The Gold of Thrace Read Online Free PDF Page A

only a girl.’”
    “So you taught yourself to throw things?”
    “I decided to show them. They liked baseball, so I hung a tire from the branch of a lemon tree and practiced throwing the ball through the tire from ten feet away, then twenty feet, finally the full sixty-six. Then I used smaller and smaller targets, ended up throwing the ball through an embroidery hoop.” She smiled and rubbed her wrist. “Then I went for speed and power. I got so good, they brought me to all their games and let me pitch. Until—” Her voice trailed off.
    “Until what?” Orman asked.
    “Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.” But she noticed that her hand was shaking. She made a fist and shoved her hand in her pocket so that no one would notice. “Anyway,” she said. “We always slaughtered the other team.”
    “Like you slaughtered the snake,” Mustafa said. “You shouldn’t have killed it.”
    “Why not?” Orman asked.
    Mustafa sighed and inhaled slowly. “In the old religions, you know, snakes were sacred. Snakes are special creatures. They shed their skins and renew themselves again and again.”
    Orman played with his mustache. “You’re Yezidi.”
    “What’s Yezidi?” Tamar asked.
    “Devil worshippers,” Orman said.
    Mustafa’s nostrils flared. “Not devil worshippers.”
    Tamar was puzzled by his anger. She held out her hand in a helpless gesture, trying to calm him.
    He backed away. “Don’t touch me.”
    “Nobody thinks you worship the devil,” she told him.
    “The snake wasn’t poisonous,” he said. His face was red and his voice heavy with agitation. “It would never hurt anyone.”
    Tamar watched him. She was tempted to reach out again, then thought better of it.
    “About the mosaic,” she said after a while. “We don’t have pictures. I usually take record shots with a Polaroid, but I didn’t have time.”
    “You and Orman are the only ones who know what the mosaic looks like?”
    “It was the last day and we ran out of film, I thought your people could—”
    “Without pictures, how do you expect to find it?” Mustafa asked.
    “Tamar and I can go after it, identify it,” Orman said. “That’s the only way.”
    “You think they took it to Istanbul?” Tamar asked.
    Orman looked at her, shaking his head. “It’s long gone from Turkey by now. Probably shipped out through the Balkans, ending up in one of the big antiquities markets, Basel or Berlin.”
    “You’ll never find it,” Mustafa said.
    “Things are missing from Ephesus too,” Orman said. “Maybe Kosay at the museum there has some ideas.” He ran a finger along his chin and rubbed his upper lip. “We’ll stop there first. Then I’ll go to Berlin,” he said. “Tamar to Basel, see what’s hitting the antiquities market, see if we come up with the mosaic.”
    Tamar shook her head. “I couldn’t do that. I don’t know anything about the antiquities market. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
    Orman rubbed his chin again. “What was it American archaeologists used to say in the ’60s? Archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing.’ You were trained as an anthropologist. Do a little anthropological fieldwork, a little participant observation. Nothing bad will happen to you.” He leaned toward her. “It’s Switzerland, where they yodel. The land of Heidi and chocolate bars.”
    “Besides, nobody kills anthropologists,” Mustafa said. “Or archaeologists, for that matter.”
    “Except Binali,” Orman said.
    Tamar took a deep breath. “And others.”
    That night in Meride seared her memory. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Orman signal to Mustafa and glance toward her.
    “Oh,” Mustafa said. “You said the Yucatan. That Saticoy. Alexander Saticoy?”
    Tamar remembered her last sight of him, standing in front of a stele in Katamul, notebook in hand, giving her a quick wink, a wave goodbye, and a smile as she walked toward the truck. “Yes. Alex. You heard about it here in