As Judith had predicted, Mark was already sitting at a table and saving two seats for them. He waved.
They visited the buffet counter on their way over to him. Peter chose an extra-large salad and a glass of fresh orange juice and Judith picked up a bowl of soup with a slice of bread and cheese.
‘Well done,’ Judith complimented Peter, giving his stomach a teasing little pat.
Mark was already half way through his meal by the time they sat down. Judith kissed him lightly on the cheek, something that still gave Peter a pang of envy, even after many years.
‘What are your plans for the afternoon?’ Peter asked.
‘I have an appointment with someone at two, sounds like an older gentleman,’ Judith said. ‘He’s inherited some bits and pieces from a Jewish aunt’s estate. He found me via the museum. I’m going to drop by and see if any of them are suitable for our collection.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Peter.
‘Oh, usually these things end up being a disappointment, to be honest. But every now and then something special turns up. A bit like The Antiques Roadshow. Diaries, letters from a concentration camp, or just interesting everyday bits and pieces like kitchen utensils, tools and so on. You never know. I usually enjoy it anyway. They often just want someone to talk to …’
‘Never a dull moment with you, is there?’
‘Never a dull moment, no,’ she agreed. ‘And I want to plan a lecture for Monday, nothing out of the ordinary, really. I’ve got the next few days to myself.’ She put her hand on Mark’s arm.
‘Yep,’ said Mark. ‘I’m off to Germany again. A week with no phone, no internet, totally cut off from the rest of the world. Heaven.’
Once or twice a year, Mark retreated to the depths of the German forests, beyond the reach of cell phone towers, to ‘reflect’, as he called it. Judith would tease him by suggesting that he had a secret mistress, but she knew that he needed time to recharge now and then. He always came back revitalised, full of energy. The only compromise he made was that he agreed to venture back into civilisation once a week to call Judith and let her know how he was.
‘And this afternoon,’ Mark continued, ‘I want to spend a couple of hours working on an article I’m writing with Fay Spežamor. You know her, right? The Czech classicist, curator of Roman and Etruscan Art at the Museum of Antiquities.’
‘I’ve met her a few times, yes,’ Peter said. ‘Funnily enough, hers is the only mobile phone number I know off the top of my head. If you remember the first two numbers …’
‘Then you just need to keep adding two,’ Mark finished his sentence.
None of them spoke for a while.
‘Were you planning to do anything this afternoon then?’ Mark asked.
‘I’m going to go into town to see them install the container in the Nieuwstraat. I’ve been following the project a bit. The Cultural Heritage Department invited me. Daniël Veerman, Janna Frederiks … They’ve promised to let me know if they come across anything interesting.’
‘Oh yes! I wanted to show you something!’ Mark said suddenly, as though he hadn’t heard what Peter said at all. He pushed his tray aside. Underneath it was a large envelope, addressed in neat, unmistakably old-fashioned handwriting.
‘To the most noble and learned professor doctor M. Labuschagne,’ he read with amusement. ‘I need to send the author of this letter a quick reply this afternoon.’ He took a large bundle of densely typed pages out of the envelope. They had apparently been written on an old-fashioned typewriter. ‘This is one of those things …’ he said, leafing through them as though he was looking for something specific. ‘Ever since I graduated, people have been sending me things. Amateurs writing to tell me that they think they’ve found the code that makes the Book of Revelation all make sense, or that they have definitive proof that Jesus didn’t die on the cross …’
‘Or that the Apostle Peter is buried in Leiden,’ Judith joked.
They laughed.
‘But this … Look, usually it’s nonsense and probably not worth holding onto, but I keep everything. I might do something with them one day. Sometimes an idea seems crazy, or the whole world thinks an author is mad, but sometimes these people are just way ahead of their time. I had another one today, a Mr …’ He looked at the title page. ‘… Mr Goekoop from Zierikzee, Zeeland. It’s about the Burcht. He says that it originally had an astrological function. Look, he’s even drawn some diagrams.’
Mark held up a sheet of paper with a surprisingly good pen-and-ink illustration of Leiden’s castle. The artist had left space between the battlements so that the whole thing strongly resembled a megalithic circle, like Stonehenge.
‘He has this whole theory about how the first rays of the sun shine through the Burcht’s main gate on the equinox on March twenty-first, taking the earth’s precession into account. The precession is the way the axis moves. The earth is like a spinning top, its axis is never exactly vertical. It’s a bit complicated … He uses all these calculations to try to show that the original castle must have been built more than two thousand years ago. According to him, the word megalith is derived from the Greek mega-leithos, or, Great Leiden.’
‘That should be easy to check. Tomorrow is March twenty-first.’
‘Yes. But actually, it’s not that easy. The earth’s axis has shifted since then. Anyway, that part about the megalith is bunk, and the rest too, probably. Look at this; he thinks he has further proof of his theory in the three trees in the middle of the castle. Because they’re arranged in exactly the same way as the three stars on Orion’s belt. You know, like the Pyramids in Egypt.’
‘And that would make the Rhine the River Nile, I suppose?’
‘He says that the Rhine is the Lethe, or the Leythe, one of the five rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology, just like the Styx. According to him, the name Leythe is connected to Leiden of course.’
‘And this is what you spend your time on,’ said Peter.
‘It amuses me. You never know what someone is going to come up with. Sometimes the amateurs make surprising discoveries. But what fascinates me about this story is his theory that the Burcht was a centre for sun worship. He does have a point about the name Lugdunum …’
‘The Roman name for Katwijk.’
‘That’s right. But he reckons that it was originally the name given to the hill that the Burcht stands on. Lug is the name of the Celtic sun god, and dunum means “hill” or “mountain”. “Lug Hill”, or if you want to translate it more loosely, “the hill where Lug is worshipped”.’
‘With that sort of reasoning,’ Peter countered, ‘you could prove that Mr Goekoop’s hometown of Zierikzee can be traced back to the Greek goddess Circe. And that would put the city of Troy somewhere in Zeeland.’
Mark put the papers back in the envelope. ‘All the same, I always send these people a polite reply. That’s usually enough to satisfy them.’
Judith picked up her tray. She had already eaten her soup and bread.
‘Are you leaving already?’ Peter asked, a little disappointed.
‘I’ve got that appointment at two o’clock. I’m going back to my office to get my things. We could get together for a nightcap later this evening if you like?’
Peter nodded.
Judith rested her hand briefly on Mark’s shoulder. He tilted his head a little to meet it, like a cat reaching to be petted. She winked at Peter and went to tidy