‘Why were they excommunicated?’ I asked.
‘That is a private matter between the church and the family.’
I pulled out my wallet. ‘But I am part of the family. And you know, on behalf of the family, I was thinking we should make a donation - say, a hundred dollars. I noticed on the way in that you are in the middle of restoring your roof.’
Father Carlotto hesitated, pursing his lips. Finally, with a certain resignation, he threw up his hands. ‘Indeed, and such a generous donation would be most welcome. But, Mr Warnock, you cannot bribe me into surrendering the secret records of the church.’
I picked up a prayer book that had been left on a pew and tucked two fifty-dollar bills between the pages. ‘Please, Father, for the sake of my wife. I have reason to believe that her spirit is not at peace.’
I pressed the prayer book into his hands. He stared at me as if deciding whether to trust me or not. Finally he took the book.
‘Indeed, I am sure she is most certainly not at peace. Her death was a great tragedy, perhaps an unnecessary one. As to the excommunication, apparently the grandfather had some unfortunate associates - eccentric people who indulged in all sorts of strange pagan rituals. Harmless, really, I suppose, just fanatical historians who got carried away. This country has many echoes; they can creep into your head and make the imagination run riot. My predecessor was prepared to ignore them, but some of the congregation got upset. And then, when Nasser came,’ he lowered his voice, ‘there was a witch-hunt. No one was safe.’
‘And my wife’s body?’
‘I have no idea. We certainly didn’t collect the body. I only ever saw the coffin. I can show you the entry in the record book.’
‘That won’t be necessary. One other thing, Father, the fish is a Christian symbol, isn’t it?’
Father Carlotto smiled, relaxing at last. ‘The fish represents the disciples of Jesus, some of whom, as you know, were fishermen. It was used as a secret symbol in the first century AD by early Christians who maintained their faith against the hostility of the Roman Empire. The tradition has continued over the centuries - it has never been easy being Christian in this part of the world. Even now, some of the young Copts here in Alexandria have hidden tattoos to indicate their faith. The symbol also appears in murals in the tombs at Kom el-Shugafa, a place that some of my congregation still believe is haunted.’
He hesitated, then, after checking that the church was still empty, went on in a nervous whisper, ‘But there is something else you should know . . . your wife came to see me before she died.’
I tensed. ‘About what?’
‘She came to me and asked to be baptised so that she could make confession. She was terrified. I baptised her there and then with holy water, then took her confession. Mr Warnock, I believe she had found herself involved in things beyond her control. She told me of the existence of an object, the significance of which would shake up the religious and historical worlds. She asked me whether the church would provide sanctuary if necessary. I reassured her that it would, but I’m afraid I was slightly sceptical. She wasn’t the first Egyptologist I’d taken confession from who had spoken of such matters. There was another young Egyptologist, about twenty years before, also a woman . . .’
As I listened I suddenly remembered Demetriou al-Masri’s story about the other corpse he’d examined who had also been missing her organs. I shivered as a sudden chill passed through the stone walls of the church. Who was she?
‘You knew about the existence of the astrarium?’ I asked him directly.
Visibly startled, Father Carlotto crossed himself, ‘Please, it is dangerous even to speak the name out loud. But yes, I had heard rumour of such an object. There is a monk I know - not Catholic, he is of the Coptic order - who once told me of ancient documents in his care, both from the time of the Pharaohs and also from the time of Napoleon’s invasion, that spoke of the existence of such a device. Father Mina, he is at Deir Al Anba Bishoy at Wadi El-Natrun. I can make a few discreet enquires on your behalf, if you wish - I owe your wife that much. I don’t know if you know the story but there is an account by an early bishop, a Saint John, who claimed that Hypatia herself used both an astrolabe and witchcraft to entice the Roman governor of Alexandria back to the pagan ways. Perhaps this was the very same device - who knows?’
‘Isabella was convinced that the only thing Hypatia had been guilty of was being more intellectual than her male counterparts,’ I retorted.
Father Carlotto smiled. ‘She was a strong-willed woman, your wife. Perhaps if I had suggested she left Egypt . . . But she was almost hysterical, she wasn’t really making much sense. I’m deeply sorry now that I didn’t take her more seriously.’
‘When was this?’
‘About two weeks before her death.’ He stepped closer. ‘Come back to me in a few days - I’ll see what I can find out for you. But listen, my friend, if you should need sanctuary at any time, we can help you. My Coptic brothers at Wadi El-Natrun will take you in for as long as necessary. They have helped others this way, and, despite your loss of faith, you are still a Catholic, no? And with that beard you would be almost invisible.’
I examined his open face cautiously, wondering how much he actually knew about the circumstances of Isabella’s death. All I could see was someone burdened by a confession and worried that he had somehow played a part in a premature death.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Please, sometimes in life one must simply trust. Remember my offer.’ And he left, the prayer book clasped in his hands.
I stood beside the huge pipe organ that sat beneath a stained-glass window depicting the trials of Saint Cecily. What terror had compelled Isabella to resort to confessing to a priest? I knew she’d occasionally gone to church but I’d never known her to go to confession. What had she been running from?
The sound of a familiar voice murmuring in English broke my reverie. It was coming from a side chapel: a woman’s voice asking about candles. I walked towards it, and entered an alcove with a marble relief depicting a martyred female saint against the far wall. Photographs of children and small offerings of flowers had been placed at the saint’s feet. There was even a rusting, unopened can of Pepsi. The woman had her back to me, but I still recognised her. She kneeled and placed a small bunch of gardenias with the other offerings.
‘Saint Sabine - isn’t she the patron saint of children?’ I asked.
Startled, Rachel Stern rose to her feet. ‘Do I know you?’
I realised I must have looked fairly intimidating, cuts and bruises slowly fading but still a horrible patchwork on my face, my beard long, my hair tousled.
‘Rachel, it’s Oliver.’
She regained her composure. ‘Oliver! I didn’t recognise you with all that hair on your face. What a surprise.’
‘A pleasant one, I hope. I’m sorry, I’ve disturbed you in prayer.’
‘Shh, don’t tell my rabbi. The offerings are for my sister - she’s been trying to conceive for years. Apparently if you genuflect enough, the saint will come to the rescue, although I hope it isn’t an immaculate conception - there are enough martyrs in the family as it is.’
She hauled her bag over her shoulder and began walking out of the chapel. I followed.
The sun blinded us for a moment as we stepped out of the cathedral. A young boy in rags slipped out from the shadow of a doorway, stretching out the stump he had for an arm. I pressed a few coins into his other hand.
Rachel armed herself with a huge pair of sunglasses, then assessed my crumpled linen jacket and jeans.
‘I heard about your friend Barry,’ she said, ‘I was so shocked. He didn’t seem the type to commit suicide.’
‘He wasn’t.’
A group of boys in uniform leaving the courtyard of the cathedral school ran past us laughing and I found myself relishing not being alone. The same loneliness I’d felt when I’d put the telephone down on my family came rushing back. I needed company. ‘Look, would you like to g
o for a drink?’
‘A drink? Last time we spoke I had the strong impression you didn’t even like me.’
‘I was drunk and belligerent. I apologise.’
Rachel studied me quizzically. ‘No, I don’t think so. Sorry, Oliver.’ She walked away.
I followed her. ‘Please, I just need to talk to someone who knows my history, someone I trust . . .’
She stopped. ‘Are you in trouble?’
‘Please, Rachel, you can’t image how alone I’ve been . . .’
She hesitated, searching my face for something, perhaps a trace of the idealistic student she’d known, and then linked her arm through mine.
32
The Centro Di Portuguese was a relatively new and exclusive bar in Roushdy, the same expensive suburb as the oil company’s villa. The club was a converted villa with an open-air bar in the courtyard and a disco upstairs. The entrance was hard to find and there were a couple of bouncers at the door, well-built ex-security types. The clientele was a curious mix with two things in common - wealth and loneliness.
We sat under a canopy of woven rushes, looking out over the courtyard. At another table, a group of Italian naval officers, drunk, were arguing about who was the greatest entertainer: Michael Jackson or Caruso. Nearby, a white Ugandan (rumoured to be an arms dealer) lifted his gaze away from the buxom young blonde he was flirting with and nodded slightly in my direction, the kind of sly acknowledgement one man makes to another when he thinks the other is involved in some clandestine activity, like infidelity. Aware of the possibility of having been followed I kept glancing around the bar nervously, but I was probably safer in there than in a lot of places in Alexandria. The bar was extremely select, and it was impossible to bribe your way in.
Despite her initial reluctance to join me, Rachel was by now on her third whisky. The only effect the alcohol seemed to have upon her was to make her more talkative. I didn’t care. Once we’d arrived I’d found myself growing unusually taciturn. I desperately needed to discuss the events of the last few weeks with someone who might help me reach a more objective perspective, yet I was worried she’d be sceptical, or worse, if I confided in her. I’d already wasted half the evening arguing politics, but Rachel had indulged me, as if she sensed my sudden reticence to talk about personal matters. Our intellectual sparring anchored me to the world I’d known before Eygpt, before Isabella’s death - it reminded me of a younger, more hopeful self. And as I sat there listening to her, I suddenly remembered a demonstration we’d attended as students some eighteen years earlier over France’s involvement with the Algerian war of independence, and how fervent we’d been - utterly convinced of our moral stance, swept up in that youthful bravado that seems enough to last your whole life. The emotion I’d felt that day, watching the young American woman shouting slogans, echoed in me now - I’d loved Rachel for her political commitment and energy. She still had it. Despite her tough veneer, she seemed to have developed an underlying humanitarianism that appealed to me, as well as a new sense of self-parody, a characteristic that hadn’t existed in the younger woman. It was as if she’d become sharper with age. Now there was a muscularity to her thinking that meant I felt slightly at war - a sexy wrestling match that promised to end in orgasm, defeat or death.
‘So what exactly happened to your marriage?’ I asked her. ‘Oh, it’s complicated. Basically, although Aaron claimed he loved unconventional women, I don’t think he really wanted to be married to one. And you?’
‘We are . . . were gloriously happy.’ Not the entire truth but to say Isabella’s name alone would have felt like an infidelity, even though I wasn’t even planning to seduce Rachel. ‘Tell me, why did you leave all those years ago?’ I went on.
‘Let’s face it, Oliver, we were the most mismatched couple in the world. It wouldn’t have lasted.’
‘Perhaps not, but it hurt like hell at the time.’ I grimaced, remembering my first adult heartbreak.
‘As it should at twenty-three,’ she retorted, smiling. Our gazes caught in sudden wry reminiscence.
The dance hit ‘Disco Inferno’ blasted out from above. I glanced up: the DJ, a young rake-thin Arab in a floral yellow silk shirt, was gazing wistfully at the deserted dance floor. Incense curled up from a burner on top of the bar and above us the open starry sky seemed to be looking down with faint amusement. Rachel’s perfume drifted across the table with the night breeze, and despite everything, my grieving and my exhaustion, my fears suddenly seemed suspended, diminished.
Rachel sighed. ‘Innocent times. I think about them nowadays. When I feel drenched in a kind of existential cynicism. It makes me feel so old. And you?’
‘Me? I’m barely surviving from hour to hour.’
She looked at me. I knew she thought I meant surviving the loss of Isabella. She finished her drink, then moved closer, sighed. A moment of hesitation, the beat of blind faith one takes before free-falling into intimacy.
‘My marriage broke down because we lost a child. A still-birth. Aaron was able to deal with it better than me. I just buried myself in work. Then one day at breakfast I looked across the table and didn’t recognise him any more. So there you have it - the end of the dream.’
I reached across for her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘But we’re both still here.’
I noticed she didn’t remove her hand from my grip. I looked up at her and suddenly the urge to unburden myself, to talk to someone was overwhelming, a little like I imagined had been the motive for Isabella’s visit to Father Carlotto, the impetus for a confession to help lighten the load.
‘Rachel, if I told you something astonishing, something barely believable, could you keep an open mind?’
‘Hey, if there’s one thing I’m proud to still have it’s an open mind . . .’
I took Rachel back to the villa and, while she waited in the living room, I slipped out to the kennel and collected the rucksack. Then, with it slung over my shoulder, we made our way to the Sheraton Hotel where she was staying. I needed her to see the astrarium while I told her my story.
In the lift going up to her room, I was aware of a growing tension between us, a creeping eroticism - her scent, the warmth of her body brushing against my bare arm. I wondered whether my senses were deceiving me, and if getting involved might be a way of exorcising the loss of Isabella. It was a disturbing but tantalising idea.
Catching Rachel’s gaze, I realised she was feeling the same sensations. Without thinking I pulled her towards me into a clash of tongues and lips. With an almost electric shock, I realised how much my body had missed being touched over the past weeks. I vanished in her skin, the feel of it so completely different from my wife’s. Rachel’s taste was green, if I could find a colour for such things. Isabella’s had been a deeper hue. We moved slowly and luxuriously, tentative in our exploration, my hands finding her nipples hard against my palms. The lift shuddering to a halt interrupted us, making us both break into self-conscious laughter.
We stumbled down the empty corridor, still kissing and struggling with each other’s clothes. Once inside her room, the realism of the pasty green walls and vinyl-covered cabinets sobered me up. But Rachel pulled me back into an embrace, then walked over to the bed.
‘I drive this,’ she said, with a grin. Then she pulled her smock top over her head, revealing her small breasts, her slim hips arching out of the low-slung jeans like some exotic musical instrument. ‘I’m so deprived of touch I think I’ve gone half-mad; I can’t even remember the last time someone hugged me. I always seem to be running - hotel lobbies, press rooms, airports. But oh boy, do I want you now.’
I moved towards her, then paused. In that brief moment of hesitation I knew that I was deceiving myself - I wouldn’t be able to escape Isabella in this desperate lovemaking. I wasn’t looking for a lover but a confidante. Someone who would convince me that I wasn’t going mad. Anything else - sexual or emotional - would get complicated. And if I knew one thing it was that Rachel was complicated.
On the bedside table was an old black-and-white passport photo of a much younger Rachel: her face shiny with the blind belief of the idealist, her curly hair tortured into one long side plait. I recognised her expression. I touched the glossy paper; the faint memory of a smile in a London doorway seemed to come off like a smudge on my finger. Next to the photograph were a seashell and a dog tag. I picked up the shell and held it to the light. It was a small nautilus shell, pearly and ribbed, a luminous subterranean cathedral fated to shine for eternity.
From the bed Rachel looked at me, smiling, her hair spread above her head. Like snakes, like the Medusa.
‘That seashell is from the beach where I lost my virginity,’ she said. ‘The photo’s from the ID badge I wore on my first Democrat campaign, and the dog tag belonged to a soldier I interviewed in Vietnam, who was killed the same day. Love, faith and destiny - I carry them everywhere as a reminder of how far I’ve come and how precarious life is. But I think you know that already, right?’
I stared down at her; she was so beautiful and desirable at that moment. I groaned inwardly, knowing I shouldn’t succumb but knowing also that I wouldn’t be able to help myself.
In lieu of an answer, I put the seashell into my mouth and placed it on her belly button with my tongue; the salt taste of her skin caught at my groin in a sudden erotic tumescence. I pulled her jeans and pants below her knees and worked my way down. Rachel gasped, her sex now wet against my face. Groaning, she reached for my fly. Then I was hard in her hand, and then in her mouth. Sitting up, she pulled my hands away from her and concentrated on pleasuring me, her eyes closed in sensual relish. It was as if she was determined to take me, not to be taken.
Trying to control the sudden surge of pleasure, I steadied myself with one hand against the headboard. Then, wanting to give to her, I pulled her up. Pushing her jeans right off, I made her stand as I kneeled. ‘No,’ she moaned and tried to pull me away, but I held her close, the rich musk of her filling me as I sucked and probed and she clawed at my shoulders. Then, finally, we toppled to the floor and she slowly lowered herself onto me, teasing me, both of us teetering on the edge of orgasm. I felt her bite my neck, her tongue in my ear, each breast filling my hands perfectly, each nipple hard against my palms.
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