The Cairo Codex (42 page)

Ten minutes later, she returned to the kitchen in her favorite Napa Triathlon T-shirt and shorts. No shoes. “Can I help?” She watched his intense black eyes studying the sauce as though it were a witches’ brew and grinned to herself.
Mm . . . he is disconcertingly handsome.

“It needs to simmer for a while. Get us a couple of wine glasses, will you, and set the table. I’ve opened the wine to let it breathe.”

“Breathing doesn’t seem to help Cleopatra,” she laughed, pleased with her cleverness.

Amir winked at her and poured two glasses of the vinegary ruby liquid. His sports jacket hung on a kitchen chair, his short-sleeved dress shirt was opened at the neck. No undershirt. Justine smiled, recalling her dad’s reason for always wearing an undershirt, even in hot and humid weather. “Less laundry,” he’d insisted.

“What’s so funny?”

She told him and then led him into the living room, where the overhead fan stirred the warm air. He sat on the couch, but Justine preferred the floor, cushioned only by an aging Berber carpet. “Amir. Did you tell Zachariah what was in those missing pages?”

He stiffened and set his glass on a peeling side table. “I hadn’t talked with Zachariah since he disappeared—several months before the kidnapping—until that day in Muqattum.” He stared at her as though waiting for an apology.

“I believe you, Amir. It’s just that it was you who returned the pages, who placed them on Andrea’s desk . . .”

“I thought we were past suspicions. Weren’t we?”

She paused, dropped back on both elbows and watched the fan rotate for several moments. “Okay. What’s your theory?”

Amir grinned in relief. “Who stole the diary? Actually . . .” he paused and picked up his glass. “I think you did.”

Justine managed a poker face. “You’re onto me. And what is my motive, may I ask?”

“You’re ambitious. Possession of a world-shattering artifact could bring you fame and fortune.”

“Mm. What I’ve always wanted. I’d have no problems getting it out of the country. My mother is involved in the black market in Italy.”

“And you could show up your dad, the famous archeologist.”

“And publish the findings, shocking the old boys in the Vatican.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she sipped her wine. “This stuff really is terrible, isn’t it?”

“It is, but the second bottle will taste much better,” he assured her.

She agreed. “As for the theft, remind me again why you’re not guilty?”

“I don’t want to lose my job at the Museum? It’s just too much fun working with the Great Mostafa?”

She laughed. “What a blowhard! How do you do it?”

“He’s rarely around, so I hardly ever see him. But I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“That’s certainly my take on Omar Mostafa,” she said. “But I watched him closely today—why would he endure such criticism? Such humiliation? No one would deliberately bring that down on himself, would he? And, then there’s his secret contract with National Geographic.”

“It depends on the stakes. And they’re very high.”

“Explain it to me. Pretend that I’m a babe in the woods, unacquainted with Egyptian culture, religion, whatever . . .” She curled her legs underneath herself and sat under the rotating fan.

“Okay. Here’s what’s at stake. Politically, Mubarak has kept the Muslims and the Coptic Christians at arm’s length from each other. They’re like two roosters aching for a fight. If he lets go, they could be at each other’s throats. Churches are burned for very little reason. Last year, a priest in Alex tried to keep a young girl from converting to Islam, even though her boyfriend insisted, by holding her hostage in the priory for a couple of days and trying to convince her not to do it. A demonstration ensued and the church was burned. Any major challenge to beliefs on either side is grabbed onto as an excuse for violence. Suggesting that Mary wasn’t a virgin and Jesus was a twin, a twin of a female, would be more than enough reason to upset the mango cart. Remember the Danish cartoon that sparked demonstrations throughout the Muslim world? Several deaths? That is child’s play compared to a serious challenge to the Koran.”

Amir got up and went to check on the spaghetti sauce. He stirred it, tasted it, and dumped the noodles into boiling water. “It’s almost ready,” he called from the kitchen.

Justine stretched out, rubbing the long scar on her right leg, and poured herself another half glass of the wine. “You’re right about this wine. It’s getting better.” She grinned as he returned to the couch. “But those are not the real reasons for the tensions, are they?”

“Ah, you are so perceptive—and correct. Those reasons have little to do with religious strife throughout the Muslim world. The Copts are like the Jews were at the time of the revolution. In the ’50s, the Jews were made quite unwelcome by President Nasser. Like the Jews, the Copts now own more than their share of the businesses, their women don’t cover their heads, and they go about their lives freely while Muslims are praying five times a day. It has a great deal to do with economics. It always does. Perhaps even more important, Christianity is identified with the West. Infidels. Heathens. Imperialists.”

“That’s me. An infidel and heathen.” She paused and grew serious. “Is that why Zachariah converted? Because Christianity is too identified with the West?”

Amir’s face registered anguish. “That’s part of it. It’s also an act of rebellion—rejecting his family—and, of course, disgust with a society that can’t solve its most miasmic problems of poverty and unemployment and extremism.”

She watched him closely. “I’m so sorry, Amir. It must be painful to watch your family being pulled apart like this.” She asked the next question gently, hesitantly. “Could he have taken the diary? He certainly talked that way in Muqattum.”

“He has his reasons for suppressing the codex, but steal it? I don’t think that’s his nature . . . but then, I don’t know him well anymore, either . . .” His eyes moistened as he forced himself to confront the fact that his brother was now a stranger to him. Justine scooted closer to the couch and laid a comforting hand on his arm. “If he is involved, it would be at the behest of the Brotherhood. But they have a larger agenda now. To take over the country.”

“They’ve been suppressed for so long—are they capable of such grandiose plans?”

“They’re very well organized. Efficient. And they don’t like chaos, unless it serves a larger purpose,” he said, eyes steely.

“And the codex could bring chaos. Even violence. What kind of a larger purpose?”

“If the chaos could allow them to fill a vacuum, secure power while others were distracted . . .” He paused, staring at the candle Justine had lit after the sun set.

“How fragile is Egypt? What’s ahead?”

“Here’s what I fear . . . if Egypt can’t liberalize soon, it could be too late.”

“Liberalize? What exactly do you mean?”

“If the Mubarak government falls apart before we have democratized our institutions—the courts, the rule of law, a constitution that protects individual rights. Before we’ve narrowed the chasm between rich and poor and grown more of a middle class. If that happens and we move to elections too soon, like in Gaza and Iraq, we could lose our country to the Brotherhood.”

She shook her head. “Without a democratic foundation, the Brotherhood would win.”

“I’m sure of it.” He gazed at her with an intensity that set her heart racing, then changed course. “It’s startling how many bit players had a part to play in our little drama. How their pieces of knowledge came together like a perfect storm.”

“You mean like the docent Michael at St. Sergius, Youssra’s father at the Rare Books Library. But what’s your point?”

“As you know, Youssra’s father disappeared. Replaced by another anonymous man. There are eyes and ears everywhere. Invisible men and women slithering through life unnoticed. They can do things that others can’t.” He stared at the ceiling fan, as though burrowing into a wounding memory from long ago.

“A sad commentary,” Justine said, grabbing her knees to her chest. She was beginning to feel intoxicated.

Amir watched her, a deep sadness flickering through his eyes. “Ready to eat?” he asked, getting to his feet.

She nodded gratefully.

“Not bad,” she grinned, having found the spaghetti amazingly good. “The sauce has a Moroccan flavor.”

“I put a little sugar and nutmeg in it,” he explained. “Old family recipe.” He poured another glass of wine for the two of them.

“Leave the dishes, I’ll do them later.” She paused. “When considering the thief, we always say ‘he.’ What about she?” Justine stretched out on the floor, closing her eyes for a moment.

“Andrea? Not likely. True, she’s mysterious, complex. I never know what she’s thinking . . . but that isn’t cause for an accusation.”

“She would have nothing to gain, as far as I can figure. Like me, she needs to be involved in translating the original, not a copy.”

“But it’s the copy that is used during translation, Justine. Not so?”

“As long as you have the real codex—it’s like having gold in Fort Knox to back up the paper.”

“I thought you were no longer on the gold standard?” His shoes now off, Amir propped his legs up on the couch.

“Cute—but it’s a good analogy.” She lit two more candles and spread out again on the floor. She gave Amir a silly grin as she watched the easy breeze from the French doors join the air movement of the fan and flicker the flames. She realized they were thinking too simply.
How is everyone, everything connected? There are several moving parts here.
“We can’t go at this one person at a time,” she said.

Amir stared at her, slightly glassy-eyed, at first not comprehending. Then a slow grin crept around his face as comprehension moved in like a leisurely train to Luxor. “Everyone has a motive,” he said.

N
ASSER SPORTED HIS TEMPTING GRIN
as he sat down opposite Justine at their usual table in the Shepheard’s Caravan Café the next evening. Friends and lovers, almost soul mates, his eyes spoke with soft seduction.
But how well does he know me? At times, his face reflects such familiarity, and I think he understands me well. At others . . .

When she offered only a perfunctory greeting, Nasser stared at her across the wide table. She watched as his expression revealed clarity, then darkness. “You’ve talked with your father,” he finally said.

“He doesn’t know you, Nasser.” Her tone was even—her eyes didn’t leave his uneasy face. “You lied to me.” The smiling waiter approaching the table quickly turned on his heel and left.

She’d deliberately chosen a public setting for this conversation, although she was keenly aware that this was the very table where she and Nasser had met more than three months before. After the dinner with Amir, she’d made up her mind—the disappearance of the codex required her attention, and she needed to get this discussion with Nasser over with.

“I didn’t exactly
lie
,” Nasser said defensively.

“You said you were a student of my father’s. Did you ever meet him?”

“No.”

“You gave me the impression that you had met him . . . that you knew him . . . correct? When you say you’re a student of my father’s, we both know what that means. It implies a mentor-like relationship, more than even a student-teacher connection. It means get-togethers at our house and wine in the afternoon. It means sharing books and family stories . . .”

“I’m not sure I would have understood a teacher-student relationship in such intimate terms. Don’t make cultural assumptions so blithely, Justine. Such familiarity with an eminent professor would not be acceptable here. I did sit in the back of the room during one of his lectures before he left Berkeley again in ’03. I didn’t say we were close,” declared Nasser, his eyes now steely and determined.

“But you let me jump to those conclusions. During our times together, I made several references to your experiences with my father. You knew what I thought . . . I thought you knew him well. Early on, you talked about his habits and expectations. There were many opportunities to define the relationship as it was—or was not.” When her voice tightened and her breath came rapidly and shallow, she knew that tears were not far behind. She was determined not to cry.