
“What about?”
“Pialigos,” I lied. “You never explained why you wanted to go. You gonna tell me about it?”
“No. You should be happy for the time away from the excavation. You will not strain your back at sea.” Her tone was playful but serious enough to tell me she intended to hang on to her mystery.
“You may find it hard to believe,” I said, “but I really don’t mind a little hard work now and then. I just want it to be worthwhile.”
“The American way. The problem with life is that one cannot always know if their labor will reward them with the fruit of a desired end. My father used to say, ‘If it is but a single end that you seek, of what value is the journey?’ I have never forgotten. When I dig, I dig as if the digging is the joy of my life, the reason for my existence. I give thanks for these fingers that grasp the stone. I rejoice in the arms that enable me to throw it. If I find the scroll, I will celebrate that success is added to my joy. You Americans, you must accomplish to be happy. But then you are not. So you keep going. Again and again you go, always searching for that thing that will make you happy. When will you learn that you do not find happiness? Happiness is within you. You bring it like a light to shine on whatever you do. If what you have to do is move stones, then you are happy moving stones. Simple, really. Too simple, perhaps, for the American mind to grasp.”
“It’s not just us Americans,” I reminded her. “I read someplace that your Alexander the Great sat down and cried when he ran out of countries to conquer. Been a long time since any Americans I know have done that.”
“He was mad, driven by greed and a need for admiration. He was not a true Greek, at least not in his heart.”
“I see. Well, we sure don’t want to stereotype and generalize, not when we’re talking about Greeks.”
The remark drew an indignant glare. She started to respond and then stopped, her face turning soft. “Forgive me. My nationalistic tendencies, I am afraid that they sometimes show.”
“Like the mustard on your nose.”
“Mustard?” She touched her nose and glanced at her fingers.
“American humor,” I said, grinning. It had been a long time since I’d seen anyone fall for that one.
She wasn’t amused. “American boy humor, no doubt.”
I shrugged. “Anyway, I can’t say that I agree with your father. If it’s all about the journey, then why don’t we just sit on this boat and be happy sailing in one big circle for the rest of our lives? I don’t know about you, but I want to get someplace, achieve something big, something meaningful.”
“And what big thing will you achieve that is so meaningful?”
“I’d find a scroll. Write a story. See my name on the New York Times bestseller list. Roll naked in a great big tub full of money. I can see a lot of meaning in doing something like that.”
“And when you tire of rolling naked in your great big tub full of money?”
“Never thought that far ahead. Maybe I’d buy the Penelope and spend the rest of my life sailing to exotic places.”
“Interesting. Does it not occur to you that you are already on the Penelope, sailing to one of the most exotic places in the world? You see, you think that you have to get to some other place before you can enjoy what the journey even now freely provides. Will the sea be bluer, the sky brighter because you roll naked in your big tub of money? Are you so consumed with reaching this destination of yours that you fail to see the very things that you would buy sitting in plain sight right under your nose?”
Her logic drove me back into silence. Technically, I already knew that my financial success would do nothing to change the color of sea or sky. I did have a hunch, however, that a tub full of money would go a real long way toward putting a pretty big smile on my face.
With a few lessons from Threader, we all took a turn at the helm, sailing through the night. When we reached the mountainous coastline of the Carpathian archipelago—a jagged shadow looming beneath the deep canopy of stars—Threader explained how the islands once provided a favorite hideout for pirates, that the name Carpathos, or Karpathos, was a derivative of the word arpakatos, which meant robbery.
Niki added to the history lesson. “Carpathians retain their own dialect and still dress in their traditional costumes. Even their homes, carved from stone, date back to very ancient times.”
At first light, we rounded Casos and passed the invisible line dividing the Aegean from the Mediterranean. We arrived at Pialigos under the full blare of the late-morning sun.
Pialigos was smaller than I expected. Like many other islands, it was boulder strewn, splattered with sparse clumps of vegetation, and rimmed in red cliffs lined with thin lips of white sand for beaches. Nestled atop the highest points of the cliffs was the sprawling complex of pinkish stucco buildings with arched windows and red tiled roofs, a fitting setting, I thought, for the ancient heart of Minoan mysticism.
Three small boats lay moored at the pier. Each had a single mast and a long pointed bow, white in color, brightly decorated with painted images of arched dolphins—exactly like the ones I’d seen in my vision at Barnes’s place in Colorado.
Niki noticed my distraction. “Something puzzles you?”
“The boats,” I said, without looking at her. “I’ve seen this kind before.”
Threader, overhearing my comment, explained, “That ain’t likely, Adams, not unless you’ve been on this island. The only place on earth you’ll see boats like these is right here. They build ’em just like they did in ancient times: hand-drilled cypress, hand-carved wooden nails, a waxed fabric to waterproof the hull. Fine vessels they are. We could have sailed up to this pier three thousand years ago and seen the exact same thing. You’re looking at a living piece of history.”
We tied off the Penelope and started for the monastery. Threader, popping a beer, stayed on the boat explaining that it’d been a while since he’d spent a night alone “with a lady like this.” Nobody tried to dissuade him.
Niki and Father Jon headed for the long stairs that led to the monastery. I lagged a few steps behind, sipping water, absorbing an intensified version of the homecoming sensation I’d felt on Santorini. At one point, I glanced back at the three Pialigarian boats bobbing in their sun-drenched berths. The scene, down to the arching seawall protecting the harbor, was identical to the vision I’d had at Barnes’s place.
What was happening to me? The feeling that I knew Niki, the vision of Marcus, the island’s welcoming sense of familiarity, and now the recognition of one-of-a-kind boats—these were all like pieces of a frozen block of memory beginning to thaw, titillating drops of recollection still too small to quench my thirst for understanding. And I was about to experience more. Niki and Father Jon had already begun to climb the stairs. I started to follow and then stopped. It was the same stairway I’d seen in my vision.
Niki, shading her eyes, her voice sharp with impatience, called out to me. “Stuart? Why do you stop? We have a long way to go.”
“I’ve been here,” I said, climbing past my perplexed companions, taking one, two, even three steps at a time. The sun sucked sweat through my shirt beneath the backpack. I sprinted toward the upper landing, already knowing what I would see. Wheezing, blinking at trickles of eye-stinging sweat, I scanned the area for a small shelter with a tile roof supported by four stone pillars.
It wasn’t there. Only the flattened edge of a boulder protruded from the spot where the shelter should have been. An olive grove, overgrown with clusters of tall grass and blooming yucca, revealed nothing familiar.
Niki appeared at the landing, sweating and gasping for breath. “Stuart, why do you run? I can barely—”
“It was here.” I pointed to the boulder. “I … I used to …” My words trailed off as I circled the rock.
“What? What was here?”
“A shelter. There was a shelter, a gazebo-type structure with a tile roof. I used to come here and …”
“What? What did you—”
“It’s gone,” I said, cutting her off. “Everything’s gone.”
“Gone? What is gone?”
I couldn’t remember. My silence, unacceptable to the fact-hungry scientist, forced her to throw up her hands. “I see. Perhaps you are speaking of your mind? Then I would agree. Your mind, it has gone.” She gulped air, paced, and wiped her drenched brow with a forearm. “I do not know what to do with you. You make me as crazy as you. This is what you do. Look at you! Sweating like … like a steamed banana. First you say you remember. Then you say everything is gone. I do not know what to think.”
“Forget it,” I said, closing my eyes, trying to regain even a shred of the image that had driven me up the stairs. I sat on the boulder in the cooling shade, drenched my parched throat with water, and tried to massage some of the tightness from the back of my neck.
“Forget it?” Niki stopped pacing and stood stiffly in front of me. “In the past fifteen minutes alone you claim that, one”—a forefinger flicked out like a switchblade—“you know Pialigarian boats. Impossible! Two”—a second finger—“you say you have been on this pier. Impossible! Three”—another finger—“you run up the stairs like a madman looking for a shelter that does not exist.” All fingers, hands, and arms flew up. “You ask me to forget it? Oh my god! Maybe you were right. Maybe you should go back to your mountain and … and write your stories. Let this imagination of yours run wild. Forget it? How do you expect me to forget such craziness?”
I just stared straight ahead, made no attempt to answer.
A breathless Father Jon finally caught up. “Forgive me, but I do not wish to die of a heat stroke at such an early age. Have I missed something?” Under the circumstances, his tone was far too cheerful.
“Yes, you missed something,” Niki screeched. Still breathless, she leaned stiffly toward the father. “Stuart’s mind, it just flew out to the sea.” A huge, backward flinging motion of her open palm forced a flinch in one of the father’s eyelids. “Did you happen to see it go?”
Father Jon, adapting quickly to the situation, pursed his lips in a manner indicating that he might indeed have seen my mind fly by—or something like it—and that he would be sure to let her know if he saw it again. He allowed his gaze, in a contemplative sort of way, to drift far out to the safety of the sea.
J Douglas Bottorff 