Neanderthal Read online

  Susan pondered his question. “I’ve even considered the possibil­ity that we’ve fallen in with some kind of a cult—that I’ve gone and left my research and risked my reputation for a chimera. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter who they are. If they’re on to some­thing, the prize is too great to let slip away because of the risk of being wrong.”

  “I think if we keep our eyes open and are careful, we can follow our own agenda and do what we have to do,” said Matt.

  Van emerged, carrying the case under his arm. It had some new stamps and red labels on it. “Amazing what a little baksheesh can do.” He grinned.

  “What kind of gun is it?” asked Matt.

  “Three-forty-five magnum.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Insurance.”

  “Goddamned big insurance.”

  From Dushanbe they caught a small prop plane that carried them high into the foothills. Goats stood in the aisle tethered to the arm-rests. A stewardess in a veil passed out hard candy. The plane cir­cled the airstrip, which was an asphalt runway in the middle of a meadow, and landed with a series of bounces like a skipping stone.

  When they stepped outside, the altitude seemed to suck the breath from their lungs. They were met by Rudy, their guide and factotum, a Russian whose services had been contracted for in advance. He waited at the gate, waving as soon as he saw them, then rushed over pumping their hands and scooping up their back­packs so that from behind, staggering toward the Land Cruiser, he looked Chaplinesque.

  “Please, this way, miss. This way,” he shouted over one shoulder. Rudy was a big man with an open face and a boxer’s nose. His blond hair hung down over his ears and his hands were immense. Susan liked him on sight. She sat next to him as he drove wildly, clutching the wheel with both hands, elbows raised like chicken wings. The car careered from side to side as he shouted observa­tions above the thumping engine, moving his head up and down with violent enthusiasm and peering into the rearview mirror for eye contact with Matt and Van.

  Rudy swept a hairy forearm across the windshield, a dismissive gesture that took in the boulders, stubby clumps of brown grass, and barren pockmarked hills. “In my country we have real trees. Not these stupid little things. And grass. You feel it in your toes. Cows that give real milk. Radishes as big as ...” He was stumped.

  “Your fist,” said Susan.

  “… your fist. And water. In the rivers all the time. Not this crazy flooding when the snow melts and then nothing. All this yes­-and-no.”

  “So why did you come here?”

  He shrugged. “Life is funny.” He sketched his background. His father built a dam over the Kzazhastak, married a Tajik, and became a functionary in the diplomatic corps. They went to New York City. Rudy went to a public high school. “On the East Side. Julia Richmond. 1976.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, yes, I promise. I learned so much. I learned English. I learned new books. I learned new music. I learned the meaning of this.” Susan laughed. Matt leaned forward to peer over the seat. Rudy was holding his right hand on its back, the middle finger ex­tended straight up.

  “Songs. I know every song that year. Top ten. WABC. Give us twenty minutes, we give you the world.” He began singing a chorus of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” thickly accented and badly off-key. Van groaned, but even he seemed to enjoy the zany spon­taneity.

  Rudy was driving them to a hotel for the night, where they would meet Kellicut’s guide, the last person to see him alive.

  “Tell us everything you know about the mountain men,” Van demanded abruptly.

  “The Tajiks around here have a lot of stories about them. They call them Alma or sometimes Czechkai. That means the snow livers—not livers, snow dwellers. No one actually sees them. Or no one I’ve met. But you know, because I am a Russian, they do not really trust me. They do not like to talk about it. They just open their eyes wide. I can’t always get what they say.

  “People believe in them, that’s for sure. Some claim even to have traded with them. They go up high in the mountains and leave salt and sugar and beads and things in a certain place. Then they go back after a week or two and the salt is gone, but there are animal skins in the same place, bear, rabbit, that kind of thing.”

  Van interjected. “Who does this? Did you talk to anyone who did this?”

  Rudy said he had not, and no one could actually tell him where the trading spot was. He was not even sure the story was true.

  “Sometimes people disappear if they go way above the snow line. They vanish without a trace. When this happens everybody gets upset. They light candles and blame the Czechkai. Some say it is getting worse, that it happens more and more. No one knows why. I talked to one father who had a son who disappeared. The boy went way up in the mountains hunting. He did this all the time, and then one day he did not return. They searched for him and some say they found his body without the head. But who knows? The father will not talk about it.

  “There is a lot of superstition among these people. If you say that word, Czechkai, people do not like it. Children run away. It is like that monster in America. What do you call it? The one grown­ups threaten their children with?”

  “The bogeyman,” replied Susan.

  “What?”

  “He’s the monster who hides under little children’s beds.”

  “Well, it is a lot like that.”

  The road became rutted with potholes, the sign of an approaching village. Matt turned to Susan, his voice animated. “Do you know where we are? What town we’re in?” She shook her head. “I saw it on a signpost. We’re in Khodzant!”

  It took a while for the name to register. “You mean,” she asked, “as in the Khodzant Enigma?”

  “The very same.”

  “I’ll be damned!”

  “What’s the Khodzant Enigma?” asked Rudy.

  Van answered. “It’s a pictograph of some kind. Thought to be old. But nobody knows how old because the original’s disappeared. A portion of it was missing and it’s never been deciphered.”

  “And it comes from here?” Rudy asked.

  “Apparently, unless there’s more than one Khodzant.”

  Matt was surprised. A handful of archaeologists knew about the Enigma but not many others. “How do you know all that?” he asked Van.

  “I keep up with these things. You never know when they might come in handy.”

  The car turned through narrow streets past houses of stone and mortar and into a courtyard. The single word HOTEL was written in faded blue paint over an arched door.

  Rudy was the first out of the car, already barking orders to a boy who opened the hotel gate. He led them in to register at a narrow wooden counter. The owner, a man with a fez, black eyebrows, and few teeth, wore a DUKE sweatshirt with a blue devil over his heart. He had never seen American passports and fingered the pages slowly before showing them to their rooms.

  Dinner, a passable stew, was helped by the flow of vodka that Rudy provided. Whenever a glass was emptied, he leaned over with his long arm to fill it to the brim.

  Afterward they adjourned to the bar, a small cavern decorated with a tangle of vines and plants growing out of upended cinder blocks. The owner entered with a tray of china coffee cups and whispered something in Rudy’s ear: The boy who had served as Kellicut’s guide had arrived.

  He stepped into the room. About thirteen or fourteen years old, with pure black hair and watery brown eyes that took them in one by one, he was wearing a loose blouse, a robe, and sneakers.

  Van started to talk but Susan cut him off. She walked over to the boy and took his hand in a firm grip, smiling. He squeezed it and shook it solemnly, then bowed.

  “This is Sharafidin,” said Rudy.

  The others shook his hand. After each handshake, he bowed.

  Rudy motioned for the boy to sit but he remained standing. They exchanged a few words in Persian, and then the boy began his narrative easily and without hesitation, in a steady
stream. Finally Rudy signaled to him to pause while he translated.

  “He says the Teacher—that’s what he calls your Mr. Kellicut— came here many months ago. That he stayed right here in this hotel. People did not know what he wanted or why he was here. Many people did not talk to him, but they were curious so bit by bit they began to speak. He talked in Persian, not very good Persian.”

  While Rudy was speaking, the boy was staring at Susan and she looked back at him.

  “Gradually people got accustomed to him. He took long walks. Up in the foothills, sometimes into the mountains. He knew medicine and cured some people. Bit by bit, houses opened to him. One evening he came to our house for dinner. We slaughtered a goat. He gave a gift to my father, a beautiful plate. It has a picture of a woman on it, a statue of a huge woman holding up a fire and a book, with water all around. It says New York City. My father liked it so much he hung it over our oven.”

  Van interrupted. “What did your father tell him about the Alma?” Rudy translated. The boy did not understand. When Rudy tried again, the boy looked away.

  “He says he was not there,” said Rudy.

  “Go on,” Matt said gently.

  This time the boy talked for a long time. Rudy encouraged him by nodding slowly every so often. He recounted how one day the Teacher revealed his desire to go up into the mountains to see the Alma for himself and how they had tried repeatedly to dissuade him.

  “So one night my father said, ‘If you must go, you must. But I tell you to take my first son.’ ” It was, he said, his father’s way of ensuring the Teacher’s safety. Then the boy described the prepara­tions and the ascent—days and days of climbing. “One day we reached a point where even the trees did not go. There we built our hut. Every day we took walks, higher and higher. Wherever we went the Teacher studied the ground. Then we set up camp. At night it was freezing. I had this little bed that he made for me but I was still cold.

  “The Teacher began to go off alone. He would not let me come. He took long walks. Then he was gone overnight, and then for a long time. Days and days. He would come back and write. He was acting strange. He sometimes talked to himself out loud. Then he got sick and trembled. He was very weak. He got better and went away again. Again he stayed away a long time.

  “We did not have much food left. I would have to go lower on the mountain and catch rabbits and birds and bring them back. I do not know if the Teacher came back while I was gone. I looked for his tracks. Sometimes I saw them.

  “Then the Teacher did come back. He looked bad. He seemed different. He did not pay me much attention. It was as if he did not know me. He talked a lot out loud, but in that other language so I could not understand what he was saying.

  “We had almost no food, but he would not leave. I asked him why and he would not tell me. He talked a lot about the Alma. I asked him what he meant. He laughed more. He was gone for longer and longer.

  “One day I came back from hunting and he was there. His beard was long now. He was very excited. He said I must go home and take something with me. He gave me a box. It was heavy and had writing on it. He said I was to give it to my father and my father was to mail it right away. So I did.”

  “Then did you go back?” asked Susan.

  Rudy translated and the boy shook his head.

  “Did you see him again?”

  Again he shook his head.

  “Did you see the Alma yourself?” asked Matt.

  “No.” The boy bit his lip and spoke slowly. “Once I looked for the Teacher’s tracks and I did not find them, but I saw other tracks. Bigger ones.”

  They all exchanged looks. Rudy took a swig of vodka. “Any more questions?”

  “Ask him,” said Matt, “if he opened the package.”

  Van looked up darkly. The boy said no, then looked at Susan and said something. Rudy barked back a reply.

  “What did he say?” asked Susan.

  “Nothing, miss. It is not important.”

  “I want to know what he said.”

  “He wants to know if you and the Teacher know each other.”

  “Know each other?”

  “His exact question ... I do not get it. It means nothing, I am sure.”

  Van looked perplexed. “What the hell does he want to know that for?” he asked.

  “Tell him yes,” said Susan.

  “I don’t get it,” said Rudy.

  “He’s trying to work out who we are.” Susan’s tone was brusque.

  When Rudy relayed the answer, the boy looked at Susan and then, bowing all around, backed out of the room.

  Outside, dusk was falling. Susan sat with her back to the window, her dark skin glistening in the candlelight, her eyes black caverns. Fiddling with the wax, she spoke in a measured tone. “So tell me, Van, what’s the plan?”

  “At least we know where to start,” said Van. “The camp.”

  “And I gather Sharafidin will take us there?” said Susan.

  “All arranged,” replied Van.

  “Is there anything else that’s all arranged? Any other surprises?” Susan asked.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “So we go to Kellicut’s camp,” said Matt. “Then what?”

  There was a silence. Finally Van answered. “Then we play it by ear. We see what we can find. We look for a message. We look for tracks.”

  “And if we don’t find anything?”

  “That’s where you two come in. You know him and you know what he was looking for. Maybe you try to duplicate his actions, think the way he thought, do what he did, go where he went. Like I said, we play it by ear.”

  “How about the gun, Van?” asked Matt. “What are you planning to do with that?”

  “Nothing, if I can help it.”

  “So why do you have it?” Susan asked.

  “In case we need it.”

  “Do you have any reason to think we will?” she continued. “Look, we have no idea what we’re going to find up there.” Matt spoke up. “Are we looking for this thing or are we stalk­ing it?”

  “Dammit, you heard the kid. People have been disappearing up there. You want to go try your mumbo-jumbo anthropology bullshit, go right ahead. Pull out your tape recorder and record their innermost thoughts. See how far that gets you. Not me.”

  “Just remember, we’re scientists, not hunters.”

  “Yeah, but I’m coming back in one piece.”

  Van was worried: Maybe they’re spooked, he thought. Maybe they’re going to back out.

  They sat in silence in the growing darkness, and suddenly there was little to say. Abruptly Susan pushed her chair back, stood up, murmured some words of good night, and walked off. Matt got up and followed her.

  Matt and Susan walked to a teahouse set in a square that was blaz­ing with light. A dozen men were at metal tables scattered across a patio, sipping green tea, smoking dark tobacco, and talking qui­etly in a singsong drone. Some sat cross-legged next to raised beds covered with Bukharan carpets, playing checkers. Turkish music came out of a lighted doorway. The men looked at Matt and Susan with undisguised curiosity.

  They took a table and ordered coffee by pointing.

  “Look at that,” Susan said, nodding into the distance across the square. There, just above the darkened wall of buildings, was a full moon. It hung in the sky as if it were resting on the roofs, so clear that the gray-pocked craters stood out like spots on a ripe peach.

  “Jesus,” Matt said. “Nothing like that old moon over ...”

  “… Khodzant.”

  “Khodzant. No wonder nothing makes any sense. Ever since we got here I’ve felt like a riddle wrapped in an enigma, or whatever that expression is.”

  Susan smiled. “Just think, somewhere up in the mountains our little hominid is probably looking at the moon too.”

  “Probably howling at it.”

  “Now, now.”

  “What?”

  “There you go again,” said Susan, “assuming they’re not c
ivilized.”

  “What’s uncivilized about howling? I do it all the time.”

  “Which merely proves my point. Anyway, you’re the guy who’s supposed to believe they’re just as good as we are.”

  “Not as good—equal, compatible.”

  “And sexy.”

  “C’mon, I never said that,” Matt protested.

  “Well, you certainly implied it. Why else would we have fallen for them in a frenzy of ... what did you call it?”

  “Reproductive imperialism?”

  “Right, reproductive imperialism. And what’s that other term you popularized? All my kids drop it into their exams.”

  “Gene flow,” he said.

  “Gene flow, that’s it. Good phrase. It sounds like an ad for Calvin Klein.”

  “Very funny. How about you? Where did you latch on to all this warfare business? Hunting, scouting, running people off cliffs. And this nonsense about brain-eating. I thought that went out with Al­berto Blanc in the fifties. Do you really believe that?”

  “I don’t necessarily believe it,” she replied defensively. “I’m open to it.”

  “Where’s the proof?”

  “It’s not a matter of proof. Just indications. All those skull holes.”

  “Maybe there’s another explanation.”

  “Yeah, maybe they were machine-gunned.”

  He looked for the waiter.

  “Matt, can I ask you something? In all seriousness.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She paused a beat. “While we were together, did you ever have an affair with a Neanderthal girl?”

  He laughed. She could still surprise him. “She wouldn’t have me. She said my arms were too short and my brow was too flat. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just curious. I thought maybe your theory about all that sex and cross-breeding was, you know, extrapolation based upon personal experience.”

  “I see, Susan. As was yours about warfare.”

  The waiter arrived with two demitasse cups of Turkish coffee and bustled about intrusively, taking his time, turning the cups so that the handles pointed to the right Susan remained silent until he left, then put on a look of puzzlement. “Homo sapiens sapiens. You know, I always wondered how we rated two sapienses.”