by Knox, Tom
‘It’s a particular and notorious form of Coptic sorcery. Very ancient.’
She shook her head. ‘Please explain.’
‘I believe the spells on this page are from an authentic version of the Abra-Melin rite. Ultimately this magic comes from Araki, a little town near here.’
She shrugged, and glanced down at her camera. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Because I was shown a similar, more complete papyrus a couple of years ago, in Cairo, by a dealer. He wanted my opinion. Their papyrus was a very early version of Abra-Melin, just like this papyrus. Though he had the full text. That complete version was sold at auction, to someone in Israel.’
Helen frowned, puzzled.
‘Israel. OK. That is a connection. But what does it mean?’
‘I don’t know. It’s confusing, isn’t it? At the very least someone is unearthing lots of these documents. Perhaps they are all from the same cache?’
Ryan turned at a noise. Albert Hanna had opened the door, and was gesturing, his face concerned and frowning. ‘A problem.’
‘What?’
‘See for yourself.’
Ryan stepped out and gazed across the foyer. There was a disturbance at the entrance to the hotel. People were crowded at the glass doors, peering out, straining to see something. They seemed excited, or deeply anxious.
Quickly, Ryan followed Albert Hanna to the entrance. ‘Albert, what’s happening? What is it?’
The Coptic dealer pointed a manicured finger upwards. Ryan now realized that everyone was staring upwards. Across the street, people were gathered on the pavement also looking up. Some were shouting, ‘La! La!’ – No! No! Others were heckling and jeering, angrily.
Or exultantly.
Ryan looked up. There was a grimy concrete apartment block opposite, with a large balcony on every floor. Most of the balconies were deserted, but the top balcony was crammed with angry men, waving fists, shouting, ‘Allahu Akhbar!’ – God is great!
Then Ryan saw, in the middle of the crowd on the balcony, the focus of this anger and wildness. A young lad was being lifted up, carried towards the front of the balcony, hoisted by furious hands.
It seemed, appallingly and grotesquely, that the men were going to throw the boy off the balcony. The drop to the road was twenty metres.
Ryan gasped. They really were going to do it. Murder him, in front of everyone!
‘Jesus, Albert. What the hell?’
Hanna shook his head. ‘Listen! Can’t you hear what they are saying?’
‘What?’
‘The crowd is chanting. The boy is a Copt. Apparently he walked into a Muslim house and assaulted a girl. So now of course the Muslims are going to kill him.’
‘Is it true?’
Albert shrugged, contemptuously. ‘The crowds believe it, the family believe it. The boy has no chance. So now he dies. Maybe we can have some tea after.’
‘Fuck this. We can stop it.’
‘Oh please, my friend, not the American superhero. Are you going to fly up there in a special embroidered cape? This is Egypt. The Muslims kill us for their sport.’
Ryan didn’t listen. He couldn’t watch a young boy being thrown to his death, like this, in broad daylight – it was a lynching. He’d spent too many years in Egypt and heard of too many atrocities like this: for once he was going to do something. He was liberated from his job, now he could be himself. What did he have to lose? He was Ryan Harper.
And he was four inches taller than most of the men here.
He barged his way through the glass door, then the pungent giddy crowd. Seconds later he found the apartment door on the street – wide open – and pushed himself inside, and up the stairs. He was running now.
One storey, two, three, four. This must be it. Again the door was open, people skipping in and out excitedly. They stared at Ryan in astonishment. He pushed them easily aside and made for the main room and the balcony. He was going to save this kid. He had to. It was wrong, he could save him.
The balcony was heaving with people, but Ryan shoved, using his strength: the boy was standing on the railings now, the men getting ready to throw him.
Ryan flailed his way to the front, and reached out. He could save him. He reached for the boy’s legs to pull him to safety.
But at that moment the boy fell.
18
Sohag, Egypt
Even as Ryan reached for the kid’s cheap blue jeans, the Coptic boy fell from the balcony – and Ryan grabbed his ankle. The boy yelled, in horror and shock and surprise as Ryan employed all his aching strength to drag him back up over the balcony, to safety.
For a few seconds an epic silence prevailed, as if the entirety of teeming Middle Egypt had drawn breath.
Then the shouting started: angry, sweating men jabbing fingers at Ryan and the lad – What are you doing, he tried to rape her! The Zarraba kid was a rapist! What right have you got? It was very ugly and very dangerous. Ryan backed slowly away, moving into the room, protecting the kid with a fatherly arm. For several minutes he waited, with the boy, cornered, but trying to stay calm and still, his hands raised submissively, hoping the angry men would calm down. The Coptic lad whimpered beside him, hiding in his rescuer’s shadow.
But the mood didn’t abate; the mood was worsening. Now he saw why: dark shades in the corners, the women of the house, affronted by a strange male, hiding their faces like terrified ghosts.
This was worse than bad. Quite possibly the house was orthodox Muslim: Salafist. So in saving the kid Ryan had committed a cardinal sin by intruding on the family space, forcing the women to veil themselves in their own house. A terrible error.
A dozen men were shouting, one old man with half a row of teeth was tugging his hair.
‘Someone call the police. Lock him in a room. The American. Let’s put him in a cell. And the Coptic boy. Take them!’
Thrusting the old toothless man aside, Ryan grabbed the boy’s hand and bolted. He pushed open a door and threw himself and the lad down the dull concrete stairs, feeling the adrenaline of panic, two stairs at a time, three, jump, run. The voices were coming after him.
‘Stop him, stop the American, the dog, the fucking dog, the son of a pimp! Stop his dog of a boy!’
Five, six, seven stairs. Here was the door; half-closed. He kicked it open violently and the light outside almost blinded him.
But they were out, in the street. The crowds roiled as a platoon of policemen pushed through. A big police van was attempting to shunt the crowds apart, to drive them back. Where was Helen? Where was Hanna? What had happened to them? He could still hear the men behind him, still shouting, ‘Fuck him, the American, the monkey’s ass: there he is, by the hotel, there’s the boy, go and get them—’
‘Ryan!’
He swivelled. It was Hanna – gesturing. ‘Quickly!’ He was beckoning Ryan inside the hotel lobby whence they had emerged. There was little choice: Ryan dragged the boy inside.
The hotel lobby was quiet. Everyone was staring at them, the tall American and the small, scruffy Coptic lad: headscarved women were staring from their undrunk cups of shay, in contempt and dismay, as if Ryan had committed some awful crime, as if he had pushed the kid off the balcony, rather than saving him.
‘La.’
The boy wrenched his hand free of Ryan’s grasp. His eyes were filled with panicky tears.
Ryan spoke to him, quickly, in Arabic. ‘You must come with us. They will take you again. They will kill you.’
Hanna intervened. ‘This way.’ He pattered down the steps of the lobby out onto the terrace overlooking the Nile. ‘We have your bags. That was brave and very stupid. And now we have a boy to save. Let us go to the river.’
It clicked. Ryan realized, yes, of course, the Nile. There was a small flight of stairs leading from the grubby hotel terrace down to a pier. And yes, there was a small motorboat, with a tall Arab man in a white djellaba, frowning and anxious. Helen was already inside the boat with their bags. She waved urgently.
Instantly, suddenly, amazingly, peace descended; the peace of the eternal river, the cool breeze of the blessed Nile. They were OK, they had escaped.
The nearest bridge was maybe a mile downstream and jammed with traffic, there were no other boats in sight apart from one big coal barge, floating upstream. Ryan sat back, watching the East Bank recede, the hotel and the horror, the crowds. The boy sat at the end of the boat, covering his face with his hands. He looked barely sixteen, hardly more than a child.
Helen shook her head. Her eyes were also a little red. Had she been crying? The sight must have been ghastly from below.
Hanna was talking to the boy. ‘Why did you do it? What did you do in there?’
The Coptic boy said nothing. His T-shirt was an advert for a ten-year-old Batman movie. His teeth were very white, his eyes very dark. A handsome young lad, but just a boy. Shamed and cowering.
Helen interrupted. ‘Give him a chance. He … they were about to murder him.’
Everyone was momentarily silent.
The West Bank of the Nile was nearly in reach, the white-robed boatman was standing. Ryan looked at the boy. ‘What is your name? Please tell us. Where are you from? How can we help you?’
The boy shook his head; then he stood up and jumped from the boat onto the riverside, as the boat collided with some disused old tyres hanging from the dilapidated wooden jetty.
‘Wait!’ Ryan jumped on to the jetty. ‘Please, wait!’
The boy paused. He nodded in an odd fashion, his eyes bulging, as he yelled, in Arabic, ‘You do not understand. Why did you stop them? I did it. I walked into the house, I touched their girl. I knew they would find me and try to kill me. I wanted them to kill me. I wanted them to kill me. I am Zarraba.’
Then he turned on his heel, and ran.
Ryan looked at Hanna, who looked at Ryan.
Helen cried, ‘What? What did he say?’
‘He said he wanted to die. He said he went into the house, hoping they would kill him.’
‘Then he was clearly suicidal.’ Hanna smoothed his goatee. ‘And your attempt to save him was egregious.’
The boatman had finished tethering his vessel. Ryan felt the snag of something nasty, tugging at his memory. ‘But there’s something else. The Muslim men. They called the boy Zarraba, pig person. That’s another name for the Zabaleen, isn’t it? And isn’t that where it all began? Sassoon, in Cairo?’
It was Helen who answered. ‘Yes. The murdered monk, seen by Sassoon. Wasef Qulta. He was a monk at the Monastery of the Caves in Moqqatam. Where the Zabaleen live.’
The white-robed boatman was waiting patiently for payment.
Hanna frowned. ‘A seductive mystery. But we’re not going to solve it here and now. Nonetheless the documents in our possession become ever more intriguing. And potentially remunerative. Mr Harper, you will have to translate it, you studied under Sassoon. In London. You can do this.’
‘It’s impossible. I had a look – I don’t know Akhmimic.’
‘Nothing is impossible. Quantum physics says the moon is potentially made of Brie. If anyone can translate those papyri, it is you. But come – first you need peace. I know a place where we can hide, for a few days, here, in Panopolis, the ancient city of Min, the Ninth Nome of Egypt. Akhmim.’
Hanna paid off the boatman with a handsome wad of Egyptian pounds. The three of them crossed the quayside to the street, where Ryan surveyed the quiet scene: low houses, donkey carts, a few barber shops; it was all much quieter than Sohag.
A few minutes later they were climbing out of a taxi in the centre of Akhmim.
By Egyptian standards the town was pretty, if impoverished: distressed churches leaned against even older mosques; weavers sat in houses by large open windows, to catch the light. Weaving was an ancient trade here, as Ryan knew. Some of the oldest textiles in Egypt came from Akhmim: the town’s lineage was extraordinary.
‘I have friends here,’ said Hanna. ‘An old Coptic family, quite distinguished. We can rest and hide out, like fugitives! We are safe, for the moment, from all that unpleasant kerfuffle in Sohag. Just along here – yes.’
They had come to a large modern house overlooking a scruffy open space used as a haphazard open-air museum; even from here Ryan could see a statue of Bastet, the cat goddess, and Sekhmet, with his lion head.
The Egyptologist in Ryan would normally have been deeply intrigued: he’d always wanted to visit Akhmim, given its amazing history, and had never quite found the time. But right now he wanted to be in a room, with the air conditioning on. And the doors firmly closed. The memory of the boy’s face wouldn’t leave him. Why did the Zabaleen boy want to kill himself? Was it just coincidence that he was Zabaleen? Or did it connect – somehow – to Qulta’s murder?
The door of the house swung open. They were taken inside by a smiling, attractive, unveiled, middle-aged woman, who chattered in Arabic with Hanna. She wore a crucifix, kissed Hanna on the cheek, teased him about his pot belly. Helen disappeared into the bathroom.
The peace and coolness of the house was an unutterable blessing. Ryan was beginning to see exactly why Helen had recruited Hanna: he really was an operator, a player. He calmed things down and got things done, smiling with his very white teeth, talking in charming French and Arabic and English.
The Coptic woman showed Ryan to a large clean bedroom, where he dropped his bags and fell asleep.
Two hours later Helen knocked on his door. ‘Come. I want to film you.’
A few minutes later he was sitting in the large white-painted living room, clearing his throat, talking to camera.
‘Akhmim is, for Egyptologists, a truly tantalizing little city, rich in historical and cultural associations. The history of the town dates back to the earliest traces of Egyptian civilization, the Badarian culture of the fifth millennium BC. The sixteenth-century historian, Leo Africanus, claimed it was the oldest city in Egypt.’
Helen nodded her encouragement.
But Ryan was getting used to this anyway, talking to camera. He actively enjoyed it: he was using his knowledge. Teaching things to an unseen audience was better than talking to bored kids from New Jersey. It was maybe better than mixing concrete in the Abydos sun. He continued.
‘Religiously, Akhmim has played a role out of all proportion to its size. The family of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, the first monotheist in history, came from Akhmim. Likewise, alchemy was born in Akhmim: the greatest alchemist in history, Zosimos of Panopolis, of the fourth century, lived here. Indeed the very word alchemy, and the word chemistry, might mean “that which is from Akhmim”, since the city was also known as Khemmis or Chemmis, hence “chemistry”.’
He paused, and leaned an inch nearer the camera. ‘Then there is magic: Pharaonic and Egyptian magic all came from Akhmim. The wizards who duelled with Moses in the Bible were traditionally Akhmimic. Moreover, Hermes Trismegistus, the founder of Hermetic philosophy, of Western occultism, was likewise said to have lived here. And Sufism – the great cult of Islamic mysticism – was formed here, in the ninth century, with Dhul-Nun al-Misri.’ He sat back a fraction. ‘The associations are therefore endless and outstanding. Arguably, this tiny desert town is the religious navel of the world, more Jerusalem than Jerusalem. And of course, our documents, the Sokar documents, are written in sub-Akhmimic, the local dialect of Coptic, the oldest and most impenetrable form of that Gnostic language.’ He stopped, abruptly, thinking hard.
‘Why have you stopped? That was OK.’ Helen sounded aggrieved.
He put his hand up for quiet, then called across the living room to Hanna, who had been idly leafing through a book. ‘Is there a monastery around here with an intact library? Dating back to the fourth or fifth century?’
‘There are dozens of monasteries! This region is one of the cradles of Coptic faith. The White Monastery had the finest library in Egypt after Alexandria was burned. That is where Sassoon found the Sokar documents, as we know.’
‘Yes, but the White Monastery was ransacked, pillaged. I just need a library with an intact run of codices – it doesn’t have to be huge, just intact, unbroken.’
Hanna stood up. His face was delicately flushed. ‘Because, if you can compare one text with the one before, and the one before that, going back through the decades, you will be able to see how the language evolved. You will be able to decipher the papyrus! Très audacieux! I know exactly the place. The Monastery of St Apollo. The Holy Family were meant to have sheltered there, in the Flight out of Egypt. But then they sheltered everywhere: they had a strange need for constant shelter. We require a taxi. We must be discreet.’
The drive took twenty anxious minutes, into the desert to a tiny, humble monastery tucked under a large cliff, pitted with Pharaonic tombs, like the sockets of eyes in skulls; all of it next to a shallow, artificial and very ancient-looking lake-pool.
Hanna did the preliminary and ancillary work, subtly smoothing their entrance into the monastic precincts, making generous offers to the preserved body of St John the Dwarf, taking tea with the bearded abbot, and telling diverting stories. He made sure water and fruit was brought to Ryan, as Ryan toiled in the little library among the musty parchments and fragile codices and doddering manuscripts and cracked ostraka – writing preserved on potsherds.
On the first day, he worked back through the codices and parchments, comparing, annotating and decoding. The mental work was hard but rewardingly exhausting. He felt the kindly face of Sassoon smiling over his shoulder. ‘Not bad, not bad for an amateur philologist. Not bad at all.’ He deciphered the name of the author; he cooled himself by taking a swim in the salty lake next to the monastery.
Helen joined him in the lake, Albert paddled. Ryan couldn’t help noticing her lissom, suntanned body, in her swimsuit; he wrenched his gaze away. It was a physical effort to do so.
