The Golden City Page 8

  Something was about to happen. He felt a change coming: a moment when he saw the world clearly and all distinctions melted away. In the past, these incidents had frightened him and overwhelmed him. Now, sitting in this street café, he could watch and wait and anticipate what was going to happen. The Light inside him was gaining power like a wave hidden beneath the surface of the sea.

  The owner brought out coffee on a tin tray. Gabriel drank quickly and stared at the black grains at the bottom of the glass. A fly landed on his wrist and he flicked it away. More flies circled his boots while others rested on the café tables—tiny silver islands made of hammered steel.

  He turned his head slightly, glanced down the street, and then the world opened up before him. During the interval of one heartbeat, his mind pulled back and he saw the city with total detachment. Everything before him—the sky, the flat-roofed tenement buildings and the scrawny fichus trees—was a complete unity, but he could also perceive each detail. He saw motes of dust rising and falling; smelled garbage and baking bread; heard a woman singing on the radio.

  The world enveloped him with its intricate variety, and he watched it all as if it were a photograph projected on a wall screen. He saw the faces around him just as clearly—Simon, Linden, the other customers sitting at the café, a woman carrying a white bird in a silver cage and a group of boys kicking a bandaged soccer ball. When his mind was detached in this way, he could float above the street like an angel gazing down on fallen souls. The children radiated joy and happiness, but the adults shuffled along with faces that showed weariness, anger and pain.

  “Maybe that car was at the airport,” Linden said. “Someone could be following us.”

  Gabriel’s vision melted away and the world was ordinary again—with a feral dog staring at him and a black car parked at the end of the street.

  “It is just a Renault sedan,” Simon said. “There are thousands of them in this city. Cairo is where old Renaults come to die.”

  “This one has mud on its left headlight.”

  “Are you sure you’ve seen it before?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Possible? Or just Harlequin pazzia?”

  “Even crazy people have enemies ”

  Both of them stopped talking as a battered taxicab came around the corner and stopped in front of the cafe. A door popped open and a bearded Coptic priest got out. Using his hands to hold up the hem of his robes, he marched over to their tables. The priest’s blue jogging shoes had lightning bolts on the sides.

  “Mr. Lumbroso?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am Father Youssef from the Church of St. Bartholomew. My cousin, Hossam, says you are looking for me.”

  Simon got up and shook the priest’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Father Youssef. We just arrived in Cairo this morning. These two gentlemen are my friends.”

  They circled the chairs around one little table and Father Youssef ordered a glass of tea. All the windows on the street were either darkened by curtains or concealed behind shutters. There were no surveillance cameras in the City of the Dead, but Gabriel felt like someone was watching them. When the black Renault made a U-turn and vanished around the corner, Linden relaxed slightly and leaned back in his chair.

  The priest stirred sugar into his tea, and then used a spoon to mash the sprig of mint against the side of the glass. “How do you know Hossam?”

  “I’ve done business with him involving antiquities,” Lumbroso said. “Your cousin has a good eye for what is real and what is a fake.”

  “Hossam says you are a man who keeps promises. That is difficult to find in this city.”

  “I know that the Coptic Church is being persecuted.”

  “Our young men are beaten and arrested for nothing. My church has no electricity and the roof leaks when it rains.”

  Lumbroso touched his breast. A wallet filled with Egyptian pounds was concealed within the inner pocket of his suit coat. “We would reward the person with accurate information. We are looking for—”

  “Hossam told me everything. You want a passageway that will take you to another world.” Father Youssef drank his tea with a loud slurping sound and put down the glass with a click. “Most people do not care about these passageways. All they want is a new car and a big television.”

  Simon dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee. “We thought that a passageway might be connected to the pyramids. They’ve been a special location for thousands of years.”

  “The pyramids were built for the dead. A passageway is for the living.”

  Looking annoyed, Linden leaned forward and touched the priest’s arm. “Tell us something of value and your church will get a new roof.”

  “The Coptic Church is poor and persecuted. They have taken everything from us, including our sacred chapel. It guards the way to another world.”

  “And who controls this chapel?” Linden asked.

  “The Greek Orthodox Church. I talk about the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai.”

  Lumbroso turned to Gabriel. “Most people know it as St. Catherine’s Monastery. It was built by the Emperor Justinian during the Sixth Century.”

  “Our church had a shrine at Mount Sinai before the monastery was built. It was called the Chapel of the Burning Bush. Do you think Moses got his vision from a plant on fire? The burning bush was just a children’s story that someone invented to protect the passageway.”

  “Can we go there?” Gabriel asked. “Will the priests let us in?”

  Father Youssef spat on the dirt. “When pilgrims arrive at the monastery, the Greeks show them a bush growing outside the church. The chapel with the passageway is in a room behind the altar.”

  “What if we offered them a donation?” Lumbroso asked.

  “If the monks think you know their secret, they will call the police and have you arrested.”

  Looking annoyed, Linden shook his head. Ce prętre est inutile, he whispered to Simon.

  “I want to be helpful,” Youssef insisted. “I can draw you a map of the church and show you the hidden chapel. But you should forget about this and go back to Europe. Passageways are dangerous. If you cross over, you can be trapped in a world with demons or ghosts. Only a saint can take such a journey, and there are no more saints.”

  Simon Lumbroso smiled. “Certain rabbis tell us that a handful of hidden saints keep this world from being destroyed.”

  “That’s a big responsibility,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “It is not true.” Father Youssef tapped on the table with his spoon. “The Age of Saints is over. God no longer speaks directly to men and women. We speak to ourselves and pray to the echo.”

  9

  S imon Lumbroso arranged for a car and driver, and they left that night for St. Catherine’s monastery; Gabriel and Simon in the back seat and Linden in front with the driver. The Renault sedan had a scratched and dusty exterior, but the driver had installed red velvet carpet on the floors and decorated the dashboard with plush dogs. A family of Yorkshire terriers stared at Gabriel with little glass eyes as the car glided past the walled palaces of the Egyptian military and headed east.

  The four-lane highway cut a straight line across a flat desert landscape. Occasionally they passed a military installation protected by a high wall or a barbed wire fence, but no one other than soldiers appeared to be living in the area. Their Egyptian driver was a small, quiet man with a pencil-thin moustache. He kept the Renault in the middle of the road—aiming straight at each pair of oncoming headlights, and then swerving to one side at the last possible moment before they smashed into a trailer truck or a lumbering gasoline tanker.

  The sun was coming up when they reached the outskirts of Suez. The driver showed his travel permit at three army checkpoints, and then they entered the tunnel lined with white tile that passed beneath the canal. When they reemerged into the sunlight, they had left the African continent and entered the Sinai Peninsula. Linden stretched his legs and arms, then tilted the rearview mirror so he could see out the back win
dow. The driver began to protest, but Linden glared at him. “If you want some extra money, then leave the mirror alone. I like to travel this way, looking at my past.”

  The sun rose higher and the driver switched on the air conditioner. Every hour or so they passed a city with a smokestack and a power plant, a mosque and a cluster of pastel pink apartment buildings—the entire community dumped into a bare landscape of sand and scattered rocks. All the Egyptians had disappeared except for women on the side of the road selling melons that looked like little green cannonballs.

  By nine in the morning, they had reached the seaside resorts on the Gulf of Suez. For Egyptians, recreation and luxury was all about palm trees; each resort would announce its presence with date palms in the median strip or a row of weary looking doum palms by the side of road. Finally, billboards would appear and then a boulevard lined with Royal Palms that led to a hotel and a strip of beach.

  More check points—some run by the police, others by the army. Linden glanced over the seat at Simon Lumbroso. “It feels like half the population of Egypt is checking the passes of the other half.”

  “There’s a lot of unemployment in this country,” Simon explained. “This gives them something to do.”

  After stopping at a gas station, they left the beach resorts and headed inland toward a range of grey mountains. The cliffs and hills around them were eroded by the wind, and sand covered portions of the two-lane road. Simon was dozing now, but Gabriel sensed that something was wrong. Linden adjusted the rearview mirror a second time and then his hand brushed against one of the knives strapped to his lower legs.

  “Stop the car,” he said.

  The driver looked startled. “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “Stop the car. Now.”

  “We are about thirty minutes away from the monastery.”

  “I want to contemplate le paysage.”

  The driver turned off the road and parked on sandy patch of ground. Linden grabbed his knapsack with one hand and glanced over the seat at Gabriel and Simon. “All of us want to look at the scenery,” he announced. “Let’s go.”

  The two men followed Linden up a hill covered with desert vegetation. It was hot and dry on the ridge and there were no shade trees to protect them from the sun.

  “I enjoy looking at a picturesque landscape,” Lumbroso said. “But this scrap of desert is not particularly impressive.”

  “We might have a problem.” Linden reached into the knapsack and pulled out a pair of binoculars. “A silver pickup truck has followed us for about ten kilometers. I want to know if they made the same turn.”

  Simon and Gabriel stood quietly as the Frenchman studied the road.

  “See anything?” Simon asked.

  “No.”

  “Good,” Gabriel said. “Let’s get back in the car.”

  Linden lowered the binoculars, but he didn’t hike back down the hill. He was larger than Gabriel and armed with two ceramic knives. Like most Harlequins, he displayed a certain arrogance about his power.

  “I think this expedition is a foolish idea. There is only one road to the monastery, and that will be guarded by several police and army roadblocks. Most people come here in a tour bus. Arriving in a car is going to attract attention.”

  “There’s no way around that,” Gabriel said.

  Linden didn’t bother to hide his disdain. “First we have to find this secret chapel and then we have to get inside. And then what happens?”

  “It sounds like you’re going to tell us,” Gabriel said.

  “Then you cross over to the most dangerous realm. And maybe you can find Maya and maybe you cannot because she is already dead.”

  “She isn’t dead,” Gabriel said.

  “Maya would not want you to risk your life for her. There is only one logical plan. If we find an access point in the chapel, then I will be the one to cross over.”

  “You’ve never been to the First Realm.” Gabriel said. “I know the city.”

  Linden turned to Simon Lumbroso. “Explain why this is the correct decision.”

  Simon raised both hands. “Please. I am not part of this argument.”

  Gabriel stood on the ridge, trying to figure what to say. He couldn’t use the word “love.” That was a meaningless emotion for a man like Linden. “Maya went there to save me. I feel the same obligation.”

  “Travelers don’t have obligations to Harlequins!”

  “I’m going to the monastery, Linden. And when I find the access point, I’m crossing over on my own. If you don’t want to be part of this, I’ll tell the driver to take you back to Cairo.”

  Gabriel trudged back down the hill to the car and Simon followed. A few minutes later Linden climbed back in the car, slamming the door shut. All three men stayed silent for the rest of the journey. The Egyptian driver seemed to realize that his passengers had argued. He kept glancing at Linden as if the Frenchman was about to explode.

  The road followed a dry riverbed up a canyon. They passed through one guard post, and then another. The final checkpoint was run by a bored group of police officers who were sipping tea and smoking from a hookah. Tour buses were parked a hundred yards up the road; they had their engines on and their air conditioners running.

  “Most of the tourists come here at two o’clock in the morning to climb Mount Sinai,” the driver explained. “If they’re too fat to walk, the Bedouin carry them up the trail on camels.”

  The monastery guesthouse was a complex of white buildings with a terrace shaded with Italian cypress and olive trees. The guesthouse manager checked them in while a teenage boy with a crippled leg carried their luggage to their rooms. The flushed-face tourists who had just returned from their climb were sitting on the terrace next to the guestroom gift shop and restaurant.

  “Go to the church and look for the hidden chapel,” Linden told Gabriel and Simon. “I will talk to the abbot and see if I can establish a financial rapport.”

  As Gabriel and Simon followed a stone walkway up to the monastery, they could see two Bedouins helping an elderly man off a camel while tourists hiked down a switchback trail. “Many years ago, my brother climbed this mountain,” Simon said. “There were Bedouin all the way up, selling bottled water and candy bars. The price gets higher the closer you get to the Holy Chapel.”

  The monastery had been built like a fort to defend the monks from desert raiders. A rectangular wall made of massive sandstone blocks encircled the church and all you could see from the walkway was the top of a bell tower. After paying admission, Gabriel and Simon entered through a small door cut into the wall. St Catherine’s Church was at the center of a courtyard surrounded by three levels of monastery offices and dormitories. The gap between these monastery rooms and the church itself was quite small—about twenty feet on the western half of the church and less than eight feet on the opposite side.

  Different groups of tourists squeezed into this gap while their guides shouted at them in various languages. Most of the women wore tank tops and Capri pants, and for modesty’s sake they had covered their heads and bare shoulders with gauzy scarves. While Simon inspected the outside of the church, Gabriel followed the crowd to the north end of the court. There was a bush growing there—supposedly the descendant of the original flaming bush—and the tourists pushed and shoved each other to grab souvenir leaves.

  Simon touched Gabriel’s shoulder and spoke quietly. “No sign of the chapel. The church itself is 40 meters wide and 120 meters long. Let us see what it looks like inside.”

  They passed through two sets of doors and entered the church. Frayed carpets covered the marble floor and muffled their footsteps. The bright desert sky disappeared and the only light came from oil lamps and candleholders hanging from chains attached to the blue-green ceiling. The most striking feature of the church was an elaborate gold and silver screen between the public area and the altar. A monk wearing black robes stood in front of the screen and hissed at anyone who tried to take a photograph.

  Gabriel and Simon inspected a reliquary for St. Catherine that held a section of her leg; it looked like a
n old chicken bone found in the backyard. Then Simon paced out the interior dimensions of the church while Gabriel sat in one of the wooden pews. A massive brass chandelier hung overhead, and he realized that it was in the shape of a dragon. Icons of saints and martyrs covered the walls. They stared at him with large black eyes and Gabriel felt like he was being judged by some heavenly tribunal.

  A chattering group of Christians from Goa left the church, followed by a crowd of Russians and third group of Poles. At that moment, the church became silent, peaceful, extraordinarily holy. Even the monk seemed to relax. He stared at Simon and Gabriel—decided they were harmless—and left through the main entrance.

  “Follow me,” Simon told Gabriel. “I think I found the chapel entrance.”

  Gabriel left the pew and hurried down the aisle. A tapestry hung on the wall at the front of the church. It was a murky image of Moses parting the Red Sea. Touching outside of the dusty cloth, Gabriel felt a door handle.

  “Is it the right location?”

  “Yes. It matches Youssif’s map ”

  Before they could pull back the tapestry, the main door squeaked open and the monk reappeared with a new group of tourists. Gabriel and Simon left the church, crossed the courtyard and passed through the gate in the monastery wall.

  “I paced the length of the church when we were inside,” Simon said. “Factoring in the thickness of the wall, I think there is just enough space for a hidden room.”

  “Do you think Linden can make a deal with the monks?”

  “Who knows? I’m sure he is prepared to offer a bribe.”

  The two men circled around to the eastern side of the monastery. During the modern era, the monks had decided to install running water and a sewage system. Instead of drilling through the wall, they had bolted a four-inch water pipe to the outside of the sandstone. Gabriel touched the rough surface of the pipe and looked up.

  “I could climb this to the roof. Once I was up there, there’s a gap between the monk’s living quarters and the church. I could jump onto the roof of the church and get inside through the bell tower.”