‘Yes, Lug, but there have been lots of other sun gods over the centuries of course. Fascinating subject, actually. That’s what the paper I’m working on is about. A bit of pop history about how they’re always born on the third day after the winter solstice, on the evening of the twenty-fourth of December, a symbolic celebration of the arrival of light in a dark world. Born to a virgin, usually in a cave, a star appears, they’re adored by shepherds, kings come bearing gifts, a wise man predicts that this is the saviour the world has been waiting for, and so on …’
‘Yes, I know those stories. By the way, did you manage to see some of the eclipse this morning?’
‘No, barely gave it a thought to be honest.’
‘It was cloudy anyway. I don’t suppose there would have been much to see.’
‘Probably, but … where was I? Oh yes, the sun gods … They always die round about the time of the spring solstice and they’re resurrected three days later. Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, take your pick. The god dies or his son dies, there’s a day of mourning, and then on day three, there’s unbelievable joy when the god rises from the dead. Just like the natural world around them that appeared to have died in the winter, but then comes back to life.’
Of course, Peter had also read about the early Fathers of the Church and how they had become confused when they saw the similarities between the Gospels and these other stories that were evidently much older. The only explanation they could give was that the older stories were the work of the devil. Satan would have known about the circumstances under which Jesus would be born and so he established the sun gods’ rites centuries earlier in order to confuse people.
‘My article will lay out the parallels between all sorts of basic Christian concepts and the religion’s sacred mysteries. It’s terribly interesting. Take Orpheus and Eurydice, Demeter and Persephone … all variations of the same theme. The cult of Dionysus slaughtered a bull every year. The followers ate the meat and drank the blood so that they could become one with Dionysus, a communion, and share the power of his resurrection.’
‘It’s … Listen,’ Peter interrupted him. Mark was usually fairly introverted, but once he felt at ease with someone, it could be very difficult to get him off his soapbox. ‘I still need to take my bag back to my office, and the mayor’s coming for the opening at two o’clock …’
Mark smiled and held his hands up apologetically. ‘No problem.’
Peter finished his last few forkfuls of salad and emptied his glass. He opened his mouth wide and bared his teeth like a laughing chimpanzee.
‘Not got anything stuck between my teeth, have I?’ he asked. Mark reassured him that he hadn’t.
They said goodbye and Peter walked to his office in the archaeology faculty next to the LAK.
Peter’s office hadn’t changed in more than twenty years. It was almost like a living room to him. The same three pictures had always hung on the walls: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, a poster of a famous painting of Burgemeester Van der Werff by Gustave Wappers, and a large photograph of Pope John Paul II in his popemobile.
There were weeks when he spent more time in his office than in his flat on the Boerhavenlaan. He even kept a change of clothes in the cupboard for the odd occasion when he spent the night on the three-seater sofa.
When he pulled the stack of papers from his bag, the envelope fell out onto the floor. Intrigued, he picked it up and opened it. The note inside didn’t contain excuses for an unfinished assignment. Instead, written neatly in the middle of the sheet of the paper, was:
Rom. 13:11
But it was the text below it that suddenly made his mouth feel dry. He dropped the note, repulsed, as though he was throwing a used tissue in the bin.
Hora est.
Friday 20 March, 1:45pm
Peter looked at his watch. Quarter to two. He would need to hurry if he was going to make it to the Nieuwstraat on time. The anonymous note had disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. That ‘hora est’, the same message that he had received by phone, made him feel uneasy. He went to his bookcase to get a bible, but then realised that he didn’t have time. He knew that Romans 13:11 referred to Paul’s letters to the Romans in the New Testament, but his knowledge of the scriptures wasn’t good enough to be able to recall the passage from memory.
He reluctantly left the bible on his desk, then closed the door and headed for town.
It was against his principles to look at his phone when he was walking – he resented having to give way to people who shuffled around like zombies, their eyes glued to their screens – but he opened the Biblehub.com website to look up what the scripture was about.
The connection was slow. When images of hell had come up in one of his lectures, on a whim, he’d asked his students about their own ideas of hell. Without missing a beat, one young man answered: ‘Hell is a place where the internet is really, really slow.’
Peter hoped he wouldn’t bump into anyone he knew. The page loaded sluggishly as he walked through the Doelensteeg and along the Rapenburg to the Gerecht square. He clicked on ‘Romans’ and, at last, on ‘13’. He’d reached the Pieterskerk church by the time the text finally appeared on his screen.
It was almost two o’clock now. It wouldn’t do to be late. He impatiently closed the cover on his phone. He knew that the scripture would still be there when he opened it again.
He continued his route at a brisk pace, walking through the narrow alleys that led to the Breestraat, past the town hall and then he went left. As he crossed the river via the colonnades of the Pilarenbrug, the library came into view.
The council’s decision to move the city’s waste containers underground had been brought about by a plague of seagulls. As the crow flew, the college town of Leiden was a mere ten kilometres from the coast. Nests full of gulls’ eggs were easy prey for the foxes that had been reintroduced to the dunes, and hordes of the birds had fled to the city. They pecked open the bags of rubbish left out for collection, scavenged in bins and grew increasingly aggressive. Various measures had been taken to deter them: replacing the seagulls’ eggs with plastic dummies, birds of prey, pigeon spikes on roofs, all without success. The hope was that the city would be less attractive to the birds if the city’s rubbish was moved underground.
Peter stopped to catch his breath on the corner of the street. He studied himself in a shop window. A little on the portly side, it was true, a day or two’s worth of stubble, and a full head of hair that was just a bit too long. The image in the window was, in fact, a bit flattering; the reflection didn’t show the deep lines he knew he had on his forehead or the dark circles under his eyes.
‘For now we see through a glass, darkly …’ he said to himself quietly.
He tucked his shirt neatly into his trousers, and felt the student’s forgotten mobile phone in his jacket pocket. He made a mental note to call one of the numbers on its contacts list when he got a chance. Whoever it was would surely be able to tell him who the phone belonged to.
A large crowd had gathered around the excavation site. The Leiden press of course, local residents, all sorts of dignitaries, and workmen, recognisable from their yellow helmets and orange vests. Part of the area around the excavated pit was fenced off with barriers and red and white tape.
‘Hullo! Peter!’ he heard Arnold van Tiegem shouting. Peter could tell from the exaggerated joviality of Arnold’s waving that he had already made a head start on the drinks reception that would be held later.
Twenty years ago, Peter’s old tutor, Pieter Hoogers, had retired and vanished off into the sunset directly after his farewell address. Everyone had expected that Peter would take his place as full professor, but after