The British Museum, London
‘Michael, pay attention and switch on the box!’ The venerable frame of William H. Gwyth appeared in the office doorway of the Distinguished Research Fellow in Coptic Antiquities at the British Museum. Gwyth personified the stereotypical old-fashioned scholar, as innocent of concern for trends in fashion as he was for trends in thought outside his realm of specialism. He remained at the helm of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, which he had piloted for seventeen years, despite now being four years older than the museum’s official retirement age of seventy-six.
Michael Torrance looked up from his desk, ignoring the command. ‘The box’, he knew, referred to the television, and he had too much work to be distracted by it. Gwyth was an eccentric, always insisting that everyone drop everything at his whim.
‘Switch it over to Channel Four,’ the octogenarian commanded, stepping further into the room. Sensing Michael’s disinterest, he gave a demonstrative wag of his arthritic hands. ‘Don’t make an old man ask again.’
For the briefest moment, Michael debated internally whether resisting the distraction was worth the scolding he would receive if he didn’t comply. Realizing it wasn’t, he withdrew a remote from his desk drawer and switched on the tiny television that sat perched in the middle of the bookshelf opposite. His office was traditional and dignified, and the television appeared incongruous with the immense desk protected by its muted, burgundy felt mat, surrounded by overly full bookshelves that lined every wall and once-organized stacks of paper that reached up from the shelftops to the ceiling. Michael Torrance had considered the office a second home for only the past six months, but with the clutter it could have been six years.
‘What warrants such a worldly distraction this morning?’ he asked as the old television gradually faded its images into view. William Gwyth was not known for his love of television, modern culture, or indeed much of anything that dated later than the ninth century AD. Everything else was generally marked as a ‘modern innovation’ and dismissed just as decisively.
‘That,’ Gwyth answered, pointing to the small screen. Michael turned his attention to the television, on which a news report was headlined with the unlikely phrase: ‘Gnostic terrorist.’ His face contorted in surprise.
‘Gnostic terrorist?’
‘I thought that might get your attention,’ Gwyth replied, a satisfied smile on his dry lips. ‘Seems a juvenile in the States has been arrested for some terrorist something or other, and claims to be one of your Gnostics.’ He lifted a well-wrinkled brow towards his surprised colleague. ‘Not something one sees every day, is it?’
Michael held back an obscenity. His field of study was hard enough to separate from the realm of cultic mystics and spiritualist nonsense in the public mind. Having Gnosticism attached to terrorism, even if only in the sphere of the media, was absolutely the last thing he needed.
The television switched from a shoulder shot of the newsreader to an arrest photograph of a man in America. Gwyth’s condescending ‘juvenile’ was an observation well made: the man could not be more than twenty-five. His bruised face made him look pitiful, though Michael saw a smugness that the bruises didn’t conceal. Bullet points on the screen indicated he’d been arrested in possession of a sniper rifle and claimed to be involved in a ‘sacred mission’ about which no further details were conveyed.
‘Maybe you should ring up the station,’ Michael’s boss offered, already turning to walk away. ‘You might be able to add “Anti-Terrorism Consultant” to your growing list of accolades.’ Michael heard Gwyth’s self-congratulatory laugh as he departed down the corridor.
He kept his eyes on the screen a few moments longer before switching off the television in annoyance. On days like this, he wondered whether his career shift had been a good move. He could have gone anywhere in life, done anything, and had already followed more career paths than some. He had formerly been an architect – or, more accurately, had become a qualified architect only weeks before a sudden shift put him on the historian’s track.
That shift had come in the form of a woman. For a man of good English stock and above-average intelligence, with a career on the horizon and a life-long desire to ‘make his mark’ pressing at him since childhood, being swayed off course by love had surprised everyone in Michael’s circle of friends, including Michael himself. He’d abandoned almost every romantic relationship he’d had since his teens on grounds that ‘career comes first’ and his plans for life trumped the momentary impulses of romantic emotion; but with this woman, things had been different. The man who was never swayed, was swayed. The architect with an internship nearing completion and qualifications already in hand, had fallen for a historian and then fallen back into history himself.
Michael had trod the path of history earlier, during his undergraduate days, before the lure of higher salaries and a natural curiosity with structure and form drew him away. But only seven weeks after his wedding, Michael had opted to leave the architectural world as swiftly as he had joined it, returning to university to take a PhD in the subject that had been his first interest. Now, sporting a doctorate in Coptic Studies and a zest for his new career, he focused on Gnostic social history and the fringe movements of early Egyptian Christianity as part of a prestigious year-long fellowship with the British Museum. The thirty-four-year-old’s fascination for modern structures of steel and glass had not waned, but the lure of other interests had taken pride of place.
It was a lure that inspired deep and zealous commitment. A recent consignment of third-century BC Nile Delta pottery had pressured the whole department into a long working weekend, and Michael had even committed to sleeping in the corner of his office, reluctantly staying away from the comforts of home and bedding himself down with a thin pillow and a few blankets in order to make the most of early mornings and long working nights. His wife hadn’t even protested. She was a woman of zeal herself, and knew it when she saw it.
But despite his own energy and that of the scholars around him, Michael was gradually learning an important fact: there was idiocy everywhere. The fool on the television wasn’t miles away from the stupidity of the group that had sent him the letter that now lay unfolded on his desk. He’d been trying to shake their persistent requests almost as long as he had been in post, but still they continued to write. ‘For reasons of academic research’, a ‘scholarly collective’ of which Michael had never heard was requesting access to the museum’s Coptic manuscripts collection. Though the terms were vague, it was not an unusual request. Groups constantly requested access to such materials, and the museum regularly granted it, but this group stood out for its persistence. Michael had already denied them access on no fewer than five occasions, on grounds that they had not provided him with any evidence of a genuine scholarly intention or adequate credentials to handle such ancient materials.
But some people couldn’t take a hint, however formally it was stated.
All at once, Michael chuckled at the strange absurdity of his morning. A group of fools in Britain seeking access to priceless manuscripts, while a lone fool in America claimed to be a ‘Gnostic Terrorist’. The ancient Gnostics were as far from modern-day world terrorism as night from day, Michael mused. A bit of nonsense that was a momentary object of predictable media misrepresentation.
Sighing, he tossed the letter into a bin at his feet and pushed the whole matter from his mind.