“Hey, baksheesh,” the skinny Egyptian called and followed David out of the washroom.
“It’s not like you held it for me,” David replied.
“David,” Zahara, leaning against an image of the Great Sphinx, said between her teeth. “It’s customary to give him a tip for keeping the washroom clean.”
“I know what’s customary,” he said. “I’m ex-pat. Remember, my real name is Dawid, not David, as the customs agents so diligently noted.”
She rolled her dark eyes, herself easily blending into the range of Egyptian ethnicities striding past. “Okay, Dawid.”
David knew he was being ridiculous; it had been a decade since he’d last set foot in the land of his birth and any desire to be a part of Egyptian society had been burned, prayed, or beaten out of him long before. The revolution sure as hell hadn’t made life easier for a former Coptic Christian.
The janitor frowned and then asked hopefully, “Pyramids?” Pursuing David through the airport concourse, the man handed him a worn brochure that depicted the Giza plateau at sunset and another with a laser show. The pamphlet was limp with mildew.
Zahara’s heels clicked against the floor as she trailed behind, no doubt annoyed that the man tracked David and not her.
David paused and stared at the image. In the brochure, the three pyramids were backlit, black prisms that ascended from Menkaure’s smallest prism on the left, Khafre’s in the middle, to Khufu’s, the Great Pyramid, on the right.
He dimly recalled visiting the plateau once with his father. For him it had almost seemed of religious importance. Staring from below the Great Sphinx’s massive paws and beside the Valley Temple attributed to Khafre with its monolithic pillars, his father had shut his eyes and ignored the jostles of the crowd.
Within the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the King’s Chamber had left an impression on David. It carried a special resonance. Five layers of chambers rose above it, which amplified sound. Or chant, or spell. The purpose of the Great Pyramid, as tomb or as alien spaceship, had been a question of scholars and pyramidologists for centuries. The secret of the Great Pyramid’s use was possibly the world’s most ancient mystery.
Even David couldn’t subscribe to the scholarly consensus that it was a tomb. Why did the Great Pyramid’s chambers carry no adornment despite the ancient Egyptian fascination with resurrection and the necessity of the deceased to read from the Book of the Dead to reach rebirth?
When work gave him some time away on this trip, he’d show Zahara the wonders of Egypt, the pyramids being but one. For now, the true wonder lay in the scanned file in his briefcase.
“Only twenty pounds,” the man bargained.
“Sorry, I’m here on business,” David replied and handed back the brochure, wiping his hand on already sweltering jeans. He waited for Zahara, following every sway of her hips as she strolled down the concourse, catching the eyes of the men she passed. Taking her arm, he pushed through the rotating doors and stepped onto the sidewalk of the Cairo International Airport’s Terminal 2. Heat and smog engulfed them.
“Limousine?” another man asked. Even before leaving customs, David had had a dozen such offers. He shook his head.
“Egyptians sure are helpful.” Zahara laughed. “I’ve never driven in a limo.”
“And this still wouldn’t qualify. The only difference between an Egyptian taxi and a limousine is air conditioning,” David dismissed. A limousine tended to be a slightly younger car and the make would differ from the ubiquitous Peugeots that made up the fleet of black and white taxis flocked in the parking lot, but either would get them from A to B. He hoped.
David picked the first battered sedan in a long line. Due to the aftermath of the revolution and the threat of a worrying plague in Sudan, tourism was at an all time low in Egypt. He spent five minutes negotiating the fare to Coptic Cairo. Even speaking some Arabic, he settled on what he knew was a tourist rate. It had been a long flight from Toronto, sixteen hours with a stop in Atlanta. Only an hour remained before his meeting and he didn’t want to spend his time bartering for pennies.
“I’ve never heard you speak Arabic,” Zahara said with a small furrow in her brow as if hurt.
Zahara knew very little about David’s background, something he guarded, but he had started to loosen up around her over the last two weeks and more so during the flight. Here the secret of their relationship was safe.
“Only a few words,” he said as he dropped their carry-ons into the trunk and clambered after her into the taxi.
“Coptic Cairo,” David urged the driver who fiddled with the radio dials.
They were running late due to security. Egyptian security unapologetically profiled; they loved white tourists. Sometimes it seemed as though Egypt wanted to fill the country with Americans who bought plaster pyramids and painted banana leaves. It was one of the reasons David hadn’t made better use of his dual citizenship. An ex-pat Egyptian had none of the benefits of looking like a tourist and all of the hassle of being one.
“What your name, sir?” the driver asked.
“David and Zahara.”
“David, my name Mamoud. Would you like buy Egyptian gold?”
David laughed and turned to whisper to Zahara. “Taxis are their own tourist agencies. If we let him, Mamoud would probably take us to each of the shops owned by his relatives.”
“I can give you a good price,” Mamoud added.
“No, just Coptic Cairo.”
Mamoud nodded, and though the car was as old as David, the engine started smoothly. Mamoud cranked down his window. “Air conditioning,” he joked.
The taxi carved through the pollution-sheathed apartment blocks, their roofs bristling with satellite dishes. Bougainvillea and jacaranda splashed crimson and violet against otherwise drab walls.
David studied Zahara, who regarded their surroundings with interest. It wasn’t their decade gap in ages that made their relationship dangerous, or the fact that she was lithe and he carrying an extra few inches about his gut—he assumed her attraction to him to be his professorial title and intellect. What had kept him checking over his shoulder back at the University of Toronto where he worked was the fact she was his grad student and the dean would use the excuse to fire him if he were aware of their dating.
The trip had been a perfect excuse to escape watchful eyes, and tonight Zahara and David would lounge in the Four Seasons’s pool, take in some belly dancing, sip on shisha—
David grimaced and shut his eyes as Mamoud passed within a knife’s edge of a bumper. Cairene taxis hurtled around Cairo’s ring road, weaving in and out of packed passenger vans and cars. For all their insane driving, however, the hyper-vigilant drivers honked in a pattern that allowed neighboring vehicles to know where each car was and prevented bent fenders.
David clasped and unclasped his hands, dirtying his cuffs on his forehead.
“I’ve never seen you so nervous,” Zahara said.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the pope.” As a graduate student himself, David had returned to Cairo and climbed the steps of the Hanging Church like Rocky had climbed the stairs of Philadelphia’s art museum.
“You don’t get along with him?” she asked. “He’s only the Coptic pope, not the big one.”
He laughed. “No, we just disagree on matters of religion.”
She raised her eyebrows, but he didn’t continue and finally she looked away with a sour twist to her lips.
David couldn’t help his distaste for the Copts, and it wasn’t only due to his upbringing. Coptic Cairo was filled with hypocrisy. When he spotted the depiction of the cross, he perceived an ankh, the key of life. As he stood before the image of Saint George slaying the dragon on the third-century church, he saw its Egyptian parallel: Horus stabbing the hippopotamus, which represented Seth.
A decade ago, when His Holiness Pope Shagar had requested a meeting, David had assumed it was to discuss the merits of his recent doctoral thesis. Pope Shagar well knew David’s history with the Sisters of Isis—his branding, his being shuffled to religious school after religious school in the U.K. and Canada. He of all people should have understood why David had written what he had.
The pope had met David on a bench outside of the Hanging Church’s three sanctuaries. As in Jewish practice, the Coptic priests are kept separate from the congregation by ornate panels inlaid with ivory depicting the moving crosses of the Copts. The crosses first appeared to be geometric circles, but upon inspection, one could discern a cross from every perspective, giving the impression of movement.
Dressed in an embroidered robe, a golden crucifix dangling below his neck, Pope Shagar had held a second crucifix in his hand. His beard was white at its centre, but black at the tips. The color tracked his years, and the curly hair threatened the corners of his eyes. Twin deep creases carved lines from the bridge of his hawkish nose into the forest of hair below. When David approached, the pope had not acknowledged him; he continued to study a painting hung beyond a row of marble columns surmounted by Corinthian capitals.
“What do you see here?” the pope asked without a glance over.
David regarded the painting and could not have hoped for a better discussion piece. The pope referred to a picture showing the life of Mary. In its ten frames, were excellent examples of Christian–Egyptian parallels.
“The life of Mary. It traces her life from the birth of Jesus to her death,” David said, restraining insult.
“Yes, but what do you see in it.” The pope turned his near-black eyes on David. They were fierce, but not angry. He seemed like a warrior about to strike, but one who does not take pleasure in the blow.
David cracked his neck.
“All right. I see a depiction of Isis with Horus. I see Horus born under an eastern star. I see sundiscs, not haloes, about their heads. I see the same wise men giving gifts of gold and perfume as depicted in Egyptian temples, each dedicated to a Holy Trinity. I see angels representing the Ba of Mary as she lies on her death bed.”
David’s eyes burned. He could go on. The ancient Egyptians were not the only religion with parallels to Christianity. The Mesopotamians were another. Even the date, December 25, may well have originated from the Roman sun cult Sol Invictus, which had celebrated the birth of the sun on this date. Baptism was likely a Mithraic rite before it was Christian. It was all in his thesis.
“I have read your paper, David. I intend to debate neither your evidence nor your conclusions. I wish only to ask a question.” The pope’s voice was so calm and relaxed that David felt as though a scythe sliced at his legs. Each heartbeat, he dropped a notch lower.
David was about to speak when the pope raised his hand. “Have you ever considered that despite the diversity of the world’s sects, we all venerate a common Father, one creator–god?” The pope regarded him unwaveringly. David began a retort, but Pope Shagar stood abruptly. “I only wished to ask the question, David. I do not need an answer.” With a sigh, he shambled into the sanctuary and slid the panel door shut.
Mamoud swerved and Zahara screeched, jerking David back to the present. She clutched his shoulder and had an expression not of fear but wild adventure, a feeling David had lost somewhere in academia.
He swiped his forehead. Staring at the snaking cars between him and the Hanging Church, David grimaced. He had still not taken to heart the pope’s lesson. His palms sweated. The pope’s question had been a comment on David’s life direction. When evil thrives in the world, why do you battle the powers of good? But religion caused more pain than joy. A multitude had died in the name of one religion or another. He now recognized his thesis’s conjecture was already well documented and that he’d contributed little to the scholarly field in his dissertation—his defence had taken two tries—but that hadn’t changed his deep abiding dislike for organized religion.
“What’s wrong?” Zahara demanded. “We’re in Egypt! This is going to be amazing.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I just don’t belong here. I’m not Christian, yet I was raised in a convent and at religious schools. My father was insane and took a brand to me …”
“You’re a non-practicing Copt. You were born here. In the heart of ancient Egypt.”
“Even if you’re right, Coptic Cairo represents a small fraction of Cairenes, a walled village inside a vast city. The Fortress of Babylon is a holdover from when Muslims shunned and punished the Copts for their beliefs. The Copts’ excessive taxation only ended in the 1970s.”
“But surely the revolution—”
“Bah, the revolution has not gone well for the Copts. At least the prior regime afforded them some peace. The Egyptian Brotherhood is outright hostile.”
Mamoud’s tic-like honks crescendoed as another car shot into his lane.
“See,” David said, pointing at the car’s bumper. On it was a shark sticker. “It’s a shark to eat the Jesus fish plastered upon Copt cars.”
“Where is that music coming from?” Zahara asked.
Calliope music drew David’s attention back into the car. The music had been fading in and out. Because of his exhaustion, it took him a minute to make the connection between Mamoud depressing the brakes and the ridiculous music.
“The brakes. Each time he presses the brakes it plays.”
Mamoud grinned at them in the rearview mirror. This was part of what David did like about Cairo. The music might grate, but it abounded, even connected to taxi brakes.
“Now that we’re on the ground, will you tell me why we’re here?” Zahara asked.
He’d told her that he was going on a work trip to his birthplace, but little else. And he wasn’t about to explain now, not until he determined the validity and origin of the artifact he’d come to inspect. It was one thing to be caught with his pants down with a grad student, wholly another to have his hands on an ill-gotten stele. The antiquities world was full of the trade of these goods. One might say that academics even depended on it to a degree.
“One of the sisters from St. George’s convent, she needs my help with a translation. I’ll know more in a couple of hours.”
This seemed to mollify her. “Was your mother a nun?”
“I never knew who she was. She joined the convent soon after my birth.”
“What about your father?”
He shook his head. As a member of the Shemsu Hor, his father could not commit to his day-to-day care either. “I was raised by the nuns, mainly Grandmama, the Mother Superior. My father died soon after he did this to me.” He clutched his shoulder.
She started laughing and covered her mouth with thin manicured fingers.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, that was horrible. I just can’t imagine you in a nunnery.”
“I didn’t need to take the veil or anything, I was more like an orphan. I attended church daily and prayed where Moses had prayed.” He thought back. “It wasn’t all bad. Before the branding my father taught me to use a bow and I learned ancient Egyptian. He groomed me for the role he expected me to play in his weird cult.”
“I can see why you studied what you did,” she said. “I wish I had such conviction in what I wanted to do.”
“Follow your natural enthusiasm,” he told Zahara. Not for the first time that day, he was reminded of their age di
fference. “Besides, I’m not sure this was what either of my parents would have wanted.” Like many sons, he had rebelled, but in a way that followed closely to his father’s wishes. He continued to excel in archery and trained in the gallery below Toronto University’s Hart House. He became a professor of comparative religion, well versed in hieroglyphics and cryptology.
But his work carried an edge, and that edge sought the truth behind modern religions, their origins. It was why he was here. In his pack was a rubbing of a stele that, if authentic, would prove without a doubt that parts of the Bible came before the birth of Christ. Heed the call of Re, the email from Sister Tara Amat Yasu had stated. He’d heed the call all right, but for very different reasons. He owed the sisters nothing.
Chapter Eight
The taxi stopped outside the walled city.
“Thanks,” David said and handed Mamoud a bundle of bills.
“Where do you go next? I take you there,” the driver said.
David wasn’t sure. He was supposed to meet Tara at her house within the Coptic walls after meeting with Pope Shagar, and afterward he’d hoped to take Zahara to the Khan el-Khalili, a vast market place, for some shopping before checking into the Four Seasons.
“We’re good, thanks.” He drew the carry-on bags out of the trunk and waved Zahara to the wall that demarcated Coptic Cairo.
“Impressive,” she said, staring up at the sandstone that had once held back Egyptian enemies and Muslim armies.
The shores of the Nile had moved four hundred yards to the west and the canal that connected the river to the fortress had been filled. Much of the fortifications were excavated pits and ruin, but the walls held firm.
“This should be as much on tourist itineraries as the pyramids,” he replied. “Copt literally means Egyptian, but Coptic Cairo has a more ancient title still: Kheraha, or battleground. At this very spot, the battle between Horus and Seth took place in Egypt’s earliest memory. From Coptic Cairo’s kernel, the great sprawl of Cairo grew.”
24 Bones Page 6