The Christos Mosaic

by Vincent Czyz

  It hurt!

  The Turk, who had no helmet on, flipped over backwards while his riderless machine toppled on its side and scraped a line of sparks on the cobbles until it came to a stop, back wheel spinning.

  “Drew!”

  “He’ll be all right.” Drew grabbed the bike, and kicked the starter. Once, twice, three times, but the engine didn’t turn over.

  “Damn it!” He glanced up at the mouth of the alley and kicked twice more. The engine caught and idled roughly for a few seconds. Drew gave it a little gas and revved the engine. It was a Honda Scrambler, which had probably been discontinued in the seventies. A top speed of eighty-five or ninety—when it was new. This one needed a tune-up. “Great.”

  While the Turk, an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old kid, struggled to a sitting position, Drew pulled the bike up in front of Jesse. “Get on!”

  She climbed on the back, hampered by the long skirt.

  “Keep your leg away from the tail pipe. It’s a little high on this thing.” Drew let out the clutch too fast, and the front wheel jerked up as they sped out of the alley. While the acceleration was enough to make Jesse constrict his waist, it was disappointing to Drew.

  Instinctively, he made a hard left. Letting out a cry, Jesse fought against him as they leaned to one side, and the ground rose up toward them.

  Drew brought the motorcycle to a stop. “You can’t do that. If I lean, you have to lean. You have to be my shadow, okay? Or you’ll throw us off balance.”

  “I’m sorry, I … I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

  Police sirens rose over the sound of the idling engine.

  Drew checked the only side-view mirror he had left; the other had snapped off in the fall.

  As soon as he saw the high-beams of an approaching car, he knew without a backward glance who it was.

  “Hold on.”

  Jesse’s arms tightened again as he gunned the engine, and the motorcycle jerked forward.

  No helmet, he thought, no mistakes. Which wouldn’t be all that easy with a car full of professional killers on their asses. He concentrated on the stretch of asphalt in front of him. Swerving to avoid a startled Turk, he angled for a turn down a street narrow enough to slow it down some. He heard two pistol shots just as the bike leaned into the turn, and this time Jesse moved with him, the blurred asphalt rising up, then receding as the bike righted itself. Drew opened up the throttle a little more.

  Tires screeched behind them as the car struggled to make the same turn. Drew glanced in the remaining mirror and saw the car take out a pole holding up a tin awning. It collapsed with a crash.

  Drew wove from one side to the other side to make them a more difficult target. Jesse would be the one hit—unless the shot went above her head, in which case it would shatter his.

  The back of the bike fishtailed as Drew fought its momentum to make a turn. Every turn was to their advantage: they didn’t have to slow much, and they could accelerate faster.

  They emerged onto a wide street, and Drew shifted into fifth. There was a rising whine as the gear wound out. The keffiyeh, which he hadn’t properly wrapped around his head, flew off behind them. By the time the car was in his side-view mirror again, they had opened up a good deal of distance.

  That was when a second car showed up—coming from the opposite direction. Switching lanes and gunning the engine, it headed straight for them.

  “Shit!”

  Drew steered the bike to the right—the car’s left—as though he were going to shoot through the narrow space between the car and the buildings. As soon as the driver moved to close off the space, Drew cut hard to his left and went through the opening—the wide side of street— he had created. Jesse’s arms choked his waist, but she didn’t fight the bike as it tilted.

  With both of the cars behind him now—how many were there?— Drew raced down every narrow street, up every alley, hugged every curve until it straightened out. Poles, barrels, crates came at them at high velocity; he veered and they missed.

  The road broadened unexpectedly into a two-lane avenue divided by a grassy island, and the market fell behind them. He cut the motorcycle’s lights. The avenue was well lit and traffic was sporadic in either direction. Drew eyed the cars suspiciously and checked his side-view mirror every few seconds. He could see Saint Peter’s Grotto Church on the slope of a distant hill, its façade bleached by floodlights.

  Jumping the curb, he took the Honda over a footbridge spanning a concrete storm drain that was dry but deep. The other side of the bridge was a field with nothing in it but a couple of trees and the remains of stone walls.

  He turned and lifted his voice above the idle of the engine. “I think we’re okay now.” Sliding forward in the seat, he slouched toward the handlebars. “Hop off.”

  He missed her hands around his waist as soon as she let go.

  Dismounting, he dropped the kickstand with the toe of a sneaker and left the key in the ignition. Antakya was a small city; the cops or a good Samaritan would get the bike back to the kid.

  “All right, hot shot, so how do we get back?”

  He could see she was trembling. So was he.

  “Back where? We show up on the street, we’re likely to get shot at again. I think we should let things cool off for an hour or two.” He looked up at the Grotto Church. Awash in chalky light, the façade the Crusaders had added in the 12th century had taken on an otherworldly look, as if it weren’t the crude effort of knights doubling as masons but the handiwork of angelic artisans. “I know just the place.”

  7: 12

  THINGS DONE IN THE DARK

  “DREW, THIS IS CRAZY.”

  They were hiking up a road as steep as it was dark and so badly paved he wondered if it had been shelled at some point in Turkey’s history.

  “No better way to be out of sight for a while. Besides … I’m the one toting the laptop.”

  Rounding the last switchback, they were rewarded not with a close-up of the church but of an official-looking building. Tickets were sold here during the day.

  Jesse folded her arms over her chest. “I’m just guessing but I’d say the gate is locked.”

  “Y’think? C’mon.” He tipped his head toward the hill. “There’s a trail.”

  Wide enough for two, the path was rough with exposed rock and loose stones.

  After about five minutes, Jesse stopped. “I can’t take this thing anymore.” She pulled the silk scarf off in a single smooth movement as though unveiling herself. “Oh that’s sooo much better.”

  Drew put his hands on his hips and faced west. They were well above the church now. The city sprawled over the river valley below. It looked as though a small star had been crushed and the pieces scattered—thickly in places, sparsely in others. On the horizon he could see the hard lines of mountains, darker than the sky, and a few clouds like floating shadows.

  Jesse drew a sharp breath. “It’s beautiful.”

  “This is why Stephen loved it here.”

  “Stephen?”

  “Professor Cutherton. He had a house here. For when he couldn’t take English weather and London’s pace anymore.” Drew lifted his chin to indicate a direction. “Ready?” Without waiting for an answer, he started back up the trail. Cutting south across the slope, it brought them to a stone shelf surrounded by rock outcroppings.

  “Where are you taking us?” Jesse asked.

  He pointed. “There.”

  “That … hole?”

  Drew nodded.

  “What is it?”

  “The church had an escape tunnel in case the Romans decided to crash the party. This is where it comes out.”

  “It looks like a shortcut to the underworld.”

  “Don’t worry.” He dug in a pocket and pulled out a lighter. “You smoke?”

  He gave a half shrug. “Cigars, narghile. But I’m not having a nicotine fit. This has a pen light. The thing is, I’m kinda …” He held up a hand and waffled it. “Claustrophobic. Not on e
levators or anything, just when I can’t see the way out. Dark makes it worse. A lot. Do you, uh, mind going first?”

  She sighed. “It’s easier than being shot at.”

  He tossed the lighter. “Good catch. I might have to hold onto you, okay?”

  She snickered. “It’ll be payback for clinging to you on the motorcycle. Ready Professor Hardwigg?” Jesse clicked a switch, and the lighter generated a tidy beam.

  Drew smiled appreciatively. Professor Hardwigg had headed up the expedition in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. “After you, Hans.”

  The tunnel was a natural formation, its rough walls—in the circle cut by the light—the color of sand. Widened in places by industrious Christians, the passage was large enough for Jesse to stand, but Drew had to stay hunched over. They put out their hands to the chisel-scarred stone for support. The ceiling or the western wall would fall suddenly away as they walked, exposing the city below.

  The passage narrowed during its sloping descent, and the air cooled. Drew felt like they’d been swallowed by a stone gullet. Panic began to rise, and he put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. Her warmth and firmness reassured him. He carried her computer bag in his other hand.

  When the passage became so tight they had to crawl, Drew’s limbs grew cold and numb, and his heart constricted like it was caught in a fist. Sweat beaded across his forehead as he pushed the laptop in front of him.

  “Drew, I think we should go back …”

  “Just a little … further.” One more word and his voice would have cracked.

  The tunnel widened again, but they were still hunched over like early humans—

  “Long arms and tough knuckles would come in handy right about now, huh?”

  Drew was too tense to laugh.

  “I can see light, Drew.”

  The fist around his heart relaxed slightly.

  Jesse straightened up in a small chamber, its mossy walls glistening with dampness. It led to a much larger chamber into which she wandered, her head tipped back as she gazed overhead. “So this is it, the first church in Christendom. Or close to it.”

  Once upon a time, he thought, Christianity was one of those things done in the dark.

  They were in a natural cavern, the air noticeably warmer than it had been in the tunnel. Light, harsh and white, sliced through windows and a pair of starburst designs cut into the façade. The back wall looked almost as though it had been formed by the drippings of countless candles. It had been created by a flow—the eternal seepage of water. The front of the cave had been tamed by chisels and rudimentary masonry. The plastered ceiling was water-stained and cracked. Square columns built from stone blocks of varying sizes supported brick arches and shallow vaulting. Crevices between the stones were clogged with moss.

  The altar was a stone box with a few simple carvings. Behind it was a squat throne that had been crudely cut from limestone now stained by the centuries and darkened by the damp. Like the façade, these accoutrements had been added long after Peter’s time.

  Besides their own breathing, there was only the faint sound of trickling water.

  Jesse ran an open palm over the altar as though it were a coffin holding the body of a saint. A tiny pool had collected just beyond the altar. “They must have used this for baptisms.”

  Drew put the laptop down. Slipping off the satchel, he put it on the altar’s smooth, white surface. The Glock made a muffled click through the leather.

  Jesse put her handbag next to it.

  Instead of aspiring to lofty heights, the grotto church had burrowed into the dark. An intimate space where faith wouldn’t echo. A reminder of an age when a cavern was entry into the body of a goddess, when darkness was gestation and germination.

  “I better give Zafer a call.” Drew squeezed a hand into a pocket and took out his cell phone. He glanced down. “Shit. Battery’s dead.” He looked up. “Can I borrow yours?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sorry. I don’t have his number memorized … I have to switch SIM cards.” Her phone, however, wouldn’t recognize the card. “Where did you buy this?”

  “In the States.”

  “It must be wired differently. It just keeps saying code error. I guess Zafer will have to wait.” Replacing her card, he handed the phone back to her.

  “I wonder what it was like …” She dropped the phone in her purse and leaned against the altar. “When Saint Peter was preaching here. Don’t you sense it, Drew? An aura?”

  “There’s something here … yes.” Drew was trying to get used to Jesse in her borrowed clothes: a loose aquamarine vest, a silky blouse the yellowed white of ivory, and an ankle-length skirt covered by a field of printed flowers.

  Jesse turned around. “So what happened in college?” Her face roughened by shadows, she looked like a piece of classical sculpture. “Why didn’t you major in religion?”

  Christ, he thought, she’s beautiful. Mentally he regrouped. “The feeling you get from this place? I get it from a poem … or a good novel. Even when I studied Christianity, it was the stories that interested me most. They’re not so different really, fiction and religion. I mean, God may be real, but religion is the fiction we dress Him up in. Or Her. I guess what I’m saying is you can’t take the Bible literally. Philo of Alexandria right? It’s allegory, fiction.”

  “That’s taking it a little too far, don’t you think? Calling religion a bundle of lies?”

  “Fiction isn’t a bundle of lies. Okay the events never actually occurred, but the stories still reflect some kind of truth, psychological or social or whatever.” Drew didn’t like standing across from her, like a face-off, but, arms folded over his chest, he didn’t move. “Religion is basically a fiction people agree to believe in.”

  Jesse frowned. “That’s all? That’s all religion is to you?”

  “What do you mean, all? The world is run by fictions.”

  7: 13

  TRUE STORIES THAT NEVER HAPPENED

  DREW REACHED INTO A POCKET and pulled out a ten lira note. “This is the greatest fiction going—fiat money. Without faith, it’s just a piece of paper. Back in 2000 I watched the lira lose more than half its value in one day. Because a couple of politicians had a fight that created a crisis of confidence. Suddenly, my paycheck was more than cut in half.” He pushed the bill back into his pocket. “Even a nation is basically a fiction with an idealized identity and a sanitized history—a collection of stories that are half true at best. The Greeks have The Iliad. The Brits have their Arthurian legends. The Romans had Romulus and Remus. The Jews have the Old Testament.”

  Jesse cocked an eyebrow. “I have a feeling the Jews would disagree with you.”

  Drew shrugged. “Faith has been known to override logic. What worries me is that substituting fiction for reality used to take centuries— not anymore. Look at how Nazi Germany revived German mythology to galvanize a sense of German superiority.”

  “And the Gospels?” She looked like a teacher patiently interrogating a student.

  “Fiction of course. That’s why those guys were shooting at us tonight.”

  “Maybe the Gospel of John,” Jesse conceded. “Although M— Professor de la Croix argued otherwise.”

  It sounded like Jesse had started to say something that began with M. The professor’s first name? No, it was Amanda. Jesse had probably been on a first-name basis with de la Croix, just as he had been with Stephen. For all he knew, her nickname was Mandy.

  “It doesn’t mean the Gospels should be dismissed. It means they should be read another way.”

  Crossing the floor, Drew turned around to lean against the altar. Now they were both facing the church’s façade. Light streaming in lent the place … yes, an aura. It was easy to understand how, of all the attributes God might possess, nearly every culture agreed God was luminous.

  “I mean,” Drew continued, “why is Matthew the only gospel to have the flight to Egypt? He’s alluding to something.” His heartbeat had picked up.
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  “There is, of course, no historical evidence for the slaughter of innocents under Herod,” Jesse admited. “Matthew lifted the incident from the life of Moses. Along with a couple of other things.”

  “I’m sure that’s how Jewish converts would have seen it …” But Drew had a feeling there was more to it.

  “I don’t think Matthew was writing for anyone else, Drew. Anyway, it must be after one, and I’m exhausted.”

  He watched her chin tip up as she gazed at the ceiling.

  “I still can’t believe what happened.” She fixed her eyes on him. “We were shot at. You shot at somebody. And then took us on a roller coaster ride—only without tracks. We could have wiped out at any time.”

  “Since Stephen was murdered … nothing seems so strange anymore.” He turned toward her so that his left hip brushed the edge of the altar. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  She smiled. “I’m not.”

  He put his hand out as though asking for a dance. She took it. Tugging her gently toward him, he bent down and kissed her. She opened her mouth to his and slid a hand up to his shoulder. He felt her fingers spread on the back of his neck. Something electric rose from his toes, made his ribs tingle, and short-circuited his balance. Letting go of her hand, he slipped both arms around her to steady himself. Pressed up against her, he felt her stiffened nipples through their shirts.

  The way his heart was hammering against his chest, he was surprised it didn’t echo. Slipping a hand between their bodies, he cupped one of her breasts and traced a circle over the nipple with his thumb. She moaned and he broke off the kiss. He was in too much of a hurry for buttons and pulled the vest over her head. He tried to do the same with her shirt, but she laughed—”Wait, wait.”

  While she unfastened the sleeves, he yanked his shirt off and let it drop to the floor.

  Her shirt fell on top of it.

  They kissed again, her tongue exploring his mouth.

  He had held this woman in a secluded place inside him for years, and now, with her bare skin against his own, he was afraid he was going to pass out. His fingers found the clasp to her bra and unhooked it.