The Deceit

17

‘It has often occurred to me that the women of Arabian Egypt have evolved so as to resemble the camel — the preferred sexual partners of their menfolk.’ Albert Hanna gestured towards the end of the lobby, at a matronly woman swathed in a black niqab sipping tea with a young, similarly-shrouded woman. ‘I mean, look at that poor mother, is she not camel-like? Isn’t there something faintly Bactrian about her, the undulation, the humps—’

‘Albert, shut the hell up.’

The beautifully suited Hanna turned and tightened the tiny knot of his exquisite silk tie. ‘I am just whistling in the dark, Ryan. And, believe me, for Copts in Egypt now it is very, very dark.’

Ryan Harper grunted his ambivalence to this remark. Hanna was right, in a sense, of course: the news coming out of Cairo, and Assyut, and the Delta, was increasingly grim: Egypt’s troubles were taking a sectarian turn — Muslim versus Christian — and with eighty million Arabs outnumbering eight million Copts there could only be one loser if everything really kicked off. But Ryan had very good Muslim friends and very good Coptic friends, many friends on both sides of the divide: the ordinary people, the workers, the real Egyptians who wanted nothing but peace. And casual, offensive bigotry like Hanna’s was not going to help.

Moreover, what the hell was he doing here anyway? All through their train journey to Sohag, Ryan had been wondering this. He wondered it this morning, again, after a welcome night’s sleep in the hotel that smelled of toilets.

He understood that Hanna was an expert in Coptic history and in Egyptian antiquities; he also understood that Hanna was one of the last people to see Victor Sassoon alive. But was that reason enough to recruit this annoyingly loquacious and faintly sinister man to the cause? Perhaps his barbed wit would play well on camera. Perhaps he could be a fixer, as Helen said. But he had fixed nothing yet.

A female voice interrupted his thoughts.

‘OK, guys. I am ready. We will try again? Now?’ Helen Fassbinder had returned from the rest room. She picked up her tiny movie-camera and raised a questioning glance at Ryan. He sighed but stood up: he had agreed to help make her movie.

Besides, they were all pooling resources so as to solve the puzzle: they got to use his Egyptological talents, he got access to the Sokar documents.

But how were they going to solve the puzzle? The Sokar Hoard — or the small parts of it that Helen had retrieved from the cave — were opaque when they weren’t bizarrely inconsequential.

Picking up the file of documents, Ryan followed Helen into a little room adjoining the lobby, which they had secured for its privacy. Albert Hanna remained in the hotel foyer.

After adjusting her digicam, Helen looked up, with an expectant gaze. Quietly and obediently, Ryan spoke to the camera, clutching the first sheet of papyrus.

‘This is the most cryptic and perhaps significant of the Sokar documents that we possess. Unfortunately at the moment we are unable to translate it.’ He paused, waiting.

Helen asked him, off-camera, ‘Why? Tell us why. I can edit out the questions later. Do not speak to me, speak to the lens. Now.’

He stared at her, half-smiling. ‘Are you always like this?’

She gazed back, unblinking. ‘Yes. I am always like this. When I am working. Why waste time saying please and thank you? The lens, look in the lens.’

Ryan smiled, and faced the camera. ‘Coptic is a very ancient language. The most archaic forms of it stretch directly back to the tongues of ancient Egyptian, that is to say, the language of the Pharaohs. This is because the Copts are the ancient Egyptians, to all intents and purposes; the word Copt is cognate with the word Egypt, hence the similarity. Both derive from the name Ptah, the founding deity of Egypt, first named in history perhaps five or six thousand years ago.’

He lifted up the papyrus, to show it to the camera.

‘Coptic is, in a sense, ancient Egyptian simply written in a new alphabet, incorporating some Greek characters, and retaining, fascinatingly, a few hieroglyphs. Therefore the great age and venerability of Coptic makes it of serious interest to scholars. But it also makes it fairly impenetrable. It is essentially a dead language: perhaps only three hundred people speak it these days, mainly monks in the more remote areas of the country, who use it liturgically.’

Helen circled a hand, from behind the camera. A hurry-up gesture.

Again, he obeyed, feeling irritated. He’d never done this before; he didn’t know what to do. But he tried. ‘The problem with this text is that it is written in a very ancient and obscure form of Coptic. The Coptic language is divided into several dialects, like Fayyumic, Bohairic, Sahidic. This text is written in a form of Coptic known as Akhmimic, which makes sense, as the ancient, historically important city of Akhmim is just here, just across the Nile from where we are now, in Sohag, Middle Egypt.’ Ryan pointed to his left, as if the camera could zoom in on Akhmim, through the hotel walls. ‘The Gnostic gospels, famously discovered in a sealed jar in a cave in the desert a hundred miles from here, were written in Akhmimic. They shed new and amazing light on the origins of Christianity at its inception. They tell us how some strange ideas were excluded from the Christian faith, and how certain heresies in turn became accepted beliefs. They provoked, and are still provoking, enormous arguments among historians and theologians, and great interest around the world.’

Ryan gestured at the papyrus sheet, in a way he hoped was eloquent.

‘There is a strong chance this text, from the Sokar Hoard, could be even more explosive. But at the moment we cannot read it. Why? Because this codex has been inscribed using a peculiar form of sub-Akhmimic, also known as Lycopolitan, a form so ancient and difficult there have been just a few people in modern times who could decipher it. One such man was, of course, Victor Sassoon. But when he finished reading what is in this document, and those that were compiled alongside it, he walked out into the desert, and took his own life. Why? Was it something to do with what he read here, on this papyrus? That is what we are going to find out.’

He finished. Helen Fassbinder lifted her camera again, and instructed, ‘Now go on to the other papers. The ones we can read.’

‘Yes. OK.’

Ryan cleared his throat and picked up the newer pages, the only other documents Helen had retrieved. ‘These more robust papyrus documents are maybe a little less intriguing, yet we can read them. They probably date from the eighth century. The Coptic is newer: mostly Sahidic, the standard form. These brief pages seem to be a list of Coptic spells and curses. Early Coptic Christianity was a peculiar mix of beliefs, doctrines and ancient traditions, strongly coloured with what we would call magic or sorcery. For instance, Copts and Gnostics thought nothing of citing Jesus as a kind of avenging demon, who could be summoned at will by the magician or spell-caster. At the same time, they would pray for aid from Egyptian gods, or Hebrew angels, or Assyrian djinns. Here, for instance, is a Gnostic fire baptism, citing Jesus, but also the demonic names of God.’ Ryan turned the papyrus to show the camera, then returned it to his gaze, and read: ‘“Yo Yo Yo, Amen Amen, Yaoth Yaoth Yaoth … Come secretly Jesus and Melchidesek, come secretly and bring the water of the baptism of fire, of the virgin of the light.”’

He shrugged, to camera.

‘To us it sounds a little ominous, and strange, like a black-magic spell mixed with Christian prayer; the way the names of power — the names of demons — are liberally sprinkled with biblical references is unsettling. But that is because, in a sense, it is meant to be unsettling: black magic and Christianity mixed. Here is another spell which actually threatens an archangel if he doesn’t bend to the will of the magician: “If you do not do my bidding, Angel Gabriel, I shall always despise you, and loathe you, ask God to condemn you, atha atha atharim, atha atha atharim.”’

He gestured at the words on the papyrus. ‘Notice how this spell concludes with another one of those repetitive, menacing incantations that the early Copts believed embodied supernatural power in themselves.’

Ryan picked up the second sheet of Coptic spells. ‘Coptic magic could also be very strange, and brilliantly mad; here is a final example, written in Mesokemic. It is a love spell, or sexual enchantment, “Catch a blue-green iridescent fly. Write it with the first name of the prayer: you must prepare it on the sixth of the month. Make it full of vinegar. Throw it in the oven.”’

Ryan laid the sheet on the table in front. ‘What does it all mean? Why were these spells and curses included with the other older papyri? Again, that’s a mystery we hope to unravel.’

His speech finished, Ryan looked to Helen for affirmation. She nodded briefly, and turned off the camera. The pause gave Ryan more time to think. He picked up the second sheet of spells, and spoke.

‘Actually, Helen, there is something else. But I wasn’t sure whether to mention it on camera.’

‘Yes?’

‘Have you ever heard of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin?’

‘No.’

‘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.