The Cairo Codex (25 page)

The sky was crimson by the time Andrea’s dark blue Kia left the city limits and entered the desert road south to Cairo. “The delta is beautiful this time of evening,” Andrea observed. “We will not please Amir, however, because we can’t get back to Cairo before dark.”

“Nasser will be anxious too,” added Justine.

“Mmm . . . I find it delightful that two handsome men worry about us.
N’est pas, chérie?
” They laughed uneasily, both stinging from the revelation of the missing pages. For Andrea, the humiliation had sprung from a failure to discover the deletion herself; for Justine, it had not challenged her expertise, which was slim at best, but fed a simmering fear that she had stumbled into something more complex and dangerous than she was prepared for.

“What did you notice when you looked at the codex, Andrea?” she finally asked.

“The title page is gone, as well as a few of the following pages. Just as Al Rasul reported. They had to have disappeared in the last few days. I didn’t check it when I placed it in the briefcase just before we left Cairo.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Bear with me while I just think aloud. There aren’t many times when pages could have been removed. They could have been taken from Ibrahim’s office, or Amir’s family home. Since someone is following and threatening you, we can assume there are people who want the codex either taken or destroyed. But the fact is: the pages had to have been removed since the last time I examined the codex less than two days before we left for Alexandria!” Andrea paused.

“Then we should assume that the missing pages may reveal an unthinkable, unrevealable truth,” said Justine, thrilled by her own pronouncement.

“The thief would have to know exactly what he or she was doing, which pages to take out. There are extraordinary scholars at Al Azhar, many of whom are interested in suppressing any information counter to accepted belief, but how would they have gotten access to the codex?” Andrea kept her eyes on the busy road as she reached down to fiddle with the broken heater.

Justine pulled their jackets from the backseat, surprised by how sharply the temperature had fallen as night swept over the Sahara. To her right, the shadows of three galloping camels moved across the darkening desert sands like sailboats on an open sea. Several moments passed before she asked distractedly, “Where was the codex during those days? With Ibrahim?”

Andrea nodded. “With Ibrahim. He keeps it in a small safe under his desk. But he isn’t in the office all of the time, and security is never that good. There are guards at the gate, yet the garden walls seem fragile. I’m anxious to tell Ibrahim and see where it leads. There’s little we can conclude for now.” The muscles around her lips contracted.

They sped along in silence for some time. The twilight deepened to purple, and a fuchsia ribbon formed along the horizon. Andrea said evenly, “Headlights from a large black car have kept a steady distance behind us for some time. It doesn’t seem to draw closer or fall further behind. Not the typical Egyptian driver.”

“Do you think we’re being followed?” Justine turned around to see the car, but it was nearly impossible in the twilight.

“A good possibility. I’m going to speed up and find out if they keep pace with us. The Wadi Natrun rest house is just a few miles ahead.”

Justine couldn’t keep her eyes off the headlights shining in the rearview mirror. Andrea varied her speed. Each time, the driver of the car behind them adjusted his speed, keeping the same distance between them. It was as though the pursuing car was attached to their bumper by a long metal rod.

Andrea pulled into the parking lot of the rest house. The Mercedes slowly drove on.

Inside, they sat at a table. Coffee was about all they could handle at the moment.

“No chocolate cookies?” Justine asked somberly.

“I didn’t see any,” replied Andrea, distracted. “Perhaps I should call Amir and ask him to call the desert police, a special patrol in these parts of the open road.”

“Do you think we should get back on the road?” She glanced at the door each time it opened. She knew she would recognize the unforgettable face of the man from the Khan if she saw it.

“We have little choice. This place will close up soon and we’ll be sitting ducks.”

They drank the rest of the bitter coffee in silence. When they pulled back onto the road, they were driving for less than a kilometer before the familiar headlights reappeared. “There’s no doubt now that we’re being followed. I’m only hoping they just want to scare us. I called Amir while you were in the restroom.”

“And? What did you tell him?”
What would I want to tell him? He’s tried to distance himself from Zachariah, yet Ibrahim says they’re very close. In the Khan, he was suspicious, evasive. Why was he there? Then, the next morning at Groppi’s—he refused to make eye contact. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he took the missing pages. He certainly has access.

“I told him we were being followed and to call the desert police.”

“Fine,” Justine said irritably, reluctant to share her suspiciousness of Amir until she was more sure. “Fine! The police aren’t likely to show up very quickly, are they? We could be dead by then.”

“Or worse. They could steal the codex,” Andrea said grimly.

The Mercedes’ headlights drew closer. Andrea pushed the accelerator to the floor. The speedometer read 95 kilometers when the intruders pulled alongside them as though the Kia were standing still and began nudging the car toward the ditch running parallel with the highway. Andrea slowed down; the Mercedes slowed in concert.

The right wheels, then the left wheels, of the Kia began to vibrate as it hit the soft sand on the shoulder of the road. Fenders screeched as the two cars collided. Andrea could no longer control the car. Justine placed her hand on Andrea’s shoulder, squeezed tight, and closed her eyes. Panic rippled through her body as Andrea cried out, “Here we go!” The Mercedes turned back onto the shoulder at the last moment as the Kia spun off the edge and stopped violently in the ditch below. Justine was thrown forward, hitting her head on the dashboard. Andrea’s body stopped short of plummeting into the steering wheel, restrained by the only seatbelt in the car.

The pursuing car parked not more than five meters from their left bumper. The Kia’s headlights sprayed eerily across the desert beyond.

For several moments the two women sat still. Justine put her hand to her forehead, feeling the pain throbbing in her recent stitches. Haunting images were sketched by the strangely dispersed light. Remnants of the ancient sea of Tethys formed the outlines of shallow lakes, while spongy wetlands of open water harbored what appeared like paper cutouts of ducks and cranes.

“Are you okay, Justine?” Andrea finally asked, reaching for the briefcase and shoving it under her seat.

“Nothing seems to be broken, but I hit my head,” answered Justine, attempting to examine her arms and legs, trembling all over. “You?”

Two figures emerged from the Mercedes and headed toward the Kia. One slipped on the loose sand and nearly slid into the door on the driver’s side. Justine watched the second man through the rear view mirror. Neither she nor Andrea moved. The man to Andrea’s left stood up and seemed to wait for the other man as he placed his hand on the left fender of their car and lowered himself into the ditch. Justine snapped on the interior light, causing the man with the misshapen lip to cover his eyes.

Just then, the larger man grabbed the arm of the man from the Khan, pointed in the direction of the desert, and motioned him away. They turned and quickly raced back to the car, speeding into the distance. Another car slowed as though preparing to stop, then continued on toward Cairo. The two women stared at each other in disbelief and opened their doors, stepping out into the soft, still-warm sand.

As they gazed into the dimly lit desert, they saw two figures looming in the darkness. In the far distance, three rounded forms and a steeple crowned with miniature crosses broke through the afterglow of the evening.

As the figures in deep brown robes approached the car, Justine called out, “Did Mary send you?”

“Mary is always with us,” smiled the shorter of the two monks.

“Y
OU SAID WHAT?” EXCLAIMED
N
ADIA, GAZING
at Justine with amusement. “Since when did Mary become your guardian angel?” After a day in the community school in the City of the Dead, the two women were attempting to relax in Justine’s overly warm apartment.

“I don’t understand it either. I was feeling panicky. After all, I did hit my head. Again. I’m beginning to feel like a punching bag. When the ghostly figures came out of the desert, everything became surreal,” she said, perspiring from the heat that tenaciously held on to the long afternoon. She handed Nadia a cold bottle of Evian and took a long drink from her own.

“I see a new bruise. What’s this all about, Justine?” Nadia held the cool bottle to her forehead. The slowly rotating ceiling fan moved the warm air without cooling it. “It’s not routine that people who come to Cairo get chased and threatened.”

“My dreams have been so vivid since the earthquake. Reality seems to be blending with illusion. Do you think I’m losing my mind?” She looked at Nadia with wide, moist eyes, recalling Joan Didion’s notion of the “shallowness of sanity.” Had she dipped below that shallow patina?

“Perhaps.” Nadia smiled warmly. “But I think I have a right to know: what is going on?”

“You do have a right to know,” Justine admitted.

“Let’s start with last night. Who were your saviors?” Nadia left sanity to sort itself out.

“Two monks from the Wadi Natrun Monastery who were walking toward the rest house. They noticed the commotion and headed toward us. While we were talking, the desert police pulled up. Then Amir.” Justine relaxed into the details of the story.

“Amir?”

“Andrea had called him from the rest house.” She left it at that.

Nadia was pensive, but held firm: “Why, Justine? Why is all of this happening?”

Justine took a deep breath and imagined Andrea there beside her. “Don’t tell anyone,” she would say. She shook her head to clear it, sighed, and began: “During the earthquake I found an old book in the crypt.” She paused to take off her shoes; Nadia removed her loafers. “We took it to the Alexandria Bibliotheca to have it analyzed. Partially, at least. I’m sure the men were after the book, called a codex. But why, I don’t know. They couldn’t know its value; my god, we don’t even know what it is. All we know is that it’s very old and some sort of personal journal.” She trusted Nadia, and trust was not a nebulous concept to Justine.

“Why would they want it?” pressed Nadia. “To destroy it, suppress it?”

“Search me. For some reason they think they know more than we do.” Justine left the complication of the missing pages to another time.

“Egypt has very exacting rules with the United Nations, Non-Governmental Organizations, and Western countries,” Nadia said darkly. “If you’re a guest here, best to stay away from political and religious conflict.” She smiled belatedly, but it didn’t do much to soften her words.

Justine blinked.
Now she tells me!

“I don’t drive in Cairo anymore,” explained Ibrahim as Justine slid into the taxi beside him on the following day. “I’m afraid I’ll kill someone.”

“Very wise,” she assured him. “I haven’t attempted driving here yet, but I’m planning to get an old car as soon as I can figure out how to maneuver through the streets.” Just arrived back from a school, she’d barely had time to put on a fresh blouse and wash her face before Ibrahim had called to say he was waiting downstairs. She observed the professor closely; he was relaxed and playful, although she was sure that Andrea had talked to him about the missing pages.

“Good luck,” Ibrahim laughed. “The Ministry of Transportation hired a German team of traffic experts a few years ago to tell us how to improve the situation. After many months, they realized that we Egyptians were not going to stop at red lights, so they recommended this crazy system of one-way streets where you have to make U-turns to go in the other direction.” Ibrahim adjusted his French tam, a present from Andrea. “Driving here is a dance. That’s the secret,” he revealed, as though it was an insight that could only be gained by years of struggle.