The Disc

I was staying in Calabria at the time, in view of Stromboli, and I had a hobby in finding ancient artefacts. I’m not an archeologist, just an enthusiast, but I do have a knack for finding things. In fact, I had such a reputation for finding things that word got around—academics, collectors, museum curators and robbers contacted me. I dealt with them all in the same way because generally they had one thing in common—a passion for their work.

About five years ago I had a professor of archeology staying with me. Her name was Dr. Susan Craddock from the University of London. She said she wanted to have a look at some of the Locrian vases I’d dug up but I could tell what she really wanted was to learn my technique—How to Find Antique Treasures in Ten Easy Steps. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t something you could learn, there was no real ‘trick’ to it, but she kept politely disbelieving me.

She’d only just got her Ph.D at that point, she wasn’t the big name she is now. About twenty-seven years of age, five-foot-two and very petite and graceful. She had a wonderful head of curly dark hair, smooth olive skin. When she spoke her voice affected me like the sound of a mellow lute. Her eyes and gestures communicated complete sincerity. I fell in love with her immediately. She seemed to represent the apex of femininity in miniature. Two years earlier I’d found a gold ring (fourth-century BCE) incised with a picture of Artemis and a hound. It was only a centimeter in diameter but the detail and beauty was breathtaking. The way I’d felt when I found that ring, holding it up to the bright autumn sun, that was the way I felt when I met Susan.

Of course, my love was not requited and nor did I expect it to be. I was penniless, ugly and world weary. I’d dropped out of school at the age of fourteen, roaming all over Europe doing oddjobs and enjoying as much of the good life as is available to a man of limited means. She would compare me affectionally to a satyr, an ugly and lustful wine-bibbing prancing over the dry hills of Magna Grecia. It hurt at the time, of course but the truth is that there were plenty of Apollos and Parises holidaying on the coast and she was just as oblivious to them as she was to me.

One in particular was very attentive. Enzo Carducci, the mechanic’s son. He was just as smitten as I was. He’d bring her flowers and little gifts, he offered to show her around the city, did her a thousand favours. She accepted these attentions gracefully but it left her cold she had no time for romance. Despite her fascinating looks and charming manners, she was ambitious and hard-headed to a fault. That’s what ultimately got her into trouble.

It was spring when she arrived. The hills were covered with wildflowers and we left early each morning. Those mornings when we were walking together in the footsteps of the ancients were happy times for me. She was filled with enthusiasm for ‘finding treasure,’ as she called it, so that her eyes seemed to produce their own light and I might have believed she was walking on air. I listened to her talk about the Locrians and the Crotons, about kouroi and Pythagoras. I knew the names but wasn’t really listening to the sense, only to the music of her voice.

That first morning, I had taken her on a circuitous route to be able to spend more time with her. We hadn’t found anything and she was getting irritable and started to complain I was holding things back from her. She was especially annoyed when she realized I was leading her up to the tomb of the ‘Bella Donna’. This was one of the most famous graves in Magna Grecia, named for all the beautiful and beautifying objects found inside it: cosmetic vases, golden rams-head earrings, a bronze mirror engraved with Aphrodite and Eros. The tomb had been cleaned out long ago, as had most of the others nearby. The objects were mostly now in the museum in Reggio Calabria and the bones had been moved either to the museum basement or to some common grave. Everyone knew about this place and that there was nothing left to see. But everyone was wrong.

I’d spent several weeks in the area the previous year because, quite near the necropolis, I’d noticed a small mound that seemed odd to me. It was clearly the result of human activity

Up until then I’d been reluctant to explore any further. Something was warning me off. It didn’t seem the right time. Even now, it didn’t seem exactly right, but I was determined to show Susan something special and this was the spot with the most potential. I was honest with her: I said I couldn’t promise anything but that my gut told me there was something interesting there. She was, after all, interested in my technique, so I showed her how the ground was just very slightly different, that the mound was symmetrical and uniform that didn’t seem entirely natural.

We both had shovels with us and went to work. In about twenty minutes my shovel blade touched something hard and white. Digging gingerly around the area we determined it was stone—probably marble—and it had been carved. Beyond that it was impossible to tell.

Susan was so delighted she did a little dance. She made me promise that we’d return the next day and start uncovering it. I told her that I wasn’t licensed to do it—I didn’t have the right papers--so she couldn’t tell anyone about it and that whatever we uncovered we would have to re-cover at the end, no matter what. She said that was no problem; I believe the secrecy increased the pleasure of it for her.

We returned the next day with our tools. Susan looked as if she hadn’t slept. She was so excited, her hands shook a little. Her eyes had a look that I came to fear, a kind of grim intensity. There was no more chatter or laughter. She had withdrawn into a world in which nothing really existed but the ‘find’. I did not really exist or, rather in her mind I had become an extension of her will. Besotted as I was, this was completely acceptable to me because I believed it brought us closer together.

We worked all day; I think she wanted to have it all done before nightfall. In fact, by sunset we had succeeded in uncovering the surface. It seemed to be a kind of disc about a meter in diameter engraved with symbols and images that might either have been a kind of alphabet or decorations. Even without knowing anything about its origin or significance, I was struck by the symmetry and simple beauty of the engraved design. The pink evening light seemed to emphasize the engraving and to enhance the sense of romance and mystery. Both of us spent several minutes simply gazing at it in wonder. What was passing in Susan’s head I have no way of knowing. As for me: I felt as if my mind were being refreshed somehow, as if I were a wildebeest quenching my thirst at a drinking hole. Time seemed to expand and my entire body tingled. I fancied that every cell was renewing itself and that in an instant I was changed forever.

As we were working Susan had been thinking out loud, wondering what civilization had produced the disc. It was clearly bothering her deeply that she couldn’t make any kind of positive identification, that there was no similarity to any other object, nothing on which to hang a date or creator. She sometimes murmurmed slightly under her breath, “But it’s impossible!”

We covered the dome with a green tarpaulin and decided to camp there that night. In the morning Susan would take some photographs and then we’d cover it up again. On returning to town she’d contact her university and start the long process of obtaining permission for a proper excavation.

I’d brought a bottle of prosecco to celebrate and made a toast to our amazing discovery. Dinner was a box of crackers and fruit. We didn’t say much, we were both overwhelmed by the events of the day.

Soon after this repast, I felt quite strange. I put it down to the wine, to the sense of relief after so many days of excitement and to a day of hard work. As I fell asleep, I looked over at Susan who was in her sleeping bag and noticed that she was watching me closely. In the moonlight her eyes looked large and, well, predatory somehow. Like a hawk’s. I’ll admit it frightened me a little—it seemed as if she were waiting for something. Soon after that, I passed out.

When I woke, it must have been noon because the sun was right overhead, shining directly in my eyes. I had a splitting headache and felt weak as a baby.

Susan was gone and the hole had been filled in. As soon as I saw the earth, which had been carefully patted down, I knew she’d taken the dome. I didn’t know how she’d managed it but I was absolutely sure it was no longer there. A strong sense of doom and helplessness took hold of me. It wasn’t her betrayal of me--I already knew that the object had become an overriding obsession and that I had never been real to her. But I was afraid for her. What might happen to her through because of her association with the stone? The thought that I was the one who brought her to that fell place…already I felt the full weight of guilt, which has never left me.

I managed to get down the mountain and went straight to bed. I told no one what had happened. I did not hear from Susan and when people asked where she was (it was a small town and everyone knows everyone), I just said that she’d left suddenly. Coincidentally, Enzo had disappeared at the same time so naturally there were all kinds of rumours—that they’d eloped, that he’d chased her to London. At first people pitied me as a cuckold because they’d assumed she and I had been lovers. But then, when the family didn’t hear from Enzo there was some unpleasant speculation that I’d done away with him out of jealousy.

One day a friend at the local bar showed me a news story on his cellphone…it was a picture of Susan on the news. She was standing next to a white disc engraved with beautiful symbols.

Artefact Raises Questions About Prehistory as We Know It

It is one of the most beautiful artefacts ever uncovered and it may also be the oldest. Carbon dating tests have determined that the strange marble disc is probably about 50,000 years old. Dr. Susan Craddock of London University is leading a research team in efforts to find out more about the mystery object, which was sent to her by an anonymous European collector. Said to have been found in Calabria, it resembles no other object yet discovered. Craddock says experts are stumped as to what it may have been used for. Some have guessed that it might be a calendar or star map; others have suggested a religious use. “The truth is, we may never know,” Craddock says, “But whatever it may be, we should be grateful that it has seen the light of day.”

She looked beautiful, radiant and enthusiastic but I also detected a tense, strained look—fear?—in her eyes. The disc’s music was buzzing in the back of her mind like the sound of a generator.

It was stupid of her to say it had been found in Calabria because naturally it meant I started getting phone calls night and day about the damned thing. Of course, I knew why. She wanted to place it correctly. It was the academic in her. But it was stupid. I pretended not to know anything about it. One day a British journalist by the name of Alex Fox knocked on my door and said he’d like to have a word. He worked for a big news outfit in the UK and apparently a local had tipped them off that Susan had been staying with me earlier in the year, that I was known for collecting ancient stuff and that the miraculous disc had probably came from our neck of the woods.

I said it was true she’d stayed here to do some amateur searches but it had been a wash out—we hadn’t gotten along very well and she’d left in a huff. I told him I had my doubts about the object’s provenance, it didn’t look like anything from around here (this was true).

The journalist nodded and then he looked at me with icy blue eyes and said, “I know you were digging near the Bella Donna.” A shepherd saw you both. He leaned back to watch my reaction.

I shrugged. My heart started beating like crazy but I pretended boredom

“They found the body,” he said. At that I did react.

“What body?” I asked.

“The boy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“About twenty years old. Name of Enzo.”

I thought I was going to fall off my chair. But somehow, at the same time, I was not completely surprised.

“Enzo,” I repeated dully. “So that was how--” I stopped myself.

“That was how what?” said the Fox. I could tell I wasn’t reacting in quite the way he expected.

“Nothing,” I said. I stood up. “Well, you got me.”

“No, wait—” he was upset that he hadn’t got his story. One of those Jack Russell types that won’t rest until he’s got his rat. I turned around.

“Listen to me Alex. Time to go home and forget about this.” Of course it was exactly the wrong thing to say.

I walked round the corner to the police station to give myself up. All the officers were having their morning coffee so I had to interrupt their breakfast to tell them I was murderer and they should put me away. I was expecting a beating—Enzo had been beloved—and, sure enough, I got a savage one. I didn’t have any family, my mother was dead so there was none of that to worry about. What kept me awake, God help me for being a fool, was what was going to happen to her.

She wasn’t a murderer, not under ordinary circumstances. There was something about that night that had come over her. I remembered the strange hawk look she’d given me.  What had made her take that boy’s life? He must have tried to come between her and the stone somehow.

At the trial I lied all the way. I wanted to keep Susan’s name out of it. I told them it had happened on a date that was a week after Susan had gone. I was up at the necropolis, I saw Enzo. He insulted me and I flew into a drunken rage and killed him. I didn’t know exactly how he’d died so I told them I didn’t remember that part, that I was so mad with anger. When I snapped out of it, he was dead so I quickly used my shovel to move the soil that was already loose from our excavations, so making a shallow grave.

The story probably would have gone over if it wasn’t for Enzo’s grandmother Mimma. She insisted that I was lying. She said her grandson died the day Susan left. She said not a day had gone by that he didn’t kiss his nonna on the cheek and she knew in her bones that he would not have left her for a whole week without saying goodbye, never. Therefore he’d died that very day and Susan knew something. She nagged the police to get Susan to the trial. I prayed that no one would listen to the old lady.

Probably the police would have been content to let the thing rest. They’d got their man, the case was nice and tidy. But that’s where Alex Fox came in. He was like Susan, in a way—couldn’t let a thing rest. He was following the trial closely, heard Mimma’s objection and believed her.

Alex Fox got busy laying a trap for Susan. He was clever. He told London University that he’d found the probable spot where the disc had been excavated—got them to match soil samples and measure the size of the excavation site. He mentioned that a body had been found in that very same site. The Italian government got involved, they launched an investigation into the identity of the ‘collector’ who had supposedly posted the disc to Susan. Public indignation arose at this theft. Alex interviewed Enzo’s nonna, who captured the heart of the nation. With dignity and tears in her eyes she pleaded with Susan to come to Italy as a witness for the trial. Susan was looking worse and worse. She had to come, to clear her name.

Hearing testimony at the trial, I learned what happened. A friend of Enzo, Gianluca, said that Enzo had been following us around. He didn’t trust me and when he found out that Susan and I had started sleeping under the stars together up at the necropolis, he assumed the worst. He was consumed with jealousy and decided to confront Susan, to warn her away from me. Even he knew that the necropolis was exhausted of artefacts so he figured I was taking advantage of a pretty young woman for my own nefarious purposes.

Realizing this, I could guess the rest. He’d been spying on us to be on hand in case something happened. When he saw a lone figure digging at night, he probably thought it was me digging her grave. Approaching, he must have realized it was Susan, alone, and spoken to her. From her point of view it was a dangerous moment. She’d just drugged me and was in the process of robbing a precious artefact. Enzo was intent on ‘saving’ her and would probably tell everyone he’d rescued her from a midnight digging session. He might not realize the significance of that but someone would, eventually. She had a weapon in her hand and knew he would not have lifted a finger against her. Did she strike immediately? Or did she disarm him with caresses first?  She was small but she was strong.

Susan admitted that we’d found the disc together. She said I’d drugged her and when she woke up she was all alone and scared and left immediately. She said that I’d been in love with her and sent her the disc a few weeks later as a present. I willingly pretended all of this was true.

The jury found me guilty.

“Why did you do it?” Alex Fox hissed at me after the trial. He was angry. The rat had escaped. “That’s a murderer at large. She’s not worth protecting.”

“She’s not a murderer Alex,” I sighed, “She’s an enthusiast.”