The Christos Mosaic

by Vincent Czyz

  Drew looked at Kadir as if he were a brother he didn’t want to admit being related to.

  Father Hawass’s face remained unperturbed. “The Essenes constantly refer to themselves as zealous for the Law. Obviously, they could not abide Paul.”

  “So Paul was the Liar, and James was the Teacher of Righteousness?”

  Nathan put out his cigarette. “The Habakkuk Scroll, you have to understand, is an interpretation of earlier scripture. Pick up your Bible and you’ll find a book called Habakkuk. Habakkuk was a minor prophet who lived when Babylon—not Rome—was the threat. But because the Jews who lived centuries later were desperate to overthrow the Romans, they tried to apply what ancient authors had said to their own times.

  “Habakkuk’s most famous quote in the Bible—actually, he is quoting God—is But the just shall survive by faith. Centuries later, the author of the Habakkuk Scroll, who was an Essene, got a hold of this and wrote: Interpreted, this concerns all those who observe the Law in the House of Judah whom God will deliver from the House of Judgment because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness.”

  “You see?” Father Hawass interrupted. “They believed the Teacher was the Messiah.”

  “In Romans,” Nathan continued, “Paul turns this into the righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. He completely ignores observing the Law in the House of Judah. In a direct challenge to James, Paul also says a man is not made righteous by good works but by faith.”

  Nathan held out his hand as if to say, There it is. “This is the whole of Pauline Christianity, elevating faith above everything else. It was his own brand of Christianity. ‘Even if an angel from heaven preaches any other gospel to you other than what I have preached’, Paul says, ‘let the angel be accursed’.”

  “James,” Father Hawass added, “was rebuking Paul when he wrote, ‘For whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all’.”

  Drew shook his head. “Let me get this straight. After Jesus died, there was a power vacuum … and Paul and James were fighting for control of the early Church?”

  “Not exactly. There was a clash of ideologies,” Father Hawass corrected, “which spilled over into their biblical letters.”

  “Right,” Drew picked up, “with Paul saying Jewish Law could be discarded as long as you had faith, while James insisted faith wasn’t enough, that you had to prove your faith by adhering to the Law …”

  “And by doing good works,” Nathan added.

  “And if Paul and his followers ignored the dietary restrictions, circumcision, and the other prescribed rituals of Jewish Law—” Drew paused to write in his notebook,”—then it makes sense that the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to them as Seekers-After-Smooth-Ways.”

  “Exactly.” Nathan laced the fingers of his hands together and rested his forearms on his thighs. “There’s one other thing. The Habakkuk Scroll says the Liar flouted the Law in the midst of the whole congregation. This is what happens toward the end of Acts when Paul is accused of blasphemy for shunning Jewish Law.”

  Drew let the pen drop from his fingers. It slapped softly against his open notebook. Putting his forehead in a palm, he tried to think. Stephen could have made sense of these frayed strands of theology and history: Paul’s heresy, James’s adherence to the Law, the Essenes—who were also the Keepers of the New Covenant, and the Ebionites, who claimed to be the only true Christians.

  Eyes closed, fingertips digging into his scalp, Drew wanted to pray, to ask for guidance. For a moment, the dark behind his eyes seemed equal to that expanse of black which, for millennia, astronomers had been searching for signs of a maker.

  “Drew? You all right?”

  It was Zafer’s voice, but it seemed to come from a long way off. Drew lifted his head. “Paul … Paul derailed the Christianity of the early Church by making the messenger more important than the message. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Nathan stabbed at Drew with a finger. “Yes!”

  “But you believe in the resurrection,” Drew asked, “don’t you?”

  Father Hawass leaned forward slightly. “Jesus was raised by God the Father. He did not raise himself.”

  Which was more or less what Drew had always believed.

  “All right!” Zafer pushed off the edge of the bed, stood up, and clapped his hands together. “You passed the interview.”

  Father Hawass seemed startled out of a trance.

  “All we have to do now is check your references.”

  “And the scroll?”

  “We’re not going to settle that tonight. It’s not even in Egypt. But we’ll need a way to contact you when we’re back in Istanbul.”

  Nathan sighed and, standing up, reached in his back pocket for his wallet. He took out a white card and handed it to Zafer.

  Zafer glanced at the name in red lettering: Nathan Zarqal. There was a Jersey City address, the usual phone number, fax, e-mail, and cell phone. After tucking it in his shirt pocket, he shook Father Hawass’s hand. When he reached for Nathan’s hand, he gripped it firmly, then suddenly jerked him forward and tried to put his arm in some kind of hold.

  Drew jumped off the mattress, but Nathan, as though he’d been expecting something like this, shifted his weight, blocked Zafer’s other hand, and the two grappled for a couple of seconds, each trying to gain an advantage.

  Zafer started to smile. “You’re good, really good. Jujitsu?”

  “Aiki jujitsu, aikido, judo. I’ve studied in different schools since I was about twelve.” He grinned. “You’re not bad either.”

  As the two men left, Kadir closed the door behind them. “A lot of history, ya. I am not able to understand all.”

  “Neither am I,” Drew admitted.

  Zafer raked his short black curls with his fingers. “The shit’s getting deeper.”

  “I wonder,” Drew said, “what the Sicarii are like.”

  Zafer smiled. “You just met two of them.”

  5: 4

  EVERLASTING FOOL

  ZAFER’S EYES FLUTTERED OPEN. Without looking at his watch, he knew it was early. He always woke up early. Lying motionless in bed, he listened. It was an old habit.

  He heard nothing but the hum of the air conditioner.

  Something was wrong. He sat up and scanned the room. Kadir was asleep on the floor with a blanket under him.

  Drew’s bed was empty.

  The bathroom door was open and the light was off. “Hay Allah,” Zafer hissed.

  Last night they’d changed rooms, a couple of doors down. Of course, anybody who wanted to know where they’d gone could have put a gun in the manager’s face. Or a fifty-dollar bill.

  Hopping on one leg, Zafer pushed the other into his pants. Why didn’t I go with my first instinct and change hotels? But they couldn’t have come into the room and grabbed Drew without his knowing. Couldn’t have. If they’d used something—spray or gas—he’d be groggy or nauseated. His arms and legs would feel like they were filled with cement.

  Pulling on his jacket to hide the pistol he was wearing, he woke up Kadir.

  “Eh? Saat kach?”

  “Never mind what time it is. I’m going out to find Drew. Don’t answer the door. If anybody so much as knocks, call my cell phone.”

  Zafer stepped out into a dimly lit hall paved with faded blue and yellow tiles.

  In the lobby he asked the manager if he’d seen Drew, but the manager insisted his long-haired friend had not been in the lobby this morning. Unsure about his next move, Zafer decided to take the elevator up.

  At the end of the hall, he found the exit to the roof. He pushed open the door and got slapped by a wave of hot air. Nothing much to see up here—no hint of the Nile, no glimpse of the pyramids’ summits, just a bird’s eye view of the empty street below and a cross-section of downtown Cairo.

  Drew was sitting at a table, scribbling away in his notebook. He looked up and waved to Zafer
.

  Zafer shook his head. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Today’s my wedding anniversary. Would’ve been six years. Only made it to four.”

  Zafer nodded. “All right. I’m going back down. Kadir is probably pissing his pants.”

  “He’s probably pissing on mine.”

  “Might be,” Zafer conceded. “Are you done here?”

  “Almost.”

  “Well, hurry up.”

  The Turk disappeared down the stairs.

  Pushing his sunglasses farther up on the bridge of his nose, Drew re-read his letter.

  Dear Yasemin,

  Some days I wake up, and all I want is to find you next to me again. I wait for the ache to subside, ignore it the way someone who has an incurable illness—nothing that’ll kill him—ignores the pain. There’s nothing else I can do.

  I couldn’t live with you the way things were. I know this is hard for you to understand. I know you don’t think I had anything to complain about, although you have to admit, something made me leave. You were home to me, wherever you were was home— sometimes I myself don’t know how I left.

  I can distract myself for a while, but the ache is always there, the same ache I feel now as I write this.

  I know you loved me, but I don’t understand why you made me feel so unloved. I wish I knew why you snapped at me so much, criticized me so often, fought with me so much. I wish I knew why you made me feel that just about everything I did was wrong. The why haunts me most of all. If you would just tell me why, I might be better at waiting out the pain.

  Remember that morning when we got into a fight because I didn’t make the bed? I kept looking at it logically, adding up all the things that proved I cared about you. But you kept insisting that if I really cared about you, I would make the bed once in a while. And that made me furious.

  Only now do I realize I missed the point: you were defending an insecurity, a leftover from childhood. You were defending the way my neglect of the bed made you feel. What you needed was reassurance—a little affection to remind you that I was your husband. All your arguing was just covering up a vulnerability, and all of my arguing was just covering up my own insecurities and making things worse.

  We used to wonder who loved whom more—now we know.

  I’m in Egypt now and you wouldn’t believe how much I miss you. It’s even worse being abroad. I know it’s impossible in this hotel, but if I were to come upon a pair of your shoes or a shirt of yours, I’d probably cry.

  I tried dating a few times, but I can’t look at her, whoever she is, and say anything in Turkish that doesn’t remind me of you. I just can’t. There are so many things I can’t say to her because I said them to you first.

  I don’t think I’ll ever be at peace with this period of my life. I will always remember how you pushed me away every time you were upset with me. We should have stayed together, Yasemin. We should have been buried in the same little plot. Don’t you wake up some mornings and feel it? Don’t you look around for your husband and feel that without him there, the horizon is too far away? If you don’t, then you’re not the fool, I am.

  A line from Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being has been boomeranging in my head for two years: How can we know what we want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it to our previous lives nor perfect it in lives to come?

  Leaving you was the biggest mistake I ever made. Even before the divorce was final, I begged you to take me back, but your refusal made made me convince myself it was for the best. If I had known how much I loved you, I never would have left. Forgive me for that if you can.

  Here it is our anniversary—you’re in Istanbul, I’m in Egypt. You’re with someone else, I’m alone.

  Maybe Kundera was wrong. Maybe we get another chance. Maybe we keep coming back until we get it right. Maybe we’ll meet as two different people in another restaurant in some other city, and what seems like instinct or intuition, but is actually dim memory will guide us, and this time we’ll stay married.

  I don’t think I’ll write anything like this again. I’m emotionally drained. I hope this is the last weight I need to lift off myself.

  You’re an everlasting fool Yasemin Karaja, and I’m an everlasting fool for you.

  5: 5

  FROM STEPHEN CUTHERTON

  SWEAT LEFT WET TRAILS on his forehead, was running down his face by the time he got back to the room. Making hot weather hotter was one of the drawbacks of long hair.

  Colors inside the hotel didn’t seem quite right, either, and he realized that his vision had been singed by the Egyptian sun. He tossed his notebook onto a bed.

  Kadir, who was shirtless, his short legs covered by cuffed jeans, gave him a disapproving look. “Ya, my everywhere hurts.”

  “Your everywhere? You only got hit in one place last night.” There was a nasty-looking bruise above the collarbone. Drew turned to Zafer. “Fire up your laptop, will you? I want see what I can find about the Ebionites. I still don’t think they have anything to do with Raymond and his pal Jean.”

  Zafer unzipped the black case and slipped the slim computer out. “What better way to get Kadir to hand over the scroll” He unplugged the phone. “Posing as Ebionites and giving us that cover story about how the scroll actually belongs to them?”

  Drew frowned. “But they can’t be Sicarii. They didn’t even mention the other scroll.”

  Zafer seesawed a hand. “Maybe, maybe not. They might be feeling us out, seeing what we know. Which is what we were trying to do last night.”

  “I don’t know. I just … I mean, on a gut level, I believe those guys.”

  Kadir, dragging a chair behind him, went into the bathroom and closed the door. He needed the chair for the mirror.

  “Look.” Zafer flipped open the laptop on the small desk. “Even if they’re not Sicarii, a Girl Scout could infiltrate their little church.” He pressed a button and stepped back. “All yours.”

  Drew sat down to the computer, but instead of going on line, he started typing the letter he’d written to Yasemin.

  The bathroom door opened. Kadir came out freshly shaven, although there was still a noticeable shadow on his face. He and Zafer could grow a full beard in about seventy-two hours.

  “What’s all that clacking?” Zafer asked. “I thought you were doing a web search?”

  “Just putting together an e-mail.”

  “An e-mail or a dissertation?”

  Saving the letter to Yasemin on a flash disc, he got started on his search. There was more information than he expected, including a website with Father Hawass’s smiling face on it. The Ebionite church and its monastery were modest but attractive in an austere way.

  “Find out when that website went up.” Zafer tapped the computer screen. “Can you do that?”

  “I can e-mail a friend of mine who can do that.”

  On another website Drew found an edited-down passage from Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. According to Gibbon, the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews; and the congregation over which they presided united the Law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ.

  Drew’s eyebrows went up. The first fifteen bishops had been Jews?

  After the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD by the Romans, the Jewish converts, now called Nazoreans, retired from the ruins of Jerusalem to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan, where that ancient church languished above sixty years in solitude and obscurity.

  Just like the Ebionites today, Drew thought.

  They spread themselves into the villages adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in what is now Aleppo in Syria. The Name of Nazarenes was deemed too honourable for those Christian Jews, and they soon received the contemptuous epithet of Ebionites—poor ones.

  Although some traces of that obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly melted away either into the church or the synagogue.
>
  “Not quite,” Drew murmured.

  “So what do you have?” Zafer was standing behind him again, broad hands on his hips.

  “Gibbon seems to confirm everything they said last night, and the location of the monastery on their website coincides with their last known whereabouts—Aleppo.”

  Drew logged into his e-mail account, vaguely hoping for something from Yasemin. Nothing, as usual. But there was a message from pembroker@tiscali.com, an email address he’d never seen before. The subject box read: From Stephen Cutherton.

  It couldn’t be.

  Drew looked up at Zafer, who was busy rearranging something in his duffel bag, then back at the computer screen.

  The Sicarii?

  He was afraid to open it. He was afraid even to show it to Zafer.

  Cutting and pasting the letter that he’d typed to Yasemin, he sent it off. This gave him a minor sense of relief, as though some small promise had been fulfilled. No matter what happened in the next few days, he wanted her to have that.

  From Stephen Cutherton.

  He clicked on the message.

  Dear Mr. Korchula,

  I am a friend of Stephen’s. He sent this to me with instructions that, if he did not contact me in a week’s time, I should send it to you. You and I, as we are now joined in grief for a dear friend, are now ourselves friends of a sort though we have never met. Let me say, in closing, I hope we have the opportunity to rectify that some day. Stephen thought so very highly of you.

  With deepest sympathy,

  Dr. Richard Pembroke, PhD

  The professor’s message followed.

  My Dear Drew,

  If you are reading this e-mail, it means that I am not able to speak to you myself. Perhaps it is just an old man’s sense of foreboding or the dramatic, but after you and your friends left this evening, I felt I might not have the opportunity to say some of the following. Can you hear my sigh of regret? Well, perhaps I am fretting over nothing. Perhaps this is all bosh, and we’ll have time for a few more glasses of wine and a few more conversations. This, then, is just a safety valve of sorts …