Sphinx

by T. S. Learner

  Father Carlotto switched on another lamp, his soft features transforming into sculptural planes as he leaned over it. ‘You are sure you weren’t followed?’ he asked.

  ‘We lost them back at the barber’s shop,’ I answered. ‘I think I know who they are. I just hope that Abdul, my friend, is able to persuade them that he wasn’t hiding anyone.’

  The priest held his hand up. ‘I have promised you sanctuary; I do not wish to know anything else. Personally, I have always prized survival over martyrdom, but I have no immediate desire to be confronted with the choice.’

  I noticed a large old-fashioned Bakelite telephone on the desk and wondered if it worked. Father Carlotto opened a drawer in the desk and, to my surprise, pulled out a bottle of Benedictine and three small glasses.

  ‘A Christmas present from Saint Benedictus,’ he joked. Rachel and I smiled weakly. It was hard to stop the rattling panic thudding through my body, even now, standing still. I reached out and took her hand, the heat of her fingers burning into my own. She was still shaking and I found myself regretting having involved her in the first place.

  Father Carlotto filled the three glasses. ‘For fortitude. I suspect we shall all need it.’

  The liquor burned a path from the back of my throat to behind my eyes, reviving me instantly.

  ‘So now, down to business. I know your situation. Without breaking my confessional discretion, I have spoken to Father Mina. He has agreed to talk with you,’ he said. ‘How long do you want to disappear for?’

  I exchanged glances with Rachel. ‘I haven’t much time - I was thinking a week at the most. That should give me enough time with Father Mina, and to lose Mosry and his cohorts until I’ve planned my next move.’

  The priest immediately held his hand up.

  ‘Please, I do not need to know who is after you. It is enough that you are being pursued. Besides, the church can shelter you for a week - as long as we agree that no questions are asked and no answers given. My Coptic brothers are closely watched; I do not wish to endanger them more than necessary. And if anyone comes asking, Mr Warnock, I do not know you.’

  ‘How can I thank you?’

  It seemed remarkable to me that this man I hardly knew would risk his life to help me. At that moment I would have done anything to return the favour.

  ‘I do it for Isabella, for the confession I did not act upon, that is all. Although I pray that one day you may return to your faith.’

  I grimaced. ‘I’m afraid I will disappoint you, Father.’

  He chuckled and poured himself another glass of Benedictine. ‘We shall see.’

  I glanced at the telephone again. ‘One last request - I need to make two phone calls. I can reverse the charges.’

  He pushed the telephone towards me. ‘Be my guest. I promise this one is not tapped. The operator is one of my congregation.’

  While Father Carlotto gave Rachel a tour of the crypt, I called the operator and finally got a connection to New York - to Ruben Katz, the chief financial officer for GeoConsultancy.

  ‘Ruben, it’s Oliver. I’m phoning from Egypt. I just heard the news - I’m so sorry.’

  I meant it. As much as I’d disliked Johannes Du Voor, he didn’t deserve death.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s chaos here. Clients are ringing in left, right and centre.’ Ruben was a pragmatic individual, completely loyal to Du Voor. ‘I’m afraid the news is a lot worse than what’s been reported.’

  I steeled myself. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I finally accessed some subsidiary accounts that Johannes had been stalling me on for months. Turns out they had huge borrowings - all guaranteed by the parent company and signed by Johannes. The company’s in debt to the tune of twenty million, and most of it falls due in the next few months. We’re seriously considering filing for bankruptcy - Chapter 11.’

  ‘What about the Abu Rudeis project?’

  ‘You can carry on for now, but don’t make any long-term plans. Meanwhile, I suggest you start to think about your own future. But hey, you’re the best in the business, so I wouldn’t worry too much.’

  ‘What about the clients, the company’s goodwill?’

  ‘The clients care about the people in the field, Oliver. You know that. You want to go independent, you just holler. There are plenty of people here looking for a raft to jump on. Meanwhile, I have to figure out what I’m gonna tell the shareholders tomorrow morning. I tell you this much, it ain’t gonna be easy. I’m so sorry, Oliver. I should have seen this coming - Johannes had been acting pretty weird the last couple of months. Some of his recent business decisions have been . . . well, plainly . . . suicidal.’ I could hear another phone ringing in the background. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Wall Street Journal has just rung in . . .’ The line clicked off.

  I was stunned. I had imagined that Johannes’s increasing paranoia had been due to his lifestyle, his deteriorating health; I’d had no idea about the debt, the business difficulties. Quickly I dialled Moustafa’s sat phone out in the oilfield. Just when I was about to give up, he answered.

  ‘Moustafa?’

  There was a silence; I suspected he was checking that the office was empty.

  ‘Oliver,’ he whispered then, ‘are you okay, my friend? Head office said you had gone missing. Mr Fartime is most concerned.’

  ‘Well, I’m alive, which I guess is good. Seems I’ve got something a lot of people want.’

  ‘Nothing is worth getting killed over, my friend.’

  ‘Do I sound dead to you?’

  Moustafa laughed. ‘It’s good you still have your gallows sense of humour. But I need you here. The findings for the new oilfield look very promising. When can you come out and confirm them?’

  ‘Give me a week or so. But in the meantime, are you able to visit me in a couple of days?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Let me contact you. I’ll find a way of getting a message to you.’

  ‘I will wait with anticipation.’

  It was great just to hear his voice; the familiar realities of the oilfield sounding out beneath it. I put the telephone down with great reluctance. As soon as I did, the now-familiar sense of panic swept through me: I was torn between the excitement of a possible new oilfield and the terror of being pursued. Then there was the ticking clock of my death date. I pushed my fears to the back of my mind and tried to concentrate uneasily on the task ahead of me. Had setting my birth date set my fate in motion in more ways than one? The sea tremor as Isabella uncovered the astrarium, extending as an earthquake out to the desert. The shifting substructures. The new oilfield, promising unimagined wealth. On the other side of the scale, my own life now hung in the balance. Johannes’s fortune had been tied into mine but he would also have made my life immensely difficult had I decided to go ahead with the new oilfield by myself, which would have confirmed his deep-set paranoia. Had the astrarium somehow fed on my ambitions and caused Johannes’s death, sacrificed him to clear the decks for me? Again, it felt as if I was in free fall, another reality imploded.

  Father Carlotto came back into the room and interrupted my racing thoughts. Rachel followed him.

  ‘I have spoken with the abbot at Deir Al Anba Bishoy,’ he said. ‘You can leave with a group of pilgrims heading to Wadi El-Natrun this afternoon. As long as you are willing to play the part of a monk,’ he joked.

  I thanked him, then turned to Rachel. It was extraordinary how close I now felt towards her, despite the long hiatus in our friendship and the recent slip into sexual intimacy. As I studied her, her dark eyes filled with concern. ‘It’s only a couple of hours’ drive,’ I said, more reassuringly than I felt. ‘It should be easy enough to get a message to me if you need to - right, Father?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Stay safe,’ she said. ‘I have to get back to my hotel, I have a lead on a secret summit - something to do with all these attacks - and I have to track him down.’ She caught my expression.’ Don’t worry, I can look after myself. I’
ll contact you in a couple of days, okay?’

  She gave me a quick hug and, for a moment, the ground beneath me felt solid.

  38

  The open-top army truck hurtled down the desert road to Wadi El-Natrun. There were ten of us huddled together in the back: a family obviously travelling to the monastery for a christening, the wailing baby held tightly in the crook of his father’s arm; five earnest novice monks who looked frighteningly solemn, their beards barely covering their chins; and myself. We shared the space with one terrified goat and four trussed chickens, including a cockerel that, with every pot-hole in the road, emitted a loud shriek. It was an exhausting four-hour drive from Alexandria, with only a tarpaulin sheltering us from the afternoon sun and no stops, not even for water.

  I’d spoken to no one, in case my accent and my blue eyes betrayed me. As I was older, the novices treated me with respect and mistook my silence for religious reverie. I held the astrarium in a hessian bag between my feet and stared out at the passing landscape, analysing over and over the sequence of bizarre events that had happened since my return to Alexandria. Mosry’s face at Amelia’s lecture, Hugh Wollington and his link to both Mosry and Prince Majeed, his voice in the barber’s shop, the mysterious new oilfield, the earthquake, Johannes’s death, even the image of the glassy waters of the Red Sea rising up, all converged and jiggled around in my mind, a collage of images and facts strung together in an increasingly complex narrative. What was real and what was not? I hoped that Father Mina would be able to provide more information. Father Carlotto had been vague so as not to betray Isabella’s confidence but I knew he must have grasped the bigger picture and I could only hope Father Mina had a new piece in the puzzle. Either way, a week in the monastery would buy me enough time to work out my next move in solving and, with luck, stopping the astrarium inching towards my supposed death date. Finally, the swaying of the truck sent me to sleep until a few hours later. The sensation of it pulling up woke me with a jolt.

  The monastery of Saint Bishoy loomed out of the night sky - its towers with their distinctive domed roofs, the four-way crosses on top, the high walls and the single tower originally built to warn of attacks from the nearby Berbers. Birds circled the tower, attracted by the insects that danced in the beams of light illuminating the keep; they looked as if they were in the grip of some invisible force.

  The truck pulled up beside the gate set into the north-facing wall. A couple of monks pushed open the gate from inside and we climbed down wearily. An older man dressed in slightly more ornate robes came out after the first two monks and approached me, his hand outstretched. His wide full face broadened into a smile. The abbot. ‘Welcome. Please, come with me.’

  He took me to a monk’s cell with curved sandstone walls, a narrow high window, a mattress rolled out on the ground, a prayer rug and a kerosene lamp on the floor at the head of the mattress. A washing stand with a jug of water stood in the corner with a small cupboard beneath it. Incongruously, there was a large tin ashtray beside the lamp - a concession to guests, I imagined. On the opposite wall was an alcove that held a large wooden crucifix, its tortured Christ’s carved eyes turned upwards.

  The abbot lit the kerosene lamp; it ignited in a small white glow, throwing out long shadows against the domed ceiling.

  ‘Morning prayers are at four-thirty, breakfast is at seven in the refectory. It is humble fare - bread, olives, cheese, fruit. You will join us then,’ he stated, before placing the lamp beside the mattress.

  ‘Thank you. I’m anxious to talk to Father Mina - is he around?’ The abbot smiled enigmatically, wary of my intentions.

  ‘You will find him at breakfast in the morning.’ Relief swept through me - Father Carlotto had obviously been a good emissary.

  ‘And if I need to get a message to anyone?’ I asked, remembering Moustafa.

  ‘We have messengers coming and going all the time. The Bedouin will also carry letters for us.’

  ‘I have to contact someone at Abu Rudeis, in the Sinai.’

  ‘I believe there may be a caravan passing through tomorrow. In the meantime, may I suggest you get some sleep and gather your strength, both spiritually and physically. Father Carlotto told me you would be with us for a week, is that correct?’

  ‘Perhaps even less if I can work out a way of making myself invisible,’ I joked.

  ‘A week it is, then,’ the abbot replied. ‘Any longer could be difficult for us. These are tense times, Monsieur Warnock; even out here in the desert we feel the ripples of President Sadat’s ambition. May God protect him.’

  After the abbot left, I wrote a letter to Moustafa asking him to visit me at the monastery as soon as possible. Then, carefully, I unpacked the astrarium. The faint click of its cogs’ bronze teeth sounded out: the mechanism was still working, the death-date pointer as fixed as sunrise. Theoretically, once this night had passed, I had six days left to live.

  I felt a surge of fury. Frustrated, I smashed my fist into the hard mattress, hitting it over and over again. The tin ashtray beside the lamp rattled against the floor, then slid across the cement and attached itself firmly to the side of the astrarium. I stopped, both fascinated and horrified. I pulled a safety pin out of my cassock and placed it nearby. It too glided to the astrarium and stuck. Then I held my hand over it and felt a tug on the old iron ring Isabella had given me, as if invisible fingers were reaching up and pulling at it. I jerked my hand back sharply, finding it hard not to imbue the astrarium with a malevolent personality. Don’t be irrational, I told myself, this is simply the magnetic force of the mechanism strengthening.

  I packed the astrarium away carefully and placed it on the floor of the alcove. Then, without bothering to undress, I lay down on the hard mattress and stared at the domed roof.

  I debated the scientific options of measuring the change in the device’s magnetic qualities. I mulled over the concept in my mind, forming a mental diagram of all the elements of the mechanism I’d seen so far. I couldn’t make sense of it. My mind turned to the abbot’s last remark, and I wondered how Rachel was faring with the lead on the secret summit that she’d talked about. Another peace initiative? This ancient community I now found myself amongst had been part of the historical conflicts and intrigues that stretched back centuries. Peace seemed almost a foreign concept here. I was bone-achingly tired but wide awake at the same time. I tossed and turned until eventually I fell into an uneasy sleep.

  The next morning I woke and realised that I’d missed breakfast. After rinsing my face in the washbowl, I hid the astrarium in the cupboard beneath the stand. It felt safe here in the monastery, confined and contained, and I felt my uneasiness from last night fade a little. Then I made my way quickly through the cool arched corridors and out into the blinding white light of the courtyard. The Church of Saint Bishoy stood directly in front of me: an impressive series of sand-coloured domes, with a high arched entrance flanked to the right by four smaller arches, each with a stained-glass window from ground to roof. I walked around the church to the main courtyard area on its other side, passing the remains of a mill, a dovecote and a well. Opposite the church was the garden: rows of pomegranate bushes, some olive trees, and various vegetables. Several young monks were busy hoeing and planting. I asked one of them where I could get some breakfast and he plucked a pomegranate and threw it to me, grinning. Then, in a heavy rural accent, he suggested that I might try the refectory as sometimes they fed the very old monks later.

  In the refectory I sat down at a low long table bathed in light filtering in through a skylight set in the top of the cupola. A young peasant woman with a wide, curiously blank face placed a bowl of rice in front of me. Across the table, an ancient monk sat eating very slowly from his bowl; he paused, holding his heavy pewter spoon in mid-air, and stared hard at me. I tried smiling, wondering whether this was Father Mina. He guffawed - a sound somewhere between indignation and a cough - then continued his painfully slow meal. I spooned the rice into my mouth. Unexpectedly, it was sa
lty and I spat the spoonful out. The monk burst into laughter. I turned to the peasant woman and asked her in Arabic for some honey, but she ignored me, carrying on with her task of stacking plates.

  The monk pushed his bowl away with a clatter and nodded towards the woman. ‘She has no ears - deaf!’ His wrinkled hands flapped at the side of his head. ‘You are the Englishman?’ he went on in heavily accented English.

  ‘That’s right.’

  He sat back and examined my face intently, his raisin-black eyes buried in crevices of wrinkles and creases, empty of emotion. Suddenly he reached across the table and ran his hand over my cheeks and beard. I froze, astounded.

  ‘It is okay, you are good man.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘You are.’ He spoke with such absolute conviction that, to my surprise, I found myself filled with irrational gratitude. ‘My name is Father Mina,’ he went on. ‘And yours, I believe, is Oliver Warnock. Father Carlotto told me you have been looking for me. Come, I am librarian, chief librarian, of our library. It is one of the most famous in our order. Many treasures. You need to see it. Or perhaps I’m wrong - perhaps you are here to take a vow of silence?’ He grinned, and I realised he was joking.

  ‘No, no vow of silence and, in any case, I would still be able to read,’ I replied, smiling.

  ‘Indeed, to read is to fly over the walls. But perhaps you are here to hide?’

  I chose not to reply, and, in response, the monk patted my hand.

  ‘You keep your secrets and I keep my books. Come, my friend.’