“I don’t see it . . . what are you seeing?”
“Something small and flat, with a pearl-like substance.” She was breathless.
With the light, magnifying glass, and tweezers, Amir located and gently extracted the object from its resting place.
“What is it? It’s definitely man-made. I can’t quite make them out, but it looks like there are some kind of carvings around the edges!”
“Possible. This niche looks large enough to be the location of the codex as well.” He grinned, masking his own excitement in exchange for hers. “We’ll get an imprint of the niche and see what we have.”
They turned to one another. Justine threw her arms around his neck. He smelled like musk in her arms, his warmth blending with her own for the full length of their bodies. They held on for several moments.
“Where have you been?” asked Nasser, extending a glass of wine. “You look as though you’ve crawled through the sewer.”
While Nasser had a key to her apartment, Justine resisted living with him. It was inappropriate behavior in Egypt, but that wasn’t her only reservation. She also needed her own time and independence, something that she couldn’t find in the continual presence of another. “Not exactly,” she said, removing her T-shirt in exchange for another, changing from her filthy jeans into yoga pants, and throwing her ball cap to the floor. “We were in the crypt, searching for a niche.” Barefoot, she sat down and swung her legs over the arm of her favorite overstuffed chair.
“We?” he asked.
“Amir and I. You’ll remember, the day I was kidnapped we’d made plans to return to the crypt so that I could point out where I found the codex,” she said, still flushed with excitement.
Nasser kissed her lightly on the lips. “I hope you found it.” He paused. “Have you talked with Amir about the hunt for his brother?”
“No. No, I haven’t,” she admitted. “I trust he’ll tell me when they learn something.”
“Perhaps . . .” he said, turning toward the kitchen. “I’ve prepared some lunch for us. It’ll be ready shortly.” They both heard the light knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” offered Nasser, starting to get up.
“No,” said Justine. “I’ll get it.” She set her glass down on the coffee table and walked toward the door. Amir stood outside. “I didn’t hear the elevator,” she said, waving him in.
“I came up the stairs,” he said, turning into the living room. “You left this in the car.” He handed over her denim jacket. At the sight of Nasser, his face and voice tensed. “I need to go, but just one more thing.”
“Please join us,” offered Nasser, with the casual assurance of a man who knows he has already won the trophy, if not the crown. “I’m Nasser,” he said, extending his hand. Justine flushed. She hadn’t thought about how the two men would meet.
“I don’t want to interrupt,” said Amir, ignoring the outstretched hand, then proceeding with exaggerated formality. “I just received notice that a preliminary meeting has been set up with our team for tomorrow afternoon in the Rare Books Library conference room. The Jewish scholar Isaac Yardeni will be joining us to prepare for the meeting with Mostafa and Al Rasul.”
“I’ll be there,” she assured him with equal formality. “What time?”
“Four o’clock. Shall I pick you up?”
“I’ll be coming straight from The Fayoum,” she said, feeling as though she was involved in a clandestine affair—which, of course, she was.
“I’ll be going, then.” Amir walked toward the door unescorted.
Nasser called after him in an even tone, “How did you manage to get your brother out of the country, Amir?”
Amir slammed the door behind him. He didn’t wait for the elevator.
CHAPTER 18
“HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?” Justine demanded of Nasser as Amir’s footsteps faded down the stairwell. “You’ve humiliated him.”
“Do you have any doubt that Amir got Zachariah out of the country to avoid his being imprisoned?” Nasser questioned, poised to walk into the kitchen to finish lunch.
“Perhaps, but keep in mind that he was the person who went to the police. Signed the police report.”
“A good cover.”
“I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing if he were my brother. He’d rescued him from a number of scrapes before. Regardless, Amir is a valued colleague. That’s more important to me right now.”
“More important than your safety?” Nasser was incredulous.
“More important than my safety.” Must all men see it as their duty to protect me?
“Are you attracted to him?” pressed Nasser.
“Attracted to Amir? Absolutely not. But he has become a friend.” Still, she couldn’t meet Nasser’s gaze. In her head, she saw Amir’s penetrating black eyes. “Besides, the man I’m attracted to is sitting right here, right now.” She smiled.
Nasser visibly relaxed and gave her one of his crooked grins. “You’re going to The Fayoum tomorrow? May I drive you?”
“I’m going with Nadia,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “Lunch ready?”
Nasser caught her around the waist with both hands and pulled her toward him.
By late May, the summer heat was stifling—especially in the Rare Books Library conference room, where outdated fans stirred the heat like a convection oven. Lines of wooden tables and chairs surrounded by blackboards gave the room the impression of a junior high classroom. Justine, having arrived back in town from a school in The Fayoum less an hour before the meeting, joined the investigative team in conversation.
Seated near the end of the oblong cedar table, Andrea swept her ebony hair off her neck and addressed her colleagues: “We are fairly certain now that the title page says: ‘The KTWbH of Mary of Nazareth.’ I’ll remind you all that KTWbH is Aramaic for ‘little book,’ something personal, like a journal. And while ‘Mary of Nazareth’ is not an unusual name, when we consider where it was found . . . well . . .” She smiled and paused. “The title page was one of the missing pages, though, as you know, Amir had smartly photographed it before the pages disappeared. Now that we have the missing pages back in our possession, however, we can proceed with the translation.”
As surprised exclamations erupted around her, it was clear that Andrea relished controlling this news.
“The pages were returned? How? Why didn’t you call us?” demanded Justine, glancing at Amir, who glared at Andrea. Ibrahim fiddled with his teacup. The man sitting to Ibrahim’s right, a stranger to Justine, appeared confused by the fuss.
“Easy, Justine,” said Andrea. “The pages simply appeared in a manila envelope on my desk at AUC this morning. I didn’t have time to call you before we arrived here. And I don’t know the answers to those questions. Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. If someone would remove and steal pages from such a valuable artifact, what else might they steal? Who can we trust?” Justine glanced around the room. Am I the only one upset here?
Amir appeared agitated. He cleared his throat, attracting Ibrahim’s attention. The professor stared at his grandson and blinked, his face brightening as though he were emerging from a cloud of confusion. “Amir! Did you find anything in the crypt yesterday? You and Justine?”
“We did,” Amir nodded. “We’re not sure what it is, but it has pearl-like qualities and possible carvings around the edges. The object is in the lab being X-rayed and cleaned, and the photos of the niche are being developed.” His pride in the discovery was evident in spite of the awkward tension in the air regarding the returned pages.
“The item is about as big as the palm of my hand, sir,” added Justine, holding up her hand, allowing herself to be momentarily distracted by this conversation about their new find.
Ibrahim swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He turned and patted the shoulder of the man next to him. “This is my good friend and colleague, Dr. Isaac Yardeni. He’s an expert on Semitic languages
and Jewish life in the Diaspora. Isaac has met with Andrea and me a couple of times. It’s an honor to have him with us.”
Dr. Yardeni bowed slightly.
Both Justine and Amir leaned across the table to shake hands and express their welcome.
When Andrea spoke again, all eyes turned to her. “Quite thrilling, Amir. Justine. I can hardly wait to learn more about this object. In the meantime, I’m confident we’ll be able to translate these newly found pages before our meeting with Mostafa the day after tomorrow.” Her palm rested on the manila folder.
Justine rolled her eyes. It was not lost on her that Andrea no longer referred to the pages as “missing” but as “newly found.”
“Omar Mostafa informed us that the technical data is nearly ready. We may be able to see the carbon dating information by tomorrow morning,” added Isaac. “I’m very impressed that so much of the diary had been translated by the time I arrived.” A short, scholarly man with a goatee and a wiry head of hair that reminded Justine of Nadia, he wore a black bowtie and suit jacket worn shiny at the elbows. A friend of Ibrahim’s for generations, Yardeni was staying with him in his refurbished apartment under the Roman aqueduct.
“I am most eager to see the physical results,” said Ibrahim. “If it confirms our hunches and translations, we have an amazing discovery on our hands.”
Justine watched Ibrahim closely, then addressed all three translators, her voice edgy. “From your translations so far, can we really assume that this is the journal or diary of the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother? This just seems beyond belief!”
Slow grins widened on Amir’s and Andrea’s faces. The excitement in the room was palpable.
“Careful, careful,” begged Isaac. “Until we have the physical evidence . . .”
But anticipation pushed Justine forward. “What kind of a woman was she? How did she learn to read and write?” Was she the smart, insightful woman that my mother assumed she was?
“These are—were—challenging questions,” said Andrea, pulling a warm bottle of Evian from her briefcase. “We ran into difficulties with sequencing and time because of some difficulty in understanding her maturation. Then, it occurred to us that she would have added pages to the diary. As you know, in a codex, the flat sheets of papyrus are added in the middle of the book, and then fastened to the center by untying the original pages and retying the codex back together. We came to a place where her son was about two or three years old, but from there the codex skips to his seventh year, and then returns to his fourth year. But I think we’ve figured it out.” She took a long swig of water.
“You refer to ‘her son.’ Jesus?” Impatient with Andrea’s technical description of the pages, Justine didn’t wait for a response. “I didn’t think women were literate then . . . are we sure this was written by a woman? Not about a woman?”
“The author mentions that her grandmother Faustina from Mt. Carmel taught her to read and write,” Andrea said, teasingly postponing a response about Jesus.
“And ‘sure’ is like ‘proof,’ my dear,” answered Ibrahim, more animated than earlier. “We infer from what we have.”
“You spoke of several different years. Do we know how long the family lived in Egypt?” Amir shifted in his chair. His eyes sparkled with amusement as he watched Justine. She could hardly sit still.
“There are entries into her son’s eighth year,” said Isaac. “But the author didn’t write every day. Sometimes she would go for long periods without writing. We can partially understand her by noting what she chose as important enough to record. For instance, there are many entries in which she and her son—she and Jesus—are together and she is teaching him. I’m relatively sure that she was both literate and very smart.”
“Then you do think it is the diary of the Virgin Mary and that she is writing about Jesus!”
“That’s correct. Wouldn’t you agree?” Andrea turned toward Ibrahim and Isaac. Both men nodded cautiously, eyes wary, as though full agreement would be a violation of some kind.
“She was his teacher, Jesus’ teacher,” Andrea said without hesitation. “Certainly not his only one, but perhaps his most important. The author of the codex was quite insightful about nature and her own emotions.”
“It seems to me you are inferring a great deal,” said Amir, rapidly making his own notes. “That can be dangerous.”
Dangerous? What does dangerous mean in this context?
“Remember, until we receive the physical data, we’re on shaky ground,” cautioned Ibrahim. Justine watched a current of pain fill his eyes—but why, she wasn’t sure.
“But for our purposes here today, we are assuming that the author is the mother of Jesus.” Justine required clarification on this. “It does give texture and meaning to what we know about the Holy Family. The experience of Jews at that time.”
“You’re right, chérie. For instance, sometimes in the diary she is sad, reflecting on losses she’s experienced.” Andrea read from her notes: “‘I hold Rachel. Praise God. My heart hurts with memories of holding my own little girl.’”
“She had another child? A girl?” Justine was nearly shouting. “How could that be? What happened to her?”
“She died,” said Ibrahim with far-away sadness, as though he was experiencing Mary’s loss. “She died.”
“Surely, if God was with her, He wouldn’t have taken her child away,” insisted Amir. “Could you be mistaken?”
“I’m afraid he’s not mistaken,” said Isaac, his voice soft, raspy. He looked from Amir to Justine, then to Andrea. “She writes often of the child.”
“It would appear that she died on the journey from Palestine and was buried at Mataria,” added Andrea.
“Mataria? Just north of downtown Cairo?” Justine felt lightheaded with this news. There was no doubt that it would shake the world.
“There must be a reason, one we can’t understand,” said Amir politely, his pen frozen in mid-air. Justine could almost see his Coptic upbringing forcing itself into his professional mind.
“God always has His reasons,” echoed Isaac.
“Does he?” challenged Andrea with more than a little bitterness.
“I’ve found it so,” said Isaac, alternating hands as he smoothed his wiry goatee.
“And the Holocaust, Isaac?” snapped Andrea. “You’ve found a reason?” As soon as the words left her mouth, regret washed over her face.
“No,” said Isaac, turning away.
“I’m sorry,” said Andrea, catching Ibrahim’s glare. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. Her voice trembled.
What just happened here? I’ve never seen Andrea diminish herself, even when her own words stung or discounted others. There is so much here I don’t yet understand.
Ibrahim moved slowly across the room, parting the painful divide between history and self. “I will order tea from my new man,” he said, “and then we will have another story.” He lifted the phone, requested tea. The others shifted as well; their moods were grave, and a theatre cast change was needed to alter the tempo of the dialogue.
“So,” began Ibrahim after a short break, cups of tea scattered across the table. He lowered himself into a rickety chair at the end of the table and reached into his pile of notes. “This large bird is an eagle, to be sure,” he said, holding up a poorly sketched drawing of a bird with extended wings. The bird was perched on top of an ornate gate. “According to the author—and her drawing is better than mine—this is the gate to the temple in Jerusalem. Apparently, when Herod rebuilt the temple area, he had this image of an eagle placed on top of the gate. The Jewish population was inflamed, as you can imagine,” he said, glancing at Isaac, who had regained his composure.
“The Jews seethed with anger at the audacity of a craven idol,” continued Isaac. “A group of young Israelites climbed the gate and James pulled down the offending bird. Herod’s men sought out the offenders, torturing and crucifying them all. But Joseph’s son, James, was only nine at the time. He was released in d
eference to his youth.”
“So this is why they left Palestine?” asked Amir, somewhat impatiently. “This makes more sense than the biblical story assuming a chase by Herod, who, judging from historical records, died before Jesus was born.”
Ibrahim nodded agreement. “One of the reasons, to be sure, my boy. Along with a collapsing economy and oppressive Roman rule. The author expressed her fear of James’ impulsiveness and Joseph’s yearning to travel to the land of Moses. To Egypt. Listen: ‘My Joseph says the land of Moses will embrace us. We prepare to go to Egypt, a long journey, difficult . . .’ the following segment is blurred, then: ‘Rachel will be at my side.’ We believe Rachel was the midwife who delivered Jesus.”
“No command by Herod to kill all baby boys under the age of two? No angel Gabriel telling them when to leave and when to return?” asked Justine, pacing the conference room in agitation. She paused occasionally to grip a chair as though she intended to sit down, which she did not. “As it is written in Matthew?”
“So it would seem,” confirmed Isaac. “I’m acquainted with the incident of the eagle and the Temple gate, but of course I didn’t know that James was involved.” When he spoke, he often stood as well, drawing himself up to his full height, which, beside Justine and Andrea, accomplished little.
“As we know, James became one of the key leaders of the Christian movement after his brother’s death, but as a young man he appears to have been impulsive, impatient,” said Ibrahim, leaning forward and rubbing his knees to relieve their stiffness. “Now I must ask: How will our people, even our colleagues, handle this information? This diary shakes the foundations of both Christian and Muslim faiths. It undermines the credibility of the New Testament and the Koran: it changes why and how the Holy Family left Palestine and how long they remained in Egypt, and it presents Mary as the mother of more than one child.” His tired eyes drifted toward the tall, open window, fixing his stare on a hoopoe bird perched in one of the garden’s majestic date palms.
The Cairo Codex Page 23
