Astrid was right—we found Eden, but needed someone to back us to even begin the excavation.
I managed to convince her to seek a third party to help—someone with deep pockets and the Smithsonian was first on my mind.
As soon as we we got back to the States, I contacted Jarrod Mason—he was beside himself with excitement.
“I can arrange funding and we’ll need to mount a full-scale operation, complete with security. This is going to be a massive undertaking, Paul.”
I nodded. The prospect of going back was exciting—the fact that Astrid and I would no longer be alone together was the only sad aspect of the trip.
We agreed to go at the end of March when the weather was still mild and favourable. I contacted Dean Hammond and made arrangements to extend my sabbatical.
A week later, I had just returned from visiting Jarrod when the phone rang and I heard Astrid’s frantic voice on the other end.
“Turn on the TV, Paul—to CNN.”
I grabbed the remote and punched in the channel numbers. The first images I saw were of ambulances and relief workers.
The announcer ‘s voice droned on: the area is earthquake prone and this was a massive quake measuring 9.9 on the Richter scale and devastating several thousand square kilometers of land.”
Astrid’s voice cut in. “I was talking to a colleague who’s stationed near Tabriz—she tells me the entire topography of the land has changed.”
“Yes, but you have GPS co-ordinates, don’t you?”
The long pause on the line told me otherwise.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured her, “We’ll work on the basis of our mileage driven and the general directions we took.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said in a flat tone. “You know it’ll be months before they let a foreign expedition in—we might never be able to uncover the exact site again.”
“I’ll go with you—together we’ll try to find it. Cheer up—I’m sure it won’t be that bad, once we get boots on the ground.”
I could tell from her voice, she was defeated. I hung up feeling lost and bereft. It was one thing to lose the greatest archeological find in history—it was another to lose an opportunity to be with her.
We had been there, the two of us, in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
We had watched the stars rise and set in antique silence. We glimpsed gold and for a precious shimmering moment, while the mirage lasted, we shared our lives.
I want to go back with her, back to the Garden—I want to go back to that moment.
I want to lie with her under desert stars and stare at her lovely face bronzed from the sun and illumined by the campfire.
What I really hope to uncover is my own precious treasure, I left hidden in the land of Nod.