The Trespass(9)

Sara laid her cool hand on his cheek. “It’s okay. You’re stressed. I understand.”

The phone rang. Dracup started, then remembered that Yvonne couldn’t know the number; the house belonged to one of Sara’s University friends.

Sara squeezed his arm. “I’ll get it.”

He listened to her chatting to her friend. Cats, rent, banality. Outside, the rain teemed relentlessly. Dracup pressed his face up against the window and bunched his hands into fists; he had never felt so helpless.

Sara’s hand was on his shoulder. “Come and sit down.”

He took a deep breath. He had to concentrate, not panic like one of his students in a first year exam.

“Coffee?”

“Black, please. Thanks.”

Sara retreated to the kitchen. He pulled the diary from his jacket pocket and opened it at the first page, trying to push away thoughts of Natasha and what might be happening to her. He made himself focus on Theodore’s painstaking lettering. Find out what it means, Dracup, and you’ll find her. Those sketches at the back...

“That’s it?” Sara placed the coffee on the table.

Dracup leaned back on the settee. “Yes.”

“It looks very fragile. May I?”

Dracup felt very fragile too. “Go ahead. I’ll just use the bathroom if that’s okay.”

Sara smiled. “Sure.”

Dracup presented his face to the bathroom mirror. Lack of sleep had infused his eyes with red streaks and his cheeks had a grey, corpse-like pallor. He found some toothpaste to freshen his mouth, then briefly washed and towelled his face before rejoining Sara in the lounge. He watched as her brow knitted in concentration. She was wearing a white blouse, loosely tied at the waist and exposing an area of brown stomach around the umbilicus, as was the fashion these days. She crossed one long leg over the other and turned the fragile page to a new entry. After several minutes she looked up.

“This diagram – the markings. Aren’t they –?”

“Cuneiform. Yes, I’m ninety-nine per cent sure.” That much he knew. He also knew an expert would be required to decipher them.

Sara was watching him carefully. “I’ll get some more coffee. Rest your eyes for a few minutes. You’ll feel better.”

“Yes, all right. I’ll try.” He closed his eyes; as exhaustion overwhelmed him he remembered the first time he had seen that expression, the look that had intrigued and drawn him to Sara at that first lecture. He could picture the scene clearly. He had been outlining the basic concepts of Physical Anthropology…

“…integration of four fundamental concepts is necessary to an appreciation of the nature and importance of physical anthropology: firstly the chemistry of life; secondly evolution as process; thirdly, the interdependence of participants in a global ecosystem; and fourthly, the role of culture in human adaptation...”

And there was Sara. Front row of the theatre, hanging on his every word as he summarized…

“…and so our past and future are necessarily shaped by forces that operate on a scale and time frame outside of our limited human experience. But in spite of this, we are beginning to understand our world and the physical universe beyond it through the window of science…”

And her hand was raised. So pretty.

“Yes – the lady in the front row?”

“Does that mean that anthropologists reject religion on the grounds that superstition is unscientific?”

“Good question. But rejection is too strong a word. Religion has its place, but not as part of a scientific discipline. Let me give you an example. All of us do things every day that fall into the category of superstition. For instance, one could choose – desire – to influence a future event by an appeal to a deity or to some vague concept of an external force – in other words, fall back on religion. Now, the cynic might define superstition as a correlation that is spurious or demonstrably false, but on a cold morning even the scientifically minded have been known to invoke magic and superstition as they attempt to start their cars.”

A ripple of amusement ran through the theatre. Sara’s voice again; confident, probing:

“But you said we are shaped by forces that operate on a scale and time frame outside of our limited human experience. If our experience is as limited as you suggest, it would be wrong to sideline religion as unscientific unless it can be scientifically proven to be false.”

“I take it you are referring to the concept of the existence of a real deity?”

She had shrugged, a graceful, dismissive movement.

“If deity exists, then by its very nature it would be the ultimate scientist.”