4

Monday, 23 June

Day One

Esben was excited to finally dig.

He had been assigned to a one-meter patch of dirt far from the two French students he had befriended, placed between two strangers instead. Perhaps this was the instructors’ plan: forced social interaction with people other than those the students had already been chatting with. Great.

The woman to his left, Kate the American, had her long brown hair pulled into a ponytail that anchored the plastic band of her green baseball cap. This hat was a poor choice, as the tips of her pale ears were already sunburnt. A breeze blew across her as she knelt beside him, carrying her sweat-and-sunblock scent. Kate was strong, given the rounded thickness of her forearms. To his right was Tonia, the woman Kate had befriended. Hopefully they weren’t annoyed with him for digging between them.

“Dig your unit in even layers,” Astrid instructed. “You don’t want to concentrate on one corner or side. That would defeat the purpose of revealing a unit layer by layer.”

He gripped his trowel and scraped the dirt toward him, then brushed the debris into his plastic scoop and deposited the contents into his assigned bucket. Whenever the metal blade ran over a pebble, the jolt jerked his wrist.

“We will dig our test units to thirty centimeters deep,” Astrid continued. “Take measurements regularly. If you find anything interesting, let us know. Remember, never pull out a possible artifact—let it come loose naturally. And never yank roots. Later, we will talk about leaving finds in situ, pedestaling, and photography.”

His trowel knocked out another pebble. He added it to the growing motley pile.

“My knees hurt,” Kate said, scraping at her unit, progressing quickly and evenly.

“My wrist hurts,” Tonia said.

The two women chatted across him for however long it took for him to reach ten centimeters, rarely including him in their conversation. He was fine with this, perfectly happy to methodically dig. He also enjoyed listening. His hat blocked the sun from burning his neck, but more importantly, it hid his lingering gazes and amused smiles.

They were all nineteen, he learned, though he and Tonia were nearly twenty. They all liked Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, but like him, Kate found them silly.

“Hey,” Kate said.

Esben was slow to realize she was speaking to him and not her other neighbor. “Hey,” he replied.

“Esben, right?”

He nodded. “Ben, if you like.”

“I like your cowboy hat,” she said, giving it a flick. “Very Indiana Jones of you.” Her honeyed voice was lightly accented, neutral, like an American newscaster.

“That was a…” Tonia paused. “A fedora, is it? That Indy has?”

Kate pursed her lips. “Oh. What’s the difference between a cowboy hat and a fedora?”

“I have no idea. Esben?”

He paused his troweling. Tonia and Kate were both looking at him expectantly.

“What’s the difference?” Kate poked his hat again.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Cowboy hats have a wider…” He forgot the word in English, tapping the edge of his hat.

“Brim,” Kate said. “Yeah, maybe.” She grinned at him with her thin lips and square jaw. “Anyway, it’s cute.”

Cute. Esben returned his gaze to his unit to hide his smile.

Kate’s eyes were hazel, brown with specs of green.