island.’
‘What island? There is no island - just Cyprus, too far for pigeons. No, something is not right. Maybe the storm is returning, or perhaps something more dangerous.’
I was relieved when Isabella and Faakhir surfaced in a great rush of silver bubbles. Pushing her mask up to her forehead, Isabella’s ecstatic face appeared.
‘We found it, Oliver! Isn’t that amazing? We have it! The tube’s sunk and fitted - all we have to do now is lift it out! I’ve found the astrarium!’
4
Isabella handed the metal detector up to me and hauled herself back onto the boat. Faakhir, smiling, climbed up after her while the others hung back, inexplicably tentative.
‘We should go back now, make the final dive tomorrow,’ Jamal announced, glancing at the horizon.
‘Absolutely not! The site will be covered again by tomorrow. We have to retrieve it in the next hour, before the tide comes through!’
Isabella’s tone was demanding and urgent. I glanced at the men and saw an expression cross Jamal’s face, so fast I think I was probably the only one who noticed. I’d seen it before with some of the Arab oil workers: resentment. It was difficult for them to take orders from a woman, no matter how much they respected her.
Faakhir, sensing potential conflict, put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘Please, we are so close, and if we dive tomorrow we’ll have to start all over again.’
Jamal glanced up at the flock of pigeons - now barely a speck on the horizon. A particularly high wave lifted the boat and a couple of dull thuds sounded as the floats lashed to the sides bumped against the hull.
‘Okay. But be as quick as you can.’
I picked up a spare mask and oxygen tank, ‘I’m coming with—’
‘Oliver, I don’t need . . .’ Isabella began.
But Faakhir put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Isabella, we could do with the extra help.’
Isabella glanced back at me. ‘Okay, but you’ll have to follow orders, understand?’
Stifling my claustrophia I nodded; there was no way I was going to allow Isabella to take any extra risk by being understaffed.
The site was illuminated by an underwater floodlight fixed by a rope. It was eerie swimming down towards the light - I had the strange sensation of an inverted world in which the sun lay beneath us. The water was cloudy, but as we neared the seabed the site came into view - a suspended oasis surrounded by darkness. Clouds of fish hovered like a swarm of moths, attracted by the floodlight.
At first the ship looked like some kind of unusual reef, a sudden manifestation of coral and molluscs jutting out from the seabed, but the hazy outline of what appeared to be a sphinx’s head and shoulders stood out from the base. Closer, the features of the statue took shape. Algae had covered everything but her face, which, unlike many of the images I’d seen in the past, had a human asymmetry about it. The arched nose and large eyes were surprisingly naturalistic and seemed to hold a wry humour. The creature stared back at me through the cloudy water with a beauty that was palpably and jarringly real. Was it a relic from the nearby submerged island of Antirhodos, which had once housed Cleopatra’s palace, swept in by the massive wave that had destroyed the whole area thousands of years before?
Isabella swam into view, gesturing towards the rest of the site. Pivoting slowly, I saw how the seabed had taken on the impression of the hull of a ship, with only the basic ribs of its construction still imprinted on the mud. Isabella hovered over the site, indicating the rim and handles of the steel tube, which now held the bronze artefact, its circular edges having been sunk down around it, deep enough for the object to be lifted along with the sea mud packed tightly around it.
She unhooked the floodlight and shone it onto the tube. Faakhir clipped a hook to one of the handles so the tube could be winched to the surface once we’d freed it from the seabed. He gave me
‘What island? There is no island - just Cyprus, too far for pigeons. No, something is not right. Maybe the storm is returning, or perhaps something more dangerous.’
I was relieved when Isabella and Faakhir surfaced in a great rush of silver bubbles. Pushing her mask up to her forehead, Isabella’s ecstatic face appeared.
‘We found it, Oliver! Isn’t that amazing? We have it! The tube’s sunk and fitted - all we have to do now is lift it out! I’ve found the astrarium!’
4
Isabella handed the metal detector up to me and hauled herself back onto the boat. Faakhir, smiling, climbed up after her while the others hung back, inexplicably tentative.
‘We should go back now, make the final dive tomorrow,’ Jamal announced, glancing at the horizon.
‘Absolutely not! The site will be covered again by tomorrow. We have to retrieve it in the next hour, before the tide comes through!’
Isabella’s tone was demanding and urgent. I glanced at the men and saw an expression cross Jamal’s face, so fast I think I was probably the only one who noticed. I’d seen it before with some of the Arab oil workers: resentment. It was difficult for them to take orders from a woman, no matter how much they respected her.
Faakhir, sensing potential conflict, put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘Please, we are so close, and if we dive tomorrow we’ll have to start all over again.’
Jamal glanced up at the flock of pigeons - now barely a speck on the horizon. A particularly high wave lifted the boat and a couple of dull thuds sounded as the floats lashed to the sides bumped against the hull.
‘Okay. But be as quick as you can.’
I picked up a spare mask and oxygen tank, ‘I’m coming with—’
‘Oliver, I don’t need . . .’ Isabella began.
But Faakhir put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Isabella, we could do with the extra help.’
Isabella glanced back at me. ‘Okay, but you’ll have to follow orders, understand?’
Stifling my claustrophia I nodded; there was no way I was going to allow Isabella to take any extra risk by being understaffed.
The site was illuminated by an underwater floodlight fixed by a rope. It was eerie swimming down towards the light - I had the strange sensation of an inverted world in which the sun lay beneath us. The water was cloudy, but as we neared the seabed the site came into view - a suspended oasis surrounded by darkness. Clouds of fish hovered like a swarm of moths, attracted by the floodlight.
At first the ship looked like some kind of unusual reef, a sudden manifestation of coral and molluscs jutting out from the seabed, but the hazy outline of what appeared to be a sphinx’s head and shoulders stood out from the base. Closer, the features of the statue took shape. Algae had covered everything but her face, which, unlike many of the images I’d seen in the past, had a human asymmetry about it. The arched nose and large eyes were surprisingly naturalistic and seemed to hold a wry humour. The creature stared back at me through the cloudy water with a beauty that was palpably and jarringly real. Was it a relic from the nearby submerged island of Antirhodos, which had once housed Cleopatra’s palace, swept in by the massive wave that had destroyed the whole area thousands of years before?
Isabella swam into view, gesturing towards the rest of the site. Pivoting slowly, I saw how the seabed had taken on the impression of the hull of a ship, with only the basic ribs of its construction still imprinted on the mud. Isabella hovered over the site, indicating the rim and handles of the steel tube, which now held the bronze artefact, its circular edges having been sunk down around it, deep enough for the object to be lifted along with the sea mud packed tightly around it.
She unhooked the floodlight and shone it onto the tube. Faakhir clipped a hook to one of the handles so the tube could be winched to the surface once we’d freed it from the seabed. He gave me
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