When we walked over to the sturdy, ashlar stone wall where the door was, we came across the first of four other steps that, when we climbed them, took us out of the water. We weren’t surprised to find Constantine’s chrismon etched in the wooden door; it would have actually surprised us not to find it. With complete confidence, the captain grasped the iron handle and pushed. We froze. We found ourselves before a funeral banquet room identical to many on the first floor of Kom el-Shoqafa.
“What in the world is this?” Glauser-Röist roared when he saw the stone benches covered by soft damask cushions and a table in the center filled with exquisite food.
Farag and I went to one side and entered. Several torches lit up the chamber. The walls and floors were covered by precious tapestries and carpets. Although you couldn’t see another door anywhere, somebody had left very quickly, since the food was steaming on the plates, having just been served up. The alabaster glasses overflowed with wine, water, and karkade.
“I don’t like this!” the Rock kept bellowing, very upset.
When I heard him, fear took hold of me. Suddenly, without knowing why, I detected something sinister in that chamber so delicately laid out, filled with aromas from the exquisite meat, greens, and vegetable dishes.
“Dear God!” babbled Farag behind me. “No!”
I turned as fast as lightning, alarmed by the anguished tone in his voice. He had bared his chest and was holding on to each side of his shirt. His torso was covered with some strange black, wriggling lines, thick and long like fingers.
“My God,” I screamed. “Leeches!”
In a frenzy, Glauser-Röist set the flashlight on the table and grabbed at the buttons on his shirt. His chest, like Farag’s, was covered by fifteen or twenty disgusting worms, which, due to the warm blood they were ingesting, seemed to grow fatter before our eyes.
“Ottavia! Take off your clothes!”
I could have made a joke, but it wasn’t the time for it. I unbuttoned my blouse with trembling hands, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, while Farag and the captain took off their pants. They both had pretty hairy legs, but that didn’t seem to bother the leeches; they’d stuck to their skin in untold numbers. My body was also covered with those repugnant creatures. Gagging in disgust with my stomach churning, I grabbed at one of the nine or ten on my belly—it was soft and warm like gelatin and wrinkly to the touch—and tugged at it.
“Don’t do that, Doctor!” Glauser-Röist shouted. I didn’t feel any pain, but no matter how much I stretched it, I couldn’t get it loose. Its round mouth was cupped to my skin and was simply not letting go.
“You can only remove them with fire.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, tears of disgust and desperation streaming down my cheeks. “We’re going to burn ourselves!”
The Rock had already climbed on to one of the benches, stretching up as high as he could and grabbing a torch. I saw him come toward me in a decisive gesture with a fanatical look in his eyes that made me shrink back in fear. I experienced an indescribable urge to retch as I backed against the wall and felt the sticky, elastic mass of worms plastered to my back. I couldn’t control myself and vomited. Before I had time to recover, Glauser-Röist brought the flame next to my body and the animals started to fall like ripe fruit. I, too, was burned and the pain was so intense I couldn’t hold back, my screams of pain changing to alarm when the Rock applied the torch a second time.
Meanwhile, the leeches on Farag’s and the captain’s bodies grew more engorged. They grew round and puffed at the head. I don’t know how much blood those creatures could swallow, considering the number stuck to us, but we must have lost liters and liters.
“Put the torch down, Captain!” shouted Farag suddenly, appearing from behind the Rock with an alabaster cup in his hand. “I’m going to try something!”
He dipped his fingers into the cup holding a liquid that smelled like vinegar. He smeared one of the leeches on my thigh with the liquid. The leech writhed like a demon under the blessed water and fell right off my skin.
“On the table there’s wine, vinegar, and salt! Mix them together and brush it on like I did to Ottavia!”
Repeating the process, Farag moistened the creatures; they dropped off me and fell lifeless to the ground. I thanked God for that solution because the parts of my body where the Rock had applied the torch hurt so much it was like someone had stuck knives into me. But if the burns hurt, why didn’t the leeches’ bites hurt? I couldn’t feel a thing and hardly noticed that they were still sucking my blood. The only thing that got to me was the sight of our bodies covered in those disgusting black creatures.
Instead of applying the mixture to himself, Glauser-Röist walked over to Farag and detached the worms on his back, one by one. Some worms were now as fat as rats. But there were too many. The ground was covered with them. The worms moved heavily due to the enormous amount of blood they had sucked out of us; however, it didn’t seem that their numbers had decreased. When one of them detached from our skins, it left a star-shaped mark (similar to the Mercedes-Benz logo) from which blood continued to flow abundantly. That is, on top of sucking blood, they also had bit us with three sharp sets of teeth.
“The torch would be better, Professor,” the Rock observed. “I believe a leech’s bite bleeds for a long time. The fire will stop that. And don’t forget the sixth circle of Dante: The angel who pointed out the exit was red and fiery.”
“No, Kaspar. Believe me. I know these creatures. I’ve seen leeches since I was a little boy. There are a lot in Alexandria, on the beaches and the banks of Lake Mareotis.* There’s no way to stop the hemorrhaging. Their saliva has a very strong antiseptic and potent anticoagulant. The wound bleeds for about twelve hours.” Farag’s brow was furrowed, and he concentrated as he spoke, grabbing one worm after another. “We would have to cause very deep burns to stop the bleeding. Besides, how could we cauterize an entire body?… All we can do is get those creatures off as quickly as we can. They can swallow up to ten times their weight.”
I was so thirsty. Suddenly my mouth was dry and I couldn’t quit looking at the water and the karkade on the table. The captain, who still had fifty or sixty leeches attached to him, walked unsteadily over to the glasses; picked them up with a trembling hand, gave one to Farag and another to me. Then he drank that water like a thirsty camel, unable to control himself. I would have given anything to be able to drink more, but the dehydration and terrible weakness that immobilized me didn’t let me. Farag got the last of the worms off my body and began to help Glauser-Röist, who was as white as paper, teetering around like a drunkard. I felt dizzy so I leaned against the soft tapestry on the wall and noticed suddenly that it was drenched and getting stained. Uncountable little threads of blood were flowing from my star-shaped wounds. It was an unstoppable flow that formed pools inside my shoes and around them on the ground.
“Drink, Ottavia!” I heard Farag say. “Drink, my love, drink!”
His voice was nearly inaudible, but I felt the edge of a cup on my lips. My ears were buzzing. I remember my eyes were half-closed just before I fell to the ground, unconscious. The captain, covered with worms, was lying next to one of the benches. Farag, pale and dissipated, his cheeks and eyes sunken, his blurry image was the last thing I remembered.
We were extremely weak for over a week. The men who cared for us forced us to drink plenty of water and eat some gruel that tasted like pureed greens. Still it took us a long time to recover from our savage blood loss. My bouts of unconsciousness were prolonged, and I remember long, delirious, strange hallucinations in which the most absurd things seemed logical and possible. When the men gave me something to eat or drink, I opened my eyes slightly and saw sunlight filtering through a cane roof. I wasn’t sure if that image was real or part of my delirium, but whatever it was, I wasn’t myself.
The second or third day—I couldn’t be sure—I realized we were on a boat. The sway of the waves and water lapping against the hull near my he
ad started to filter into my nightmares. I remember looking around for Farag and finding him next to me, unconscious, but I didn’t have the strength to sit up and go over to him. In my dreams I saw him glowing and heard him say in a sad voice: “At least you have the consolation of believing that in a little while you’ll start a new life. I’ll sleep forever.” I stretched my arms toward him to grab hold and beg him not to abandon me, not to go away, to come back to me. Smiling nostalgically, he said, “For a long time I’ve been afraid of death, but I didn’t allow myself the weakness of believing in God to save me from that fear. Then I discovered that when I went to bed at night and slept, I died somewhat. It’s the same process, didn’t you know that? Do you remember Greek mythology? The twin brothers, Hypnos, sleep, and Thanatos, death, brothers of the Night… Remember?” His image changed into the hazy profile I saw before I passed out in the funereal banquet hall in Kom el- Shoqafa.
We must have been very close to not ever waking up. After a while, the water, beer, and gruel that now included pieces of fish began to make our weak bodies healthy. The boat docked alongside the beach at night. Men carried us on their shoulders, took us from the boat’s cabin, and transported us over land, placing us in the cart of a shai nana vendor. I inhaled the strong odor of black tea and mint and saw a crescent moon in an endless, starry sky.
I began to regain consciousness. We were in a boat again, but this one was larger, which meant that it didn’t rock as much. With superhuman effort, I sat up. I had to see Farag and find out what was going on. Surrounded by ropes, old sails, and mountains of nets that smelled of rotten fish, he and the captain were stretched out next to me, fast asleep, covered up to their necks in a fine, yellow linen fabric that protected them from the flies. My effort to sit up was too much for my feeble body to bear; I fell back onto the straw mattress, weaker than before. One of our caretakers shouted something from the deck in a language that sounded like Arabic but wasn’t. Before falling back to sleep, I thought I heard something like “Nubiya” or “Nubia” but I couldn’t be sure.
I was never awake at the same time as Farag or the Rock. Soon, I came to the conclusion that the food they fed us contained something more than fish, vegetables, and wheat. That type of sleep wasn’t normal and our bodies were stabilized by then so there was no reason for us to still be submerged in such a deep slumber. Yet I was afraid to stop eating, so I kept swallowing the gruel and drinking the beer brought to us. The men who helped us wore immaculate white loincloths that stood out against their dark skin. Under the spell of the drugs, I relived the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, when his clothes acquired a resplendent whiteness and an intense glow as he heard the voice from the sky say, “This is my beloved son in whom well I am pleased. Listen to him.”
The men wore thin, white scarves on their heads, tied with a cord at the neck, and the ends hung down their backs. They talked very little among themselves, and when they did, they spoke in a strange language I didn’t understand. A couple of times, I tried asking them for something to see if I could articulate a word, but they always answered by negatively waving their hands in the air, and with a smile saying “Guiiz, guiiz!” over and over again. They were always friendly and treated me with concern; they gave me food and drink with a tenderness worthy of the best mother. Yet they weren’t Staurofilakes because their bodies were free of tattoos. The day I noticed that detail, I had to calm myself down by telling myself that if they were bandits or terrorists they’d have killed us by now. This was just part of the brotherhood’s twisted plans. If they weren’t Staurofilakes, how would we have fallen into their hands at Kom el-Shoqafa?
We changed boats five times, always at night; then we trekked a long way on land, in the back of an old truck hauling wood. We stuck close to the riverbank, but I could tell that past the riverbank, just beyond a dark chain of palm trees, lay the vast, empty, cold desert. I recall thinking that we were getting back on the Nile heading south and that those periodic nocturnal boat changes meant we were going around the dangerous waterfalls that tore up the riverbed, which probably meant we were in Sudan, at the very least. But what about the test at Antioch? If we were heading south, we were a long way from our next destination.
Finally, they stopped drugging us. I became lucid when I felt Farag’s lips on mine.
“Basileia…”
“I’m awake, my love,” I whispered.
The turquoise of his blue eyes shot through me like lightning when I opened mine. He was emaciated but as handsome as ever. However, I don’t think I’m exaggerating if I say he smelled worse than one of those dirty fishing nets.
“It’s been so long since I last heard your voice, Basileia,” he murmured still kissing me. “You were always asleep.”
“They drugged us, Farag.”
“I know, my love, but they didn’t harm us. That’s what matters.”
“How do you feel?” I asked, pulling back from him and stroking his face. His blond beard was already more than a couple of inches long.
“Perfectly fine. These guys must be rich if they traffic in the drugs used in these tests.”
Only then did I realize that the walls of this new, luxurious berth were as thin as paper. Light and noise crept their way in.
“What about the Rock?”
“He’s over there,” he pointed with his chin toward the front wall, “sound asleep. But it won’t be long till he wakes up. Something is about to happen and our captors want us alert.”
He was still talking when the linen curtain that covered one side of the cabin folded back, letting one of our caretakers in. Curiously, only then did I see them clearly, as if previously my sight had been clouded by shadows. They were tall and thin, nearly skeletal, and they all had thick short beards that gave them a savage look.
“Ahlan wasahlan,” said the one who seemed to be in charge. He crossed his skinny dark arms and agilely dropped to the ground beside us. The others stayed standing.
Farag answered his greeting and they began a prolonged conversation in Arabic.
“Ready for a surprise, Ottavia?” Farag asked, looking at me with disconcerted eyes.
“No,” I said sitting down, tucking my legs under the linen. I was dressed in just a short white tunic, and my dignity forbade exposing myself. When it dawned on me that some of those silent men must have been washing the most intimate parts of my body, I felt terribly ashamed.
“Well, it’s bad, but I have to tell you,” Farag continued without noticing the abrupt change in the color of my face. “This good man is Captain Mulugeta Mariam and the others are members of his crew. This ship the… Neway?” He asked, looking at Captain Mulugeta, who nodded imperceptibly, “is one of the many he owns along the Nile to transport merchandise and passengers between Egypt and, as he calls it, Abyssinia. Or, Ethiopia.”
I opened my eyes wide at what Farag was saying.
“For hundreds of years his people, the Anuak of Antioch, in the region of Gambela, near Lake Tana, in Abyssnia, have collected sleeping passengers in the Nile Delta and transported them to his village…”
“Who are they delivered to?” I interrupted.
Farag repeated this question in Arabic and Captain Mariam answered laconically, “Staurofilas.”
We remained silent, looking horrified.
“Ask him,” I stammered, “what they’re going to do with us when we get there.”
After another exchange of words, finally Farag looked at me. “He says we will have to pass a test that has been part of the Anuak tradition since God gave them the earth and the Nile. If we die, they will burn our bodies on a pyre and scatter our ashes to the wind. If we survive…”
“What?” I was scared.
“Staurofilas,” he concluded, gloomily imitating Mariam’s way of talking.
I didn’t know what to do other than dumbfoundedly shake my head and brush my hands over my filthy hair.
“But… But we were only supposed to discover where the earthly paradise is and capture
the thieves,” at this point, it was my fear talking. “How are we going to warn the police if they’ve taken us prisoner?”
“It all makes sense, Basileia. Think about it. The Staurofilakes couldn’t let us leave the seventh circle scot-free. Or any of the aspirants, for that matter. It’s easy to change your mind or betray an ideal at the last minute, when the goal is within arm’s reach. Faced with a threat like that, what can they do? After all, it seems obvious, don’t you think? We should have suspected that the last cornice would be different from the others. In our case, what are they going to do? Let us pass the test and give us the final clue so that we could reach the earthly paradise on our own? All we’d have to do was, as you say, notify the authorities of the location of the hiding place so an entire army could fall on them. They aren’t stupid.”
Mulugeta Mariam looked at us without understanding a word but he didn’t seem at all impressed. As if he had lived that situation hundreds of times, he remained calm. Finally, faced with our prolonged silence, he rattled off a long string of words that Farag listened to attentively.
“The captain says it won’t be long till we reach his village of Antioch. That’s why they woke us up. We left the Nile several days ago and entered one of its tributaries, the Atbara. According to this nice gentleman, it belongs to the Anuak, like the Nile does.”
“But how did we get to Ethiopia?” I shrieked. “Aren’t there any borders between countries? Aren’t there any customs police?”
“They cross borders at night and are expert at sailing the boats typical to the Nile, which can silently pass next to the police posts without awakening suspicions. I suppose they also use bribes and the like. In these parts, that’s standard procedure,” he murmured biting his lower lip.
I could hardly breathe. “So, where are we going exactly?” I still struggled to talk. I felt as though I was lost in an unexplored part of a vast planet.
“I’ve never heard of the Anuak or their town named Antioch. But I do know where Lake Tana is. It is the birthplace of the Blue Nile.* It isn’t exactly a civilized area or easy to get to. Forget that the world is about to enter the twenty-first century. Go back a couple thousand years, and you’ll be close to what’s here.”
The Last Cato Page 44