The Cairo Codex (47 page)

Before we flee the cave, our home for these many years, I draw my hand over the mouth of the cave. Eight summers, and now we must leave behind so much of ourselves. Will I ever know freedom again?

Hooves on the dry earth sound a crackling alarm as Roman riders drive their horses across the rise from the east. Moonlight witnesses the release of our donkeys and sheep from our corrals. Raised Roman swords glow like torches in the night.

I am the last family member to step onto the waiting ark. “My comb, Joseph . . . I’ve forgotten my comb!” I cry, pulling away from my husband’s grip just as Pravar places his heavy boot on the shore and pushes the boat into the rapidly moving current.

“C
AN YOU HELP US
, I
BRAHIM
?” Justine and Andrea sat anxiously across from the aging professor in his cramped library office. Their stories of impending expulsion had evoked no response from him.
Did he already know?
The two women glanced at each other, wondering if he were listening at all.

Ibrahim El Shabry sat lost in another world. “I think it was a Tuesday afternoon . . .
iwa
, a Tuesday,” he began, his voice disembodied, his eyes concentrating on the warping floorboards. “I’d just finished cataloging the new Rameses exhibit. My grandson, Zachariah—he was about eight—had gone with his father to work in the British Embassy. But then he came storming into my office in the Museum. I was in the Museum then. He must have run all the way. His face was red; he was out of breath. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. The boy stood there and trembled as he described what he had seen at the embassy. To a less sensitive boy, it might not have meant much . . . but to Zachariah . . .”

“What’s happened?” asked Andrea, realizing that he did not hear her.

Ibrahim continued talking, as though to himself. “His father, my son-in-law, had been called to account by the British for some slip in protocol. One of the bureaucrats, strutting like a colonial master, dressed down Gamel in the most wretched terms . . . called him a damned savage . . . Gamel was darker-skinned, you see, like Sadat . . . a noose around the neck of the British, an embarrassment to the office. From what my grandson heard, his father had forgotten to invite the Jordanian consul to a meeting on Israel. He didn’t understand the importance of this slip in protocol, but his father’s devastating humiliation was obvious. His father didn’t say anything. He just stood there and took the verbal whipping while his son watched. After that day, the boy was more distant, more sullen. Humiliated for his father. Such a sensitive boy . . .”

“Ibrahim . . . Ibrahim . . .” tried Justine, placing her hand on his trembling arm. “Something has happened. What is it?”

“Zachariah was never quite the same, you know,” he said, glancing briefly at Justine, eyes glassy, flat. “He could not tolerate injustice. He was fiery, passionate. When he got into high school, he volunteered at St. Mark’s, helping the elderly, those unable to walk on their own. Taking them home, he would stop to buy groceries from his allowance. I understand he converted to Islam—a generous religion, but I’m afraid his motives were not religious.” Ibrahim’s face contorted in agony. “And now he is dead. Dead. Left to burn with the church he tried to save, the church where he grew up . . .”

Andrea held him while he sobbed. Neither woman had heard about Zachariah’s death. They had both thought he had left the country.

Grief washed over Justine’s face.
But what was he doing at the Christian church? He was in a Christian church the day of the kidnapping, and he explained his mission then. But burning churches?
“I’m so sorry, Ibrahim,” she said. “I know it must be so terribly painful for you, the family.” She thought of Amir, his loyalty to his brother, and then his accusations.
Will he feel responsible?
She clasped her hands, digging her fingernails into her palms and burying them in her full khaki skirt.

“Is there anything we can do, Ibrahim, anything at all?” Only silence greeted Andrea’s offer of help. “We will go then,” she said quietly, nodding to Justine, who rose, hugged Ibrahim, and kissed him on the forehead before stepping toward the door. The question about access to the copy of the diary would have to wait.

Ibrahim sat slumped in his chair, broken by the death of his favorite grandson. With head still down, he called after them. “No . . . No, don’t go yet. I’ve more to tell you.”

“
Iwa
,” Andrea said, relieved and surprised. She held Justine’s moist eyes as they sat back down.

“When you brought me the codex, Justine, I knew it was important,” he began. “My excitement grew when we were able to get Andrea, and then Isaac, to assist with the translation. I soon regretted bringing you in, my dear,” he said to Andrea. “With your expertise and courage—and Isaac’s—I knew I would have little chance of keeping the findings secret, for by then I had managed to read several words on the opening pages. I was stunned by what I learned, but it was too late to simply make the codex disappear. So I took the first few pages until I could figure out what to do. You understand that religion is a tinderbox in our part of the world. Old myths are the glue that keeps life in delicate balance.” He sat up more erect and blinked several times, his heavy brows nearly touching.

“That’s when Zachariah came to me. Told me of his mission. It was worthy: To keep the two religions from destroying each other. Aim their rage toward the West, not each other. He told me this was his charge from the Brotherhood.” He drew in a deep breath. “I couldn’t believe it at first, but he insisted, told me things had changed. But he was being used, Justine, manipulated, tested. There wasn’t any real intention to bring the religions together. The burning churches and his death confirm that.”

The mission Zachariah had described to her in Muqattum was false, a cover. She shook her head, still experiencing a little vertigo when she did so.
I knew he had seen the pages, or heard about them . . . and I blamed Amir. Ibrahim let me blame Amir.

As though reading her thoughts, Ibrahim said, “Amir is a good boy, and he is strong. He can take care of himself. I let him think that Zachariah was out of the country; I told you they were close.”

“But why? What difference did it make?”

“Zachariah meant the world to me. Since he was a child. So vulnerable. I couldn’t have him blamed for whatever he was about to do. Then Mostafa came to me. When he realized what we had, what the codex represented, he consulted the Imam. I conferred with Father Zein. We all agreed.”

Justine could feel her hands grow clammy, chilled, in spite of the heat. She glanced at Andrea who was stiff, clearly anticipating the worst. “Agreed?”

“Everyone’s needs seemed to converge. Zachariah’s mission to reduce religious conflict. The Imam’s denial of a female twin. The Coptic Church’s concern for Mary’s virginity. Even the Pope agreed. These aims are noble, can’t you see? So Mostafa planned for the original codex to disappear. That’s why he transferred it to his private safe . . .”

“Mostafa stole the codex from the museum safe?” Justine interrupted in astonishment.

“Something like that,” said Ibrahim in flat tones. Emotion, feelings, no longer seemed parts of his being. He appeared numb.

“Then why was Mostafa so startled by the theft?” asked Andrea. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Because the codex was stolen from him, taken from his private safe. It will surface somewhere in the antiquities market, probably in Milan, but we’ve lost control. That is, unless he actually has it and plans to sell it himself.”

“You mean no one knows where the original codex is?” demanded Justine.

“No, my dear. So Mostafa has to discredit the team, especially you two, so that when the codex shows up, the scholarly world will give it scant attention. Did you hear his interview last night? He is just getting started. The find will be dismissed as unprovenanced, the translation faulty, performed by an unqualified French woman and a Jew. And . . .”

“Unqualified? Unqualified!” exclaimed Andrea, any tenderness she had earlier exercised toward her old lover disappearing. Her reputation, her very identity, was now at issue. “How could that case be made?”

Ibrahim turned to Andrea, tight muscles causing him exaggerated pain. “By suggesting that your work on the Nag Hammadi codex was influenced by your Gnostic beliefs, my dear, that the Gospel of Thomas was a sham, misinterpreted by a French humanist.” Ibrahim’s voice remained severed from emotion, as though Andrea had never been an important part of his life.

Andrea turned pale. As one of the foremost linguists in the world, it had never occurred to her that her own credentials would or could be challenged. Being forced to leave Egypt for political reasons was one thing, but having her qualifications dismissed was quite another.

“And Justine has no qualifications to justify her involvement,” Ibrahim continued stoically. “The codex can be considered a plant by a godless American, made to further her own interests.”

Justine flinched. “These charges can be fought. The dating processes have verified its authenticity,” she insisted, keeping her hand on Andrea’s, partly to offer support and partly to restrain her. “Or have the data reports disappeared as well?”

“You are still in possession of copies of the data reports, but they represent only dates, not authorship. And to whom would you make your appeal, my dear?” asked Ibrahim, tears forming in his eyes. As he gazed at Justine, emotion began to surge above his numbness. “Let it go, Justine. Please,” he begged.

Let it go. Like my father might have? Is that the choice I must make?
Justine swallowed hard at the truth of this statement:
To whom would we appeal?
“But why make us leave Egypt?”

“Because the copy is here and you are sure to pursue its further revelation. Are you not? Someone has to take the fall. You’re young, Justine, you’ll recover.” He paused and stared out the window for several moments. “I’m so sorry. Lucrezia’s daughter . . . Morgan’s daughter . . .” His voice softened, trailing off.

Justine stared at Ibrahim, hoping that his vulnerability might provide an opening. “The copy is with you, then? Here in your office safe? What will happen to it, Ibrahim?”

“It may be destroyed,” Ibrahim said laconically, not confirming its whereabouts.

“But surely you can’t help Zachariah now. Why destroy the copy?” asked Andrea.

“My grandson is dead. True. But other churches will be burnt. If Christianity suffers any more blows, it may not survive in Egypt, the land of its birth. I’m afraid I can’t help you.” He dropped his eyes and massaged his right knee.

Disoriented by Ibrahim’s rejection, Justine glanced up to find Amir leaning in the doorframe as though it would support his weakened limbs. Their eyes met and held; he made no move to wipe away his tears. “Grandfather, Grandfather,” he uttered with the forlorn voice of a child.

T
HE DUSTY DRIVE THROUGH DOWNTOWN
Cairo and into the suburb of Shoubra was more crowded than usual. It was 10 a.m. Justine still felt stunned by the conversation with Ibrahim the day before, the unraveling of the story of the codex, Zachariah’s death, and her expulsion from Egypt. She hadn’t been able to reach Amir since she’d seen him in Ibrahim’s office.

Now, horns were blaring and a bus driver was hammering his fist on the roof of her car; she was not moving as expediently through the red light as he would like. She passively observed that her roof had been dented once again.
A metaphor for my life: repeatedly dented. To what extent have I let this happen?

She stepped out of her Suzuki across from the walled garden of Mataria, grabbing up once-fresh roses from the worn passenger seat. Guards motioned her through an alley of towering, decrepit apartment buildings and into a side entrance. Inside the enclosure, natural spring water bubbled through an ancient stone fountain and down into the collection pool below. An elderly woman dressed in a green kaftan and white hijab held out her gnarled hand, catching and sipping the holy waters.