by L. A. Banks
“Den we’re all going blind,” Isda said on a ragged whisper, and shook his head. “I don’t see it no more.”
“Me either.” Celeste shook her head with Aziza.
Kadeem raised the child’s arm, then lifted him up and yelled out, “The boy is healed!”
Pandemonium broke out in the crowd; Kadeem didn’t even need to translate.
Celeste watched the brothers weakly smile and then let their bodies slump with relief. Jubilant voices rang out and people rushed to go to their homes to bring a spontaneous potluck feast together. Vendors closed their stands. A miracle transcended money as everyone headed to Kadeem’s compound.
Threading her arms around Azrael’s waist, Celeste leaned against him beneath a wing, walking down the dirt path with a hundred festive people skipping beside him. He looked down at her at the same time she looked up.
“I know,” she said quietly.
“If we couldn’t have …”
“I know. But you guys did.”
“We all did, you leading us. … But maybe we should pull in our wings now?”
“Uh-uh, they make the people happy to see them. Leave them out for a little while.”
He released a sigh. “I’m not used to this kind of attention, the indulgence makes me uncomfortable.”
“What have we learned today?” She smiled up at him, wanting so badly to kiss him, but she would never do that in public among people where such a PDA might deeply offend.
“A lot,” he admitted as they entered the enclosed mud-brick courtyard of Kadeem’s home.
“Then you should also know that people get joy out of giving to others and seeing that they’ve made the receiver happy. Azrael, you all have made these people’s lifetime. They just want to offer you some bread and wine and water to say thank you for touching their lives. Let them do that and be a gracious receiver.”
He stopped walking and turned to her, letting the throng pass into the space around them. “Celeste, that’s it. You know how you’ve kept asking me how does one voice, your voice, turn on the lights at the end of days?”
“Yeah …”
“Well, look what you just did.” He glanced around. “It was your understanding of how we should approach these good people and make ourselves known. You were the one who had the wisdom to usher us in with the boy. You were the one who wept for him first. You were the one who said we had to teach, and then insisted that I try—but the child became the professor and I became the student before an entire village … and that became the lesson for me, for them, for my brothers. And then we had to learn that it was about pooling our gifts, the synergy of combined effort … something over the years we’d slowly forgotten.”
He let out a deep sigh as he touched her face and let his hand fall away for the sake of propriety. “The layers of this are profound, Celeste. It was your prayer, your out-loud, heartfelt request that Heaven hear you that made her open her gates to the boy and rain down mercy on him. I felt it as you were speaking. Ask any of the brothers, we are attuned to that vibration. And it was the boy’s very simple acceptance of his circumstance, without anger or self-pity, that made the lesson even deeper for us, and that child’s transcendence—”
“It wasn’t me,” she murmured, then bit her lip as she thought about it. “He came to you wide-open, unafraid, and knowing there was something else out there.”
“Yes, there was that, as with all the children, which is why we are told to come to the Light as a little child, trusting,” Azrael said. “But it was you who saw all the elements of this lesson unfolding and knew how to blend them together across cultures and across varying levels of understanding—without judgment … and the people felt that. Even as they laughed at you, you stood your ground, and you did not judge them. Just as when we first met, you did not judge me.”
“How could I judge you, Az? With my past, I definitely can’t cast the first stone.”
“You could have, but you didn’t, and more than that, you accepted me and my difference. Even today, when I so bitterly disappointed your hopes to heal that child on the boat, I didn’t feel judged or that your disappointment was aimed at my failure. You were disappointed for the sake of the child alone. That is a pure emotion. A selfless one. I now better understand your gift, Celeste. You convert the darkness into the Light … even I cannot do that.”
“C’mon, you guys,” Bath Kol said with a wide grin as he bound toward them, “you’re missing the party!”
Pushing them forward, Bath Kol entered the wide mud-brick room with them and the space had become an instant house party. Sky-blue and white paint made the small, lantern-lit area bright. Murals of pastoral scenes and butterflies added to the gaiety indoors. Wrought-iron chairs, wooden benches, and rusty three-legged stools balanced precariously on the uneven dirt floor. A large steel washtub rested under a well-pump spigot by the door so people could take off their shoes and wash their feet upon entry.
Every age range of women brought food to the tables—fruit, honey, warm whole-wheat pita bread, dried dates, olives—and the buffet just kept coming. Spice vendors left fragrant fresh-ground peppers and herbs in small stone cups, then backed away from the table and the angels with a deep bow. Men brought over bottles of homemade beer and wine and shyly left them for the brothers. Aromatic tea and strong coffee were offered in a way that made it impossible to say no. Incense was left in bundles, some set to burn around the room. Fabrics got left on the chairs, and even small children brought beaded goods and candles to leave on the buffet, which was quickly turning into a makeshift altar. People had emptied their homes and their larders.
Then Kadeem bowed and yielded the floor to Azrael to bless the meal. Each person who was crammed into the room seemed as if he or she were holding his or her breath in case Azrael made another miracle occur while their eyes were closed.
Then the music played.
With eating and dancing and clapping, a celebration of life was in full swing. Finally the old seer came to Kadeem and whispered something in his ear, and he came to Azrael and Celeste to murmur confidentially.
“She wants to speak to you alone in the back. Is that all right?”
“Of course,” Celeste said, standing quickly with Azrael.
“Good, then come this way.”
Following Kadeem past the partying throng, they left Abdullah to translate for the group. In a small courtyard behind the main building was a little mud home with a piece of red fabric serving as a front door.
Gesturing with her hands, the old woman smiled a toothless grin and sat her bent frame down on a hard wooden stool with a grunt. She smoothed her gnarled hands across the white, embroidered tablecloth, then held both Celeste and Azrael in a cataract-impaired gaze.
As she spoke slowly, Kadeem interpreted, glancing between the old woman and Azrael and Celeste.
“She says you are the ones Daoud had prayed for, but never lived to see. My grandson was a good man and he said the angels would protect what he has guarded.”
The old woman wiped her eyes with trembling hands and let out a soft sigh.
“Grandmother says … there is a guard at Abu Simbel, not far from here—an honest man that Daoud once helped. She says my brother helped bring in the doctors through the priest when his wife was very sick. She almost died and could have taken the unborn child with her when trying to give birth to his first son. This man had Daoud say a prayer and his wife got better. This man swore allegiance to Daoud, if he ever needed help. On the life of his firstborn son, this man would never betray Daoud. He is the keeper of the key.”
Celeste and Azrael shared a look. The old woman nodded.
“She says Daoud wouldn’t tell her exactly, for fear bad men or demons might try to come and wrest it out of her. She says, ‘I am old and weak, they are big and strong. My great-grandson didn’t want me to be in jeopardy. So he told none of us where this thing is that you seek. He didn’t tell the boy, either, but the boy knows what it looks like.’ “She waited
until Kadeem nodded. “It is an alphabet—words, carved in gold inside thick, thick, clear stone. This is what Abdullah says to her when he dreams and cries for Daoud. Then because of the child’s constant lament, she dreamt of this thing, too. It was down deep in the Nile and in a locked chest. A man with a key opened it using a life symbol. That is what she saw in her dreams.”
“A life symbol would make sense as a dream interpretation,” Azrael said, glancing at Celeste.
But the old woman shook her head and frowned when Kadeem translated Azrael’s statement. In a flurry of Arabic she called for a pencil and paper. Once Kadeem had produced it from a kitchen cupboard, she leaned over the paper closely and painstakingly drew the symbol of an ankh.
Pointing at the paper, she stared deeply into Azrael’s eyes and spoke in a firm, confident tone.
“She says this is what the key itself looks like. A man has this key for his job and also around his neck in metal. He works at Abu Simbel. Take Daoud’s prayer cloth to him and show him your wings. That is the only way he will take you to the place in the water where he dropped the chest that holds the glass and golden book.”
“How far is Abu Simbel from where we are just outside of Aswan?” Celeste looked between Azrael and Kadeem.
“Two hundred and seventy kilometers, roughly,” Ka-deem said.
“I’m not good on the conversion.” Celeste looked at Azrael.
“That would be about one hundred and sixty-eight miles, give or take,” Azrael said. “About three and a half hours, based on the state of the roads and assuming Isda can get us reliable transportation in short order.”
“I know people who have vans and minibuses. They make money from tours. I can ask them for a family emergency,” Kadeem said.
“We would compensate you and your friend if you could make that happen quickly,” Azrael said. “Plus if you could provide a map.”
“No compensation will be accepted,” Kadeem said, slicing his hand through the air. “No. Your money is no good. I am in the presence of the divine who has come to avenge my brother’s death.”
“You saw in the market back at Edfu, we have people, and demons, chasing us.” Celeste reached out and held Kadeem’s arm. “You have a family, and you have Abdullah, and—”
“And you saw that I am not afraid to fight or die, yes?”
Neither Celeste nor Azrael answered, not wanting to be responsible for the injury or death of an innocent man who’d so quickly come to be their friend.
“You are very brave,” Celeste hedged.
“I am a believer. My little nephew says to me, the good people in the carriages are in danger to bad men and demons, and without a thought I run to not allow this. I know what they did to Daoud—they spilled his blood for money and make my family weep. I know these roads, and the guards at Abu Simbel know me. They will be wary of you but I can get to Daoud’s friend to coax him somewhere private so he can see the truth. I can come up with excuses and speak in Arabic to the guards so he can slip away to take you where you must go. I am useful to you, and if I die or get hurt, it is my honor to die for the cause of angels … and for my brother.”
Chapter 18
Nubian villagers sent them off as if they were soldiers going off to war. Tears and hugs, food and back pats, everyone touched them, sending love and energy that needed no translation. One could feel their hope for success through every gentle and not so gentle hug. Village women bitterly wept, loudly so, as a purge for everyone’s soul, while men echoed their well-wishing by loading the vehicle with supplies that they’d never use, and children jogged beside the bus waving good-bye.
For the better part of the three-and-a-half-hour drive, no one spoke, their emotions still raw and the revelations at the village from simple, good-hearted people still unfolding within them.
One thing was clear, even though it went unstated: they didn’t want Kadeem there. It had nothing to do with his bravery or skills or his integrity, but everything to do with vulnerability. If something happened to him, no one on that bus would be right with it—just as if anything happened to the village, there’d be no way to accept it.
Celeste kept her gaze focused out the window, quietly processing all that she’d seen and learned in such a short time. Azrael had told her that more would be revealed as the great cosmic clock wound down to the planetary alignment of 12/21/12. Time would change as the veil began to open, as planets shifted into place to line up to the galactic center. A day would pass in a flash; hours would zoom by like minutes … she was definitely experiencing that weirdness in sped-up time as new experiences were crammed into her life. How could she absorb and make sense of it all? The only way she could cope was to surrender, to float on the essence of just being.
That’s what she did now, casting her gaze out over the dark-gold landscape on her west side with the Nile on her east as they headed south, and simply let her thoughts flow free like the river.
Slowly impressions flitted through her mind. Memories just outside her grasp teased the edges of it in a game of hide-and-seek. The landscape, as old as time itself, hadn’t been too dramatically changed, except for the modern road. But all around it were markers of civilizations gone by.
Fatigue from the heat and emotional duress tugged at her eyelids and made her head heavy, until she finally surrendered into a nap. Images continued to pass through her mind as the bus struggled and whined in and out of gears.
Then she knew why she’d disliked the camel ride so much. Miles and miles of caravan had brought her from Nubia on an annual family trek to trade in the west. Celeste felt her body stiffen as the thunder of a thousand horse hooves pounded the earth. Men in blue turbans attacked the caravan—Berbers trading slaves … and she was no longer with her mother or father. Blood soaked the ground. Then everything went dark until the next image entered her mind. She was weeping and standing in Independence Mall? The mental switch was so jarring that it shook her out of her sleep.
Celeste awakened with a start, causing Azrael to turn toward her and take up her hand.
“Are you all right?”
“My mother was from Philae and my father from the village we just left … and only nine of us were in a house in Philae. I was there with people I didn’t know and very powerful men. They didn’t hurt me, just ignored me, and I worked there my entire life. Sometimes I would hear them talk about ideals that didn’t apply to me.” She pulled back her hands and rubbed her palms down her face.
Slow awareness filtered through her bloodstream until the emotions caught up with her colliding thoughts. She’d been sold into slavery. The pain that surrounded her spirit stole her breath for a moment, physically made her slump. To be a human being but not to be treated as human, to have one’s life only considered for the service of others and to be so disregarded as a domestic stock animal …
“Celeste, talk to me,” Azrael whispered, monitoring her body language.
“I was a slave. In Philadelphia.”
He closed his eyes and kissed her forehead. “I know, beloved.”
Tears filled her eyes as outrage filled her heart. “I wish I had never remembered that part, that incarnation or whatever the hell it is. That era was so …”
“Dark and brutal,” Azrael said, holding her hand.
“Then why did it come back? Why was it necessary to pollute my mind?”
“Because there’s a link. The word Philae or Philly and Philadelphia have been mentioned too many times before we came and once we got here not to take note. Now you are remembering, now that we are near Philae.” He stroked her hair and gently pulled her against him. “I’m sorry you experienced that abomination in one of your soul’s lifetimes.”
She nodded and kept her gaze out the window as she leaned against him. “But if I hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t have known the people in the village so well.”
“Perhaps … or been received like a returning daughter,” Azrael murmured into her hair. “But there are also gentler ways to learn lessons,
Celeste. That is my prayer for you until the end of time—that all your lessons be visited upon you as gently as the ones you’ve taught me. The universe can sometimes be a very hard taskmaster. I don’t want that for you.”
“We have to park and get tickets and walk from here,” Kadeem announced, going into his pocket to pay for the entire bus. When Bath Kol leaned forward with a fan of bills, Kadeem waved him off. “My pocket keeps refilling,” Kadeem said, laughing. “The big man, Azrael—thank you!”
Azrael chuckled and stretched. “You’re welcome.”
“Man, this is no time to be moving like you’re ready to take a nap—we’ve gotta hustle,” Isda said, standing. He paced two steps in one direction, then paced two back like a caged panther. “I cannot wait until you see this, man!”
Azrael just shook his head as passengers on the bus came out of their own thoughts to mentally rejoin the group. After a bit of jockeying, Kadeem found a spot, then jumped down from the bus quickly to lend a hand and urge the group forward.
“Yalla, yalla … the park will close soon, so we have to hurry to find Daoud’s friend.”
The warning got people moving, and they jogged and power-walked a half mile down a steep asphalt road that plunged into a valley behind a mountain on their left and the jewel-green Nile on their right. Running ahead of them, Isda stood in the middle of the road and held out his hands.
“Do not look to your left until I tell you, all right?”
Laughing, the group grudgingly agreed as they kept their gazes on to the ground.
“Come on, brother, we don’t have time for …” Azrael’s words trailed off as he looked up.
For a few seconds the group came to a complete halt. An entire mountain had been turned into a living temple. Carved into solid granite were four colossal statues of a seated pharaoh. Blazing orange-gold sun painted the sandstone-hued temple in metallic splendor. People looked like ants at the footstones of kings, and adjacent to that temple was a smaller but no less spectacular one with feminine flourishes on it for a queen.
