I was pleased to find Metro cars designated strictly for women, and I wearily sat beside a kind woman who had moved over to offer me room. She explained to me the meaning of the word zuro.
“Do you speak English?” I asked.
At first the woman looked surprised, and she surveyed me up and down in my black Muslim ensemble as if she had just been spoken to by a passing bird. I realized with dismay that this would be the reaction of anyone with whom I tried to communicate in American English. “Little,” she said, her accent heavy.
“What is zuro?” I asked. “What does that mean in Arabic?”
“Eh, how to say?” she said, half to herself, and then she said something in Arabic to the woman beside her.
“It is color,” the other woman offered, her accent heavy as well. “Blue. Like your eyes.” And she pointed through the open slit of my niqab.
So the other two niqab layers came down, their screens like two layers of heavily tinted glass. But even with total physical invisibility, I felt exposed. I was now an Egyptian Muslim with no understanding of the religion, culture, or traditions I should have been taught from birth. And to maintain anonymity, I could not speak. In any language.
The Cairo train station was in shambles. The entire station was under construction—yet business as usual appeared to be taking place.
Stumbling like a drunk, I tripped over construction rubble, the two bags on my shoulders banging awkwardly at my sides like the prodding heels of a rider on a horse. I searched for a ticket window through the veil. Do women actually get used to these? I wondered, fighting the urge to pull back the niqab.
“Alexandria,” I said in a muted voice at the ticket window. The ticket seller gave me a strange look and rambled in Arabic for a moment, but I was relieved to see a ticket emerge through the window. I passed him some money. He handed some of it back.
“Alexandria?” I asked of an elderly woman who was clearly not law enforcement. She looked at my ticket and pointed me vaguely to the left, also rambling in Arabic.
“Alexandria?” At the first fork in a road paved with construction rubble, I was waived onto a platform.
“Alexandria?” A woman standing on the platform nodded. I hoped she was right.
Nobody looked at my ticket until the train had been under way for nearly an hour. During that hour, I hoped fervently that I was really headed to Alexandria. Over the course of the two-hour train ride, I read. I devoured the introductory history and the Alexandria-specific portions of my new Egypt guidebooks. And I came to realize I had just made a terrible mistake.
There is virtually nothing left of Cleopatra’s Alexandria.
The library itself is gone—I had already known as much. But what I hadn’t known was that Cleopatra’s palace, her gardens, her army’s fleets—everything associated with her reign—had long since gone, literally, into the sea.
It was all under water. And unlike the earthly samples I had obtained from beneath the sea in Naples, this time I had no hope of retrieving what I needed. There was no way I would find any trace of a living plant underwater that had been surviving above ground in her day. I had reached a dead end.
I buried my face in my hands and cried.
I had just failed my daughter.
It is our third night together in Paris.
“I have a daughter,” I say. I tell Jeff the story of how my daughter’s teenaged fanaticism had been a driving force in my decision to stop working exclusively on anthrax, how it had led me increasingly to cancer research.
“I thought that cancer would be a safer career path,” I explain, and then Jeff asks me the question I have been dreading since I first spoke to him two days ago.
“Is Alexis an only child?”
I take a deep breath. “She is now,” I say. “I had a son. I lost him eleven years ago. He was murdered.”
I reach across the table and squeeze his hand briefly, and then I stand and excuse myself to the restroom, having learned that this is the best way to allow my news to sink in. And to give my new love interest the way out that he needs.
When I return to the table, I think, he will have received an emergency phone call in my absence and he will need to regretfully cut the evening short.
At least I will have gotten it over with quickly.
I remain in the restroom much longer than necessary, perfecting my makeup and my hair, giving my date time to absorb the death of my son. Then I return to the table.
Jeff immediately takes my hand. “Listen, Katrina,” he says, squeezing gently. His hand is warm and strong. “I’m really, really sorry to hear about your son.”
“It was a long time ago,” I offer, glancing down at my lap.
“I know,” he says. “But it’s a part of you now.”
I nod.
“To be honest,” he says, “I am a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know how to respond. As for myself, I have never been married.”
I wonder, How can that be?
“I have no children,” he continues, “although…”—he pauses for a moment—“I would have liked to, I think. And I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose one.”
“To be honest,” I say, “it is unbearable. My daughter saved my life. Without her, I don’t know how I would have survived.”
The train arrived in Alexandria, and I was numb as I gathered my belongings. Suddenly, the world was gray. I walked with no direction, and, some time later, I arrived at a rocky beach. Before me stretched the Mediterranean Sea. I stared across the water.
A crescent-shaped strip of land was jutting out to my left, forming a small bay. At the crescent’s very tip protruded Fort Qaitbay. I remembered the large castle from the guidebook I had been reading on the train. Fort Qaitbay stood at the site of the lost Alexandria Lighthouse—the creation of the Ptolemy kings and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
What a shame. Everything falls to time.
The Fort Qaitbay castle reminded me of Castel dell’ Ovo in Naples, also perched at the very tip of a jutting piece of land, also surrounded on all sides by water, as if it, too, could easily topple into the sea at any moment. I remembered having jumped from Castel dell’ Ovo into the Bay of Naples, terrified of the man who turned out to be an unlikely ally. Aldo de Luca. The man carrying a message for me from my dead husband. Trust nobody. Her 2.
I was standing on the Corniche next to a large open green space. I had read about this area on the train. I was in Midan Saad Zagloul, the site at which Cleopatra’s Needles—two enormous obelisks—once stood. Of course, they too were now gone.
Cleopatra had erected the obelisks as part of her Caesarium, a tribute planned for the deification of Julius Caesar, and of her son with him, Caesarion. The Caesarium was to be built in this very square. But she died before its completion. The Caesarium was finished by Octavian after he became Emperor Augustus.
As I recalled this, something clicked. I glanced out again at Fort Qaitbay, and then I turned to look behind me at the square. Beyond it were modern buildings, buildings that had been erected where the ancient library of Alexandria once stood. The lighthouse would have been visible from the library, and vice versa.
The lighthouse. The library. The Caesarium. All three lost to time.
But in my mind, the three ancient monuments appeared before me in all their grandeur, and I felt a chill through the warm Mediterranean air. Because I suddenly knew what I needed to do.
“I’m sorry, Jeff,” I said aloud.
I stepped across the square and into a pharmacy, where I purchased a bottle of sleeping pills.
Part III: Immortal
Fool! Don’t you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you?
-Cleopatra (69–30 BCE)
There is another building, too, that is highly celebrated; the tower that was built by a king of Egypt, on the island of Pharos, at the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria. The cost of its erection was eight hundred talents, they say…
The object of it is, by the light of its fires at night, to give warning to ships, of the neighbouring shoals, and to point out to them the entrance of the harbour.
-Natural History
Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE)
Chapter Twenty
Trust nobody. Her 2.
Trust nobody. Her 2.
The lighthouse. The library. The Caesarium. The Caesarium. The library. The lighthouse.
The world’s largest, most renowned library. The world’s largest, most renowned lighthouse. Within line of sight of each other. Both built by Cleopatra’s ancestors.
The Caesarium. A shrine to her son.
“I’m sorry, Jeff,” I said again through the fog as I nodded off to sleep.
There is an underground chamber. Within it burns an eternal flame. Above it burns a tribute to light—to light, coming from darkness.
There is Enlightenment.
There is a gentle rolling, like the rocking of a ship floating out to sea.
There is a gentle rolling, like the rocking of a ship floating out to sea.
I awaken.
A light is shining down upon me. I reach forward.
I awoke.
I reached forward. I parted a curtain and watched the swaths of green rolling past me. Beyond them were mounds of desert sand.
“Luxor,” I heard a voice call, and I retrieved my galabia from the rack above the bed. I was rocking back and forth as I dressed, my legs unsteady from the constant motion of the overnight train, my head cloudy from the sleeping pill.
The early morning light was pouring in through my open curtain.
The train slowed to a halt, and I stepped off.
Rarely in my life had I felt an innate biological need like the one I had for food that morning. As I sat salivating in a Luxor café, with the glorious scents of Egyptian cooking surrounding me, I realized just how little I had eaten the previous day.
The overnight train from Alexandria had served a miserable excuse for dinner. I had only taken a few bites while poring over my guidebook before reading a section of the book specifically about Egyptian food. The book warned, with a bit of ironic humor, that Western visitors to Egypt are almost certain to be sick from the food at least once during their stay. It then specified that food on overnight trains between Upper and Lower Egypt should be avoided at all costs. So I had put down my fork, feeling a bit nauseous, and instead popped a sleeping pill.
The food surrounding me now could have come from a different universe than that on the train. Tantalizing piles of eggs, meats, beans, cheeses, breads, and fresh fruits graced the tables near me, and at first, through force of habit, I tried not to stare at other patrons’ plates while waiting for my own gluttonous order. But then I realized it did not matter. They could not see me watching them. My face was completely covered.
Through the distraction of my rumbling stomach, I observed the tables around me, and I noticed something. In this café, unlike on the street, there were very few women in niqab. Apart from myself, there were only two: one was accompanied by a man, and the other by a man and two children.
I suddenly understood why I had been seated in a back corner of the restaurant. We all were.
Women with exposed faces, whether alone or in groups, were seated at the central, more public tables in the dining hall. The other niqabi and I were given the best seclusion that the restaurant’s dining room could afford us—the corner tables. Grateful that they could not see my gaze, I glanced back and forth between the other two women as it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how to eat in the outfit. Or if custom even allowed it.
When a waiter brought food to the table of the couple, I was happy to see two plates. The man moved his chair slightly closer to the woman’s left side, shielding her as best he could from the open dining hall. Her right side was close to the wall, and she mostly faced into the corner. When she flipped the niqab upward on the right side only, the side of her face nearest the other patrons was shielded by the veil’s other half and by the man. And so she began to eat.
The ritual vaguely reminded me of my own experiences, more than two decades ago, breast-feeding my infant daughter in public.
What a cruel, bizarre path my life has taken since then.
Over the front door, a TV was mounted to the wall. Footage of bombed-out buildings and angry, fist-shaking protestors was accompanied by an anchorwoman in hijab and a line of squiggly Arabic script marching backward across the screen, to be read from right to left. I stared absently up toward it through my veil as I chewed my food, deep in thought.
Cleopatra’s ancestors built the largest library the world had ever seen. They demanded that all ships docking at Alexandria surrender any books on board. Not treasures. Not gold. Neither incense nor myrrh. Books. And they used them to populate that library, which they kept to themselves.
Near the library, they built a lighthouse, one so magnificent it would become known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. With the light it emitted, the Ptolemies drew the ships to Alexandria like spiders casting a web across the sea. And then they pirated every single book—every single piece of intelligence—from the victims they ensnared with their lighthouse.
I’m sorry, Jeff, I thought again. Because I had every intention of following the example of the Ptolemies. And to do so, I needed to deny my late husband’s final wish. I needed to trust somebody.
It was yesterday that I learned how to eat in niqab.
After the meal, feeling remarkably refreshed, I took a deep breath and laid down my fork. I briefly considered the possibility that I had never enjoyed eating a meal so much in my life. Then I headed, once again, to the private sanctuary of a restroom stall and consulted the contents of my purse.
My euphoria was short-lived.
My hands began to shake as I withdrew a pair of ticket stubs, stiff from having been soaked with seawater. As I mentally reconciled the two parts of the phone number once again, I was reminded of the last time I had seen Dante Giordano. He had been kissing the cheeks of the man who had tried to kill me. I took a deep breath, held it, and closed my eyes. The shaking of my hands subsided.
There was a small phone booth near the restroom. I stepped inside and dialed.
“Buon giorno,” a familiar voice said a moment later.
“How would you feel about a free trip to Egypt?” I asked in my most playful tone.
“Are you kidding?” He laughed. “Where’s the plane?”
“There’s a catch,” I said. “I need you to bring someone with you. I’ve lost her number, but you can track her down in the Egyptian section of the Naples Archeological Museum. Her name is Alyssa Iacovani. And, Dante, please tell her I need her to bring the original document and its translation. She will know what I’m talking about.”
“Wait a minute,” Dante said. “I get to tour Egypt with two women? What did you say the catch is?”
Even across the miles, his laugh was infectious, and I almost believed in his innocence.
Be careful, Alyssa, I thought as I stepped out of the phone booth.
I slowly passed between the tables of the restaurant, cautious not to bump into anything or anyone.
As I approached the exit, I felt my smile fade into a frown. How badly I had misjudged Alyssa. I had come to Italy on a pre-conceived notion that she was, or was somehow connected to, Jeff’s murderer. And that she and my husband had possibly been lovers. How mistaken I was.
She had lost her husband, too. She had lost her entire family.
I could have believed Alyssa guilty of murder if there had been an illicit affair between her and Jeff. She could have been motivated by passion gone awry, by jealousy of me, or by scorn if he had changed his mind and dumped her. But there was no such motive. I had read private e-mails between them. Their relationship had been strictly professional. She had solicited his help as a scientist, and as a scientist he had offered it.
Why, then, would she kill him before the mystery she had solici
ted that help for was solved? There was no reason. She wouldn’t. It didn’t make sense.
I had nearly made an enemy of an ally, one Jeff had trusted. His message to me—“Trust nobody. Her 2”—clearly could not have been a reference to Alyssa.
I wondered again what my husband had meant by his message.
Was he referring to Alexis? Was he warning me that the cancer ransacking his body had infected her, too?
And then suddenly, there he was before me.
I halted in my tracks. For a moment, I stood motionless in the middle of the restaurant’s dining hall. Then I felt myself start to sway on my feet. With trembling hands, I clutched the nearest table, which mercifully was empty. I sat down quickly and hard on the chair beside it. And I continued to stare.
On the TV over the door was a full-view, still image of Jeff. I watched in disbelief as the image changed to a newscast.
What is he saying? I wondered desperately as the news anchor rambled in Arabic, the image of my husband now confined to a small corner of the screen.
The screen changed again, and this time it was my picture on the TV. I did not need a translator to understand what the image meant. Jeff’s body had been found, and now I was wanted.
I glanced around the restaurant.
They can’t see you. They can’t see you. They can’t see you.
I mentally repeated the words over and over, struggling to remain calm and, more importantly, to stay in control of my breathing. I tried to envision myself at this moment from an outsider’s perspective, sitting in this café in my black niqab, black hijab, black galabia, with bags at my sides that made me look chubby. Nobody would ever guess that I was the woman on the TV. I had to believe that.
The Vesuvius Isotope Page 21