She smiled to reassure him. “Everything is fine with my family. Apparently Dr. Burnette has been trying to track me down for several weeks. Dr. Parishan, did my father ever speak to you of his grandfather who was also an archaeologist?”
“Alistair McGowan, of course.” He nodded. “The man who found the city of Shandihar when no one believed it had ever existed. Your father told me his grandfather’s journal inspired him to follow in his footsteps to become the great archaeologist that he is.”
“Then perhaps he also mentioned that the backing for Alistair’s expeditions had come from Howe University?”
“Yes, I believe so. Your father has lectured there, correct?”
“Yes, Dad lectured often at Howe before he retired. When my great-grandfather returned to the States following his discovery at Shandihar, he went directly to Howe and brought all the artifacts he’d found with him. The university had supplied the funding, so the spoils belonged to them. At least, that’s how it worked at the turn of the century. My great-grandfather spent years cataloging the artifacts to display in the museum that Howe was building. Unfortunately, he died before construction was completed.”
“Yes, yes, this I have heard.” Parishan nodded. “But what does this have to do with you?”
“Apparently the university wants to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Alistair’s discovery. They want to put his findings on display, after all these years. Dr. Burnette has asked me to take charge of the entire project.”
Parishan’s eyes lit up.
“You would be designing the exhibits?”
“Everything, Dr. Parishan.” She smiled with dazed pleasure. “They want me to do everything…”
“Everything?” Samuel McGowan asked incredulously.
“Everything, Dad,” Daria replied. “I can hardly believe it myself. I’m still pinching and pinching but I don’t seem to be waking up.”
“Well, that’s wonderful, sweetheart. Just wonderful! Wait till I tell your mother.” He put his hand over the phone. “Margarite! Pick up the phone! It’s Daria! She has the most amazing news!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Samuel, you don’t have to shout. I’m not deaf.” Margarite McGowan lifted the extension. “Daria? Is that you?”
“I’m here, Mom.”
“Where is here?”
“ Morocco.”
“I thought you were in the Zagros Mountains with Korush Parishan.” Her mother paused. “How is he? He’s well?”
“Yes.” Daria opened the French doors that led out to the balcony off her hotel room. She pulled a chair close to the railing and sat.
“You’ve left Korush’s dig? We were so pleased when he invited you.”
“Yes, I was very honored.” Daria raised her legs, rested them on the rail, and crossed her ankles.
“So why did you leave so soon?”
“For heaven’s sake, Margarite, will you let her tell her story?” Daria’s father sighed. “Go ahead, sweetheart. Tell her.”
“Right now, I’m in Essaouira. At the Villa, just for an overnight. I’ll be flying out tomorrow and I’ll be-”
“You’re coming home tomorrow?” Her mother’s delight was apparent.
“I’m flying to London, then to New York, then to Myrtle Beach. I expect I’ll be there at the island by the weekend, but only for a few days.”
“So where are you going?” her mother asked. “And what was so important that you had to leave Korush’s dig?”
“I have an appointment on Tuesday morning at Howe University,” Daria told her. “With Dr. Burnette, the president.”
“Louise Burnette?” her mother asked.
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“I know of her. She has a fine reputation. Has she offered you a position?” Daria could all but hear the frown in her mother’s voice. “Are you thinking about going into teaching? Because if you are, you know, any of the major universities would be more than happy to have you. You don’t have to settle for such a small school.”
“I’m not going to be teaching, Mom.” Daria took a deep breath and explained to her mother what the trustees of Howe University had in mind.
“That’s…amazing. And I’m so envious I could weep.”
“Mom, you’re an anthropologist, not an archaeologist,” Daria reminded her gently.
“I know, darling, but I’ve always wanted to do something fun and exciting like that.”
“You’ve had your fun, Mom. Didn’t you have a bestselling book last year?”
“Well, yes, but that was-”
“And another the year before that?”
“Yes, but-”
“Wasn’t that fun?”
“Oh, of course it was. Part of the fun in living as long as I have, and traveling and studying cultures in all parts of the world, is getting to relive it all by writing books about it when you retire. But this, this is huge. You’ll get to open all those dusty old crates and take out those artifacts that haven’t seen the light of day in a hundred years. You’ll be the first person to handle them since your great-grandfather packed them away while he completed his inventory. Isn’t that what happened, Samuel?”
“What? Oh, yes, yes. My grandfather supervised the packing of every piece in the field, then unpacked each piece himself when he returned to Howe-of course, it was Benjamin Howe College, back then. Named for your great-great-grandfather. And my grandmother, Iliana Howe, was actually Benjamin Howe’s only daughter.”
“Where did the money come from?” Daria asked.
“Old Ben was quite the tycoon,” Samuel said. “Owned a bunch of munitions factories, around the time of the Civil War. Later, he invested in railroads and several other highly profitable ventures. Then, while some of his contemporaries were building mansions in Newport and New York City, he built a college on land he owned in Pennsylvania, named it after himself, then waited for the school to catch on. Well, when it didn’t, he knew he had to do something spectacular to draw attention to it. So he sent out two archaeological teams-archaeology was quite popular back in the day. Alistair went to Asia Minor- Turkey, now. The other fellow, Oliver Jacobs, went to Mesopotamia, now Iraq. It took Alistair four years to find and excavate his site. Took Jacobs slightly more. Alistair spent another eighteen months cataloging the artifacts, but the museum still wasn’t ready. He died from a lung infection in 1910, I think it was. Jacobs’s findings were placed in the opening exhibit, and my grandfather’s were left in the crates where he’d kept them while he completed his inventory. Years later Benjamin Howe, my great-grandfather, died, then in the 1930s, my grandmother. By that time, her children were grown and had set out on their own paths.”
“I don’t understand how a treasure like the one he reportedly found could have been forgotten like that,” Daria said.
“Oh, not so mysterious,” Samuel responded.
Daria heard the sound of a match being struck softly.
“Samuel, I heard that!” her mother snapped. “Put the damned pipe away.”
Ignoring his wife, Samuel continued. “Trustees change. Faculty come and go. Crates get pushed farther and farther back into the recesses of the basement as other items are obtained. Having served my time in academia, I understand completely how such things occur.” He puffed softly on his pipe. “Out of sight, out of mind. Over the years, the story is forgotten; the items, unseen for all these years, lose their allure. And there’s the tide of popularity. In one year, out the next. Back in the early twenties, Egypt became all the rage after Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered. Every museum was after mummies for quite some time.”
“Well, something’s brought Shandihar back into the foreground,” Daria said.
“The anniversary, I suppose,” Margarite suggested. “Did Dr. Burnette say when that would be? When they were planning to open the exhibit?”
“I’m sure I’ll find out on Tuesday.”
“You’ll call us when you arrive in the States?” her father asked.
“Of course, Dad. But right now I’m going to have a long hot bath and a fabulous dinner, and my first night’s sleep on a real mattress, on a real bed, in almost nine weeks.” Daria stood and shielded her eyes from the sun, which had begun its afternoon shift lower in the sky. She said good-bye to her parents and hung up the phone.