The Cairo Diary

by Maxim Chattam

  Marion closed her eyes with a sigh.

  Behind her, one of the men had just placed her two suitcases on the ground.

  She had arrived at the bottom of what was going to be her retreat for the weeks, or maybe months, to come.

  Mont-Saint-Michel.

  As fleetingly as it had appeared, the summit sank back into the darkness, as the moon withdrew behind its nocturnal sieve, like an insect slipping away, sheltering from predators.

  2

  The wind suddenly rose, capturing Marion in its vise; her clothes flapped about in the darkness. One of the men accompanying her turned his head toward her. His eyes were cold. Cold like this journey, cold like in bad films, thought Marion. He stared at her and blinked. For a moment she detected the man behind the professional, some mercy beneath the austerity. Guessing that she was the intended recipient of this pity hurt her, and her heart felt hollow.

  Beneath a tower close to the main entrance, metallic hinges began to grate. A narrow postern gate opened, creating a hole in the wall.

  A frail silhouette detached itself from the wall and came toward the group. It was holding up a lantern, which glimmered faintly in the darkness as if it were guiding the person and drawing it into the blackness. The person was draped in a robe that changed shape as the wind gusted around it with increasing ferocity. Suddenly, he or she lifted a hand to hold down the linen headdress that concealed the face. The driver of the sedan approached and they exchanged a few words, which were rendered almost inaudible by the distance and the wind.

  Then he came back to Marion.

  His was the only voice she had heard. He bent forward as he addressed her, so as not to have to talk too loud despite the gusting wind. His eyes only rarely settled on Marion; they swam above her, toward the far distance, already preoccupied with a world elsewhere.

  “Anne will show you to your new home. Trust her, she has performed this kind of service for us before. She knows what must be done, so listen to her. Sorry I can’t be gallant enough to carry up your cases, but the less time we spend here, the better.”

  Marion opened her mouth to protest, but no sound emerged.

  “You will receive news via Anne as soon as things start moving.”

  “But … aren’t you going to … I don’t know, search my room or something?”

  A half-smile appeared on his lips. In it she saw a degree of affection for her own naïveté.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he replied firmly. “You have nothing to fear here. Trust me, at least about that.”

  She sensed that he was about to turn away and placed her hand on his arm. “How … what do I do to contact you if…”

  “The mobile number I gave you the first time, call me on that if you need to. Now I must go.”

  He watched for her reaction for a moment, then pursed his lips and gave a slight nod. “Good luck,” he added, with more kindness in his voice.

  Then he walked away and signaled to his two companions to get back into the car.

  A few seconds later the vehicle had disappeared onto the jetty, leaving behind it two tiny red marks upon the bosom of the night.

  * * *

  “Come on, let’s not stay here,” a voice said behind her.

  The voice was calming, gentle. Marion turned around to face it. Under the onslaught of the elements, Anne appeared more vulnerable and fragile than a tender young sapling in the storm. The wind had carved myriad deep lines that furrowed her face.

  “Let’s go in,” she said. “I’ll take you home, where you can rest.”

  Home.

  Marion swallowed with great difficulty.

  Everything was moving too fast, she no longer had any control over anything; and she was submitting to it all with disconcerting neutrality.

  Already Anne was walking toward the postern gate, carrying one of the two suitcases.

  What happened next owed more to the world of hallucinations than to free will. Later, Marion remembered walking up a narrow street, with ancient housefronts made of stone and wood. Then several steps and a passageway winding beneath tiny buildings, on the fringes of a sinister cemetery.

  The gate closed again and Anne raised her eyes to look at her. Blue eyes that were smooth and determined, in opposition to the rest of the face.

  “Here is your new house,” she said.

  That and other words, distant words. Words devoid of meaning, logic, life.

  Words that traveled for an instant between the two women before being lost in tiredness. The entrance light was on; it was swaying as though on a ship. It was shining increasingly brightly. Blindingly.

  Marion closed her eyes.

  Her legs were trembling from the effort of the climb. Her breath was all spent.

  She remembered nothing more of what happened next.

  Except for the draft of air when the door opened.

  And the low rumbling sound of a man’s voice.

  3

  A leftover piece of Babel.

  That’s what Mont-Saint-Michel was. A proud finger pointing toward the heavens. Marion saw in it not the marvel of religious devotion, but rather a conceited attempt to get closer to God. A gull sniggered as it skimmed the dizzying wall that dropped more than seventy yards. Marion stood bending forward, her hands placed on the low stone wall, overlooking the whole of the mist-drowned bay. A milky tide was gradually receding, releasing smoky trails as it licked at the ramparts. The white cloth coated absolutely everything. Nothing escaped: not a single lost mast or distant cliff, not even the causeway that provided the link to the mainland.

  The Mount rose up out of this sea, colossal, like the cutting edge of a patiently shaped flint laid upon an immense expanse of mother-of-pearl.

  Marion turned her back to the sight and faced the forecourt of the abbey church, which stretched out at her feet.

  “We are on the western terrace,” explained Sister Anne. “Apart from the lace staircase on the church roof, one cannot enjoy a more agreeable view.”

  Marion confined herself to a brief nod, as she did with all the sister’s comments. Together, they had walked up the main street, then climbed the two “great stairs”—two long series of steps leading to the roof of the world—Sister Anne taking on the role of guide for the occasion.

  “I am going to introduce you to our community. They are as impatient to make your acquaintance as they are aware of the need to be discreet regarding your presence among us.”

  Marion cast a last glance at the view. The mist was flowing over the ground as if the Mount and its inhabitants were all drifting away, out to sea.

  She closed her eyes for a brief moment. Drifting. That was the word that best characterized her these past few days.

  Waking up in that strange bed had immediately made her feel sick, gripped by the muted anguish that tightens the chest when a situation seems to be overflowing in all directions, completely out of control.

  Anne approached her. She gave a faint, but reassuring smile. The icy wind emphasized the whiteness of her face. Lines lay deep between sections that were completely smooth. It put Marion in mind of a folded mask, like the skin of cream on hot milk.

  “I know how you are feeling,” said the nun quietly. She was right beside her now.

  She laid a hand on Marion’s back.

  “Confusion thunders inside here, doesn’t it?” she added, placing an index finger on her brow. “With a little time that will pass. Trust me.”

  Marion gazed at the little woman. “Is this something you’re used to?”

  Hardly had she spoken the phrase when it disappeared, swept away by the tone, the weakness of her voice. She had always hated showing her weak points, her difficulties, or her worries.

  “Not in the way you imagine,” replied Sister Anne. “I have indeed performed this service before. But it isn’t … usual.”

  Marion was still staring at her.

  “I’m going to say this to you now, so it is done: I know nothing about the reasons that ha
ve brought you here, and that doesn’t interest me. I just want to help you so that the time you spend among us is as pleasant as possible.”

  She bore Marion’s gaze without defiance or hardness.

  “For everyone,” she went on. “Pleasant but discreet. Nobody undesirable will come and find you on the Mount, have no fear. It is the ideal place to spend these few weeks, or months. Famous all over the planet for its remoteness. You will melt into the background.”

  She rubbed Marion’s back. “I will be with you for as long as it takes you to get your bearings. All will be well. You’ll see.”

  Marion opened her mouth to speak, but could not expel the air. She must look frightful, she thought. With her hair blown all over the place by the gusts of wind, her damaged lip, and her sunken eyes. An old harpy, that’s what you are.… A harpy rendered decrepit by events. Overtaken by events. Drowned, even.

  “Let’s not linger, everyone here is in turmoil. They won’t have much time to spare for us, with the storm that’s coming.”

  “The storm?” Marion repeated quietly.

  “Yes, you didn’t hear the news.… A few days ago, they announced that there’s going to be an enormous storm on the coast, the like of which hasn’t been seen for several centuries. Even the army has been mobilized in rural areas to help people prepare their homes and to assist in the event of emergency. Everyone here is busy making the Mount as waterproof as possible, and protecting what needs to be protected.”

  Sister Anne scanned the western horizon. “You might think it was going to be fine, that this carpet of mist would lift to reveal a sunny day. But tonight, it’ll be war.”

  Her eyes were shining with excitement. “Anyhow, come, you have work to do. A whole list of names to learn, and the faces that go with them, of course.”

  Marion slid her hands back into the pockets of her woollen coat.

  She fell into step behind Sister Anne and entered the abbey church.

  * * *

  The eastern sun dissolved in a gigantic and blinding gray puddle, which bathed the high windows of the choir. A long procession of massive columns ran along the central aisle as far as the transept. Starting at the entrance, all of the architecture converged on the flamboyant choir in a sort of optical illusion, as if the nave was no more than a prolongation of the earth’s entrails, toward the supreme elevation right at the end, below the high windows, before the altar.

  The abandoned feeling lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough for Marion to rid herself of the weight on her chest, like an excess of breath that had stayed in her lungs too long, expelled all at once in a spontaneous exhalation. Since it had happened—no! for the last few weeks—Marion had been unable to create a state of emptiness in her mind, unable to avoid feeling crushed by the situation. Each of her words, and each of her actions were motivated by—or a consequence of—this escape. And for the first time, she had opened her eyes and really looked, without any thought related to her exile.

  For an instant, the majesty of the place had washed away her troubles.

  The semblance of a smile appeared on her lips.

  Marion raised her head toward the ceiling. High up, the arches of an ambulatory formed patches of opaque shadow.

  These were not completely still; they turned around and around and stretched out as if long, black silk sheets were moving around each arch.

  Marion watched intently, her nose in the air.

  The door had been left open, and the wind gusted against her back.

  The flames of a few candles danced, faltering dangerously in this ever-stronger breeze.

  Marion heard Anne’s footsteps as she walked away down the nave, paying her no attention.

  She felt as if she was being observed.

  The little hairs on the back of her neck stiffened.

  The more she became aware of it, the more the feeling spread with increasing confidence.

  Her tongue was coated. She knew this searing feeling of paranoia. The past weeks had brought both emotions closer together, turning them into veritable rivals in a fierce competition, in which serenity was at stake. An almost daily match. And all that was required to unleash the paranoia was an ounce of anxiety; once it had that, it spread like burning oil on a lake.

  Marion swallowed, forcing herself to curtail all speculation, all imagination, to rid herself of this anguish by refusing it any fuel.

  The sensation grew less acute.

  Sister Anne had disappeared, turning into the northern arm of the transept.

  Marion started walking again, along the rows of cold benches. All the same, she glanced briefly at the dark arches before turning.

  The ambulatory that stretched out behind these mysterious mouths was still just as invisible. And the shadows were still moving.

  Sister Anne was waiting for her at the top of a staircase leading down into the depths of the building. Her eyes scrutinized Marion to assure herself that all was well and the little woman set off first down the stairs. They came out at the lower level, in an enclosed chapel, with fewer than ten tiny benches, a handful of lit candles, and a very low, rounded ceiling that reinforced the impression of warmth and intimacy. An amber half-light trembled on the walls of the crypt of Notre-Dame-des-Trente-Cierges.

  There, in the dusk of the last bench, seven motionless silhouettes were waiting, their heads bowed beneath masks of fabric. Seven pious statues, as immovable as stone.

  All seven were dressed in religious habits.

  They all wore coarse, inhuman faces, with irregular, clumsy features, distorted mouths, and monstrous eyes, like a group of gargoyles staring at the crypt’s altar.

  Then the Mount’s spell was broken.

  And the stone changed.

  The fabric of a cowl gently folded back.

  And suddenly a hand appeared. It rose to make the sign of the cross, and the fabric mask crumpled as the priest pushed back his hood.

  4

  There were four men and three women.

  The most striking thing was how similar they all were in shape.

  Apart from one brother who was much taller than the others, the six followers were of the same height, and of a relatively slender build, as though forged from the same mold.

  I can’t help it, it’s my job, Marion thought. Too many autopsy reports to draw up properly and file, and you find yourself focusing on people’s external aspects: their physical data.

  It was true, she couldn’t deny it. Her job overflowed into her judgment. When she encountered new faces, she often saw first of all a piece of funereal statistical data relating to their appearance. A portly fifty-year-old man with flabby skin who’d clearly enjoyed the high life made her think of heart attacks, while a white neck whose tendons were forever protruding beneath the chin because of stress raised the specter of a ruptured aneurysm.

  Whereas others tended to catalog people according to their socio-professional category or in relation to their general cultural background, she did so according to the probable circumstances of their death.

  Sister Anne rubbed her hands together as she turned toward Marion.

  “Here is a part of our community,” she said. “Marion, let me introduce you to Brother Damien.”

  The man in question emerged from the group to come and greet the newcomer. He was around forty. His hood was drawn back, revealing cropped gray hair and a full face that contrasted with his rather svelte body. There was a certain joie de vivre in his eyes. He greeted Marion with a bow of the head, his eyes constantly on the move.

  Hyperactive, always cheerful, you might say; the type who eats too quickly and swallows without chewing. He’ll probably choke to death when something goes down the wrong way.

  She adored that expression. Dying because something “goes down the wrong way.” So as not to say: “death by suffocation, due to the presence of a foreign body in the airways.” The classic story of a Sunday afternoon that turns into a nightmare. Lunch with friends, plenty of wine, everybody eating
hungrily and then … one mouthful too many, swallowed too quickly, without really thinking about it. The food gets stuck in the diner’s throat, and panic grips the impatient eater. You found them each Sunday evening, lined up in the basement at the Médico-légal Institute, one behind the other on their aluminium gurneys, while their relatives were howling somewhere that it was impossible, that people couldn’t just die, not on such a peaceful Sunday, not like that.

  Marion had seen an awful lot of “impossible corpses” like that, in her ten-year career.

  It was settled. Brother Damien was to be “Brother Wrong Way.”

  Giving free rein to her idiotic little game did her a world of good. She relaxed, became herself again.

  Next was Brother Gaël, a young man of around twenty, with the look of a babe in arms, and by all accounts the son of a good family—the second son of the noble ancien régime family, the one who’s destined for the Church—too young to inspire Marion in her guessing game.

  Sisters Gabriela and Agathe had no greater effect on Marion. They were young—around thirty—and at first glance as smooth as a block of polished marble.

  The tallest of the seven was a man approaching fifty, slow in word and deed, pale, and visibly on the verge of breathlessness after welcoming her. Marion opted for “Brother Anemia” in place of his real name: Brother Christophe.

  The two last members were Brother Gilles and Sister Luce, two individuals of a highly respectable age, whose eyes were as piercing as they were taciturn; two eagle faces, prominent noses, and thin lips, so alike that one might think they shared the same blood.

  Marion had no desire to play with them. It wasn’t funny anymore.

  Brother Gilles stared at her for a long time without saying a word. He merely folded his long, wrinkled fingers upon his belly.

  “I think you know everybody now,” commented Sister Anne.

  Brother Gilles coughed exaggeratedly to indicate his disagreement.

  “Ah, yes! Almost everybody! There is still Brother Serge, the hierarchic leader of our community. He could not get away, but you will meet him a little later.”