I'm here in the land of Nod with Astrid Simpson, a goddess in her own right, searching for the Biblical Garden when just being alone with her under desert stars should be paradise enough for any man.
But besides being beautiful, Astrid is also extremely persuasive and she's lured me here on what I think is a wild goose chase but I'm still willing to humour her—if only to please her.
Maybe I'm hoping someday I will please her enough so she'll consider marrying me, but that's probably rushing things, so for now, I have to be content with where she leads me.
Who knows? We may find paradise...eventually.
The next day after a breakfast of coffee and crusty bread, she takes me to the site of what she believes to be the Biblical Eden.
“What’s this?”
I'm staring at a dusty concave depression in the sand.
“Wait—you’ll see.”
She begins digging spadefuls of sand and I pitch in and help. Soon, my spade strikes something hard.
“What is it?”
“This,” she smiles, “is a 5,000 year-old olive tree—it’s already been radio-carbon dated. It’s petrified, of course.”
“I’m impressed,” I smile, while inwardly feeling deflated—one ancient olive tree does not an Eden make.
She looks at me impishly. “Are you disappointed?”
“A little,” I admit.
“There’s more.”
I look at her dancing eyes. “Really?”
“Over there—” She points to an opening between two stony ridges.
I look at her perplexed.
Again, she takes her shovel and begins digging, so I grab mine and lend a hand. Within minutes her digging produces a metallic sound.
“Come here and look.” Her face is bright as a child’s.
I scrabble across the sand to squat beside her and peer into the hole. My jaw drops. I catch a glimpse of gold.
“Oh my god, what is it?”
“As near as I can make it out, it’s an arch or a gate.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “This can’t be the gates of Eden—I mean, gold? It wasn’t exactly the celestial city. It was probably just a hedged enclosure—if it existed at all.”
Her eyebrows arch. I feel as if I've let her down again.
“How much of this have you excavated?”
“Not much—I was by myself and too afraid to share my discovery with the locals.”
“Probably a good idea,” I say soberly.
The prospect of fortune hunters doesn’t thrill me.
“Let’s see how much of this we can uncover,” I say and suddenly felt very vulnerable.
She stares at me as if reading my thoughts. “We can work all day and through the night—it’d be best anyway to work under the cover of darkness.”
I agree and we get right to work. By sunset, we've dug down more than six feet. I'm exhausted and in need of a break. I wearily drop my shovel and sit back in the sand. Astrid sits down beside me and we share lukewarm water from a canteen.
“This is amazing. Any idea of how far down the gate extends?” I ask.
“Probably twenty feet,” she replies. “I probed it using a long pole.”
“Twenty feet! That’s impossible! Do you have any idea the impact this discovery will make?”
“I think so,” she frowns. “It’ll shake up a lot of people who think Genesis is a myth.”
Touché, I muse.
“You know this is dangerous uncovering this find by ourselves. We’re prey to any robbers who’d gladly murder us to get their hands on this gold.”
“What do you suggest?”
I take another sip of water, before answering—I'm not sure how receptive she'll be.
“I think I need to enlist the help of a friend—Jarrod Mason—he’s curator of Antiquities for the Smithsonian. This is huge, Astrid—we’re in way over our heads.”
“I agree. So, what should we do—fill in the hole again and wait till we can mount a full-scale expedition?”
“It seems the best solution at the moment.”
She nods soberly and lies back looking up at the first few stars twinkling above us.
“Star light, star bright,” she whispers.
“Better make that wish a good one,” I say drily.