I scraped dirt from a fresco with the edge of a small spade and then leaned against a lever or pipe of some kind that was flush against a wall. A low gurgling sound could be heard coming from somewhere behind the tile, and suddenly I was drenched by a rush of water, water that hadn’t been turned on in over two thousand years. It was fresh and cold and poured over my head, soaking my shirt and all my equipment. A shock at first, where had the water come from? I was in the middle of a desert. Then the ancient spigot made sense. Mesopotamians developed irrigation, using a series of underground quanat channels and kariz, a network of smaller canals that relied on gravity to transport water, the sources being higher than the water’s destination. The citizens of this place took it one step further by inventing plumbing.
The next hall I entered appeared to have been part of an arsenal. The implements resembled an armory of the comic book heroes my younger Flatbush Avenue self had collected and could have spent an eternity with these objects, making connections, inventing territories, superpowers, and battles. One object resembled the golden trident from Batman’s Blue Devil, a demonic-looking set of mace clubs rivaled those of Hawkman from Justice League, a set of large, formidable hammers reminiscent of Steel’s (from Superman) weapon of choice, and laid against a mottled wall were dozens of notched shields, similar to those used by the Mystery Man, Guardian of Metropolis.
Another series of open passageways led out from the armory, and eventually I came to what must have been a bath house. A mosaic of a bull balanced on the back of a giant fish glittered at the bottom of a pool. The earth was balanced on the horns of the bull, a reference to the Persian myth that explained earthquakes. When the bull grows tired, or in another version when humans overburden the earth with atrocities, the bull shifts the earth from one horn to the other. You would think the result of this action would be that, pierced by the horn, some kind a giant sink hole would dimple the Pacific or Sahara, but the answer is no. Not only did the movement of the bull produce seismic activity, but there were augurers who were called on to predict tremors and seemed to know when the bull had had enough of man’s stupidity.
I passed through the nymphaeum, colonnaded porticos, elaborately carved stone structures, square water storage tanks, stucco houses, all populated by skeletons. While imperial powers engaged in skullduggery and building massive weapons, inconsequential citizens left behind readable footprints, just before they were trapped by some kind of Pompeian catastrophe, or a current of naturally occurring nerve gas floated over the city long before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. Those who stayed behind succumbed: inhale and you sleep forever. This inner part of the metropolis seemed pretty much intact.
The path began to slant downhill, and I had a sense I was approaching the walls of the city, or at least one part of the outer battlements.
At the edge of the city guards posted in towers see the horizon blur and unravel: horsemen, not traders, they decide, traveling in hordes, not caravans. Those on the edge have time to flee. There are no skeletons here. With catastrophe looming, sentries who’d been captured from as far away as Baghdad and Amman escape through the maze and return to their native countries. A nervous jeweler puts emerald chips in his shoes, packs only his chisels and flees in the middle of the night. His neighbor, a perfumer, fills his pockets with vials of attar, saffron, lotus powder, bitter almond oil, and chunks of resin. These scents will always remind him of the city. Along with a mapmaker and his five children, an oil merchant carrying a sack of olive stones, a coppersmith who walks out empty handed, the residents of the outer ring of the city who see and hear more, all depart taking whatever they imagine they’ll need for their new lives. Even if the new lives are empty promises, sketchy at best, and the relics are only to be found scattered around the landscapes after their deaths, no one knows this yet. Those in the center go about their business as if the exodus from the periphery was carried out by delusionals only. They drink their coffee and believe the age of cataclysm is blissfully over. They had no language to fear a Pearl Harbor–like event, so they stayed.
Another path led me in a C-curve from the periphery to the center of the city. Increasingly narrow streets led to an airy piazza, water spewing from the mouths of marble lions and serpents, men and winged sphinxes. Running water, whether dripping from a cornice or gurgling from a fountain, was the only sound in the city; even my footfalls were muffled. I entered one house to find ancient bags of rice, spices, lumps of gum resin, a small ivory camel, and more human bones. As I walked deeper into the phantom city the semi-paved streets began to go uphill, turning into terraces. What would Ruth have done here? Hum the hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone, and not worry about what couldn’t be known for certain.
Climbing up narrow earthen steps to rooftops, I found storage jars used for wine and oil, a long silver ewer with a spout in the shape of a cheetah. Though not really tamable and now practically extinct, Asiatic cheetahs were used like hunting dogs for chasing wild sheep. People ate on their rooftops, a practice continued by Iranians during Passover. I picked up a thin, battered, wheel-shaped object that crumbled in my hands. Hopping from roof to roof humming the old Mickey Katz song Pesach in Portugal, which turned into Pesach in Peshawar, I must have passed out in some kind of delirium. When I came to under the remains of an archway, I looked ahead to see the city growing more illuminated, as if someone had flipped a giant switch.
A coruscating light seemed to be coming from somewhere, and according to my watch it was now morning on the surface. Walking in the direction of what might have been the source of the sunlight, I turned a corner to find a gap in the earth overhead. The opening was similar to the one I’d fallen through, but it was too far overhead to reach. I was now in an oblong yard, perhaps what might have been some kind of zoo. Elephant, camel, peacock skeletons lay scattered around. I leaned against a small tree that received enough light to grow underground. An elephant rib cage arched overhead a few feet from the tree. If I could climb the bones I might be able to reach a series of roots that threaded the opening and, swinging from those like a subterranean Tarzan, pull myself back out to the earth’s surface.
The elephant’s bones snapped under me. He was old and brittle, not a ladder. I moved some stones to buttress the remaining ribs and tried again. This time I was able to jump from the topmost rib to one of the dangling roots but my hands slipped off it, and once again I landed on my butt. I shouted. Nothing. A beady-eyed goat peered over the edge of the hole, then looked away. I lay on the floor and balanced hunger versus thirst, which should I give in to? I had a handful of salty pistachio nuts in a pocket, but the fountains were nowhere near my present location. Sunlight cast shadows of ancient animal skeletons on the walls. Turning my head I saw the remains of a human body that had not been reduced to a skeleton. Anyone could have fallen into the hidden city. I took a closer look at him. The man was wearing the long shirt, narrow trousers, shawl and turban of a Baluchi tribesman, and glasses still remained hooked to shriveled slices of ear. Due to the dry underground air he hadn’t been reduced to bone, but it was difficult to say what color his skin had been. I took off his glasses and looked at the frames. The engraving on the ear piece was barely legible, but the lettering read Gunst-Optiker, Rosenthalerstrasse, Berlin. Clutched in his hand was what at first looked like a phoenix trampling an antelope. Its human-like head sprouted big ears and horns, sign of its divinity. The creature’s wings were tipped with human heads, mouths frozen mid-roar. I rummaged through his pockets and found, among other things, a visa for Ramin Kosari and a leather-covered metal cylinder, about the shape of a child’s kaleidoscope but larger. I put it in my bag, then pried the phoenix out of his fingers and took that, too. I had read the name Ramin Kosari before. He was the Nieumachers’ guide. His remains were well preserved. He had no broken bones and must have become trapped in the city. I had found Suolucidir.
Twilight approaching, I had about thirty minutes of sunlight left, and then I would be spending the night, if not all the nights that were left to me on earth, with the body and the remains of an unknown number of animals. I leaned against the wall, took a deep breath, then turned so my nose faced the cliff, and tried again. The rocky surface was cracked here and there, enough for tenuous footholds, but I was climbing blind. I felt with my feet as if