He turned the page gently and caught his breath. A three-quarter-length illustration showed a scene of dark devastation. Stars fell from the sky and plummeted into a raging sea. A multitude was gathered on the shore, arms raised either in terror or supplication, Dracup couldn’t say. At the head of the crowd, in a slightly elevated position, stood a man holding a sceptre high against the storm. It was the same staff as the previous page. Beneath the picture there was a line of indecipherable script. He pointed his camera and clicked.
The priest was at Dracup’s shoulder. He reached over and firmly closed the book, shook his head and pointed to the exit. Dracup reluctantly retreated. Donning a pair of sunglasses, the priest joined him at the entrance to pose for photographs.
Grinding his teeth in frustration, Dracup walked twice round the building but saw no obvious external entry point. It was as if he were caught in the centre of some diabolical game where each puzzle, once solved, brought only further complexity and merely lengthened the distance between him and Natasha. He wiped sweat away from his eyes with an impatient gesture.
Perhaps somewhere in the complexity of tunnels and corridors there was a way back into the church via the trapdoor. He retraced his steps along the entry tunnel and trench, briefly inspecting every cavity, perspiring in the enclosed space despite being submerged in the shadow of the walkway. His thighs burned with the effort. To his horror he saw that some of the holes were occupied – a mummified pair of feet dangled from one, and slightly further up a skull lay separated from its skeleton in a dark recess, as if marking the way, watching each passing tourist with wide-eyed curiosity. Dracup stopped and beat the wall with his clenched fist in frustration. How was he supposed to negotiate this maze? Then he remembered Carey’s comment about the boy who had offered to take his bags. They’ll do anything if you cross their palm... Cursing himself for an idiot he exited from the trench and walked swiftly back to the hotel. His next foray into the tunnels would be a guided one.
“Come on, boss.” The boy waited for Dracup to catch up. He hadn’t been hard to find, shying stones with a group of youngsters near the hotel, impatiently kicking his feet in the dust as others took their turn, hollering out his availability to any new arrivals wearing the tourist badge. “What’s your name?” Dracup had asked.
“Bekele. Call me Bek, boss, everyone does.”
“Well, Bek, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get going.”
The boy had grinned, obviously pleased with the prospect of a long-term contract. And so far, Dracup was getting his money’s worth. Bek knew Lalibela and didn’t hang about. He glanced up from under the brim of his hat. The boy’s lithe figure was just in his line of vision, disappearing round the next corner.
“Hang on,” Dracup shouted. He took the corner at speed, only to find Bek grinning, hands on hips, waiting.
“You have to be quicker, boss, okay?”
“Yes, but I need to be methodical. Where are you taking me?”
“Method-what, boss?” He grinned, showing dazzling white teeth. “You want to see a cross, I’ll show you a cross.”
Dracup nodded. He had shown Bek Theodore’s sketch, filled in the gaps for the boy. He needn’t have worried. Bek was bright. “Only half of it you’ve got there, boss, I tell you.” And then he’d said something that had made Dracup’s heart lurch. “Same as the Lalibela cross, you know what? Shape is just the same. Just like these here.” He stabbed a dirty finger at the detailed, painstakingly drawn frieze.
“Are you sure?” Dracup asked. He restrained the urge to seize the boy and hug him.
“Sure? Of course.” Bek seemed affronted at Dracup’s ignorance. He widened his eyes and made an exaggerated gesture. “The Lalibela cross – it’s the biggest deal above everything, boss. We have a whole festival about it. It has power. People, they kiss it all the time – the priests rub it all over your body, your pains go away. You come. Follow.”
Several minutes later they were outside another of the eleven carved churches. “What is this called?” Dracup asked Bek, disoriented.
“Bet Maryam, boss. Come – come along.”
A number of white-robed monks were sitting on the steps of the church or talking in small groups of two or three. Their language was strange, even stranger than the Amharic Dracup had learned to recognise. Bek saw his puzzlement.
“Ge-ez, boss. Only spoken by the holy men of the church.” As he spoke a bell began to ring. Dracup looked up and saw the iron instrument tilting on its timber frame, responding to a priest’s enthusiastic tugging from below. The summons to worship concluded, he stood in the arched entrance and raised his arms. The small gathering began to move towards him, muttering prayers and making signs, Dracup assumed, of some ritualistic significance. Bek turned and whispered, “That one, boss, he has the cross here. He’ll show you for sure.”