by Knox, Tom
‘Yes.’
Hanna tittered. A couple of ex-pats – white businessmen – glanced over. ‘Well, well. How did you deal with the Zabaleen, Mr Sassoon? Did you fight them off with your walking stick?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The Zabaleen are perfectly mad. The poorest of our Coptic brethren. They brawl and they fornicate and they live in their palaces of swine and rubbish. They say life there is getting worse, the madness and the diseases, the mental afflictions, the suicides, all that horrible trash.’
‘I saw Qulta. I saw his body. I know he was murdered.’
Hanna stroked his goatee. Patiently waiting, like a cat that is confident of being fed.
Victor went on, ‘Do you know why he was killed, Mr Hanna? Albert? I know you have intimate connections across Coptic society. Was the Hoard stolen, is that why he was killed? Was it a violent robbery? The papers say nothing.’
The ex-pat white men were telling coarse jokes; and chortling.
At last Hanna spoke, leaning close. ‘Ah, but Mr Sassoon, does the Hoard even exist? What can I say? I can barely speak. My throat is quite dry. Parched as the Qattara Depression.’ Hanna looked at his empty glass, then at Victor.
The message was clear. Sassoon ordered the most expensive cognac for his companion.
Hanna accepted the glass, and sniffed the liquor, and tasted it with a wince of pleasure. Then he gazed around the quiet old bar. ‘God bless the old Bodega. One of the very last oases of civilization in Cairo,’ he said. ‘You know the British Satanist Aleister Crowley had his famous thelemic revelation here?’
‘In 1904, the Book of the Law.’
‘Quite so! You really are the scholar of your reputation. Crowley’s wife saw the so-called stele of revealing, the stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, in the Bulaq Museum.’
‘Item number 666.’
‘Then she began raving, and he repaired to his apartment, probably in this building, and had his moment of intimacy with the divine, his theophany – or perhaps some more opium? Crowley was so very fond of opium. My grandfather knew him. Apparently he liked to be sodomised by Nubians. But this is true of many.’
‘I don’t have much time, Mr Hanna. Please tell me: how much do you know about Qulta and the Sokar Hoard? I can pay, and I have a lot of money.’
The correct switch had evidently been thrown. Hanna’s evasive smile disappeared and he gazed directly at Sassoon. ‘Five thousand dollars and I will tell you all I know.’
Sassoon didn’t even bother to haggle. The sum was large, but he was too old and tired, and too eager and excited, to haggle. And he had enough money. A lifetime’s savings.
‘I have it here. In cash.’ He reached in his blazer pocket, opened his calfskin wallet and took out a wad of new, one-hundred dollar bills. He briskly counted out twenty notes and arranged them in a neat and tempting stack. ‘Two thousand now. Three thousand if your assistance is as valuable as I hope.’
Benjamin Franklin stared at the ceiling.
Hanna snatched up the notes and thrust them in his pocket, his expression businesslike.
‘From what I understand, Monsieur Sassoon – and this may or may not be true, but my half-brother is quite senior in the Coptic church, and he knew Qulta – yes, the Sokar Hoard does exist. And yes the documents are said to be, potentially, a revelation. Some of them are in French and Arabic and quite legible, but the oldest, most crucial and, unfortunately, most incomprehensible, documents are in Akhmimic. Qulta was a scholar of Akhmimic, so it was hoped he could translate these most opaque Coptic documents. And so he was allowed to take the Hoard to his monastery in Moqqatam for further scrutiny.’
‘That’s why he was killed, someone stole it? Theref—’
‘Wait.’ Hanna frowned. ‘Brother Qulta’s indiscretion did not meet with the approval of his superiors. The emails to your friend, the rumours he allowed to spread – they were attracting unwelcome attention. He was ordered to shut his foolish mouth.’
‘The Hoard?’
‘Furthermore … when the latest troubles began in Cairo, the riots, the strife, the threats against Coptic communities, the Pope himself – our own Coptic pope – decided that the Hoard should be taken somewhere safer. So it is alleged.’
‘But where? Where did it go?’
The bar was getting even darker, as the winter evening finally descended on Cairo’s grimy streets. Hanna shook his head gravely. ‘Who can say? These things are occult. But I have heard this: a few days before his death, Brother Qulta took a trip to the Monastery of St Anthony.’
‘The oldest monastery! By the Red Sea. Yes. Of course. Remote, untouched. A perfect place to keep a treasure.’
‘And a tiresome journey across the eastern sands. Why did Qulta do that? Why do that if not for some serious reason? He must have taken the Hoard with him, to hand it over. That is what I believe.’
Sassoon was confused. ‘But if the Hoard was not in Qulta’s possession, why was he killed? You mean it wasn’t a robbery?’
Hanna picked up his glass, and swirled the cognac. ‘Perhaps he was killed because of what he knew, perhaps because of what he said. Perhaps he was secretly canoodling with the belly-dancer mistress of a major-general in Heliopolis. It is a mystery. And there it is. C’est tout. Would you like something else while we are? Here. Look. I have a precious jar of Mummy Violet.’ Like a cardsharp, Hanna flourished a small silvery, seemingly antique steel jar from a pocket of his suit jacket, and carefully unscrewed the top. ‘It is a pigment used by painters, made from the decayed corpses of the Egyptian dead, from mummies, mummiya, hence its name: Mummy Violet. I believe the Pre-Raphaelite artists were very fond of it, the hue it offers is intense, though of course some find the concept, eheu, politically incorrect, and a touch Hitlerite, like those lampshades. Consequently it is very rare, I can sell it for two thousand US dollars – a pigment made from the desiccated flesh of the ancient dead – imagine what your exciting London artists could do with that!’
Sassoon stood up. He had his information.
Hanna raised a hand, looking up at him. ‘Please, Monsieur Sassoon, I did not wish to offend. The Jews are a great people, and I know you are a great believer, as well as a great scholar. Allow me to say one more thing.’
‘What?’ Sassoon was impatient to get going.
‘Mr Sassoon, please be careful.’
‘You mean it is dangerous? The journey?’
‘No. Yes. A little. But it is more that … you might be careful of what you wish for. My half-brother told me that when he saw Qulta …’ Hanna’s face was almost invisible, the velvet-draped bar was now so dark. ‘The poor monk was quite deranged. It seems the contents of the Hoard are, in some form, sincerely devastating. Really quite calamitous.’
But Sassoon didn’t care to listen; he was already walking to the door. The idea had entirely seized him with its romance, its intense biblicality. To find his prize, his promised treasure, he had to cross the Egyptian wilderness, to the very shores of the Red Sea.
Like Moses.
5
The Monastery of St Anthony, the Red Sea, Egypt
It took Sassoon two days to find a taxi driver who was willing to make the journey. The driver who finally agreed was fifty, and shifty, and hungry, and desperate, and he said he would charge Sassoon five hundred dollars for the job. He spoke a slangy Arabic so accented it sounded like a different language, but Sassoon certainly understood the figure ‘500’ when the man wrote it with a stubby pencil on his tattered map of Egypt.
They left at dawn to avoid the rush hour but got caught in traffic anyway. It took two hours for them to crawl out of the final dreary suburbs of Cairo, past the last shuttered Coptic grocer, with its defaced sign advertising Stella beer; and then they headed into the grey austerity of the Eastern Desert, the rolling dunes and stony flats, stretched out beneath an overcast sky.
The driver played loud quartertoned Arab music all the way, music that sent Sassoon half crazy. It felt like the music of delirium.
But he was also glad that he didn’t have to talk to the driver. Talking would be pointless anyway: they couldn’t understand each other.
Six hours later they attained the outskirts of Suez, and the driver made an extensive detour, avoiding the centre of the city entirely. Sassoon guessed why: the Al Jazeera English news had told him last night. Central Suez was in uproar. Riots were wracking the city, several youths had died and, even worse somehow, several people had been blinded by plastic bullets aimed deliberately at their eyes. The televised image of one protestor, his sockets empty yet filled with blood, had stayed with Sassoon for half the night.
The hours droned past. The wailing music droned on. The desert became emptier and dustier. It was now clear they weren’t going to make it in a day, so the driver pulled into a scruffy truckstop with a village attached.
What looked from the distance like a public lavatory turned out to be their designated resting place. A ‘hotel’ with cracked windows, five rusting beds, and one shared and fetid bathroom. Sassoon drank whisky, alone, in his bare cement room, to force himself to sleep. The mosquitoes danced around his face, drunkenly, as he nodded out.
Morning cracked blue. The sun of the desert had won. And Sassoon’s spirits rose as the driver slowed, and turned the music down, and Sassoon caught his first glimpse of the Monastery of St Anthony, lost in the fathomless depths of the desert.
It looked enchanting: a complex of spires and tiled arches and archaic chapels, tucked into a fold of red desert rocks. This was it, the oldest monastery in the world, founded by St Anthony in 250 AD.
The car stopped; Victor disembarked. ‘Shukran,’ he said, handing over the dollars.
The driver took the cash, shrugged, gave Victor a faint smile of pity; then he turned on the hollering music, and sped away.
Hoisting his heavy bags, Victor stumbled across the road and under the arch. At once he was engulfed by the silence, the silence of silent worship, of punitive adoration, the silence of the endless Red Sea sun.
And then a monk came out from a darkened chamber, squinting at this sweating old man in his ludicrous blazer with his walking stick, and the young monk smiled quietly and said, in accented English, ‘Hi, I am Brother Basili. Andrew Basili. This way please. You are a pilgrim? You can stay here, no worries. There are no other visitors, they’re all too scared of the troubles. You must be pretty brave. This way. Over here. Guess you’ll want some refreshment? You are in time for breakfast.’
Breakfast turned out to be austere plates of olives and flatbread, and carafes of water, consumed at a long table in the refectory in almost total silence, apart from a monk intoning the psalms.
During the morning Victor was left to do as he pleased. In the central courtyard, the sun blazed. The monastery was mute. One youthful monk was hurrying about his business, keeping to the shade of the stumpy colonnades.
Victor approached. ‘Salaam—’
But the monk shook his head. When Victor tried again, the young monk blushed and fled.
Victor sat on a stone bench, rubbed his aching chest and read his guidebook.
‘The body of St Justus the monk is kept in a passage by the Church of the Apostles …’
In the afternoon he located the monastery library, domed and white, and delicately frescoed with images. A reverential hush pervaded the eight-hundred-year-old room: it felt wrong to talk. But Victor had to try, and Brother Andrew Basili was at the other end of the library, immersed in at least three open books.
‘Hello,’ said Victor.
Basili’s smile was brief and a little cold. He evidently didn’t want to be interrupted. But Victor had to try.
‘This is a fine library.’
Basili’s nod was terse. ‘Used to be better. Then the Bedouins raided it, in the eighteenth century. They burned many of our volumes as cooking fuel.’
Victor listened, finally placing the accent. Australian. This was not unexpected; Sassoon knew that many young men from the Coptic Diaspora – in Australia, Canada, America – were returning to Egypt to renew their church, in defiance of the troubles and the hostilities. Many Coptic monasteries were, paradoxically, flourishing for the first time in centuries.
‘You’re from Sydney?’
‘Nah. Brissie.’ Basili sighed. ‘Now, sorry, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got my studies.’
Supper was the same as breakfast, apart from a single beaker of vinegary wine.
The next day it became apparent that no one was going to speak to Victor, not properly, not ever. Most of the monks shrank at his approach. The few who did linger were so shy and kind and virginal it was emotionally impossible to ask about the Sokar Hoard. The only time he did mention the terrible phrase, to an elderly, English-speaking monk from Port Said, the man scowled and stalked away.
As the days passed and shortened in their repetitiveness, their mesmerizing and beautiful dullness, Victor found himself giving up. Wandering out of the monastery gate, into the sunburned desert, he sat under the thorn trees, and stared at his absurd leather shoes and his absurd twill trousers and he felt like a fraud, just a dying and childless narcissist. Maybe he was seeking mere glory, and he deserved to fail. Maybe it was all just spiritual vanity.
On the fifth day Victor was woken as usual by a softly tolling bell, even before the darkness had dispelled. Opening the thin cotton curtain, he gazed at the first tinge of the sun, still hiding behind Sinai, just a roseate rumour at the dark edge of heaven.
‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.’
Crossing the silent square at the centre of the monastery, Victor creaked open the door to the church and joined the thrumming tranquil hubbub of the monks in their daily Matins: the Agbeia.
‘Khen efran em-efiout, nem Epshiri, nem Piepnevma ethowab ounouti en-owoat.’
The pew was painful to sit in for so long. Victor shifted and listened. The hour of prayer passed slowly, and hypnotically. And then the last of the prayer was intoned.
‘Doxa Patri, ke Eyo kai Agio epnevmati ounouti en-owoat. Amin.’
The words were bewildering, and lovely, in their strangeness, their syncretism. You could hear all of religious history in these Coptic words: maybe a touch of Aramaic, more than a hint of Greek, and certainly the very syllables of ancient Egyptian – it was like a Pharaoh sitting up in his tomb, and turning, in a nightmare, and talking to Victor. Blood seeping from his decaying mouth.
A sudden coldness swept up his limbs, and into his heart, and Victor fell to the floor.
Darkness. Darkness.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
The next thing he realized, he was in some kind of kitchen staring at the kindly young faces of half a dozen monks. They were daubing his forehead with water.
‘I … What happened?’
‘You fainted.’ It was Andrew Basili. ‘Are ya OK? We can get a doctor … in a day or so.’
‘I am so very sorry,’ Victor said. He was acutely embarrassed, as if he had publicly soiled himself. ‘I am an old fool. I shouldn’t have come. I am so sorry.’
The other monks dispersed, black cloaks whispering, leaving him alone with Brother Andrew. The sun was up now.
‘So, why did you come?’
‘I came to find out something. Something very important to me. I want to know about Brother Wasef Qulta. A monk murdered in Cairo. He came here, about two weeks ago. And I want to know why.’
Andrew Basili said nothing. For a long, long time. Then he nodded. ‘Look, I don’t really know anything about that stuff. Sorry. If you are feeling better, maybe you should go back to Cairo?’
Once more, silence filled the sparse monastic kitchen.
In his desperation, Victor Sassoon decided to do something quite terrible. Something he had never done before in his life.
‘Brother Basili, the reason I ask all this is that I believe Brother Qulta was carrying documents which relate to the history of my Jewish faith. I am a sc
holar of this area. The texts may be written in a language few can understand. I may be one of those few.’
Brother Andrew said nothing. Victor went on,
‘The history of my faith is very important to me. Because … you see …’ Very slowly, Victor Sassoon pulled up the cuff of his blazer, unbuttoned his shirt and revealed the markings to the Australian.
The monk’s eyes widened. He gazed at the small, faded tattoo on Victor’s left arm. ‘You were in the camps?’
Victor nodded, suppressing the fierce rush of shame. How could he use this as blackmail, as emotional bribery? It was the worst of sins: the Shoah as a bargaining device.
But he didn’t care.
‘Auschwitz. I was a tiny boy, one of the last, from Holland, we were taken there in 1944, but the Russians saved us. Then … well, we had a British side to the family, they took me in after the war. My mother and father died in the … in the camp. All my Dutch family. They died. That’s when I resolved to keep my faith alive, my Jewishness.’
The ensuing silence was different. Brother Basili sighed, rubbed his face, shook his handsome young head. Then he pulled up his own wooden chair and sat next to Victor. For a moment, Basili stared at the wall.
Victor could see the confusion in his profile. Finally, Basili spoke. ‘I guess there is no harm in telling you what I know. ’Cause I don’t know much.’ He made a weary gesture. ‘Brother Qulta visited his mentor. Brother Kelada. A scholar, an anchorite. Qulta had documents on him, I have no idea what they said, I know they were old and valuable.’
‘How valuable?’
Basili turned, and his young face flushed with a tiny hint of pride.
‘Priceless! The Coptic church is the source of everything. We are the original church! The church founded by St Mark the Evangelist. The church of the gospel of St John.’ He shook his head, then continued, with real passion. ‘Even the very oldest copy of the Bible in the world is Coptic – the Codex Sinaiticus!’
Victor nodded.
‘I know the story. Stolen by a German from St Katherine’s in Sinai. Then given by Stalin to the British, yes?’
